Theology as embodied: How tangible theology offers a new invitation to embodied people

Abstract

Far from being a purely cerebral activity, meaningful theological work seeks the transformation of people; intellectual assent is necessary, but humans are embodied, and theology can be multi-modal in its action and delivery. This essay draws on the traditions of visual and sensory theological practices to make an argument for theology as a rigorous process enacted in embodied—mind, hand, and heart—ways. The interwoven relationship between orthodoxy and orthopraxy is too often tenuous, practitioners on one side and thinkers on the other. In exploring lives of biblical characters, specifically women, and expressing these across modalities of spoken word, stitch, and poetry, the writer makes a case for the essential embodiment of a sensuous theological expression—the kind of expression that one frequently experiences in sacrament and frequently ignores in formal theological discourse. In drawing from her own research practices the writer presents a case for the importance of personal theological work moving from thinking as the sole location, arguing that embodiment is always the outcome of good theological commitment. This essay builds on a foundation of theologians who make a case for the arts and for the sensory in pointing toward the Divine, and it unapologetically draws on textile practice as “women's work” and a location of shared human experience. The essay also explores responses to theology in physical stitched form and poetry. It includes responses which take theological interactions beyond consumption into production; it considers the value of embodied, holistic theological work as a potential gift to the community.