This Is My Body

SPRING 2 0 1 4 2

2 salt SPRING 2014

There is something subversive about publishing a physical magazine in the internet age. We are limiting ourselves in certain ways. We are limit-

ing the number of copies we can print and thus the number of readers we can have and the circulation our publication can have.

This self-limitation is intentional. Limitation is inseparable from embodiment. In fact, limitation might be the essence of embodiment. Every

physical body is limited by the laws of physics. Every physical body is limited by virtue of the fact that it takes up a particular amount of space and

exists at a particular place at a particular time. This is simply what it means to be an embodied being. As Christians we take seriously the mystery that

the infinite God became a finite embodied being at a particular time in a particular place in the body of Jesus Christ – finite and therefore mortal. So

we, too, as followers of Christ accept the limitations that embodiment places upon us. We are not ashamed to be fragile and finite bodies living in the

Pacific Beach neighborhood of San Diego in the Spring of 2014 and so we write this magazine for that particular time and place, hoping (but not ex-

pecting) that if we publish anything true it will find circulation beyond the limitations of our embodied context.

This is countercultural in a time when most people try to hide from this finitude and mortality. Our culture is obsessed with creating images

of perfection and purity through fashion, food, and fitness. In this issue of Salt, our contributors explore these ideas.

Jordan Mattox notes the way our habits of food consumption can serve our unconscious desires to be pure. We shop for local and organic

produce and feel good about ourselves, and perhaps rightly so. The problem is when we moralistically look down on those who shop differently. We

can easily create an unintentional social hierarchy that is based more on class than ecological sustainability. Mattox suggests that we might learn a

better way to eat from the Christian practice of Holy Communion.

Likewise Simon Mainwaring critiques our culture’s obsession with body image. It is popular these days to deconstruct the fashion industry’s

portrayal of the female body, in particular the use of Photoshop. We attempt to recover the “real” bodies of women, with all their diversity of shapes

and colors. But Mainwaring wants to go further. What about bodies that deviate more radically from the idealized and perfect body? What about dis-

abled bodies? Perhaps the crucified body of God presents an alternative to oppressive body images.

Quique Autrey examines our addiction to the disembodied interaction of social media. Research on the neurological foundation of empathy

suggests that our bodies are hard-wired for face-to-face interaction. The internet has many good uses, but it cannot replace embodied connections.

Interestingly, Autrey argues that God designed us to be embodied beings so that God might encounter us in the flesh. The Incarnation of God as the

body of Jesus Christ was, Autrey says, “the culmination of God’s desire to relate to us in an embodied form”.

Mark Mann picks up this same theme and takes it even further. The birth of Jesus was not the beginning of the Incarnation of God, but the

end of a long process that began with Creation. Drawing on ancient Christian writings, Mann suggests that Christ is the ordering principle at the heart

of the natural world. All the world is infused with God so that the earth itself is like God’s body. The particular person of Jesus Christ, then, was a

manifestation of an unfolding reality already present in the world, the culmination of an ongoing process of creation. And if creation is a process, then it

is not incompatible with evolution as so many people have believed.

From zombie bodies to disabled bodies, to cosmic bodies, this issue of Salt explores the many implications of human embodiment. Bodies

imply limitation, but we have certainly not even approached the limit of understanding the body. We hope you join the conversation on our website

salination.wordpress.com — after you have a real conversation with your embodied friends, of course.

J o h n M c A t e e r jmcateer@ashford.edu

Salination Desk notes from the editor

SPRING 2014 salt 3

s a l t

A quarterly journal exploring the taste of spirituality in Pacific Beach

Salination Desk: Notes from the Editor … p. 2 The Foodie Cult … p. 4 Jordan Mattox is a writer, activist, and theologian living in Pasadena, California.

The Soul Is The Salt … p. 7 Robert Herrick (1591-1674) was Vicar of the Church of St. George the Martyr in Dean Prior, England.

Finding Jesus in the Tanning Salon? … p. 8 The Rev. Dr. Simon Mainwaring is the Rector of St. Andrew’s by-the-Sea Episcopal Church.

Creation, Incarnation, and Evolution … p. 12 Dr. Mark H. Mann is the Director of the Wesleyan Center, Point Loma Press, and the Honors Program at Point Loma Nazarene University.

Can You Feel My Heart? Social Media, Empathy and Incarnation…p. 16 Quique Autrey is an assistant Pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Sugar Land, TX.

Zombie Jesus Loves You … p. 20 Dr. John McAteer is Assistant Professor of Liberal Arts at Ashford University.

Salt is a publication of St. Andrew’s by-the-Sea Episcopal Church Pacific Beach

www.standrewspb.org

Join the conversation, explore videos, submit your work for publication, and access other online-only content at salination.wordpress.com

Issue Number 2: Spring 2014

This Is My Body

Contents

4 salt SPRING 2014

By J o r d a n M a t t o x

The Foodie

Cult

Image modified from “Church” by D.F. Shapinsky (via flickr), under Creative Commons license

There is a sense when one s teps in to the produce sec-

t i on a t the Whole Foods tha t one has en te red a sac red

space . The de l i ca te ambiance c rea ted by the we l l - tuned

l i gh ts and the gen t le hum o f Wor ld mus ic makes the o r -

gan ic ka le g low in an a lmos t mys t i ca l l i gh t . L ike a

church se rv i ce , Who le Food ’s shoppers d ress fo r the

exper ience , donn ing b r igh t shades o f Yoga pan ts , o r -

gan ic s l i ppers made w i th bamboo reeds , o r any loca l l y -

made o rgan ic co t ton tee . As I wa lked th rough the

a i s les , I s low l y f i l l ed my basket w i th o rgan ic chard , l o -

ca l l y g rown bee ts , and humane ly ra i sed meat and I had

an a lmos t sp i r i t ua l reve la t i on : I was do ing someth ing

mean ing fu l . Food became more than jus t fue l , i t ga ined

a new s ign i f i cance . Dep le t ing my wa l le t f o r the ing red i -

en ts fo r my bee t sa lad d id no t even bo the r me because I

was do ing the r i gh t th ing – buy ing the r i gh t food .

Mos t re l i g ious t rad i t i ons con ta in a myth abou t

the wor ld . By “myth ” , I mean an exp lanato ry s to ry tha t

o rgan i zes rea l i t y . Exp lana to ry s to r ies a re necessary in

o rder fo r us to func t ion . Fo r i ns tance , b i l l i ons o f re l i -

g ious a t tend church , pay t i t hes ,

and t rave l a round the wor ld to

sha re the i r s to r ies o f sa l va t ion .

These s to r ies can be re l i g ious ,

cu l tu ra l , and po l i t i ca l . Our i deas

abou t food be long to one such

s to ry : eco logy . W i th esca la t i ng

c l ima te c r i s i s , g rowing wor ld

popu la t ion and inc reas ing food

shor tages , modern soc ie ty has

responded w i th a myth abou t the

human ro le i n the env i ronment . Th is myth runs some-

th ing l i ke th i s : t he re ex i s ted a ha rmon ious env i ronment ,

humans en tered and co r rup ted i t , and now we mus t re -

spond by re -en te r ing the w i ld and es tab l i sh ing a harmo-

n ious re la t i onsh ip w i th na tu re w i th new g reen too ls .

