The Graced Body
I had the privilege to join the SSF Brothers living at the Hermitage at Stroud near Newcastle in Australia for a week. Well, Br Alfred Boonkong was there for the whole time and Br. Bruce Paul was there for the first couple of days.
Technically I was there for a retreat. But I spent the first couple of days just talking and catching up with Bruce Paul and one of the other people staying there,and Alfred took me sightseeing on afternoon.
The last three days were much more retreaty, although I spent most of the time reading Bruce Paul's doctoral thesis. It is called "The Graced Body - toward a theology of human sexuality". In it he uses the work of Karl Barth and Jurgen Moltmann to develop a theology of embodiment. Embodiment he describes as involving "the meeting of the life giving Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit with the totality of the human person, body and soul." We are embodied souls and ensouled bodies. That embodiment then becomes the medium by which and in which the encounter between the divine and human takes place. That includes everything that we are, including our sexuality. The question he raises out of this is how does the Trinity make holy our sexual loving?
Bruce wrote this to develop a theology that gives those in monogamous same sex relationships a way to take their place in the life of the church based on their baptism rather than being prevented by their sexual orientation. It provides a way by which all people can take their place based on their baptism rather than gender, sexual orientation, or any other means by which we exclude people from their calling within the embodied life of Christ we call the church.
I was most interested in this as it pertains to sexual desire. For too long I have unconsciously felt sexual desires are wrong, something to be subverted by prayer or by other means. Bruce Paul talks about how this attitude comes out of the platonic vision of the world of spirit good, physical bad. The Enlightenment also didn't help with it's understanding that the body should be subservient to the mind. What I really liked about Bruce Paul's is that it reframes sexual desire from a bad thing to the vehicle by which I can experience God's desire for me, and my desire for God. So desire becomes something to pay attention to rather than something to subvert. Francis lived this theology out. He longed to expereince the love of God expressed in the passion of Christ in his own body, and was granted the gift of the stigmata, the wounds of christ - bodily expressions of God's desire for all humanity. True love, true desire is tough. This is not an easy way out.
Today one of our elderly tertiaries was convicted for an indecent act on a girl under 12. I wonder what difference it would have made for him to have operated out of a theology of a graced body, and rather than constantly fighting his desires focuses those desires on God's desire for him and his desire for God. it just feels so much more healthy.
Technically I was there for a retreat. But I spent the first couple of days just talking and catching up with Bruce Paul and one of the other people staying there,and Alfred took me sightseeing on afternoon.
The last three days were much more retreaty, although I spent most of the time reading Bruce Paul's doctoral thesis. It is called "The Graced Body - toward a theology of human sexuality". In it he uses the work of Karl Barth and Jurgen Moltmann to develop a theology of embodiment. Embodiment he describes as involving "the meeting of the life giving Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit with the totality of the human person, body and soul." We are embodied souls and ensouled bodies. That embodiment then becomes the medium by which and in which the encounter between the divine and human takes place. That includes everything that we are, including our sexuality. The question he raises out of this is how does the Trinity make holy our sexual loving?
Bruce wrote this to develop a theology that gives those in monogamous same sex relationships a way to take their place in the life of the church based on their baptism rather than being prevented by their sexual orientation. It provides a way by which all people can take their place based on their baptism rather than gender, sexual orientation, or any other means by which we exclude people from their calling within the embodied life of Christ we call the church.
I was most interested in this as it pertains to sexual desire. For too long I have unconsciously felt sexual desires are wrong, something to be subverted by prayer or by other means. Bruce Paul talks about how this attitude comes out of the platonic vision of the world of spirit good, physical bad. The Enlightenment also didn't help with it's understanding that the body should be subservient to the mind. What I really liked about Bruce Paul's is that it reframes sexual desire from a bad thing to the vehicle by which I can experience God's desire for me, and my desire for God. So desire becomes something to pay attention to rather than something to subvert. Francis lived this theology out. He longed to expereince the love of God expressed in the passion of Christ in his own body, and was granted the gift of the stigmata, the wounds of christ - bodily expressions of God's desire for all humanity. True love, true desire is tough. This is not an easy way out.
Today one of our elderly tertiaries was convicted for an indecent act on a girl under 12. I wonder what difference it would have made for him to have operated out of a theology of a graced body, and rather than constantly fighting his desires focuses those desires on God's desire for him and his desire for God. it just feels so much more healthy.
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