Male & Female Created He Them…
As a theologian I often struggle with ways to translate conversation in the academy into useful materials for the church. What follows is a sermon that I preached in May 2008 when the Revised Common Lectionary presented the challenge of the Genesis creation narrative. I created a PowerPoint presentation to display as I spoke. Many of the images are presented here with the text.
Tertullian on The Incarnation
Tertullian of Carthage (c160-c220 CE) has never been one of my favorite Early Church figures, but I have to admit I enjoyed reading his On the Flesh of Christ as part of class this quarter. Tertullian's gritty descriptions of the Jesus' physicality resonated with a certain campy cord in me, as though I were listening to an old drag queen tell a story for shock value, playing on her audience's discomfort. (The discomfort was real in Tertullian's listeners, but more because of their shock at the idea that God would condescend to put on inferior flesh.)
On a future iteration I would like to stop and think about how Tertullian's account of Jesus' flesh might speak to a queer audience constantly bombarded with messages of deep suspicion for the flesh. But for now, what follows is a discussion of Tertullian's incarnational theology as expressed in On the Flesh of Christ.
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