The Affects of Unity

In this chapter, Emmanuel Housset examines the affective dimensions of Paul’s conception of community in Ephesians 4:1-4. According to that passage, Christians are called to live with “humility, gentleness, and patience.” For Housset, those three affects constitute a Christian way of “being-thrown” into the world. Thus the affects are not normative virtues or subjective sentiments, but the very conditions of a Christian existence that exceeds the purely human possibilities of “social dispersion and violence.”

Biblical Criticism and the Phenomenology of Scripture

This introductory chapter has three aims. First, it summarizes the phenomenological method. Second, it explores the way that various assumptions about the epistemic priority of the natural sciences operate in modern biblical criticism. Third, it summarizes the essays included in the volume.

Response

In this chapter, Walter Brueggemann responds to the other essays in the volume. He likens phenomenology to the methods of “close reading” and “thick description” advocated by George Lindbeck and Gilbert Ryle based on Clifford Geertz’s anthropological method. He argues that such approaches have an important political function: they resist our culture’s totalizing impulse to master and control meaning by exploring the richness of texts. Brueggemann also helpfully situates phenomenology as “readings from and in a third place.” First, there are the “canonical” readings of scripture, reflecting the church’s practices of reading. Second, there are the reading practices of the critical academy, which are often in tension with the church. Phenomenology offers a third mode of reading, drawing from both the church and the academy while in thrall to neither.

Response

In this chapter, Dale Martin responds to the other essays in the volume. He offers poignant insights about each essay and the volume as a whole.

Split Interpretations of a Split I

In this chapter, Jean-Louis Chrétien tracks various interpretations of Romans 7:7-25, focusing on the use of first person pronouns in the passage. Does the “I/me” refer to Paul in a straightforward autobiographical sense? Is Paul inhabiting someone else’s experience by speaking in character (prosopopoiea)? Does the text reflect both possibilities at once? Chrétien argues that the passage describes, or better creates, a Christian interiority that is inherently agonistic. The “I” is both Paul’s and the reader’s; the varying interpretations ultimately reflect the real existential dilemmas of Christian life.

Phenomenology as Lectio Divina

In this chapter, Robyn Horner offers important methodological reflections on phenomenology while also examining the function of visibility in John 8:2-11. Horner juxtaposes the visibility of the woman with the “invisability” of Jesus. The text obscures Jesus even as it invites us to look at him. Yet, while Jesus is ungraspable, the woman is extremely visible, perhaps too visible. In the course of the narrative, Jesus transforms the woman’s pornographic visibility into a visible mirror of God’s love and mercy.

The Manifestation of the Father

In this chapter, Kevin Hart argues that Jesus’ parables present (or phenomenalize) a type of phenomenological reduction from world (kosmos) to kingdom (Basileia). The goal of the parables, then, is to “nudge” readers to live according to the kingdom even while still in the world. More radical than Husserl’s reduction, Jesus’ reduction proceeds from kenosis (an “emptying out” of worldly meaning and value) to epektasis (“stretching out” toward God). Focusing on the character of the father (and Father) in the “Prodigal Son” (Luke 15:11-32), Hart maintains that compassionate fatherhood is an important aspect of the kingdom, and is ultimately (and paradoxically, from a worldly perspective) inseparable from the realities of the cross and resurrection

Love and Law according to Paul and Some Philosophers

In this chapter, Jeffrey Bloechl examines I Corinthians 12 in light of recent works by Giorgio Agamben and Alain Badiou. While Agamben and Badiou see in Paul’s letters a message of liberation from worldly political orders, Bloechl argues that their analyses fail to grasp Paul’s conception of the community of faith. Focusing on Paul’s analogy between the community and the body, Bloechl argues that Paul’s aim is not to negate the world, the flesh, or the Law, but to re-constitute them within the horizon of faith. For Paul, the Law is not a harbinger of political totalism to be overcome through messianic subjectivity (as is the case for Agamben and Badiou); rather, the Law is re-envisioned within the horizon of faith

To Exist without Enemies

In this chapter, Jean-Yves Lacoste offers a theologically rich reading of the Sermon on the Mount, particularly the antitheses (Matt. 5:38-48), in which Jesus issues a series of seemingly impossible commands culminating in the order to “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Lacoste argues that the antitheses are speech-acts that exceed the Mosiac law without abrogating it, effectively calling Jesus’ audience to enact (and creating in them the ability to practice) the exact sort of extra-moral perfection that Jesus demands, in the context of both a world (kosmos) where such acts make little sense and a kingdom (Basileia) where they will no longer be necessary.

Sketch of a Phenomenological Concept of Sacrifice

In this chapter, Jean-Luc Marion uses the “sacrifice of Isaac” as a touchstone for philosophical reflection on the idea of “the gift.” Genesis 22 offers an important insight: if Abraham’s actions on Mount Moriah amount to a “sacrifice,” then sacrifice is neither tantamount to destruction—after all, Isaac was not killed—nor is it a form of economic exchange, as if Abraham owed Isaac to God as “counter-gift” in return for the God’s promise. Rather, the “sacrifice” of Isaac ultimately reveals that Isaac is a gift given by God.