Liberation from Embodiment

A number of writers have recently been alerting evangelicals to ways in which their thinking has become captive to Gnostic-type ideas about the body. Instead of treating the body as something good, which is in the process of being redeemed (Rom 8:23), it is easy for Christians to slip into the trap of talking about the body as if it is a prison from which we must ultimately escape. (See the ongoing series we have been doing on Gnosticism and Evangelicalism.)

But it is not only in religious communities that we find these types of pessimistic approaches to embodiment. A theme that keeps reemerging in the wider secular culture of the West is an underlying angst concerning the body. Indeed, if current trends in transhumanism, technohumanism and postgenderism continue, Christians who understand about the goodness of creation may soon represent the last hold-out in affirming the goodness of the body.

This realization has led me to begin a series of articles with the Colson Center on some of the ways that Gnostic-type ideas towards the body have infected secular thinking. The first article in this series, 'Liberation from Embodiment' looks specifically at some of the ways that the goodness of the female body has been under attack from forces as diverse as radical feminism and modern advertizing.