Rediscovering a Theology of the Body
“The Creation of Adam” by Michelangelo, 1511.
During my lifetime I have witnessed the church scrambling to respond to what felt like a new “issue” every decade. In the 1960’s it was the Woodstock generation who heralded a “sexual revolution.” During the 1970’s the focus turned to abortion in the wake of the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. In the 1980’s our society, including the church, witnessed a massive rise in divorce, and the subsequent normalization of divorce throughout our culture. In the 1990’s the internet gave rise to new challenges related to the wide accessibility to digital pornography, as well as the rise of violent video games. It was also the decade in which Dr. Jack Kevorkian made doctor-assisted suicide a part of the national conversation. The first decade of the 21st century brought a dramatic rise in the acceptance of homosexual practice, ultimately leading to the 2015 landmark case of Obergefell vs. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage in all fifty states. We have also seen the mainstreaming of highly sexualized images in advertising. This has been followed by the increased awareness of the power of social media and digital images to shape our very understanding of what it means to be human. In this decade, the emphasis has turned to gender reassignment and the growing notion that our gender should be decoupled from any biological markers and, instead, be socially determined based on our own autonomous feelings and perceptions. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the separation of physical embodiment from much of our life, our schooling, our work and even our worship. In the last year we have also been asking ourselves important and uncomfortable questions about racism and the role racial identity plays in our understanding of personhood and the “other.”
After being hit with wave after wave of challenges, it would be easy to conclude that the church is exhaustingly fighting a dozen different wildfires and wondering where the next outbreak will be. What if these challenges, however, are actually not a dozen different issues, but are really all about one issue? It has become increasingly clear that all of these issues, among others which could be noted, are all about the body. Our fundamental problem is that we need a proper theology of the body. Indeed, I am confident that if we had not lost our Christian understanding of the body, we would have been able to respond to these issues more securely and confidently. But what exactly is a theology of the body? The purpose of this article is to provide a brief answer to that question. My hope is that we might come to understand that our body is not merely a biological category, but a theological one as well. Could it be that our bodies are actually talking to us and we have not been listening? Could it be that many of the greatest mysteries of God’s nature and redemptive plan are interwoven into our very design? I believe that the answer to both of these questions is, Yes!
Seven Building Blocks of a Theology of the Body
To build a “theology of the body” I will briefly highlight seven of the key building blocks of this doctrine. The first two building blocks arise out of God’s created design of the human body.
The Created Body
First, Christians believe that creation is good, and therefore it is trustworthy. Our faith that God created the world and that it is an expression of his goodness is fundamental to our faith (Heb. 11:3). In the creation account in Genesis 1 the creation is declared “good” seven times (the number for perfection in the Old Testament). The early church battled a false teaching known as Gnosticism which held that the material world, including the body, was untrustworthy or evil, and the “real” you was somehow trapped inside. This false idea has resurfaced in our own day, teaching us that our bodies are not trustworthy. The God of biblical revelation, in contrast, created our bodies in his image and declared us very good.
Second, our physical bodies are pointers to spiritual mysteries. At the dawn of creation God was already preparing the human race for the eventuality (which was eternally present to him) that he would send his only Son into the world in that great mystery we call the incarnation. God designed us to be the perfect receptacles for his greatest revelation, knowing that someday Jesus would enter the world in a human body. The Book of Hebrews places Psalm 40:6 (LXX) onto the lips of Jesus when he declared, “a body you have prepared for me” (Heb. 10:5). Therefore, our very bodies point to the mystery of the incarnation.
As Wesleyans, it is also important to understand that all of the “means of grace” happen in and through the body. Our bodies are baptized. We take communion with our mouths. We hear the preaching of God’s word with our ears. Our eyes read God’s word. Our bodies are not only pointers to the incarnation, but the ongoing bridges by which God continues to extend his grace into the world. Charles Wesley captured this beautifully in his hymn Celebrate Immanuel’s Name, writing, “God is in our flesh revealed; heaven and earth in Jesus join / mortal with immortal filled, and human with divine.”
The Related Body
The first two building blocks are about our bodies as the object of God’s created power. The next three building blocks focus on how our bodies are designed to relate to other bodies.