There a re a few key po in ts to h igh l i gh t . F i r s t , na tu re was

per fec t p lace . Humans cor rup ted i t and now f i x i t . Bu t

mos t impor tan t l y , t he way we f i x i t i s no t consuming

less , bu t consuming d i f fe ren t l y .

L i ke a l l exp lanato ry s to r ies , ce r ta in p rac t i ces

a re a t tached . One o f the cen t ra l p rac t i ces i s the loca -

vo re movement . We have become a l i ena ted f rom our

food supp ly th rough modern ag r ibus iness , wh ich con t r i b -

u tes to po l l u t i on and over consumpt ion . Consequen t l y ,

we need to c rea te a more ha rmon ious re la t i onsh ip w i th

the food supp ly because i t i s be t te r fo r the pe rson and

the env i ronment . As a resu l t , f a rmer ’ s marke ts and CSA

(commun i t y suppor ted ag r i cu l tu re ) movement ’ s have

f l ou r i shed. Everyone f rom Whole Foods to Wal -Mar t p ro -

v ides loca l l y p roduced food . Organ ic foods a re a l so

t rea ted as super io r food produc ts because p lan ts a re no t

co r rup ted by human p roduc ts l i ke pes t i c ides .

Th is food cu l tu re in many ways resemb les the

food pu r i t y l aws o f the Hebrew B ib le . In Lev i t i cus 11 -16 ,

ce r ta in foods were l abe led as “pu re ” and o the rs

“ impure ” . Pur i t y was no t necessar i l y a mora l s ta tus , bu t

a necessary cond i t i on to commune w i th God . P r ies ts ob -

se rved these laws c lose ly i n o rde r tha t they may en te r

the ten t o f mee t ing to g i ve sac r i f i ces to God . The an -

c ien t Is rae l i tes be l i eved tha t th i s was necessary be -

cause s in f rom the Garden o f Eden c rea ted a d iv i s ion

be tween human i t y and God .

Un fo r tunate l y , I t h ink we may have a lso c rea ted

a fo rm o f pur i t y cu l t . Th is i deo logy i s sub t l y a t work in

commerc ia l s tha t pa i r o rgan ic food w i th ph rases “ fee l

be t te r ” and “ tas te the d i f fe rence. ” Gene t i ca l l y mod i f i ed

foods a re seen as co r ros i ve to human hea l th and o rgan ic

foods a re p resen ted as a pure r a l te rna t i ve .

Th is i dea tha t we co r rup t food i s cu r i ous ly t i ed

to a deep-sea ted sense o f gu i l t . Many o f us a re ra i sed in

b l i nd p r i v i l ege . We con t inue l i ke

th i s un t i l ou r wor ldv iew i s sha t -

te red when we reach co l l ege and

take an e thn ic s tud ies o r env i -

ronmenta l j us t i ce c lasses . We

d iscover tha t ou r way o f l i f e has

consequences on o the r peop le .

In o the r words , we have ea ten

the f ru i t o f t he T ree o f the Knowl -

edge o f Good and Ev i l and we

can ’ t re tu rn to the Garden o f

Eden . When we leave co l l ege and face the soc ie ta l ex -

pec ta t i ons to rep roduce the env i ronment o f ou r p r i v i -

l eged ch i l dhood , we dea l w i th th i s gu i l t accumula ted in

co l l ege by buy ing o rgan ic and loca l l y g rown food . Buy ing

these foods then i s more abou t a ton ing fo r ou r p r i v i l eged

ch i l dhoods than he lp ing ma lnour i shed and impover ished

peop le a round us . Organ ic and loca l l y g rown food be -

comes our e l i x i r fo r wh i te p r i v i l ege .

In add i t i on to c rea t ing a sense o f pu r i t y and

gu i l t , t hese re l i g ious p rac t i ces c rea te soc io log ica l d iv i -

s ions . I f one be l i eves tha t h is o r he r food p rac t i ces a re

super io r to ano the r i nd iv idua l ’ s food e th i c , t hen the fo r -

mer w i l l deve lop a sense o f e th i ca l super io r i t y . I t i s one

th ing to buy a few vege tab les f rom a Farmer ’ s Marke t , i t

i s anothe r th ing to feed a fami l y w i th a modes t sa la ry on

o rgan ic , l oca l l y g rown foods . L i ke the Phar i sees who los t

s igh t o f t he po in t o f t he law and who expec ted the im-

pover i shed Jews no t to p ick g ra in f rom the f i e ld on the

Sabba th , e th i ca l f ood i s o f ten too expens ive fo r work ing -

c lass fo l ks , c rea t i ng an “e th i ca l ” d i v i s ion a long c lass

l i nes .

Foodie culture in many ways re-

sembles the purity laws of the

Hebrew Bible in which certain

foods were labeled as “pure”

and others “impure”.

►►►

SPRING 2014 salt 5

Ul t imate l y , we mus t recogn ize tha t ou r eco log ica l movement i s t i ed to the loss o f

mean ing tha t came wi th pos tmodern i t y . More than tha t , the ind i v idua l i z ing tendency o f wes t -

e rn cu l tu re has le f t peop le wan t ing fo r so l i da r i t y and ident i t y w i th a movement . W i th r i se o f

g loba l cap i ta l i sm and the t rans fo rmat ion o f the wor ld i n to a marke t , power has been d i -

vo rced f rom po l i t i cs (na t ion -s ta te ) , l eav ing modern peop le fee l i ng hope less (wh ich i s why, I

m igh t add , many o f us love the Ne t f l i x TV se r ies House o f Cards so much : f i na l l y someone

who can ge t sh i t done !) . Consequen t l y , eco logy has g i ven peop le the dua l sense o f be long-

ing and the ab i l i t y to a tone fo r ou r deep-sea ted gu i l t abou t the c l ima te c r i s i s . More than

tha t , i n a re la t i v i s t i c wor ld where mora l i t y has los t i n t r i ns i c mean ing , eco log ica l ea t ing a l -

l ows one to measure one e th i ca l p rog ress .

The New Tes tament reco rds tha t the Cor in th ian church was d i v ided because some

church members were ignoran t l y shaming o thers fo r ea t ing food sac r i f i ced to pagan gods . I t

i s l i ke l y tha t the church members who abs ta ined f rom these foods fe l t super io r to those who

con t inued to consume th i s une th i ca l l y

p roduced food . Pau l w ise ly i den t i f i ed

the danger o f food pu r i t y : i t c rea tes

d i v i s ions and d i sun i t y . Pau l exhor ts

church members to g i ve up pe rsona l

e th i cs tha t ge t i n the way o f chu rch

un i t y . I n o the r words , a l l f oods a re

c lean tha t work fo r the inco rpora t ion o f a l l peop le in to the body o f Chr is t . Th is i s poss ib le

because o f the hea l ing work o f Chr i s t , who saved humani t y and a l l owed us to l i ve f ree f rom

the bondage o f gu i l t and impur i t y . A l l humani t y can access God f ree ly w i thou t observ ing

food pu r i t y l aws o r r i t ua l s . Chr i s t i an t rad i t i on ins tead v iews food as the p lace o f un i t y : t he

Euchar i s t . I n the Euchar i s t , a l l Chr i s t i ans become un i ted th rough sav ing work o f Chr i s t by

consuming the b read and the w ine . Th is i s the message o f the Chr i s t i an gospe l and one

despera te l y needed in a wor ld r i f e w i th d i v i s ions and gu i l t . How th i s works ou t i n ou r g ro-

ce ry s to res and a round d inner tab les i s a d i f f i cu l t ques t i on , bu t a t the ve ry l eas t we need to

avo id c rea t ing d i v i s ions and ins tead seek un i t y .

