Concilium
2002 / 2
Introduction
Regina Ammicht-Quinn and Elsa Tamez
The globalized world also produces globalized images: globalized images of men and women, and globalized images of human bodies. The break which runs through the world becomes visible in these images of bodies. It is a break which does not simply separate ‘us’ from ‘the others’, but time and again also runs through individuals.
On the one hand there are the images of the perfect body, produced by a lifestyle — predominantly, but not only, in the Western industrial nations — which puts a preoccupation with the body at the centre and regards the body as acceptable only if it conforms to clear norms. And on the other hand there are the images of the emaciated, injured, tortured and broken body which come to us — predominantly, but not only — from the impoverished countries and crisis areas of this world. The images could not be more different: here the models in advertisements whose perfect bodies become the criteria for beauty, happiness and salvation, and there the destroyed bodies in whose wretchedness pain, humiliation and death become visible. It is a bitter irony that both the richest and the poorest bodies are often painfully thin and exposed to the danger of perishing from lack of nourishment.
In recent years people have become increasingly aware that our perception of the body, whatever it may be, is not simply ‘natural’, but has its roots deep in culture. Nevertheless the most elementary bonds between human beings become evident in the basic outlines of corporeality — being born and dying, growing and flourishing, the desires of the body and its pains. Thus for all their diversity the images of the body in the globalized world are not images which stand in unconnected juxtaposition; they are double images in which the shadows of the other images are always visible.
Whereas all over the world the questions of hunger, sickness, persecution, oppression and migration are far from having been solved, above all in the Western industrial nations attitudes towards the body have clearly changed: the body is no longer a fate but the result of actions. Here the body as a [8] whole — and not just its genitalia — becomes a moral problem. In becoming the result of actions, the body gets established as a project. This project of the body aims at perfection — the perfect design for a body which is striven for not only in the media and the beauty industry, but also in the research and health industry.
For a long time Christianity and theology have practised restraint in the interpretation, criticism and active transformation of these twofold globalized images of the body. This may be because Christianity has its own difficult history with the body. For a long time the spiritualizing and the control of everything material was central to the history of Christian piety. The body itself was above all the tangible and perceptible place of human sinfulness, exposed to the drives and an obstacle on the way to salvation.
Today, however, we are in a situation in which more and more frequently concern with the body becomes the cult of the body, and the body is worshipped and sacrificed to in the hope that this will bring salvation. Whereas for some people the possibility of shaping the body becomes central, for others its vulnerability remains at the centre. The awareness of how much shaping the body can damage it and how emphatically its vulnerability shapes it has not yet developed sufficiently.
However, one thing has become clear. Over and above the discussion of sin and control, the body has become an important theme of Christian theology and spirituality. It is urgently necessary for theology critically and in full self-awareness to become involved in current discussions about the body and current practices relating to the body, which are often destructive. Here three things are needed. First, an accurate perception of what is happening, the development of a distinctive hermeneutic which allows a clear theological understanding of contemporary, global and also secular reality; secondly, a self-critical grappling on the part of theology with its own history, in which often both biblical elements of a way of thinking bound up with the body and even the idea of incarnation itself are exploited to promote hostility and contempt for the body; and thirdly, the utopian strength to make the rich Christian tradition fruitful for the present. This issue of Concilium seeks to contribute to this development.
The editors are grateful to the following colleagues for criticism, suggestions and support in the conception of this issue: Marcella Althaus-Reid, Nedjelko Ancic, Maria Pilar Aquino Vargas, José Argdello, Wanda Deifelt, Klaus Demmer, Karl Derksen, Felisa Elizondo, Rosino Gibellini, Thomas Groome, Mary Hunt, Maureen Junker-Kenny, Ursula King, Hubert Lepargneur, Hedwig Meyer-Wilmes, Jean-Guy Nadeau, Edward Schillebeeckx, Donna Singles, Paulo Suess, Christoph Theobald.
Contents
2002/2 
