Content area
Full Text
Christianity has had an ambivalent relationship with the human body. This ambivalence has existed in spite of biblical affirmations of the body. The Old Testament reveals a view of the person as a functional unity between body and soul.1 New Testament writers aggressively combated Gnostic attacks on the body, affirming Old Testament teachings on the goodness of God's creation, and developing teachings on our eternal embodied state in the resurrection. However, in spite of these efforts, this ambivalence regarding embodiment continues to permeate Christian theology and practice. To quote Luke Timothy Johnson,
[Christianity's] repulsion of [Gnosticism] did not make it immune from a virus of suspicion toward the body that has been profound, pervasive, and permanent. Deeply influenced by the Greek moral tradition, from the second century forward, Christian theologians insisted on a strict hierarchical distinction between spirit and body2
Such thinking has presented obstacles to constructing a sound theology of embodiment that would inform our experience of embodiment.
This failure to embrace fully our status as incarnated creatures has also left us vulnerable to alternate messages about our bodies - messages that, like Gnosticism and Cartesian dualism, are founded on a strict division between matter and spirit, and the denigration of the body. The influence of dualism can be seen in contemporary evangelical culture and theology. It has showed up in many of our translations of the New Testament, in which Paul's use of the Greek word sarx is translated into the English as "flesh." While some usages of this word do in fact refer to the physical body (Romans 2:28 for example), most refer to the sinful nature as it is played out in our embodied self. But, through guilt by association, and perhaps influenced by our own dualistic interpretations, this use of "flesh" contributes to the impression that the body is inherently sinful.3
Dualism is also evident in other, less formal ways. For example, theologically we emphasize going to heaven rather than looking forward to the true culmination of Christ's work in the resurrection of the body. We categorize sins, so that sins of the body such as sexual immorality are seen as more serious than non-physical sins such as gossip and envy. We talk about "saving souls" as if it were...