6 salt SPRING 2014

■

◄◄◄

Buying local and organic foods is often more about

atoning for our privileged childhoods than helping

malnourished and impoverished people around us.

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

SPRING 2014 salt 7

The body’s salt the soul is; which when gone,

The flesh soon sucks in putrefaction.

The Soul iS the Salt

By R o b e r t H e r r i c k

Image modified from “Praying Skeleton” (via Wellcome Library), under Creative Commons license

8 salt SPRING 2014

The weekly religious practice of many

millions of Christians around the world centers

on symbols and beliefs about a body: that of

Jesus Christ. Holy Communion – the act of

sharing the “Body and Blood of Christ” - can

look to the uninitiated to be at best a rather

strange and at worst a disturbingly voyeuristic

ritual. Indeed, why would people gather, week

after week and in some cases day after day, to

remember with such focused gaze the blood

and guts of an executed leader who died over

two millennia ago? Surely by now there would

be other symbols and stories to gather

around? To the outsider, Christian religious

practice seemingly so focused on the body’s

death, strikes a dissonant chord with the

glossy “beauty” of the 21st century consumer

world.

For the believer, though, this central

ritual practice expresses profound truths. The

content of these truths can depend a lot on the

kind of believer in question. For Roman Catho-

lics, there is the sense that what is being par-

taken in the body and blood of Jesus is none

other than God himself. For some Protestants,

to recall the Lord’s Supper is to recall the

“price” that the body paid, or if not price, then

at least the effect that Jesus’s bodily death

has on the fundamental nature of reality. One

body – of Jesus – sets all other bodies, or at

least the bodies of believers, free. Free from

death, from sin, perhaps some might say even

from the vengeance of God himself. For such

believers, then, the weekly liturgy of Holy

Communion expresses a beauty beyond the

plastic veneer of postmodern society; it ex-

presses a mystery whose beauty laid the foun-

dations of the Earth.

Whatever the significance it may

have for people – those of faith and those not

– that the body of Jesus dominates the land-

scape of religious belief and practice is hard to

contest. The cross that killed his body literally

shapes the presence of church buildings

across the continents of the globe. The people

of the Christian faith, the Church, are often

referred to as “the Body of Christ”. And Je-

sus’s physical form, in art, in word, and in

symbolic action pervades practically every

aspect of Christianity’s public life.

It is something of a profound irony

then that Christian theology – of academic,

ecclesial, and on-the-street sorts – has pre-

dominantly through its history talked about the

Christian life as if it were a largely disembod-

ied existence. Whilst so much attention is

given to the embodied nature of the Christ,

followers of that Christ have often been

thought of as if they were floating heads with

invisible souls attached, but less so as if they

had legs, and arms, and torsos. It is not that

Christian theology became in the wake of the

Gnosticism of the first few centuries after Je-

sus’s death a belief system that denied the

reality of the bodylines of Christ, it is more that

our bodies have been treated as little more

than carrying devices for the important part,

the head where decisions about the signifi-

cance of Jesus’s body might be made. More

recently, since the Enlightenment and the rise

of scientific reasoning, what we think about

questions of Christian theology has practically

eviscerated the significance of how we experi-

ence the life of faith as embodied persons.

Faith became an act of the will more than

Finding Jesus in the Tanning Salon?

By S i m o n M a i n w a r i n g

SPRING 2014 salt 9

anything else.

Our society in this part of the world

in particular – southern California – is anything

but disembodied. In my own piece of southern

California – Pacific Beach, San Diego – where

tanning salons and sun-bathing, surfing, skat-

ing, and schmooze-friendly weather mean that

summer, and its slow-cooking bodies, never

comes to an end, the body beautiful has high

social capital. To be sure, this is not the mysti-

cal Catholic’s body of the crucified Savior, this

is the intentionally non-mysterious, “now in

flesh appearing” body, turned bronze and on

display. The body here is no doubt a temple:

adorned with tattoos, tanned to unnatural

perfection, always fit, always young, never too

deviant from the celebration of the supposed

ideal shape for a species reveling in a bound-

less amount of “time-off” for good (and bad)

behavior. Yet, not only does the body sur-

round us, it also sells, very well. Billboards

tower giant bodies of desire above our heads

as our own bodies are fed and watered in bars

and restaurants, clothed by a seemingly un-

ending flow of textile and design, and then

treated for the shock of the aftermath in urgent

care or at the end of it all in retirement homes,

conveniently hidden away from the beach-

front boardwalk movers and shakers lest the

terrible truth out that we all are bodies that

decay in the end.

So, where do we go from here if we

have any curiosity about the claims of the

Christian life and faith that seeks to take both,

those claims and the world seriously? In this

essay, I would like to propose that we might

make some steps beyond the impasse of a

disembodied faith and a body-saturated con-

sumer life, first, by exploring the conse-

quences of the treatment of the body in both

the Church and the consumer world and sec-

ond, by pondering over what sort of response

we might muster to such consequences.

Starting with the Church, on the

surface of things, a disembodied faith appears

to be harmless enough. Indeed, if the Chris-

tian faith encourages its adherents to share

the love of God found in the life of faith then its

seeming inattention to the embodied nature of

being human is less significant. If Christians

are able to share with others the life-saving

possibility of God in their lives then surely the

hope is that the whole nature of those per-

sons’ lives – bodies and all – will be changed

for the better. It is “good news” that Christians

are encouraged to spread, after all.

However, such a disembodied faith

is always in danger of being too concerned

with private piety for the sake of the eternal

and not enough with the state of life in the

world today. Critiques of this privatized piety

version of Christianity, where the salvation of

the individual fits seamlessly into the satisfac-

tion model of the private consumer global

market, have been heard across the world

such as in the Liberation Theology movement

which began in Latin America in the 1970’s.

This constellation of voices argued for an end

to a privatized, disembodied Christianity and

for the Church to take up the struggle of its

oppressed millions of faithful siding with what

Gustavo Gutierrez has called “God’s preferen-

tial option of the poor” (A Theology of Libera-

tion, p. 18). Yet, Liberation paradigm’s own

interpretative preferential option for biblical

motifs that lauded the liberator God of the

Exodus but neglected to mention that same

God’s command to annihilate the ►►►

Followers of Christ have often been thought of as if they were floating heads with invisible souls attached, but less so as if they had legs, and arms, and torsos.

