Orthodoxy and the Politics of Christian Subjectivity: A Case Study of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON)

Informed by theories of biopolitics and necropolitics, I argue that Christian orthodoxy is a colonial power formation that manufactures the subjectivities of those within the Church and those without. The operation of biopolitics and necropolitics coalesces around two Christian bodies - the local bo...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Dalwood, Charlotte (Author)
Corporate Author: Global Anglican Future Conference (Other)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Cambridge Univ. Press [2020]
In: Journal of Anglican studies
Year: 2020, Volume: 18, Issue: 2, Pages: 235-250
IxTheo Classification:FD Contextual theology
KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history
KDE Anglican Church
NBN Ecclesiology
Further subjects:B Colonialism
B Heresy
B Anglican Communion
B Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON)
B Biopolitics
B Orthodoxy
B Christian subjectivity
B necropolitics
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:Informed by theories of biopolitics and necropolitics, I argue that Christian orthodoxy is a colonial power formation that manufactures the subjectivities of those within the Church and those without. The operation of biopolitics and necropolitics coalesces around two Christian bodies - the local body and the corporate body catholic - and is thus explicable according to the synthetic framework of "body politics." Within the body-political calculus, orthodox Christians qualify as genuine lives and, consequently, benefit from biopolitical interventions to promote their flourishing; heretics, by contrast, represent (non-)subjects whose bodies orthodoxy/colonialism consigns to destruction. As a case study to illustrate the import of my theoretical analysis for ecclesiological reflection, I examine the rhetoric of the leaders of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), who, despite presenting their movement as a decolonial project, espouse a body-political theology and, therefore, remain firmly within the matrix of Christian colonial orthodoxy.
ISSN:1745-5278
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of Anglican studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/S1740355320000145