Earthen Vessels is written with a very academic tone, so not everyone is going to be able to get through it. Anderson spends several chapters setting the stage for the second half of the book by describing how our bodies are integral to our being, as opposed to just a carrier for our souls. We were created as a unified person, body and soul, with both being important to how we live out our faith. He is able to make substantive arguments on how we should approach everything that relates to our body from tattoos, to remaining single, to homosexuality. I found his take on tattoos to be unique and helpful, going far beyond the unpersuasive "it's permanent" argument we normally hear. I fully agree with his take on why it is so hard to have a civil argument about homosexuality, highlighting that homosexuality is treated as an identity by gay rights proponents, but as an activity by Christians, so we end up talking past each other.

The last few chapters do not necessarily flow together very well, reading more like a list of essays on things related to the body. But there are few resources that take on the discussion of the importance of the body to Christian faith, which means there is a lot of ground to cover.

If you can deal with an academic tone for a few chapters in the beginning, then this is going to be a helpful and useful book if the title peaks your interest at all. ( )

It has become something of a truism in recent years that any discussion about the state of American Christianity will inevitably include a reference to Greek philosophy and latent gnosticism. It is a bit fitting, then, that Matthew Lee Anderson opens Earthen Vessels, his new book on theology of the body, by asking whether American Christians have the dualistic, negative view of the body so frequently attributed to them.

His answer? Actually, evangelicals have usually expressed their theology pretty well in this area—when they have expressed anything at all. Evangelicalism’s theology of the body has been characterized not so much by gnostic hatred as by general neglect punctuated by occasional reactions against culture. We need a fuller conversation about an area largely unaddressed, and Earthen Vessels is intended as a conversation-starter, not the final word on theology of the body.

The story matters

Unlike many of his conversation-starting emergent peers, though, Anderson doesn’t think the conversation is one without parameters. In his introduction, he writes, “Grace has a shape, and that shape is Jesus. My question is how that grace shapes our arms and legs, our skin, and other organs.“ Throughout the book, Anderson is at pains to ground the discussion of our treatment of the human body in a coherent theology of God and his work in this world.

That’s a necessary corrective for two reasons. First, it stands in opposition to the secular anthropology that characterizes most people’s thinking about the human body, including many people inside the church. Second, it is impossible to build a theology of the body without reference to its creator, whose image it is made to reflect. It is true that “while the knowledge of God precedes the knowledge of ourselves, we cannot know who God is without reinterpreting what it means to be his creatures in light of that knowledge.“

So what should we think of the body? The entire Christian narrative affirms that the human body matters to God. At the moment of creation, God shaped men from the physical elements of this world. Anderson comments, “If ever there was a question about the goodness of the physical body, the incarnation of Jesus Christ definitively answered it.“ The resurrection of Christ puts an exclamation mark on that answer, and it emphasizes that our physical bodies are not prisons from which we will someday escape, but glorious temples to the God of all.

Good theology. Now what?

All well and good, but why does this matter? Anderson answers in his introduction:

If we do not cultivate a strong and thoughtful evangelical understanding of the body and enact practices that integrate this understanding into every part of our lives, then we will end up incorporating ideas and beliefs into our systems that are contrary to what we would consciously affirm.

We need this theology of the body, and we need to apply it carefully to the questions our culture poses. Earthen Vessels tackles the controversial topics with a remarkable amount of both forthrightness and thoughtfulness.

In his chapter-long discussion of tattoos, Anderson drills down to the real core of the modern movement as one of self-expression and identification, arguing that “Tattoos and body piercings may appear on the body’s surface, but they contain a depth of meaning that is worth exploring.“ Further, “Our bodies exist in communities, and we cannot fail to acknowledge this if we wish to live in them well. What we do to our skin matters as much as what we do within the skin.“

His insight suggests to me Anderson isn’t particularly happy with the uncritical acceptance of tattooing, piercing and bodily alteration—but, interestingly, he never comes right out and condemns the practices, either. He addresses the relevant Scriptures and finds the arguments typically made from them wanting (as do I). It seems he is more interested in sparking a deeper, more thoughtful conversation than he is in making pronouncements at this point. Frankly, given the relative paucity of good discussion on this topic, that’s an approach I can get behind.

A home run

Anderson’s discussion of sexuality is equally nuanced and helpful. If I had to pick only one chapter of Earthen Vessels for everyone to read, this would be it. Unlike most evangelical discussions of sex, Anderson gets beyond the simple affirmation that marital sex is good and looks to the point of our sexuality—and, just as importantly, to the glorious purpose of single celibacy. Paraphrasing Oliver Donovan, Anderson writes, “Marriage points to Genesis, singleness to Revelation.“ Continuing, he makes a point which deserves to be reproduced in full:

"The teaching that our wholeness depends upon sexual fulfillment lies behind many of the problems in evangelical teaching about sex. We implicitly convey to young people that sex is a need by marginalizing those who are single or cordoning them off in singles groups so that they hopefully will get married. Then we expect them to live some of the most sexually charged years of their lives without yielding to temptation. No wonder young people struggle to stay sexually pure: either sex is essential to their flourishing as humans or it isn’t. And if everyone who is married thinks it is, then young people will too—regardless of whatever else we tell them.