10 salt SPRTNG 20114

Image courtesy of Wellcome Library under Creative Commons license

people already in the land of prom-

ise, has now been critiqued by Postcolonial

Theory, which entered the scene of biblical

interpretation, ready to take God, Jesus, and

our fantasies of divinely-led liberation to the

poststructuralist cleaners. For the postcolonial

Christian thinker, “God is good” is as much a

phrase to be suspected as it is to be cele-

brated, as voices from the margins are

brought to the fore to ask

new questions not only of a

disembodied faith but

equally of its tall tales of

liberation. Equally, the

Church as a force for

spreading good news has been critiqued such

that good news, even when libratory in content

cannot hope to take seriously the struggles of

embodied existence in a “colonized” world

until it becomes critically aware of the power

differentials that pervade such a world and

disempower millions of its citizens.

It is here, with the question of dis-

empowerment that I chose to explore the myr-

iad of ways that consumer society’s longing for

the ideal body has consequences for human

flourishing in the form of exclusion, both inter-

personal and societal. The two categories of

exclusion that I would like briefly to point to are

exclusions where people are marked out for

difference as “disabled” and as “mentally ill”.

The disabled body offers a permanent dis-

claimer in the pursuit of the ideal body. For

those who face disability because of accident

or injury, the disabled body offers a cautionary

tale to those who would place too much value

in the notion of physical self-improvement. For

those born with disability, the question posed

for consumer society’s sense of the ideal body

is how it might integrate those bodies that can

never reach that ideal? Too often, the lived out

answer to that question is that disabled per-

sons face systemic and wide-ranging forms of

exclusion in their daily lives, from access to

public and private spaces, to discrimination in

employment practices, struggles to integrate

into social circles, and access to positions of

power from branches of government to the

boardrooms of America.

Similar critiques can be made of the

level of exclusion that people who visibly ex-

perience mental illness suffer. For many, men-

tal illness can often remain hidden with the

outward presentation of the body belying the

fact that beneath the surface chaos or black-

ness or both may reign. Yet for those whose

particular illnesses, or labels, or chronicity

precludes them from the dignity of privacy, it is

well documented how people who experience

poor mental health face multiple levels of ex-

clusion in society, yet perhaps in more subtle

ways. For instance, when surveyed, more than

half of respondents in a U.S. survey said they

would be unwilling to spend an evening social-

izing with, work next to, or have a family mem-

ber marry a person “with mental illness”.

Both of these instances of exclusion

can be argued to be a function, at least in part,

of how we perceive normalcy in society and

how we establish normalcy in relation to our

fantasies of perfection. The body beautiful has

no room for irreconcilable differences. Disabil-

ity and chronic mental illness thus cannot be

embraced within such a perfection-seeking

paradigm, they must only be shunned or if not

reduced, as Michel Foucault put it, to the

sound of their disability or illness (Madness

and Civilization, p. 237-8). Yet, as the late

theologian much-celebrated for her critical

work on theology and disability, Nancy Ei-

esland, argues, the encounter with disability –

and one might add mental illness – is not truly

the recognition of “the other” but the recogni-

tion of difference and sameness at the same

time. Embodiment, as Eiesland argues, is a

profoundly ambiguous reality (The Disabled

God, p. 95). Thus, the disabled and mentally

anguished body subverts the myth of the ideal

body with its perfect bodily and mental func-

tion. In the presence of the other we recognize

ourselves and a new, more nuanced view of

selfhood emerges. Postcolonial thinkers call

this view of the individual that has somehow

been altered by the irreducible particularity of

the other as the exercise of “hybridity” where a

trace of the other’s resistance to a hegemonic

picture of normalcy is left on the person en-

countering it. In other words, the inherent

difference that exists between us and any

other human being changes us.

It is this resistance to the myth of the

ideal in relation to the body that the life of the

Christian faith has an opportunity to step out of

its disembodied past. To see the lived practice

of Christianity as a postcolonial form of resis-

tance to totalizing conceptions of being human

that exclude the very diversity and difference

that makes humanity distinctly

human in the first place is to see

a faith that has a chance to take

seriously the impact of exclusion-

ary power in society. Through

such a postcolonial paradigm,

Christianity ceases to be the hapless pastime

of the religiously inclined but the social move-

ment that to borrow German theologian Paul

Tillich’s phrase has the mandate to shake the

foundations of the world we live in.

So, perhaps we might find Jesus at

the tanning salon after all. Not, though, getting

ready for a night out with the girls, but turning

the tanning beds over one by one, declaring to

the unsuspecting twenty-something clients of

consumerism’s temples of self-adoration that

they will make his Father’s house, in all six

billion or so of its forms, a den of inequity no

more.

◄◄◄

■

SPRING 2014 salt 11

The disabled and mentally anguished body subverts the myth of the ideal body with its perfect bodily and mental function.

These famous words from the prologue to the Gospel of John (the

fourth book of the Christian New Testament) have become an ever-

increasing source for theological reflection for me regarding the ways in

which I have come to understand how God relates to the universe as its

creator. Indeed, they powerfully spell out for us what theologians call the

'doctrine of the incarnation,' which Christians celebrate each Christmas.

Jesus Christ, the very Word and Son of God, became flesh and lived

among us.

However, I think that most people--including most Christians--do

not often understand the full implication of this biblical affirmation. I must

confess that, in the past, I often thought of Christ’s flesh as nothing more

than a vehicle for his divine life in the world, like clothes that he put on so

that he might, in resembling us, communicate to and be understood by us.

Likewise, I thought of Christ’s' flesh as simply something that Christ had to

“take on” so that he could die on the cross and fulfill his purpose for being

born. And I am not the only one who has thought this way. Last Christmas,

I heard a pastor (not mine!) misquote John 1:14 in exactly that way: “The

Word,” he proclaimed to the congregation, “took on' flesh.” The indication

here is that Christ's flesh and humanity were somehow secondary to who

Christ really was—the spiritual, fully divine Son of God.

Historians call the belief that Christ was essentially a divine

being merely dwelling in a human body Appolinarianism, after the fourth

century bishop (Appolinarius) who founded this teaching. Appolinarius’

view was declared heretical by the Council of Chalcedon in 381 because

such a view fails to take into account the full implication of John's pro-

logue—namely that “the Word became flesh and lived among us.” Instead,

the early Church affirmed that in the one person, Jesus Christ, there co-

existed two natures: one fully divine and one fully human. To view the

nature of Christ as solely divine, or rather to dismiss Christ's humanity as

a mere vehicle for spiritual salvation, is to miss the rich theological value

of John 1. The historical Church saw the danger of missing out on what

Christ's humanity has to offer us, but as my previous misconceptions and

that pastor's sermon indicate, some in the modern Church still suffer from

a lack of understanding the value of Christ's humanity.

So, what if we were to take the gospel writer and the early

Christian teachings regarding the incarnation of Christ seriously, espe-

cially in light of what John's gospel has to say about the role of Christ (“the

Word” in the creation of the universe?

First, we are left with a very different view of God's relation to

creation than is prevalent among many, if not most, Christians today. The

popular view is that creation is just a bunch of material stuff that, while

initially created 'good' by God (as stated in Genesis 1), is irreparably dam-

aged and awaiting its final destruction by God with the second coming of

Christ. But what John 1 points to is a universe alive with the presence of

the Word of God, Christ himself. I am not suggesting that human broken-

ness is not a real problem in our world today, but instead that sin has not

eradicated God's presence, and particularly God's presence in Christ.

