Free Congregation of Sauk County

The Religious Importance of Bodies

Western culture fears and ignores bodies.  Our Christian heritage teaches that the body tempts us to sin and thus to stray from our heavenly destiny.  The Enlightenment tradition maintains a strong mind-body dualism; the mind is separate from the body, and the body itself is a kind of machine.

Speaker Andrew Kerr will suggest that such a view is suspect philosophically and scientifically.  He will offer the alternative view that the body, including our personality, is a community of living things bound together by common feelings.  The purpose of the body, Andrew will offer, is the production of intense religious emotion.  It is through our bodies that we learn to love the world.

Please use our Joys and Concerns time to share how you feel about your body, and how you feel our culture treats bodies, including your body.