Body of Christ
-in collaboration with Frida Tebus

Every person professing to the Christian faith belongs to the Body of Christ. The expression is a metaphor for the life of the faithful and striving for Christian fulfilment. The different parts of the body with all their cooperative functions represent a diversity of expressions that characterises Christianity on various levels, the congregation, the domestic as well as in the church.
 
Today and through the history new churches and belief systems are emerging. Christians of today discuss what it means to be a follower of Jesus in our times, from a modern to a postmodern condition. Typical for the “Emerging Churches” are a postmodern mixture of various styles. Some people look for the lifestyle of the early Christians who lived in communities with collective ownership and no hierarchies. The word church meant “belief” rather than “a physical building”. Here the Coptic church, the Anabaptists, the Quakers, the late new monastic movements or the Catholic Workers are source of inspiration. Others make use of the natural meeting spots such as bars, skate parks and homes. It has been said that the Scandinavian countries, especially Sweden are the most secular in the world. Because of this Christians are searching for new ways of expressing the gospel. If modernistic Christianity was essentially shaped by central hierarchies and rational thinking, the post-modern Christianity is more diverse, experimental and mystic, as well as relational and socially committed.
 
Through our personal belief and searching we have encountered many of these new movements who often diverge from the normative picture of the church. More and more people found and create new religious communities and networks as a response to not feeling at home in the existing ways of practising belief. Others act to supplement their beliefs in contemporary lifestyles. They say yes to Jesus and no to the church, and maybe this is an example of a Christian counter culture.
 
We have made an installation with representations of various Swedish movements that could be considered part of this postmodern church. The selection is not an inventory but rather a sampling of different modes that dare to try new paths. We consider this collection as a contemporary physical manifestation of the Body of Christ.

Intsallation at the exhibition “Insidan ut”, Härnösand, Sweden 2008
Christian groups and communities represented in the installation: Bagiskommuniteten, Skatekyrkan, Pannkakskyrkan, Högalidkyrkans ökenmässa, Soptunnekyrkan, Älska din nästa, Kristen underjord, Guds clown, Nomaden
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