Indeed, as the New Testament letter to the Colossians (1:16-17) boldly

declares, not only in the beginning was it true that “all things have been

created through him and for him" but in the present age "in him all things

hold together.” It is not surprising, then, that the psalmist can claim that

the heavens themselves “declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1), or that

the apostle Paul can say that “since the creation of the world his invisible

attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made,

even his eternal power and Godhead” (Rom. 1:20). God's presence in

Christ pervades all creation and gives the universe the structure and order

that scientists seek to uncover, even if nonreligious scientists would not

see what they study as the handiwork of God.

Second, it is perhaps not so surprising, then, that God, in Christ,

might become flesh—that is, become incarnate as physical, material

‘stuff.’ From the very beginning of creation, declares the Gospel of John,

Christ has been intimately involved in that very stuff, as the one through

whom it was created and in whom it all holds together. In this sense, the

birth of Jesus 2000 years ago was essentially the becoming ►►►

12 salt SPRING 2014

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word

was with God, and the Word was God.... All

things came into being through him, and with-

out him not one thing came into being. What has

come into being in him was life.... And the Word

became flesh and lived among us, and we have

seen his glory..."

Creation, Incarnation,

By M a r k M a n n

SPRING 2014 salt 13

Evolution and

particular of what was already universally true—that is, the Word of God universally present in all of

creation became fully evident in one little bit of creation—the person of Jesus of Nazareth, born of the virgin

Mary—at a particular place and time. This is not to equate Jesus with the rest of creation or to fall into the trap

of pantheism wherein there is ultimately no distinction or difference between God and creation. Instead, it is to

say that the same God who reveals himself in and through all of creation is revealed especially and decisively

in the person of Jesus Christ.

Early Christian theologians, such as Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and Augustine of Hippo,

clarified this point by distinguishing between the Word or (in Greek, the language of the New Testament) Lo-

gos of God and what they called the logoi spermatikoi—the “seeds” of the Word. In this they were drawing

upon the popular philosophies of their time (especially Platonism and Stoicism), which identified the Logos as

the rational ordering principle through which the Demiurge (the Greco-Roman philosophical term for 'God')

gave being and order to the physical world. But theologians like Justin, Clement and Augustine had good

reason for christening these ideas and making use of them for Christian purposes in explaining the incarnation

and God's relationship to creation. Not only does John's gospel identify Christ with the Logos, but so did many

passages in Genesis. Take, for instance, Genesis 1 in which God “speaks” the world into being, giving it be-

ing, order, goodness, and beauty. The same goes for humans: we are

'spoken' into being by God's “words” in God's very image (Gen. 1:26).

What John, Justin, Clement, and Augustine all sought to convey in

identifying God's creative work in and through the Word of God is ex-

actly what Genesis points to: all of creation reveals in part the wisdom,

truth, and goodness of God, which Christians understand became fully

manifest in the person and life of Jesus Christ.

All of this, I think, points to some fruitful ways that we might

resolve Christian faith with contemporary science and even begin to

think about the evolutionary process as a manifestation of God's crea-

tive work in the world. First, science, properly understood, is the disci-

plined study of the physical world through observation and testing. If, as the Bible declares, the world is held

together by and expressive of the Word of God, science provides an important way for us to understand God's

handiwork. In other words, Christians should not fear science or its findings, even when it would seem that

scientific findings might be in conflict with Scripture. Indeed, there is only one Word of God—Jesus Christ—

who has been made known to us in complementary, albeit different, ways in both creation and Scripture (what

some, like Galileo, have called the “Two Books” of God). So, if they would seem to be in conflict, it is because

we are “reading” one of them incorrectly. It's entirely possible at times that science (our tool for reading God's

Word in creation) might need to be corrected (and, is not science continually being corrected?), while it might

also be that our reading of Scripture might need to be corrected. The latter was the case in Galileo's time,

when Christians incorrectly believed that Scripture necessarily affirmed that the earth was the center of the

universe. I believe that this is the case with evolution—that the time has come for Christians to come to see

that their opposition to evolutionary theory is based upon an incorrect reading of Scripture.

More to the point, I think that re-claiming a traditional, scriptural understanding of the creative work

of God in the Logos might just help Christianity to come to terms with evolutionary theory. Consider, for a

moment, what we might mean when speaking of Jesus Christ as the Word of God. What exactly is a “word”?

◄◄◄

14 salt SPRING 2014

God's presence in Christ pervades all creation and

gives the universe the structure and order that scien-tists seek to un-

cover.

In its most basic sense, a word is a package of information, a collection of letters or sound waves that commu-

nicates something meaningful, giving order to thought and communication. According to Christian faith, God's

Word, Jesus Christ, reveals God's wisdom and truth within the materiality of the created order. Indeed, the

Word is—as we have seen both the Gospel of John and the letter to the Colossians to announce—the princi-

ple, the information, the conveyed meaning that gives material creation its very order and life. In this sense, it

is not unlike universal physical laws that give the universe its essential order and function. Or, in a biological

sense, it is not unlike DNA--small but incredibly complex and rich packages of information that give order and

life to everything from bacteria to trees to tigers to human beings (including Jesus himself, since Christians

affirm that he was fully human!).

What I wonder, then, is whether we might think of DNA as a sort of expression of the Word (or Lo-

gos) of God. Or perhaps, better, “seeds of the Logos” that are the way in which God has fashioned life to be

what it has become. If there is some truth to this, what DNA provides for us is a way to envision—as John 1

clearly indicates—how all things were brought into being by and through God's Word--DNA part of the way

that God has “spoken” biological life into existence. This would suggest that the entire process of evolutionary

development—in which DNA obviously plays a pivotal role—has been the means by which God has created

all biological life as we know it. It would also suggest that the

ultimate purpose of creation is, through evolution, the eventual

emergence (or, what Christians call the “self-revelation”) of God

in the human person Jesus Christ.

Please understand that these reflections are essentially specu-

lative. I do not mean to claim that this is the way that anyone--

Christians or non-Christians--must understand the doctrine of

the incarnation in relationship to evolutionary theory. Neverthe-

less, what I think is clear is that evolutionary theory not only can

be demonstrated to be commensurate with Scripture, but can

also give us deeper insight to what Scripture has to say about

how God is at work within creation. I think it can also help us to begin to get our minds around the mystery of

the incarnation. Many persons--both Christians and non-Christians alike--have struggled to understand how

the infinite Creator of the entire universe can be said to be manifest in the particular and finite human being,

Jesus Christ. (This is often referred to as the “scandal of particularity” within theological circles.) But, what I

am suggesting is that, if we take John 1 and Colossians 1 at face value, the Word of God is in some sense is

universally present--that is, everywhere and in everything--as the ordering principle through which God cre-

ated the universe and by which God holds all things together. This being the case, it seems not so strange

that God might become fully manifest somewhere in creation since God is already there, as it were, working to

achieve divine ends. That is what Christians believe about Jesus Christ--that he was the true manifestation of

the Creator in creation, the very Word of God made flesh. The first Christians affirmed this because they be-

lieved that in the person, life, and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth they had in fact experienced the very per-

son, love, and Word of God.

Perhaps they were wrong, but what if they were right? ■

SPRING 2014 salt 15

The ultimate purpose of creation is, through evolution, the eventual emergence (or, what Christians call the “self-revelation”) of God in the human per-son Jesus Christ.