"I realize there are deep difficulties here, not the least of which are discerning the call of singleness and establishing structures and systems of support within the church for those called to it. But the absence of visible, lifetime singleness within our communities suggests that our affirmation of marriage and the goodness of sexual pleasure have overstepped their boundaries. We cannot affirm the goodness of the created order as Christians without also seeing how it has been caught up and renewed in Christ—which those who are called to celibacy bear witness to by their lives and their love. A church without singles has lost one of its main ways of warning against a sexual idolatry that has driven the whole world mad."

I cannot emphasize enough how essential this point is to the recovery of a healthy view of sexuality among evangelical circles. Sex has become a god—perhaps even the chief god of our culture. We cannot take sex lightly, but we must stop honoring it with highest place. Sex, too, will pass—heaven promises delights far greater and deeper and richer and fuller. Only when we reorient our perspective will we be able to rightly respond to the questions posed by singleness, marriage, and yes, homosexuality.

A quibble

The only points I found to quibble with in Earthen Vessels were in Anderson’s discussion of spiritual disciplines. Unsurprisingly, he takes a number of cues from Dallas Willard and Richard Foster, whose books have informed a generation on the spiritual disciplines. In many ways, that’s a good thing; both Foster and Willard take the body seriously, and they take the church’s legacy of spiritual disciplines seriously. However, both tend to overstate the case for some of the disciplines—and here, Anderson follows their lead.

In his discussion of silence and solitude, Anderson seemed to suggest that these are necessities for every Christian. Unfortunately, that’s not an assertion I can find grounds for in Scripture. That’s not to say they aren’t valuable; to the contrary, both silence and solitude can be immensely helpful for believers—perhaps especially in this media-saturated age. Thus, Anderson is right to point us to these time-honored disciplines; I just wish he’d been a little more nuanced in his advocacy—especially because the points he makes about these disciplines are really good ones.

Conclusion

Earthen Vessels is an important book for the evangelical community. The human body matters, and God has said a great deal about it. We would do well to pay attention. Matthew Anderson has done the evangelical community a service in writing a book that is thorough, well-written, and solidly grounded in the gospel and a health focus on God himself. Good as the book is, it isn’t comprehensive—it couldn’t be, and was never meant to be. It’s a conversation starter. I, for one, hope the conversation is a lively one.

[Review from Pillar on the Rock] ( )

The author takes on a challenging subject in Christianity: a proper understanding of the role of the body.

He does well at explaining the more holistic understanding of the Hebrews and the denial of the body rampant among the Greeks and the pervasive influence of the latter viewpoint in Christianity. He suggests that Evangelicals are guilty of inattention to the body more than outright rejection of it. Much of the book involves the role of the body as it relates to faith and many life/cultural issues: the idea of what the body is, how the body relates to the world, sexuality and the body, homosexuality, tattoos and the meaning of the body, the mortality of the body, spiritual disciplines, the body and one's individual faith, and the body as it relates to the collective and the assembly.

The author is firmly in the Protestant mainstream of theology, for better and for worse. He relies heavily on many of the recent works written about the body by others, but does well at attempting to keep a coherent line of thought going.

The book is intended to be a catalyst for thinking about Christianity, faith, and the body, and it succeeds in that. There are many assertions that should be challenged (especially in regards to Protestant theological issues, particularly the role of baptism and the doctrine of original sin), but many others to be welcomed (particularly in understanding the value of the body, the spiritual disciplines, and especially the communal aspects of the assembly).

Overall, an excellent book to consider if one is interested in theological anthropology. ( )

NCLA Review: Matthew Anderson believes that the human body gets the wrong kind of attention—on the rare occasions that it gets any attention at all in church circles. His first three chapters are devoted to an intensive study of a Biblical perspective on the body. Several chapters are given to how our bodies are “shaped” by our environment (the world), then by “grace and gratitude.” Others are on the body and pleasure, its mortality, and how the Internet has diminished the body’s role in life and worship. Twenty-one pages are given to footnotes. Anderson makes some very good points (and, in my opinion, some dubious ones also), but all are buried in detail (enough already!). I had to push myself to keep reading, and I’m not sure the deeply hidden nuggets were worth the effort of excavation. This book is directed to evangelicals, though others seriously interested in the topic might appreciate it also. Rating: 2 —DKW ( )

This is an important book in today's consumerist and individualistic Christian Church. Our bodies represent our presence in this world. "The Word became flesh," yet the church often focuses on the spiritual and leaves the body to be ruled by contemporary culture. Anderson's book brings up some very important and interesting problems Christians must address in regards to how we give our bodies, as well as our spirits, to the fact that we have been washed, sanctified, and justified in Christ. I thought the chapters on tattoos, sexuality, and mortality were especially profound. ( )