The troubles and ills of the church today can only be understood and healed when Christians begin to face up to their hidden alliances with the Corinthians of the first century and embrace both the Apostle’s diagnosis and therapy offered in the epistle. This is the challenge of The Malady and Therapy of the Christian Body, a two-volume commentary by two leading theologians that presents the fruits of a reading strategy that deliberately reflects ecclesial commitment by
reading the Apostle over against ourselves.
Sharing their discoveries about the way Paul deals with questions of factionalism, sexuality, legal conflict, idolatry, dress codes, and eating habits, Brock and Wannenwetsch demonstrate how neither the malady nor the therapy that Paul describes conforms to dominant analyses of the malaise of the contemporary church, which tend to be as
organ centered
as modern medicine. The authors describe the way the Apostle engages in
feeling-into
the organic whole of the body in order to detect blockages to the healthy flow of powers by redirecting their vision to how God is working among them toward the
building up
of the Christian body. The book breaks new ground in crossing the traditional disciplinary boundaries between biblical studies, systematic theology, and theological ethics.
This commentary demonstrates–with surprising philological insights–a really consistent theological reading of Paul’s absolute innovative guidance to the ‘therapy’ of the Christian community. It shows how Paul’s teaching in its essential focus on God’s history of salvation and covenant with his people applies directly to the very critical items of present Christian church life and worship.
–Hans G. Ulrich, Professor of Theological Ethics, Theological Faculty, University Erlangen-Nuremberg
We are, all of us, afflicted by sin, and we inflict our sin upon others; the body is indeed sickened by this malady. But Paul does not allow us to despair of the church or to exist as ‘disembodied’ Christians … This commentary takes that truth seriously and gives it the place it should have in our hermeneutics.
–Grant Macaskill, Chair of New Testament Exegesis, University of Aberdeen
Brock and Wannenwetsch have written remarkable books. Their learning is vast, their writing brisk, and their interpretative proposals rich in wisdom. Perhaps most impressive of all is the fact that all of what they know and want to say is put to use in the explication of the words of 1 Corinthians.
–C. Kavin Rowe, Professor of New Testament, Duke University Brian Brock is Professor of Moral and Practical Theology at the University of Aberdeen. He has published on the role of Scripture in Christian ethics (Singing the Ethos of God, 2007), the ethics of technological development (Christian Ethics in a Technological Age, 2010), the theology of disability (Disability in the Christian Tradition, 2012), and most recently, Captive to Christ, Open to the World: On Doing Christian Ethics in Public (2014). Bernd Wannenwetsch was Professor of Systematic Theology and Ethics at the University of Oxford, Chair in Theological Ethics at the University of Aberdeen and the president of the Society for Study of Christian Ethics. He is now Professor of Systematic Theology and Ethics at the Freie Theologische Hochschule Giessen. His publications include Political Worship, Guter schneller Tod?, and Verlangen.