16 salt WINTER 2013-14

Social Media, Empathy and the Incarnation

Can You Feel M y H e a rt ?

WINTER 2013-14 salt 17

While there is nothing inherently problematic with social media, it

raises some important questions about the impact of technology on our

society. In providing us greater access to relationships around the world,

does Facebook weaken our relational bonds with friends and neighbors

across the street? By circumscribing communication to technological

channels, are Twitter and Instagram diminishing our capacity to experi-

ence and express emotions that are essential for human flourishing?

Social media is a double-edged sword with the potential to

simultaneously connect and alienate us from others. It can connect us

by awakening “dormant” relationships from the past and helping us keep

in touch with friends and relatives living in other parts of the world. But it

can also alienate us by making it increasingly difficult to connect with

other humans at a deep emotional and spiritual level. Social media is a

possible threat to the cultivation of empathy in our day-to-day relation-

ships.

Dr. William Axinn and a team of sociologists at the Population

Studies Center found that American college students are far less empa-

thetic than they were in the last thirty years. A meta-analysis of 72 differ-

ent studies of students conducted between 1979 and 2009 found that

40% fewer agreed with the following statements than counterparts of 20

to 30 years ago, “I sometimes try to understand my friends better by

imagining how things look from their perspective” and “I often have ten-

der, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.”

According to Sara Konrath, a researcher at the University of

Michigan Institute for Social Research, the biggest drop in empathy oc-

curred after the year 2000. Besides being characterized as “Generation

Me”, a self-centered, narcissistic and individualistic generation, college

students today are exposed to a wide gamut of technological stimuli.

Reflecting on the impact of social media, one of Konrath’s research as-

sistants surmises, “the ease of having 'friends' online might make people

more likely to just tune out when they don't feel like responding to others'

problems, a behavior that could carry over offline.”

Clearly experts are not ready to admit that we’ve lost the ca-

pacity for empathy altogether. And no one has the reason why empathy

is on the decline. What seems to be a consensus is that American cul-

ture is facing an empathy deficit. Although there are many reasons for

this, an increase in social media consumption seems to be one of the

primary factors.

According to the Pew Research Center, 73% of adults in the

United States are social network users. Americans aged 18-24 frequent

social networking sites an average of 3.2 hours a day. Although the

majority of online adults use Facebook (71%), sites like Instagram (17%)

and Pinterest (21%) are also heavily trafficked. The ubiquity of smart

phones and tablets has made access to social networking easier than

ever.

My wife refers to my iPhone as the “iIdol.” I spend far too

much time checking my Facebook news feed and Twitter updates. Al-

though I often justify my time on social media as a form of “connecting”

with people (I’m a pastor and this is supposed to be a part of my job

description), the reality is that social media often disconnects me from

real humans and decreases my ability to empathize. The more time I

spend engaging social media, the more difficult it is to be genuinely pre-

sent to the living relationships right in front of me.

While social media provides significant benefits, it’s important

for us to consider the shadow side of this technology. If we are not care-

ful, these forms of connection can make us less empathetic and thus

less human.

Empathy is the capacity to indwell the emotional world of an-

other person. It is one of the building blocks of healthy human interac-

tion. Our tendency to care and share in others’ emotional experiences is

an important facet that differentiates us from other animals. The French

philosopher René Descartes once said, “I think therefore I am.” A better

maxim might be “I empathize therefore I am.”

In the 1980s and 1990s, Giacomo Rizzolatti and a team of

neurophysiologists studied the neurological underpinnings of macaque

monkey hand and mouth actions. The researchers noticed that often the

same neurons would “fire” when a monkey performed a certain action

and when the monkey watched another monkey perform the same ac-

tion. “Mirror neurons” were thus discovered.

►►►

By Q u i q u e A u t r e y

“Technology is the knack of so arranging the

world that we don't have to experience it.”

- Max Frisch

18 salt SPRING 2014

V.S. Ramachandran, distinguished professor of neuroscience

at UC San Diego, claims that mirror neurons are the neurological foun-

dation of human empathy. When my four-year-old son James pokes my

foot with a needle, my insular cortex will fire cells and I’ll experience a

painful sensation. What’s fascinating about our brain is that some of the

neurons that fired when we are poked in the foot will also fire when we

watch another person getting poked in the foot. According to

Ramachandran,

If I really and truly empathize with your pain, I need to experi-ence it myself. That’s what the mirror neurons are doing, allowing me to empathize with your pain—saying, in effect, that person is experiencing the same agony and excruciating pain as you would if somebody were to poke you with a nee-dle directly. That’s the basis of all empathy.

A growing scientific perspective argues that human relation-

ships cannot be severed from the interpenetration of minds. Unlike other

animals, we survive by using our minds to read the minds of others. Our

minds enable us to bind our lives with others and to use our collective

brainpower to flourish. As strange as it sounds, there really isn’t such a

thing as a completely independent human mind. Our brains are social

organisms that work best when they are in proximate relationship.

This neurobiological research reveals that physical contact is

essential to the cultivation of empathy. Theologian Andrew Root sees

mirror neurons as the embodied location of the spiritual reality of empa-

thy. Mirror neurons are one of the significant neurological cords that

enable the binding of human minds. Without mirror neurons firing it’s

difficult for the human mind to connect to another mind. And this leads to

a deficit in empathy.

Humans are fundamentally

embodied spirits designed

for physical empathic en-

counters with one another.

And also with God.

◄◄◄ The inherently disembodied

nature of Facebook and

Twitter makes it difficult to

strengthen our empathic

consciousness.

SPRING 2014 salt 19

Is it possible that the rapid decline in empathy in our culture is

tethered to a growing dependence on social media? The inherently dis-

embodied nature of Facebook and Twitter makes it difficult to strengthen

our empathic consciousness.

The solution is not to give up on social media altogether. The

way forward is by remembering who we are as humans and how we are

hard-wired to connect with others. Humans are fundamentally embodied

spirits designed for physical empathic encounters with one another. And

also with God.

The incarnation points to the reality that God chose not to

remain disembodied Spirit but rather entered into human flesh. St. John

tells us that, “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among

us” (John 1:14). As an enfleshed God with a human mind, Jesus was

able to connect with other minds and express deep empathy. A retrieval

of this “incarnational” spirituality can be a fecund resource for saving our

humanity in the face of increasing technological challenges.

According to the Gospel writers, Jesus exuded empathy and

compassion throughout his earthly ministry (Mark 6:34). He was in-

tensely present to everyone he encountered. Practical theologian Neil

Pembroke characterizes Jesus’ empathy as his capacious availability.

It’s not just that Jesus was available for a conversation; he attached

himself to the real needs and desires of those he interacted with.

In the biblical lexicon, compassion is the closest emotion one

finds to empathy. Biblical scholar Xavier Léon-Dufour highlights that

compassion is a primal attachment to another person. Compassion has

its seat in the womb and is associated with the maternal care of a nurs-

ing child. It is not simply an emotion, but a willingness to stand up and

relieve the suffering of another human.

