BODY:
Biblical Spirituality for the Whole Person
By Paula Gooder
SPCK. 162 pages. £9.99
ISBN 978 0 281 071 005
This book seeks to explore what Paul thought about our physical bodies, life after death, identity, relationships and life in the Spirit.
Gooder’s purpose was to reflect on how Paul’s view of the body might contribute to shaping our attitudes to our own bodies and, following on from that, to a more healthy understanding of spirituality. She is convinced that Paul is much more positive in his thinking about this topic than many interpreters have suggested over the centuries. The eight chapters are divided into four sections. Each covers a specific theme: chapters 1 and 2 ‘the nature of the soul’; chapters 3 and 4 ‘the resurrection of the body’; chapters 5 and 6 ‘the Spirit and identity’; chapters 7 and 8 ‘Paul’s language about the body’.
There is much that appeals in this book. Gooder writing style is enviably lucid. She is to be commended for her major concern about individuals having a healthy perspective on their own bodies and of the natural world. Christians have too often stayed silent in debates about body image and spoken too little about environmental concerns. There is also some good exegesis of the relevant vocabulary of the Old and New Testaments in relation to this topic and there is a clear commitment to a bodily resurrection of believers. Unfortunately, however, from a historic orthodox Christian perspective she is less convincing in the discussion of biblical material on the intermediate state between our death and future bodily resurrection. A much clearer work on this subject would be John W. Cooper’s Body, Soul and Life Everlasting (Apollos, 2000). Cooper is a more thorough exegete of the relevant biblical passages, presenting a convincing case that believers go to be with the Lord when we die, while awaiting his return and our future bodily resurrection.
