Christian = Disciple; Body = Good
Now, however, things are changing: the definition of morality has been stretched to include what God of the Bible calls lying, adultery, witchcraft and sodomy. Fewer and fewer people are church-going, polite and neighborly; more and more are openly secular and agnostic, rude and self-centered. According to the 7th circuit court, the term "Christian" is now equivalent to "bigot" - see "Did the 7th Circuit Just Rule That Christians Are Bigots?" Unelected Leftist judges are unilaterally legislating from the bench to push the U.S. further and further to the left.
But this is nothing to be surprised about, it's to be expected. When Christ said just before ascending to heaven, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things which I commanded you. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Mat. 28:18-20), He didn't say, "make people into nice, moral and neighborly good citizens." Becoming a disciple is much more than that. It's about denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following Jesus Christ.
Now, here's the clincher: after the new faith had spread to the gentiles in Antioch, Luke records this fact: "Barnabas went out to Tarsus to look for Saul. When he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they were gathered together with the church, and taught many people. The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch" (Acts 11:25-26). What were they called before they were called Christians? Disciples! Up to this point in time, all followers of Jesus Christ were just called disciples. Then sometime after the Gospel was preached in Antioch (church tradition tells us that Evodius, the second bishop of Antioch, invented the term "Christian"), the disciples began to be called Christians. In other words, a disciple equals a Christian, and a Christian equals a disciple. They're one and the same thing. It's not "Christian vs. Disciple" but rather "Christian = Disciple."
But with the recognition of Christianity first as a tolerated religion and then as the official religion of the Greco-Roman Empire, many people became Christians because it was the acceptable thing to do. It didn't cost anything, in fact it was advantageous Thus we began to see the notion emerging of "two-tier" Christianity: a "laity" of ordinary citizens of the Empire, and a higher level of Christian commitment that included monks and clergy who were supposed to practice self-denial and really live according to the Gospel. Someone has jokingly said, "The clergy are paid to be good, but we laypeople are good for nothing!" (Should someone practice self-denial and "discipleship" only if he is collecting a salary for it?)
All Christians (disciples) are "laity" because the Greek for "laity" is "laos theou" - the people of God. Clergy are also part of the "laity." And all Christians (disciples) are called to be saints. Sainthood or holiness (they're the same word in Greek), just like discipleship, isn't an optional add-on, it comes with the basic model. Either you're a disciple who's striving to be transformed into the image and likeness of Christ, or you're not a Christian at all. There's no such thing as being "just a Christian" and not being a disciple.
We need to cleanse our minds of the false dualism or false dichotomy of "two-tier" Christianity, because the time is already upon us when we must identify either as fully-committed Christians that the world may call "bigots" and "haters," or not as Christians at all.
How does this relate to the second half of this essay's title, "Body = Good"? For centuries we in the "Christian world" have been taught the notion that the body is sinful, matter is inherently evil, but spirit is good. This is another false dualism or false dichotomy, because if we are called to be saints, to be transformed into the image and likeness of Christ, then we should ask ourselves, "What kind of body did Jesus have?" He was subject to the same sort of hunger, weakness, tiredness and temptation as we are, yet without sin. He fully partook of our human nature so that we can be full partakers of the Divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). This is our "theosis" - becoming united with God.
When God created humans out of the dust of the earth and breathed into them the breath of life, He said, "It is very good!" In other words, our body-soul-spirit nature is inherently good, even in spite of the Fall. Adam's sin did not totally corrupt and pervert human nature. The Augustinian doctrine of inherited guilt and total depravity due to Adam's sin is incorrect, and it's a little-known fact that Augustine himself recanted of it in his last great work, The Kingdom of God. In the end, he agreed with his contemporary St. John Cassian and earlier theologians that Adam and Eve's sinning caused death, not guilt, to be passed on to all mankind. All Christians (disciples) are called to become purified and sanctified, restored into humanity's original state of goodness, into the likeness of Christ.
This false dualism or dichotomy of "the body is evil" has led directly to the notion that sex is sinful, and that to be really holy requires being celibate. This false notion is especially prevalent in Western Christianity, where the Catholic clergy is supposed to practice celibacy. But actually, sex in the proper context is "very good" - remember what God said when he created humans as male and female. Just as fire is a good thing when kept in the fireplace or on the stove but when it gets out of its place it can cause great harm, sex is a beautiful thing in the right context of a male-female permanent marriage but sex outside of this setting burns like fire and can be very destructive of families and society in general. Rod Dreher, in his new book The Benedict Option
"To reduce Christian teaching about sex and sexuality to bare, boring, thou-shalt-not moralism is a travesty and a failure of imagination. While one may credit the courage of certain conservative pastors who don't shirk their duty to tell the truth about sex, those who jackhammer away at sexual immorality as if it were the only serious sin, or were somehow disconnected from a host of other sins of passion, distort the Gospel and undermine its credibility. This lamentable reductionism constitutes a failure to draw on the inexhaustible well of resources within the theological and artistic tradition. In the end, it comes down to a matter of Christians having lost our own grand story about eros, cosmos and theosis, the Greek word for 'union with God,' the ultimate end of the Christian pilgrimage."
In his letter to the church at Ephesus, St. Paul wrote that the marriage relationship is an icon or image of theosis, of us as the Church becoming united with Christ and being transformed into His glorious likeness -
"Subject yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ. Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, and Christ also is the head of the church, being himself the savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. Even so ought husbands also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself" (Eph. 5:21-28).
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