Although Eastern religions have many spiritual
practices centered on the body—yoga, tai chi, aikido, breathing
exercises, walking meditation—Christianity, in theory, has the highest
theology of the body among all religions.
But old
attitudes that put the mind above the body and regard the flesh as
prone to sin undermine our appreciation of our bodies.
Protestant theologian Sallie McFague in The Body of God (Augsburg Fortress,
1993) puts it this way: “The most prevalent spiritual disease of our
time is not wanting to be here, not wanting to be in a physical body.”
The
incarnation of Jesus proves that God loves human bodies and wants us to
honor them. Jesus didn’t proclaim the immortality of the soul. He spoke
of the resurrection of the body.
When Paul saw that some early
Christians were regarding the body as a foe, he wrote: “Do you not know
that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you
have from God?” (1 Corinthians 6:15).
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© 2013 Augsburg Fortress, Publishers
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