Watauga County

In C.S. Lewis’ classic dialogue, Uncle Screwtape is counseling his nephew Wormwood not necessarily to keep his newly Christian client from prayer, but to guide the prayer to be superficial, making prayer an expression of inner mood rather than active, whole-bodied faith in the God who is there.  He instructs:

At the very least, they can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affect their souls.

This overhead admission may seem strange to us contemporary evangelicals.  Growing up, we were schooled in the belief that any participation of the body in worship was the stuff of ritual and legalism.  We are told that pure worship comes from the heart, in the spirit, and is the stuff of the intangible realm within.  Our cultural drift tells us the lie that the body is an impediment blocking our dreams and must be transcended, modified, or hacked—not merely cared for.  After all, or so it is thought, the body isn’t even an accurate indicator of what gender we are.

Christianity, on the other hand, has a high view of the body.  It teaches that you are your body, and we aren’t who we are apart from our bodies.  It is the very body we inhabit now that will one day be resurrected into a glorified state.  Our bodies define and project (sometimes very demonstrably) our limitations.  But this only reminds us that we need to glorify God in the body we have as who we are, not with the unlimited superpowers we think we ought to have or the unrestrained spiritual god we think ourselves to be.

Because Christians maintained a high view of the body, the church shied away from marking and piercing the body—at least not excessively.  They also tended towards treating the body with respect by burying the dead rather than, as the pagans did, throwing the body on the funeral pyre.

But getting back to Screwtape’s observation, it is precisely because our spirit is not disconnected from our body that we incorporate our body in worship.  In times of confession of sin in the Daily Office or Sunday worship, it is fitting (though not required) to kneel.  In times of proclaiming the true nature of God in the creeds, it is fitting to stand in honor and respect.  In receiving communion, it is good to come forward with the rest of the Body of Christ, holding our hands in a way that shows them empty to receive the grace of God because we have nothing to bring.  Making the sign of the cross reminds us often that we are marked by the finished work of Christ.  Often in larger churches with praise bands, the congregation will raise their hands when they sing—same thing.

This isn’t arguing for an unyielding legalism or merit based on body position.  If I’m doing my daily prayers at the airport or in my business cubicle at work, I’m not going to kneel.  But Christian worship has often become passive and non-participatory.  At its worst, a cynic noted, Sunday morning can be nothing more than a concert and a TED talk where people sit passively hoping that their spirit will somehow be changed.  The church has recognized since antiquity that we are not mere Gnostics, so it constructed liturgies of embodied worship.  “Offer your body to God”, says Paul (Romans 12:1).  What our bodies do affects our souls.

__________________________________________

David B. Sable is one of many lay ministers at Christ the King Anglican Fellowship in Boone, NC.  He is married to Loretta and they live in Deep Gap.  He may be reached at [email protected]. 

Read more Christian news here.

_________________________________________