Recently, my church community Austin Mustard Seed and my former church community, Vox Veniae had the opportunity to learn from Dr. Cherith Fee Nordling on the important, yet often tricky concept of “embodied spirituality. Here’s an excerpt from a recap by Chris Morton.
Orthodox teaching, as is encapsulated by the Nicene and Apostles Creeds, states the mystery of our faith is this: Jesus is simultaneously 100% God and 100% human.
Obviously, this is a paradox. No one thing can be 200%. Heresies, argues Fee Nordling, crop up when people try to explain Jesus as anything other the mystery of 100% God and 100% human.
The problem that many of these heresies are trying to solve is “the flesh problem.” Many cultures, including many people today, don’t know what to do with our bodies. Our modern secular world seems torn between animalistic epicureanism (do whatever feels good!) and an obsession with productivity (life and body “hacking.”)
These heresies and many more, all try to address the same struggle: if bodies are bad, then how can Jesus be fully human (embodied) and fully God?
According to Fee Nordling, this isn’t a philosophical point. A misunderstanding of our bodies cheapens the story of scripture and causes many problems for daily life. The alternative is to understand what humans are, bodies, and all. The result is a much more tangible story of how God is plotting to help us “get our lives back.”
You can listen to audio from the retreat here.
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