Blood Theology
Seeing Red in Body- and God-Talk

A recovery and rediscovery of the surprising strangeness of blood in theological (especially Christian) and civic discourse.

Eugene F. Rogers, Jr (Author)

9781108843287, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 March 2021

254 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 1.9 cm, 0.51 kg

'It is a majestic work of scholarship that covers so much and makes so much strange that it will captivate and even mystify readers.' Lisa Isherwood, Scottish Journal of Theology

The unsettling language of blood has been invoked throughout the history of Christianity. But until now there has been no truly sustained treatment of how Christians use blood to think with. Eugene F. Rogers Jr. discusses in his much-anticipated new book the sheer, surprising strangeness of Christian blood-talk, exploring the many and varied ways in which it offers a language where Christians cooperate, sacrifice, grow and disagree. He asks too how it is that blood-talk dominates when other explanations would do, and how blood seeps into places where it seems hardly to belong. Reaching beyond academic disputes, to consider how religious debates fuel civil ones, he shows that it is not only theologians or clergy who engage in blood-talk, but also lawmakers, judges, generals, doctors and voters at large. Religious arguments have significant societal consequences, Rogers contends; and for that reason secular citizens must do their best to understand them.

Part I. Why We See Red: 1. Blood marks the bounds of the body: Overtures and refrains
Part II. Blood Seeps in Where It Hardly Seems to Belong: Blood Unnecessary and Inexhaustible: 2. Blood after Isaac: Why God said 'Na'
3. Blood after Leviticus: Separation and sacrifice
4. Blood after the Last Supper: Jesus and the gender of blood
Part III. Blood Makes a Language in Which to Conduct Disputes: Family, Truth, and Tribe: 5. Bridegrooms of blood: Same-sex desire and the blood of Christ
6. Red in tooth and claw: Evolution and the blood of Christ
7. Blood purity and blood sacrifice: Castilians and Aztecs
Part IV. The Blood of God and at the Heart of Things: Causality Sacramental and Cosmic: 8. How the Eucharist causes salvation
9. Blood in the Christology of things: Why things became human
Appendix: Review of Gil Anidjar's Blood: A Critique of Christianity.

Subject Areas: Cultural studies [JFC], Theology [HRLB], Philosophy of religion [HRAB], Medieval history [HBLC1]