There has been a very destructive concept that found it’s way into the Church through monasticism and asceticism. The idea that body is flesh and vile, and that spirit is what must be cultivated. This comes from a heresy known as Gnosticism that claimed a duality of body and spirit, that the body was evil and the spirit was good. This very dangerous concept not only survived in spin offs called Mainchaelism which had Augustine of Hippo for a time, and Catharism which was rampant in France in the Middle Ages, but it is in direct violation of the Incarnation of God, our Lord Jesus Christ who the Nicene Creed affirms was Born of the Virgin Mary, who did have sex later with Joseph her husband and had kids, “But he did not have sexual relations with her until her son was born. And Joseph named him Jesus..” (Matthew 1:25), but she was a virgin when she had Jesus. The Apostle John tells us to be beware of these heresies against the body, because they speak against Christ, “I say this be...
There is this great song by Creed, song by Scott Stapp that goes, “What’s this Life For?!” It’s a introspective piece meant to urge the listener to take stock of their own life through self examination. I recently watched The Neon Genesis Evangelion Rebuilds (1.0, 2.22, 3.0, and 3.0+1.0), four movies, not the original bleak series. While I was put off at first by Lilith and the Kabala elements with the angels, the overall message of the story is very profound and Christian. Shinji, the main pilot of Eva 01, a mecha Kaiju (giant robot monster like Godzilla) like creation to fight the angels bent on mankind’s destruction is traumatized by having lost his mother at three years old, and his Father Gendo ignores him except to exploit his prowless in Eva mechs. As I watched the series of Shinji doing battle with the angels I could not help but wonder do we Christians not fall for the same trap? Feeling our higher purpose is to do spiritual warfare and make war against the angels that f...