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Torture and Eucharist: Theology, Politics, and the Body of Christ 1st Edition

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William T. Cavanaugh (Author)
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William T. Cavanaugh (Author)
4.9 out of 5 stars 13 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0631211990
ISBN-10: 0631211993
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 286 pages
  • Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell; 1 edition (December 7, 1998)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0631211993
  • ISBN-13: 978-0631211990
  • Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1 x 9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #73,132 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsa book as excellent as its title is provocative
By John Montag SJ on July 15, 2000
Format: Paperback
Cavanaugh starts from the premise that 'torture is not a merely physical assault on bodies but a formation of a social imagination'--the vision that organizes the members of a group. On the one hand, Christianity has the Eucharist as its way to form the 'social imagination' for true community; on the other, the modern state (especially in its more totalitarian extremes, but even in its more tolerant, liberal exemplars) has the effective tool of torture as 'a kind of perverted liturgy', forming its members into 'an atomized aggregate of mutually supicious individuals'.
Hence the title, and Cavanaugh's intention 'to display a kind of Eucharistic counter-politics which forms the church into a body capable of resisting oppression'--an alternative to the violence so rampant in the world today. For Cavanaugh, the Body of Christ stands as the only genuine alternative, and torture-as-liturgy can be instructive (a sort of diabolical mirror) for building up the Body of Christ.
The best thing about this book is the way it kneads an astute, truly orthodox theology into the mass of the day-to-day politics of Pinochet's Chile. Cavanaugh not only illuminates unflinchingly many of the horrors of that place and time, but opens up fertile perspectives for the whole church on Eucharistic theology and ecclesiology, areas long hide-bound by a certain naive obliviousness to politics and the narratives of living faith.
Few works of academically rigorous theology interrogate one's hopes, dreams and desires as deeply as this one does. One comes away from the reading with a sense of caution, a much more sophisticated political perspective on both ecclesiology and Eucharist, and a new flame in the heart.
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5.0 out of 5 starsA Chilean Case Study
By Tedd Steele on December 5, 2004
Format: Paperback
This is a book with a narrow focus taht has far-reaching implications. Cavanaugh examines Chile under the Pinochet regime. This regime used torture as a tool of the state. In essence, torture became a "liturgy" of the state. Unfortunately, the church was not prepared to deal with such a turn of events. That is because the ecclesiology of the church at the time held that the state was to care for the body while the church cared for the soul. This dualism created problems for the church resisting the torture of the state.

It is at this point that Eucharist is suggested as a counter liturgy. Where torture individualizes, the Eucharist creates a social body. Eucharist helps others while the torture only harms. In short, Eucharist provides the means for the church to engage meaninfully the wayward state.

This book says wonderful things about the situation in Chile. It could also have implications in other contexts. What does it mean for the Eucharist to act as a counter liturgy to the litugy of capitalism? How does the building up of a social body in Eucharist allow Christians to deal with the fragmentation of war? There is much more that could be said based on what Cavanaugh does in this wonderful book.
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5.0 out of 5 starsAll Belongs to God
By Nathan P. Gilmour on November 6, 2004
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
Cavanaugh's book shows what Radical Orthodoxy is all about--he traces some of the myths that drive Western nation-states to medieval theological hiccups; he delves the resources of Christian liturgy for strength to resist the all-envious nation-state; he points to times and places that the Church has really "gotten it right" and taken a stand against the idols and empires in the name of Christian charity.

Best of all, Cavanaugh does it in such a manner that a reader who has trouble with John Milbank's dizzying syntax (and I are one) can make it though his book without having to read each paragraph three times.

For people who suspect that neocon political ideology is more sinister than we've been led to think, and for people who believe that the Peace of Christ is neither utopian dream nor otherworldly sigh but practices through which the gracious Father of the universe, incarnated in the Son and empowering peaceable communities through the Spirit, can redeem, even if incompletely, the world which God so loves.
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5.0 out of 5 starsPerhaps the most important book on Ecclesiology in recent times.
By Stephen Lawson on May 29, 2008
Format: Paperback
This remarkable book has forever changed the way I view the Church, the State, the Eucharist, Torture, and how they all relate.

William Cavanaugh's dissertation takes the form of a historical case study of the Roman Catholic Church in Chile during the Pinochet regime. He begins by dicussing how torture and disappearance[1] are ecclesiological problems. What he means is that torture and disappearance are not merely horrible abominations enacted upon individuals, but are violence enacted upon social bodies. Who are the victims of torture and disappearance? In once sense, it is those who have been tortured and disappeared, but in another it is all of those who dwell in the society in which this is taking place. This is because torture and disappearance are actions that can happen to anyone at anytime, so all people are kept in fear and an anxiety.

The idea of torture is perhaps the most effective generator of fear, since torture reaches to the very limits of horror, turning the body against the person to such an extent that death become desirable. Fear of torture, fear of death, were concrete fears that only began to articulate the hidden anxieties which lurked beneath the surface of Chilean society. (p. 47, emphasis added)

In this way, torture is liturgical:

Torture may be considered a kind of perverse liturgy, for in torture the body of the victim is the ritual site where the state's power is manifested in its most awesome form. Torture is liturgy...because it involves bodies and bodily movements in an enacted drama which both makes real the power of the state and constitutes an act of worship to that mysterious power. (p.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsdifficult but persevere because it's surprisingly relevant

In this unusual, slightly difficult to read and remarkable book we see how, albeit belatedly, the Roman Catholic bishops in Chile came to understand that the community-creating... Read more

Published 3 months ago by Mr. D. P. Jay
5.0 out of 5 starsReveals the nature of the church as one kind of ...

Reveals the nature of the church as one kind of community, the nature of Pinochet's Chile (and of the US leaders who supported that regime) as quite another.

Published 16 months ago by Addison Bross
5.0 out of 5 starsAwesome!

An Absolutely fantastic read! A truly engaging book. You will never, ever look at the Eucharist the same again. Guaranteed.

Published on April 10, 2013 by Liane Beaulac
5.0 out of 5 starsTorture and Eucharist,

I sent it as a gift and it was delivered in record time.
excellent srevice.

Published on January 30, 2010 by Reader
5.0 out of 5 starsAn unexpected orthodoxy

When I first heard of this book, I thought I had a fairly good idea of what I would discover within. Read more

Published on February 2, 2007 by David Williams
5.0 out of 5 starsBeyond liberation theology

A life-changing book in my development as a convert to Catholicism. Few have ever demonstrated the inherent relevance of the Eucharist in the arena of "worldly" power... Read more

Published on March 9, 2004 by Liangtu
5.0 out of 5 starsPragmatic Ecclesialogy has visted us.

This book is nothing short of excellent. In theological circles the question of the role of the church in the world has been beaten to death. Read more

Published on July 15, 2003 by Christopher Allison
5.0 out of 5 starsTrue theology, true politics

Cavanaugh brings together seemingly disparate rituals - torture and eucharist - and through an illuminating dialogical engagement between them reveals the radical political... Read more

Published on March 27, 2002 by Wes J. Arblaster
5.0 out of 5 starsProfound analysis of the church's true role in society.

A profound and moving account of the Chilean church's learning to become incarnate among the oppressed and tortured, rather than aiming at being the (disembodied) "soul"... Read more

Published on May 18, 1999

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