Over time, our embodied lives reliably reveal the stories and myths that shape us.
On sexual ethics, Christians and their secular neighbors tend to hold markedly different views. But these differences can obscure how both groups are living according to stories and myths about the meaning and purpose of human bodies—often without knowing it. In Every Body’s Story: 6 Myths about Sex and the Gospel Truth about Marriage and Singleness, Branson Parler examines the myths most influential outside the church (individualism, romance, materialism) and within it (anti-body theology, legalism, and the sexual prosperity gospel).
Writer and campus minister Rachel Gilson spoke with Parler—director of theological education at The Foundry, a ministry based in Grand Rapids, Michigan—about the relationship between our bodies and the central truths of the gospel.
Your title raises a question: How does a body tell a story?
Every story entails an embodied way of life. Bodies point, through what they do, to the larger story they’re part of. So if I really want to understand what you’re believing in your bones, then I’ll look at what you’re doing with your body. Work, rest, money, greed, sex—we tend to see these things as disconnected pieces rather than woven together in a single story.
It’s easy to talk about what we believe with our minds. It’s trickier to discern how the way I’m living reveals my deepest beliefs about the good life. With rhythms of work and rest, or Sabbath, for instance, it’s one thing to say I believe God will take care of me. It’s quite another to actually cease doing work.
Many of us are unintentional about the story we’re telling. But if you watch someone over the days, weeks, and months, you’ll see that story more …Continue reading… www.christianitytoday.org
