RT Article
T1 And the Words Become Flesh: Exploring a Biological Metaphor for the Body of Christ
JF Zygon
VO 58
IS 4
SP 886
OP 904
A1 Mackay, Deborah J. G.
LA English
PB Wiley-Blackwell
YR 2023
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1869364473
AB Although every cell in a human body contains the same DNA, every cell uses its DNA differently, in unique interaction with its environment. Human bodies live and thrive because their cells and tissues are sustained in a whole whose life emerges from, but cannot be reduced to, its parts. Living creatures are organized systems of processes that maintain their identity not despite change but because of it. These biological observations resonate with the foundational New Testament metaphor of the Body of Christ and with process-theological descriptions of creatures as open-ended processes interacting within a creation itself sustained within the boundless loving creativity of the Creator. I will map contemporary biological understanding of bodies as emergent and processual onto the theological metaphor of the Body of Christ and explore the ideas that emerge in terms of relationships between scripture, communities, and the life of the church.
K1 DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)
K1 Biology
K1 Emergence
K1 Process theology
DO 10.1111/zygo.12917