Third, marriage is a pointer to the greater mystery of Christ and the church (Eph. 5:32). Just as your body is an icon or window to the incarnation, so marriage is an icon or window into the relationship of Christ and his church. Marriage is not a socially constructed arrangement which conforms to the wider cultural understanding of marriage, namely, a functional, utilitarian arrangement which satisfies our social and sexual needs and provides economic security. Instead, the Bible gives us not a commodified view of marriage, but a covenantal view of marriage designed to be a pointer to the great mystery of Christ and his church. The biblical account sets forth the design of marriage being unitive (the two shall become one flesh), procreative (be fruitful and multiply), binary (He created them male and female), and donative or self-giving (marriage points to the sacrifice of Christ for his church, the Bride). In that beautiful passage in Ephesians 5 about Christian marriage, Paul concludes the chapter by reflecting on the mystery of marriage, saying, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:32). It is amazing that the Bible begins and ends with a marriage. Adam and Eve are married in Eden, and the Bible culminates in the marriage supper of the Lamb where Christ is eternally wed to his church (Rev. 19:6-8).
Fourth, childbearing is a pointer to the divine mystery of the Trinity. Just as marriage points to Christ and the Church, so through the mystery of childbirth, God has given a pointer to his own inner life. It is through the bearing of children that we are given the privilege of participating with God in the sacred act of creation. God created men and women and made them image bearers. Then, through his grace, He allows us to participate with him in the creation of new image bearers. Through this grace, the family becomes the basic “triune” (father, mother, child) building block of all community, pointing to the mystery of the inner community within the very life of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Christians believe that there is one God, but his Oneness is revealed through eternal, personal, and relational distinctions known as the Trinity, revealing God as the ultimate source of all community, rooting God’s very nature in relationships. Childbearing points to this great mystery!
Childbearing is also one of the sources of our own sanctification. Augustine, and later, Martin Luther, described the root of all sin as “incurvatus in se,” the “heart turned in upon itself.” As every parent quickly discovers, bearing children summons us out of ourselves and turns our lives towards an “other,” with all the love and responsibility which that brings. This process is inherently sanctifying and is therefore one of the ways God’s image is fully restored in us.
Fifth, celibacy is a pointer to the eschatological life. Scripture reveals that there are actually two ways our bodies are “related.” The first is the spousal meaning of the body which the previous two building blocks highlighted. They summon us joyfully into the life of marriage and childbearing. However, there is a second meaning of the body which Jesus highlights in the New Testament, namely, the celibate meaning of the body. Jesus teaches in Mark 12:25 that “in the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage.” Here Jesus reminds us that as important as marriage is, it is not an end in itself, but a pointer to a greater spiritual reality, the final eternal union with Jesus Christ. The point is that some people have already been gifted by God in this life to anticipate the eschatological state to which we are all moving. Those called to celibacy are already living out the future reality in the present. They stand as pointers to that great eschatological reality.
What we call “singleness” is actually described in the Bible as the “single-focused life.” It is not about someone being “alone” or “unmarried.” Precisely the opposite. The celibate, “single-focused” life is already united with Christ and stands as a reminder to all of us that the marriage to Christ is where we are all headed. This is why Christians teach the importance of celibacy before marriage, and after one’s spouse dies. Paul even teaches us to practice temporary celibacy within the state of marriage (1 Cor. 7:5). In short, even those who may not be called to lifetime celibacy are called to experience it temporarily, even as we give special honor to those who have been uniquely called to a life of celibacy.
This “relatedness” to God is also reflected in deep, same-gender friendships which have come under threat in the contemporary period, which has tended to sexualize all relationships. But the nurturing of deep friendships is another pointer to the deep community to which we are all summoned in the presence of the Triune God.
The Sacramental Body
The last two building blocks in this “theology of the body” are about the sacramental nature of the body. This calls us to understand more deeply the connection between sacraments like the Lord’s Supper and Baptism and our physical bodies.
