Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: The price of unity -- The body of Christ today -- Reading as a citizen of the world -- A few words about method -- Community as body -- Community in theological and historical approaches -- Sociological or social-scientific approaches -- The approach of the history-of-religions school -- Boundaries -- Identity -- Structure or power relationships -- The conception of community called for in our present context -- Community as the body of Christ -- The body of Christ as organic unity -- The body of Christ as corporate solidarity -- Christological approaches -- Conceiving the body of Christ in a cruciform reality -- Community in Christ -- An alternate reading of in Christ in First Corinthians -- In Christ as a modal relation : dying with Christ -- In Christ as a third space-time -- The body politic and the body of Christ -- The body politic in the Greco-Roman and ancient Jewish worlds -- The politics of the hegemonic body -- The body politic of the democratic-inclusive body -- Paul and the democratic-inclusive body -- The disembodiment of Christ in Corinth -- Divisions -- Sexual immorality -- Marriage-related matters -- Eating meat sacrificed to idols -- Rights of Paul -- Women's head covering -- The Lord's supper -- Resurrection -- The life of the body of Christ in First Corinthians -- Language for the body in First Corinthians -- An ethic of the christic body -- Tracing the christic body in First Corinthians -- Outline of the discursive figurative structure of First Corinthians -- 1:1-17 Paul, Apostle of Christ Jesus, and the Corinthians, sanctified in Christ Jesus -- 1:18-4:21 the cross as God's power, exemplified by the Corinthians and embodied by -- Paul -- 5:1-11:34 the Corinthians failure to embody cCrist crucified, Paul's exhortation to -- The Corinthians calling for participation in christ crucified -- 12:1-15:11 exhortation : the Corinthian body as christic embodiment -- 15:12-58 as Christ crucified was raised, so the crucified body of the Christians will -- Be raised -- 16:1-24 conclusion -- The life of the christic body in Corinth -- Practicing the diversity of Christ's body -- Diversity as discernment -- Diversity as balance -- Christ's body and multiculturalism.