ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects on the consequences of the discussion of the body for the dialogue between sociology and theology. While the sociology of religion has paid much attention to the 'body politics' that has emerged in the past quarter century, this is matched by the relative inattention to what might be called 'body cultures'. In the twenty-first century, it is becoming increasingly clear that consumption and communication, identity and identification, work together in the process by which subjects in the affluent global north are constituted. Specific attention is paid, to the question of the excarnate body of electronically mediated communication, and the hypercarnate body of consumerism. Such new media and niche markets are central to contemporary cultural change but seem to feature little in the churches' self-understanding and practice, except for the apparent willingness of many church people to conform to current trends.