Sixth, our bodies are sacraments for the world. The church coined the word “sacrament” in the third century by combining the Latin word sacer (holy) with the Greek word mysterion (mystery). Thus, a sacrament is a “holy mystery.” This was originally a broad term for a wide variety of ways in which the physical world pointed to divine, supernatural mysteries. Because the entire created world was envisioned as a “temple” of God (e.g., Isa. 66:1, 2), it logically follows that his created order would reflect the grander mystery of his handiwork. Gradually, in the Protestant tradition, the term “sacrament” became associated only with the two holy practices of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Sometimes parts of the church went further to dichotomize the “Word” and the “Sacrament” in a way that envisions the “Word” as our ministry to the world, and “sacraments” as God’s internal ministry to us. The sacraments, however, were never meant to be isolated from our public witness in the world.
When we are baptized, we are not merely baptized by faith, i.e., a personal confession of faith in Jesus Christ. We are also baptized into the faith, i.e., we become part of a public witness of the good news of Jesus Christ before the eyes of the world. When Martin Luther famously threw his inkwell at the Devil in Marburg Castle in the year 1521, he did not shout, “I was baptized,” but “I am baptized” (baptizatus sum). We walk into the world as the baptized people of God, holy mysteries of redemption. Baptism is not just something we “did,” it is an ongoing mark of who we are in the world. When we take the broken bread in the Lord’s Supper, we are taking his broken life into ourselves, and through God’s grace we become God’s broken bread for the world. In other words, the Lord’s Supper is not merely for us, but it mysteriously transforms us into spiritual bread for a hungry and needy world. The elements of the Lord’s Supper are like the hors d’oeuvres preparing us for the wonderful feast that awaits us at the end of time at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Our presence in the world is like an invitation to all of the great Feast which awaits us!
Seventh, our bodies have a sacramental nature which transforms the whole of “ordinary” life. So much of our lives are made up of daily routines like washing dishes, folding clothes, vacuuming floors, preparing meals, taking out the trash, weeding the garden, mowing grass, putting gas in the car, or changing diapers. A proper theology of the body helps to raise our awareness of the theological significance of our bodies in these daily, often repetitive, tasks. For the Christian, these tasks are not mundane, but are the very means by which we can develop liturgical rhythms in our daily lives. When we do these tasks, we are saying to our parents, our friends, our spouses, and even to God, “this is my body, given for you.” These words, reflecting the sacred words of Jesus in his institution of the Lord’s Supper, should be reflected in the whole of our lives as our bodies become small reflections of his great sacrifice. The so-called “menial” tasks become filled with sacred meaning for us. This is why Paul says that our greatest spiritual worship is to “offer our bodies as living sacrifices” (Rom. 12:1).
It may seem odd that such a mundane theme as this serves as the final building block to a theology of the body. However, this expanded theological awareness of the sacramental nature of our ordinary lives simultaneously challenges three tragic dichotomies that have harmed the church’s witness. First, it challenges the false separation between “clergy” and “laity,” which has limited ministry to those in full vocational callings. A proper theology of the body empowers the whole people of God. Second, it challenges the modern-day notion that values financially compensated work but devalues work that is not financially compensated. Vital embodied roles such as father and mother and friend, which are sometimes discounted as not having real value since they are not financially compensated positions, are set in their proper place. Third, this seventh building block destroys the fatal barrier between “spiritual” work and “secular” work which has plagued Western expressions of Christianity for centuries.
Conclusion
A theology of the body begins, quite sublimely, with God creating the world, and it ends with, shall we say, changing diapers. Yet, this demonstrates how important our bodies are in God’s plan. Our bodies are speaking to us and pointing us to a whole range of divine mysteries: the incarnation, the mystery of the church, the Trinity, the final eschaton at the end of the ages, to name a few. Our culture has unwittingly scrambled the message of the body and even the church has missed this message. The result is that the church is more often known for what we are against, and few seem to know what we are for! This brief survey is to help you understand that we are for the body. The recovery of a theological, not merely biological, view of the body will be increasingly vital as we navigate the particular challenges to Christian faith in our time.
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent is President of Asbury Theological Seminary, where he also serves as Professor of World Christianity. His newest book is For the Body: Recovering a Theology of Gender, Sexuality, and the Human Body (Seedbed, 2020).