In the letter to the Philippians, St. Paul encourages the con-

gregation by reminding them of his deep compassion for them, “God can

testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Je-

sus” (Philippians 1:8). The word he uses is one that connotes the whole

person being grasped and moved by another. The empathy that Paul

expresses toward this congregation is made possible through the empa-

thy that Jesus has expressed toward Paul. In Christ, God has chosen to

become one of us so that he can relate to us empathically. This requires

that God adopt a human mind and body like ours.

There is a long tradition in Christianity that understands God’s

assumption of a human nature as motivated primarily to address the

reality of sin. Although this is one significant reason why God became

incarnate, it’s not the only one. According to Edwin Chr. Van Driel, the

epitome of human flourishing is deep communion with God. Although

spiritual communion is important, Van Driel presses us to consider that

“to fully enjoy God means that we should be able to hear him, see him,

touch him, embrace him. However, this can only take place if God

makes Godself present in bodily form.” God’s enfleshment is not simply

a response to sin, but the culmination of God’s desire to relate to us in

an embodied form.

The incarnation is a cosmic billboard signaling us toward the

truth that bodily empathic connection is the way that God has designed

us to relate. This is true now, and in the future when we will continue

experiencing deep embodied communion with humanity and the incar-

nate Jesus in the new heavens and the new earth (Revelation 21-22). If

the telos (end goal) of humanity is embodied empathic connection, we

lose some of what it means to be human if our relationships are primarily

formed in disembodied venues like social media sites.

The British metalcore band, Bring Me The Horizon, captures

the questions that many of us are asking these days:

Can you hear the silence?

Can you see the dark?

Can you fix the broken?

Can you feel… can you feel my heart?

To “feel” someone’s heart is to relate to them with empathic connection.

It’s the capacity to interpenetrate someone’s mind and enter their emo-

tional world. With chronic shame and loneliness on the rise, we need

empathy more than ever as a culture.

I have 1,211 friends on Facebook. Some of these individuals

I’ve never met in person. Others I’ve met once or twice but have not

engaged them in any meaningful connection. I might send them the

occasional superficial message or “like” a picture on their timeline, but

what is sorely lacking in our “relationship” is the cultivation of empathy.

There’s a correlation between our cultural empathy deficit and our in-

crease in social media consumption. I’m not saying this is the only rea-

son for the decline in empathy as a nation. But it’s a significant one.

Social media makes it far too easy to relate to others in ways that don’t

require the embodied empathic connections that we are hard-wired for

as creatures.

We might experience momentary sadness over the suffering

of a friend on Facebook or feel sympathy over the misfortune of some-

one we’re following on Twitter. There’s some value to this. However,

we’re not able to express the empathy that’s a prerequisite for deep

human flourishing over social media. Neurologically, our brains can’t

connect (through mirror neurons) over the Internet the same way they

can in face-to-face encounters. The type of relationship that God de-

signed us for, the kind that he himself experienced and made possible

through the incarnation, is diminished by an over exposure to social

media.

While social media (and technology in general) are indispen-

sable components of the modern world, I wonder how our social lives

might be enhanced if we unplugged from our laptops and smartphones

more often and plugged in more frequently into each other’s emotional

world through embodied encounters?

■

20 salt SPRING 2014

By J o h n M c A t e e r

Image courtesy of Hipkitten (via flickr), Creative Commons license

“Many people have been

celebrating Zombie Jesus Day for

years without even realizing it,”

argues the authors of the website

www.zomb ie j esus day .c om.

“Honestly, let’s face a few facts:

(1) Everything that rises from the

dead is a zombie; (2) Easter is

touted as the celebration of the

death and resurrection of Jesus

Christ; (3) So let’s call a spade a

spade, eat lots of chocolate, and

celebrate Zombie Jesus Day.”

QED?

I realize this is a joke –

and a funny one at that. There is

a good critique of organized relig-

ion here. Jesus must be a zom-

bie, because he encourages

zombie-like behavior in his fol-

lowers. Not only does Christian-

ity teach that we must “eat the

flesh” and “drink the blood” of

Jesus (John 6:53), but many

followers of Christ could easily be

mistaken for brain-dead hoards.

Nevertheless, the Zom-

bie Jesus Meme fails to under-

stand the nature of Christ’s resur-

rection and the traditional Chris-

tian understanding of the body.

This is not to blame those who

perpetuate the meme, however –

most Christians don’t understand

the difference between zombies

and resurrected bodies, either.

What’s at issue here is whether

human bodies have any inherent

worth. Are we simply walking

“meat”? The fact that Jesus –

whom Christians believe to be

God in the flesh – came back to

life and rose bodily into heaven

grants to human embodiment

unprecedented dignity, even

holiness. Not only is human

dignity grounded in the fact that

we are made “in the image of

God” (Genesis 9:6), but the

Apostle Paul went so far as to

describe the human body as “a

temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor.

6:19). This picture of the human

body has been thought to imply

an inviolable sanctity of embod-

ied human life.

On the other hand, the

very idea of zombies, as por-

trayed in popular culture, implies

a kind of mind-body dualism in

which a dead body is just a piece

of rotting flesh with no moral

significance. We can – and do –

treat zombies however we want,

because they’re dead. Yet de-

spite the recurring temptation to

conceive of the human person

dualistically, the mainstream of

Christianity has always affirmed a

holistic picture of body and spirit

intimately united. In contrast to

the Platonic philosophers of their

day who saw the body as a

“prison” for the soul, with which

God would never dirty himself

with, the Early Church insisted on

the fundamental fact that God

became human flesh in the birth

of Jesus Christ. The Incarnation

of God as a human body thus

unites body and spirit and li-

censes us to see all human bod-

ies as more than mere shells for

our allegedly “true” self. For

Christians, human beings in

some sense are their bodies, and

human bodies can never be

treated simply as meat.

This traditional Chris-

tian view of the body is rarely

taken seriously in zombie mov-

ies. The claim that a zombie is

no longer the person he or she

was is such a cliché of the genre

that there is a 2011 children’s

picture book parody by Matt

Mogk called That’s Not Your

Mommy Anymore. The implica-

tion is that anyone who continues

to see the zombie as their dead

loved one will not survive. Con-

sider the TV series The Walking

Dead. At the end of the first

season, the survivors of the zom-

bie apocalypse journey to the

Centers for Disease Control in

Atlanta. There they meet scien-

tist Edwin Jenner who asserts

that at death “everything you ever

were or ever will be [is]

gone” (1.6). When the zombie is

reanimated “the human part” –

“the you part” as Jenner later

calls it – “doesn’t come back.”

The zombie is “just a shell driven

by mindless instinct”. This is the

standard account of zombies

across popular culture, and it is

supposed to justify any sort of

violence we deem necessary for

survival. If the zombie is mere

meat, then it deserves no moral

consideration.

Interestingly the first

two seasons of The Walking

Dead seem to suggest a compet-

ing view of zombie bodies, even

explicitly connecting this alterna-

tive view to Christianity through

the character Hershel. From the

start of the series characters

shoot zombies in a way that can

only be called “euthanasia”.

They “kill”(or re-kill) zombies in a

way that is respectful of them as

human bodies with inherent dig-

nity, though the series as a whole

has followed a trajectory away

from respect for the body.

