Craig Nessan's important new work retrieves biblical metaphors of the body of Christ and, following Dietrich Bonhoeffer, sees church today as ';Christ existing as community.' To theological probing Nessan then adds contextual analysis and describes the four chief imperatives that mark Christ's presence in the world today: peacemaking, justice-making, care for creation, and engagement with the other. He then unfolds the real-life implications of this paradigm of Christian community for the local church structure, strategies for partnering, public witness, and interreligious engagement.
