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That Famous Fig Leaf
Uncovering the Holiness of Our Bodies
Chad W. Thompson
That Famous Fig Leaf
Uncovering the Holiness of Our Bodies
Copyright © 2019 Chad W. Thompson. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Cascade Books
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-5986-7
hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-5987-4
ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-5988-1
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Names: Thompson, Chad W., author.
Title: That famous fig leaf : uncovering the holiness of our bodies / by Chad W. Thompson.
Description: Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2019 | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: isbn 978-1-5326-5986-7 (paperback) | isbn 978-1-5326-5987-4 (hardcover) | isbn 978-1-5326-5988-1 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Nudity. | Human body—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Christianity and culture.
Classification: bt741.3 t50 2019 (print) | bt741.3 (ebook)
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
“Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB), Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation Used by permission. www.Lockman.org”
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
Title page graphic by: www.Vecteezy.com
Manufactured in the U.S.A. 11/11/19
When I feel very near God I always feel such a need to undress.
—Charles Kingsley
Acknowledgments
To Steve and Susanne Parker, for your endless patience and support. To David Hatton, Don Dorman, Orin Dablemont, Bill Hughes, Carrie Crumrin, and G. S. Muse, for your help reviewing and editing my manuscript. To John Armstrong, Andrew Meyer, Andrew Green, Nathan Poole, Ed and Mary Sue, Jarrah, Scott, Dylan, Kyle, Kevin, and Lenny; you are my best friends.
Chapter 1—The Divine Disconnection
A friend of mine recalled the discomfort he felt when, while attending a Christian conference, a man in the restroom tried to make conversation with him at the urinal. He said: “He wanted to discuss the talk that had just been given, but the fact that we were in the restroom made it difficult for me. It felt wrong discussing all we’d learned about the faith while holding what seems to be the least faithful part of my body in my hand.”
In his book Tortured Wonders, Rodney Clapp describes the seeming paradox of talking about theology during a medical checkup:
[The doctor] asked me to stand up and lower my shorts for a hernia exam. It was then, as I tried in futility not to be self-conscious, that he chose to ask about my occupation. I told him I was an editor and writer. “So what do you write about” he said. “Please turn your head and cough.” “I write [cough] . . .” He moved his hand to the other side of my groin and interrupted—“Turn the other way and cough.”
“I write about [cough, cough] theology.” “Oh,” he said noncommittally, almost absentmindedly. “Now please bend over and put your elbows on the table, so I can check your prostate.” Theology, or thinking about God, who by definition has no physical body, usually is a highly disembodied practice. It links to textual artifacts (especially in the scriptures) and occasionally to archaeological artifacts. But it is not hard, when one is doing theology, to forget about the body. Maybe thinking and writing about theology, and spirituality, should be done in the course of physical examinations (although it would be hard to concentrate). That would keep us down to earth and aware of the bodies that we possess . . . There are, I learned that day in the doctor’s office, few pretensions to angelic, ethereal spirituality when your elbows are on the cold plastic of the examination table and you hear rubber gloves being snapped on behind you.1
While I couldn’t help laughing at both of these anecdotes, they represent a very serious chasm in Christian thought; that is, the underlying belief that the concepts of “body” and “spirit” are somehow opposites. Christopher West, who is known for his work popularizing Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, wrote, “Tragically, many Christians grow up thinking of their bodies (especially their sexuality) as inherent obstacles to the spiritual life.”2
In seeking to understand where such attitudes originated, it helps to have a grasp on how the body has been misunderstood within the framework of Christianity, both theologically and historically.
Biblical Ambivalence & Greek Influence
For Paul the human form is a “temple of the Holy Spirit”3 in one context, yet in another it hinders a more complete union with Christ.4 At one point Paul even refers to his physicality as a “body of death.”5 To the casual reader, it can be hard to distinguish between references to flesh as that which is sinful, and that which is physical. Multiple passages which posit the “flesh” against the purposes of God further contribute to a seeming duplicity in the way New Testament writers esteem the body.6
The ambivalence surrounding biblical references to the body has certainly contributed to its demoralization within traditional Christianity. Yet a far greater contribution has been made through the influence of early church fathers and Greek philosophers.
In her book The Unauthorized Guide to Sex and the Church, Carmen Renee Berry describes two interpretations of Christianity that competed with the apostles for control over the emerging church: the Judaizers and the Gnostics.
The Judaizers taught Christ as the only means of salvation; to them, Judaism was the only way to Christ. Gnosticism is a philosophy that creates a false division between the spiritual and physical dimensions of our existence. According to Berry:
Scripture was applied and misapplied in ways that separated