For example, in a

touching scene in the pilot epi-

sode (“Days Gone Bye”) the main

character Rick actually seeks out

a legless zombie woman he had

seen earlier. The image of the

legless zombie has real pathos,

since she cannot move and is

condemned for eternity to lay by

the side of the road. There is an

echo of the Good Samaritan

here. Rick has compassion on

her and euthanizes her, saying

“I’m sorry this happened to

you” (1.1). In the same episode,

Rick also shoots another zombie,

saying “I can’t leave him like

this”. His actions appear violent

insofar as he is destroying a

human body, but Rick’s practice

of euthanizing zombies is argua-

bly consistent with Christian re-

spect for the dignity of human

bodies insofar as, by killing the

zombie, he is returning the dead

body to its natural state and al-

lowing the natural physical proc-

ess of decomposition to take

place.

There are other rele-

vant scenes in the first season of

The Walking Dead. In the sec-

ond episode (“Guts”) Rick gives

an impromptu memorial service

for a dead person, Wayne,

whose body the survivors are

forced to dismember. “He used

to be like us. Worrying about

bills or the rent or the Super

Bowl,” says Rick. “If I ever find

my family, I’m gonna tell them

about Wayne”(1.2). In the fifth

episode (“Wildfire”)

SPRING 2014 salt 21

►►►

The Incarnation of God as a human body thus unites body and spirit and licenses us to see all human bodies as more than mere shells for our allegedly “true” self.

another character Andrea

sits with her sister’s dead body until

it reanimates and then euthanizes

her in an emotionally moving scene.

In the final episode of the first sea-

son (“TS-19”), the CDC scientist

seems to have an emotional attach-

ment to his dead wife’s tissue sam-

ples, precisely because they are his

wife’s body, despite his claim that

what matters about his wife is gone.

In all these scenes there

is a strong sense that the zombie,

though an (un)dead body, is still the

same person he/she was when

alive. The person isn’t simply iden-

tical to his/her body. The zombie is

a body whose mind/soul has left,

but at the same time the person is

not identical to the soul. The zom-

bie is a dead version of the same

person. Thus the embodied human

person, according to first season of

The Walking Dead, is a whole of

body and soul that cannot be re-

duced to either component but can

be (at least partially) located in

either component. Contrary to what

the CDC doctor suggests, “you” do

not completely cease to exist when

your brain dies. You are your soul

(or mind or brain), but you are also

your body, just as Christ is both

God and man.

Most interestingly in light

of later events, the doctor who

keeps his wife’s tissue samples is

portrayed positively. His actions are

sweet, if a little unhinged, but not

completely insane. Yet by the sec-

ond season the philosophical out-

look of the series is beginning to

shift. The characters meet a farmer

named Hershel who tries to avoid

killing zombies, motivated at least in

part by his explicit Christianity.

Hershel “rescues” zombies from the

surrounding area and quarantines

them in his barn. This is portrayed

as well-meaning but confused.

When Hershel says, “a paranoid

schizophrenic is dangerous, too.

We don’t shoot sick peo-

ple” (“Secrets”, 2.6), the other char-

acters insist that zombies are not in

fact “people” anymore, and the

series seems to side with them.

From the point of view of the plot,

Hershel should have killed the zom-

bies, because later they escape and

wreak havoc.

So, while the CDC scien-

tist’s attachment to his wife’s body

is portrayed positively, Hershel’s

attachment to his family is more

ambiguous. By the third season the

ambiguity is gone. When the Gov-

ernor of a small town called Wood-

bury keeps his daughter’s zombie

“alive”, he is portrayed as com-

pletely insane and evil. “Daddy still

loves you”, he says as he covers

her head in a burlap sack and locks

her in a closet (“Say the Word, 3.6).

The scene where his daughter is

revealed could have been sweet,

but the music cues us that it is sup-

posed to be creepy – like the un-

dead heads of his enemies the

Governor keeps as trophies. Thus

each season of The Walking Dead

moves further away from a recogni-

tion that zombie bodies are the

same person they were before.

People who think that way are in-

creasingly portrayed as crazy, and

the heroes of the series are increas-

ingly portrayed as willing to destroy

zombies without a second thought.

Interestingly, this way of

seeing zombies as mere meat is

manifestly not inevitable. There is

an opposite trajectory to George

Romero’s Living Dead film series –

the films that invented the modern

zombie mythology. In Night of the

Living Dead (1968) the zombies are

pure monsters, all interchangeable

and without personality. In Dawn of

the Dead (1978) they begin to have

more unique personalities who

continue to act out the habits their

bodies acquired while alive. By Day

of the Dead (1985), scientists real-

ize they can train the zombies to

stop killing people and one zombie

“Bub” actually is a genuine charac-

ter. Then in the culmination of the

series Land of the Dead (2005) we

see the zombies begin to organize

and follow leaders like “Big Daddy”

who have memory, reason, and

skill. The idea of zombies being at

least trainable if not actually having

a vestige of their former personali-

ties is a common theme in many

zombie movies such as Dead Alive,

Shaun of the Dead, Fido, and espe-

cially Warm Bodies where the zom-

bies actually come back to life.

Thus there is a tradition of

zombie movies in which respect for

the dead is taken seriously. This

need not imply that the body is

strictly and simply identical to the

person. All it requires is that we

think of the body as a symbol of the

person. You need not believe that

the person is literally in her grave in

order to visit the grave as a sym-

bolic gesture. Compare people’s

desire to spit on a grave or to muti-

late the dead body of an enemy

(e.g., Osama Bin Laden). Yet all

cultures have rituals and customs of

treating dead bodies with respect,

even bodies of one’s enemies. We

were right to give Bin Laden a

proper burial – and for the same

reason, we should treat zombies

with respect. But why? The first

season of The Walking Dead helps

us understand why.

In Rick’s euthanasia of

the legless zombie and especially in

his treatment of Wayne’s guts, there

is the suggestion that our own hu-

manity is tied up with our attitude

toward human bodies. Once we

dehumanize dead bodies and feel

that we can treat them without

moral consideration, we ourselves

become dehumanized. If bodies are

symbols of the person, then how we

treat the body is symbolic of how we

want to treat the person. It is an

expression of our character (our

virtues/vices, moral sentiments,

intentions, desires, etc.).

This in turn suggests that

how we feel toward other symbols

(e.g., fictional characters) has moral

implications. A movie that asks us

to feel racist sentiments (e.g., Birth

of a Nation) is morally bad, even if it

does not lead us to act in any bad

consequences. Simply having the

attitude toward the symbol is al-

ready morally bad, because it just is

to have that attitude toward the

person of whom it is a symbol.

True, those who hesitate

when a zombie approaches them

are usually eaten alive. Perhaps

the indiscriminate shooting of zom-

bies is the only realistic option we

have – kill or be killed. Yet, while

we might be forced to euthanize

zombies – both to protect other

survivors and to respect the dignity

of the zombie flesh – we must do it

with the sort of respect that does

not turn us into monsters ourselves.

We must never imagine zombies

simply as rotting meat or we, too,

become no more than walkers –

living meat, but simply meat none-

theless.

◄◄◄

■

22 salt SPRING 2014

Once we dehumanize dead bodies

and feel that we can treat them

without moral consideration, we

ourselves become dehumanized.

SPRTNG 2014 salt 23

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