CHRISTLY GESTURES: LEARNING TO BECOME MEMBERS OF THE BODY OF CHRIST

Religious Education, Winter 2004 by Ream, Todd C

CHRISTLY GESTURES: LEARNING TO BECOME MEMBERS OF THE BODY OF CHRIST. By Brett P. Webb-Mitchell. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2003. x 254 pp.

On Ascension Sunday, the main thrust of the argument Brett Webb-Mitchell makes in his new book, Chnstly Gestures: Learning to Become Members of the Body of Christ, came to life for me. I was visiting Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the time and I found myself worshipping at the Gesu (Marquette University's parish church). As a product of a low-church background, I had particularly struggled with the portion of Webb-MitchelFs argument that mimesis is a practical form of knowledge and that "[Repetition of gestures is the core of the gesturer's understanding of mimesis" (218). This argument confronted me on that Sunday morning when the priest asked the congregation to reach out their arms from their pews to offer a blessing to a group of lay missionaries in the front of the sanctuary who were heading for Haiti. In near unison, the congregation stretched out their arms, as they had potentially done numerous times before, and offered a communal blessing to this portion of the church. While only a handful of individuals from the Gesu were literally going to Haiti, the offering of this blessing formatively reinforced the notion that the church as a whole was figuratively going to Haiti. The Gesu, as the body of Christ, embodied the essence of the thesis found in Webb-MitchelPs book that "[w]hen our lives are shaped according to God's will and Christ's way in the body of Christ, then our gestures may be instruments of God's gift of grace through faith, which is to incarnate Christ in our life" (2).

Christian education, as a process of formation conducted through the church's practices, makes it possible for human gestures to become instruments of God's gift of grace. For Webb-Mitchell, "[t]he church is the very context in which we are educated by God's spirit, who lives among us in the very community in which we are born, live, and die" (22). As a result, Christian education is not a matter of individual development but of communal formation. The notion of individual development depends upon the belief that humans are inherently capable of progressing on their own toward higher and higher forms of individual identity (albeit cognitive, moral, or spiritual development). By contrast, the notion of communal formation is dependent upon a participatory experience with God. God's aspirations for the created order subsequently become the aspirations of the body of Christ.

The distinction between development and formation is inherent in the three sections that compromise Webb-MitchelFs book. WebbMitchell opens with a discussion of the church as the body of Christ. he claims "that the purpose of educating all Christians is that they take their rightful, God-given place in Christ's Body" (31). The writings of the apostle Paul provide the theological components needed to establish such an understanding. Next, Webb-Mitchell discusses the nature of Christly gestures as they are found in the practices that define the church. Such practices not only include a blessing offered to a group of lay missionaries, but gestures such as baptism and communion. These practices prove formative not only to one's mind but also to the heart and to the body. Christly gestures do not simply involve intellectual discipline but an all-encompassing discipline that also simultaneously involves one's emotional and one's physical presence. Finally, Webb-Mitchell closes his book by detailing the Grafting and performing of Christly gestures. By participating in gestures such as a communal blessing, baptism, or communion, members of the body of Christ learn to become an extension of God's will on earth. As a result, participation in these Christly gestures teaches participants to embody other Christly gestures such as service to the poor and the oppressed.

While the argument Webb-Mitchell makes may appear to be a radical departure from current practices in Christian education, he ironically draws heavily from oft-neglected voices of the church's past. These voices become essential to Webb-MitchelFs project as he continuously seeks to emphasize that "[t]hese and other examples of catechesis from the earliest days of the church show us the importance of instruction-as-formation in the daily rubrics of the life of Christ" (155). As a result, voices such as Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Teresa of Avila, and John Calvin are present throughout this work. The common strand among them is their commitment to seeing that one's participatory experience in the life oi the body of Christ becomes essential not only to the individual but also to the church.

In addition to the voices from the church's past, Webb-Mitchell draws from a host of contemporary voices in philosophy and theology that fall into what can be broadly denned as either neo-orthodox or postliberal schools of thought. Webb-Mitchell frequently cites authors such as Karl Earth, Stanley Hauerwas, Alasdair Maclntyre, and John Howard Yoder. These scholars provide Webb-Mitchell with the critical insight he needs to support his assertion that the notion of an atomistic individual is illusionary. Identification with a larger community is thus deemed essential. In particular, the theological voices within this group help Webb-Mitchell make the argument that the church is the essential community for all who profess faith in Christ and seek to be formed in the Christly gestures of Christian education.