First Keynote for Synod School Monday, July 25, 2022

1. IT’S ALL ABOUT BODIES …
The Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty
Bellarmine University
“If all were a single member, where would the body be?” (1 Corinthians 12:9)

2. “This is a line of white people forming a barrier between Black protestors and
the police. This is love. This is what you do with your privilege.”
PICTURESOURCE:White Protesters Form Human Barrier to Shield Black Protesters From Louisville Metro Police (blackenterprise.com)
“YOUR BODY CAN BE A SHIELD.”

3. Power Circulates Through the Body
Source: Here Are 40 Sign Ideas For Your Next
Abortion Rights Protest
(womenshealthmag.com)
Source: A Judge Ordered The Dakota Access Pipeline To Shut Down (buzzfeednews.com)

4. Talking about our Body Life
How can the Christian theological
tradition help us to conceive of
communities of belonging without
othering or exclusion? Where can
we find resources outside and
within our tradition to challenge us
to rearrange the larger social and
political body on our terms so that
we all experience inclusion and
belonging?

5. DO YOU REMEMBER THE
FIRST TIME YOU WALKED
INTO A ROOM AND FELT LIKE
YOUR BODY STOOD OUT?

6. Bodies Carry Cultural Capital
◦ The British anthropologist Mary Douglas studied the relationship
of attitudes concerning the physical body across cultures and how
they correlate to structures of social bodies. The body reflects the
dominant norms of our culture and is a site of social control.
◦ Rosemarie Garland Thomson, a pioneer in disability studies, says
that we don’t just argue about history, we argue from history.
Thomson defines normate as “the constructed identity of those
who, by way of bodily configurations and cultural capital they
assume, can step into a position of authority and wield the power
it grants them.” (Dolmage, Disability Rhetoric.)
Photo by Shot by Cerqueira on Unsplash

7. Drawing Upon Disability
Studies and Disability
Theology
◦ Jay Dolmage suggests that “Cultures demand
normalcy and enforce norms, also marking out
and marginalizing those bodies and minds that
do not conform to norms of ability … cultures
mark out what is not normal, employing a logic
of negation, even as they demand conformity.”
(Dolmage, Disability Rhetoric).
Jay Dolmage, Professor of
English, University of
Waterloo

8. Longing for a world in which “boundaries
between chaos and culture are clear”?
Feminist scholar Emily Martin suggests that our recent fascination with the body in the West
may be related to our nostalgia “for a world in which boundaries between chaos and culture
are clear.”
(Source: Ellen Driscoll, “Hunger, Representation, and the Female Body,” The Journal of Feminist
Studies in Religion, 92.)

9. Belonging
A concept central to social psychology and describes the “subjective
feeling of deep connection with social feelings, physical spaces, and
individual and collective experiences.”
A “fundamental human need that predicts numerous mental, physical,
social, economic and behavioral outcomes.”
Facilitated or hindered by individual attitudes, social, political, and
economic systems, and structures, and experiences involving “the
social milieu which dynamically interacts with an individual’s character,
experiences, culture, identity, and perception.”
A sense of belonging can only be embodied and expresses an
approach to and way in which to inhabit and flourish in our world.
(Source: K.A. Allen, et. Al, “Belonging: A Review of Conceptual Issues, An Integrative
Framework, and Directions for Future Research.” Australian Journal of Psychology.)

10. Christian self-identity
and the Embodied
Other
◦ The problem and promise of Paul’s writings
◦ Ephesians 6:5-7 a favorite of slaveholders in
the 19th century, “Servants, be obedient to
them that are your masters according to the
flesh, with fear and trembling …”
Photo by Hussain Badshah on Unsplash

11. Reading Paul Afresh
◦ Drawing upon the embodied interpretations
of feminist, womanist, postcolonial, and
disability theologians
◦ 1 Corinthians 12: 4-26
◦ Body symbolism - In the ancient world, a
body was seen as an entity, like a political
community, in which discreet parts must keep
talking to one another and supporting each
other to function. Individual bodily existence
was interwoven with the body politic.

12. The Epistle of
Baby Suggs
◦ “ ‘Here,’ she said, ‘in this here place, we flesh;
flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on
bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard’.”
--Toni Morrison, Beloved.
Photo by Ardian Lumi on Unsplash

13. Some questions for reflection …
◦ When and how have you seen Christian self-identity shaped in comparison to the embodied
other?
◦ When have you or have you not felt like you or your family belonged at school, in a religious
community, at your place of work, or in other organizations in which you are involved? Were
you able to transform that situation? If so, who or what helped you do so?
◦ What are the resources that you draw upon to imagine new ways of arranging the larger social
and political body so that we experience belonging?

14. Recommended Resources
◦ Brian Brock, “Theologizing Inclusion: 1 Corinthians 12 and the Politics of the Body of Christ.”
Journal of Religion, Disability, and Health 5 Number 4 (2011): 351-376.
◦ Jay Dolmage, Disability Rhetoric. New York: Syracuse University Press, 2014.
◦ Toni Morrison, Beloved. New York: Vintage Books, 1984; reprint 2004.
◦ C. Michelle Venable-Ridley, “Paul and the African American Community,” in Embracing the Spirit:
Womanist Perspectives on Hope, Salvation, and Transformation, edited by Emilie M. Townes. Maryknoll:
Orbis, 1997.