At the recent Wilberforce Weekend, Dr. Ryan Anderson offered a succinct but sound statement about the Christian view of the body:

“No one is born in the wrong body, because you are not ‘in’ a body. You are a body.”

Interestingly, when a colleague tweeted out this line, it was met with astonishment and opposition in the Twitterverse. Here’s why:

In place of a Christian understanding of creation, many have instead embraced a new form of an ancient heresy. Gnosticism is the faith that just won’t die. It both rejects the inherent goodness of the physical world and elevates inner knowledge as being special and spiritual and true.

Christianity has always held that the physical aspect of our creation is not optional. In fact, God called it “good.”

In a world where so many are taught that their bodies get in the way of their true selves, the news that they were created good is good news indeed.