TBA
Given the current political turmoil that excludes immigrants, and refugees in the US, this paper revisits Calvin, and examines the theo-political implications of his sacramental ecclesiology in the context of exile. I explore how he resisted exclusionary structures, particularly in relation to the Corpus Christianum, which sought social purity at the cost of producing countless refugees. Through an analysis of the Eucharist and its relation to the church, I trace the inversion of corpus mysticum and corpus verum, which shifted the church’s foundation from sacramental practice to legal structures. I will argue that Calvin, within the framework of the threefold body of Christ, seeks to restore the severed link between the Eucharist and the Church, a bond that began to weaken after the twelfth century, in a way that does not make any visible community sovereign, and that he instead envisions the church as a performative space of radical inclusion.