Evangelicalism’s Hidden Heresy: Understanding Gnosticism and Why the Body Is So Important

This talk exposes the widespread Gnostic error—that the spiritual or immaterial is good, while the physical or material is inherently evil—and its insidious impact on evangelical theology and practice. A definition of embodiment (the state of human existence between conception and death, and again after the resurrection of the body and for all eternity; the normal state of human existence is an embodied existence) will be offered. Then, attention will be paid to outlining a theology of human embodiment that treats issues such as creation as embodied beings, genderedness, sexuality, bodily discipline, sanctification, clothing, worship, suffering and healing, death, and eschatological embodiment.