July Article Feature
Recently, BODY WORLDS 2: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies, opened at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Billboards and bus placards across town depict real human bodies that have undergone plastination, a process invented by Gunther von Hagens. Plastination preserves and hardens human bodies so that they can be displayed in a number of different poses without the use of toxic chemicals or refrigeration. Ticket sales for this exhibit have been robust throughout the United States and around the globe. This exhibit and the stir it has caused led me to think about the body and how we treat it in today’s society compared with how the Church views it.
As Christians we are asked to give our greater attention to the spiritual realities of the human soul. This means that any consideration or treatment of our bodies should be weighed against the care we show towards our souls. Our Christian view of life teaches that the soul and the body make up our total person. We hold that the separation of the soul from the body at death is a deep tragedy. Death was so against God’s design that He entered into creation to rectify the problem. God’s son took on human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary and willingly mounted the cross on Golgotha to put to death, death by His death. Therefore, the Church has always had an exalted view of the human body. She has always taught that extreme care and consideration should be given to our bodies, because they were meant for eternity and are connected with our eternal souls. To that end, our treatment of the body often teaches us how we value our souls. Moreover, any abuse to our physical bodies can ultimately harm our souls.
Today’s world and culture has seen a marked devaluation of the human body. In simple terms, the body has often been objectified and stripped of any intrinsic or spiritual value. For example, it is seen in terms of what it produces, its economic value, and its labor potential. It is seen in terms of its ability to excite or arouse, as in the world of fashion and sexual attraction. Even our children and young adults are not immune to this debasing and objectification of the human body. Witness the increase in steroid use and the fixation males have on muscle growth, or the extreme methods of weight loss used by girls as young as eight years old. And of course our current age has witnessed more base uses of the body. Certain activities that are questionable from the Church’s perspective are on the rise, such as body piercing, tattooing, plastic surgery, cremation, the trafficking and legalization of human prostitutes, not to mention the increase in alcohol and drug abuse. There is a fine line between treating our bodies as the temple of the Holy Spirit and glorifying it more than we glorify God.
Such trends are counter to the Biblical and charismatic witness of the Church. St. Paul in his first letter to the Church in Corinth asks the following question of the Christians living there: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” This question posed by St. Paul is the culmination of the entire movement and teaching of God’s revelation from Genesis to Christ’s death and resurrection: we are God’s creation, and we are meant to live in an intimate union with Him, body and soul.
Contrary to our world’s devaluation of the body, the Church has struggled to maintain an exalted view of the human body. Christ’s incarnation and resurrection signal and solidify our belief in the sanctity of matter and the material world. To that end, the Church begins to bless and honor the body immediately after birth with the prayer services that follow a child’s coming into the world, both at the hospital and at church, on their eighth and fortieth days. This continues at a child’s baptism, when the body is prayed over, blessed, anointed, and washed. Throughout a Christian’s life, the honor shown to the body is reinforced through fasting, prayer that involves kneeling and prostrations, holy unction, drinking of holy water, and the reception of Holy Eucharist. Certainly, the care of the body continues even at one’s death, when our body is brought into the Church for the funeral service; the body is prayed over, censed, blessed, and finally laid to rest in God’s Earth to purely return to the natural elements.
This honor that the Church gives the body reaches beyond the grave. Our Church recognizes the original design of God in the holy relics of the Church – that the body and the soul are one, and they are meant to be a temple of the living God. This reality is witnessed scripturally in 2 Kings 13.20-21, when the bones of the prophet Elisha brought a dead man back to life. This means that our souls and bodies can acquire through grace the attributes of the divine life. Literally, our body becomes a vehicle of God’s love and presence in this world. Remember, that Christ healed by a touch (Matthew 9.25) and even the hem of his garment (Matthew 9.20), and the handkerchiefs of St. Paul raised the sick and cast out demons (Acts 19.12). That is to say that through our bodies, the divine life of God reaches out to sanctify all of creation, even our clothing!
The holy relics of our Church, the bodies and bones of saints, are venerated within the Church as a constant reminder of the real presence and power of God. Like a tuning fork that has been struck and continues to resonate its pitch, our bodies, like those of the saints, can be tuned to God so that they resonate His life and love to the world.
Christ’s resurrection from the dead was a real event, and His ascension into heaven included the taking up of His human flesh to be seated at the right hand of God the Father (Luke 25.51 and Acts 1.9). While these events are perhaps ridiculed by today’s world or dismissed as fable, our Church professes them as the signposts and means to real and eternal life. How we treat our bodies says a lot about how we view our souls. Instead of the voyeurism of Body World, we may want to consider honoring and even venerating the body for what it truly is: the temple of God. Living in a manner that treats the body with the utmost respect; this is the natural outcome of understanding God’s plan and word. As faithful members of the Orthodox Church, we should seek to further the sanctity and holiness of our lives by honoring the body and the soul in all that we do.