"The body, the mind, and the spirit are inseparable. Tension in the spirit is telegraphed in body language. I actually have witnessed people go through an entire worship service vigorously chewing gum without the slightest awareness of their deep inner tension."

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline

We tend to vastly underestimate the importance of our bodies, but they are part of our being. We're not mere spirits who inhabit bodies. We are embodied, incarnated beings who tend not to be driven by our thoughts, but by something more basic — our affections, or even, as James K. A. Smith puts it in Desiring the Kingdom, our gut. I was reminded of this fact as I came across this passage last night in Jerome Jerome's Three Men in a Boat:

How good one feels when one is full — how satisfied with ourselves and with the world! People who have tried it, tell me that a clear conscience makes you very happy and contented; but a full stomach does the business quite as well, and is cheaper, and more easily obtained. One feels so forgiving and generous after a substantial and well-digested meal — so noble-minded, so kindly-hearted.  

It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive organs. We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomach wills so. It dictates to us our emotions, our passions. After eggs and bacon, it says, "Work!" After beefsteak and porter, it says, "Sleep!" After a cup of tea (two spoonsful for each cup, and don't let it stand more than three minutes), it says to the brain, "Now, rise, and show your strength. Be eloquent, and deep, and tender; see, with a clear eye, into Nature and into life; spread your white wings of quivering thought, and soar, a god- like spirit, over the whirling world beneath you, up through long lanes of flaming stars to the gates of eternity!" 

After hot muffins, it says, "Be dull and soulless, like a beast of the field — a brainless animal, with listless eye, unlit by any ray of fancy, or of hope, or fear, or love, or life." And after brandy, taken in sufficient quantity, it says, "Now, come, fool, grin and tumble, that your fellow-men may laugh — drivel in folly, and splutter in senseless sounds, and show what a helpless ninny is poor man whose wit and will are drowned, like kittens, side by side, in half an inch of alcohol." 

We are but the veriest, sorriest slaves of our stomach. Reach not after morality and righteousness, my friends; watch vigilantly your stomach, and diet it with care and judgment. Then virtue and contentment will come and reign within your heart, unsought by any effort of your own; and you will be a good citizen, a loving husband, and a tender father — a noble, pious man.

"When a man comes under the blood of Christ, his whole capacity as man is refashioned. His soul is saved, yes, but so are his mind and body."

Francis Schaeffer, Art and the Bible

"The Lordship of Christ over the whole of life means that there are no platonic areas in Christianity, no dichotomy or hierarchy between the body and the soul. God made the body as well as the soul, and redemption is for the whole man."

--Francis Schaeffer, Art and the Bible

From Jerry H. Gill's "Faith in Learning: Integrative Education and Incarnational Theology":

The Christian notion of incarnation is holistic and integrative. Jesus Christ came into the world as a whole, integrated person -- not as a “pretend” person, a la Clark Kent. Moreover, he was involved in all of life, not just its so-called “sacred” aspects. In his relationships with other persons he took an active interest in the physical, social and emotional well-being of those whom he met. Jesus himself was not divided, nor was his approach to the world. . . .

It is also crucial to bear in mind that embodiment is inherent in the Christian idea of incarnation. The Word became flesh, God indwelt human form, not in appearance only (or merely momentarily), but from birth to death. And even his death gains its primary significance from the manner in which he died, not from the mere fact that he died.
Human existence is embodied existence, and God’s involvement and interaction with us have come in this mode. In the Judeo-Christian tradition the body is basic and good, in contrast to the dualism of classical Greek philosophy (which, unfortunately, has influenced too much of traditional Christian theology). By indwelling (not just “borrowing”) a body, God made a statement about the nature and worth of human existence -- and about divine character as well. Moreover, the Christian hope is for a resurrected body, as well as a new heaven and earth, not for the immortality of a disembodied soul.

Read the whole article here.

For Augustine the trumping conviction is we believe in the resurrection of the body. And so I think you do see a development across Augustine’s corpus, so I think the early young Augustine when he’s first converted is still in the throes and thrall of a certain Platonic devaluing of embodiment. And I think if you just look at the early works you get that. But by the time you get to later in his work, there are two convictions that have got hold of him. One is the resurrection of the body, which just means he can’t be a Platonist anymore about embodiment; and the other is the sacraments—the whole Christian theology of the sacraments is this taking up and affirming of the material world.

So I actually don’t think you will properly understand Augustine if you don’t realise that an animating core conviction for him is the goodness of creation. If all you’ve ever heard is this caricatured Augustine, that makes no sense whatsoever, but I think if you read the Confessions, if you read the City of God, this fundamental affirmation that anything that is is in virtue of coming from God and God is good, therefore anything that exists is good insofar as it’s been created, that’s at the heart of Augustine’s whole metaphysic, his whole ontology and his whole account of reality.

And so it’s almost like his Christian convictions press him later in his life to affirm the importance of materiality embodiment as something that’s affirmed in the Incarnation; you know, if the body was essentially bad, how on earth could God ever mix Himself up with that? And yet that’s the heart and soul of the gospel and of the Christian faith. I think it’s affirmed in resurrection; I think it’s affirmed in the sacraments.

And this is why I think desire is actually so central in Augustine.

James K. A. Smith, interview with David Rutledge, "The Devil Has All the Best Stories"
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/encounter/eer-07-07/4105382#transcript

From Steve Baarendse's "Why I'm Not on Facebook: An Open Letter to College Students":

Deincarnation

So much of human communication lies in the incarnational bond between word and body. Think about the volumes conveyed by a piercing glance, an eye moistened with tears, a tender hand on the shoulder. Pointed sarcasm or a tough word of confrontation can be tempered in person—the surgeon’s scalpel that cuts in order to heal—but these words are often blunt meat cleavers on Facebook. 

Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal Son or Jewish Bride vividly depicts the power of human touch. Bonhoeffer talks about this in the wonderful last pages of Life Together. The ministry of bearing burdens, of holding one’s tongue and listening, of confessing and forgiving—these all involve real presence. If your friend is in extremis, you can text the family a “praying4U!” Or, you can drive to the hospital room and hold your dying friend’s hand. You can embrace the family members, cry with them, read Scripture and sing hymns with them. 

In the 1980s, phone giant AT&T encouraged people to “reach out and touch someone.” And clearly, a personal phone call from a friend can be a touching thing. But whether by phone or Facebook, touch is still a metaphor. You can only really reach out and touch someone by being there. Our society is high-tech but low-touch, and growing more so every day. Jesus mixed his spit with mud and anointed a blind man’s eyes. He laid his hands on little children and blessed them. He touched people. The society that Jesus—and even our grandparents—lived in was lower-tech but higher-touch.

Read more: http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=25-03-044-f#ixzz24QIRIwms

The danger most immediately to be feared in "technological progress" is the degradation and obselescence of the body. Implicit in the technological revolution from the beginning has been a new version of the old dualism, one always destructive, and now more destructive than ever. For many centuries, there have been people who looked upon the body, as upon the natural world, as an encumbrance of the soul, and so have hated the body, as they have hated the natural world, and longed to be free of it. They have seen the body as intolerably imperfect by spiritual standards. More recently, since the beginning of the technological revolution, more and more people have looked upon the body, along with the rest of the natural creation, as intolerably imperfect by mechanical standards. They see the body as an encumbrance of the mind--the mind, that is, as reduced to a set of mechanical ideas that can be implemented in machines--and so they hate it and long to be free of it. The body has limits that the machine does not have; therefore, remove the body from the machine so that the machine can continue as an unlimited idea.

Wendell Berry, "Feminism, the Body, and the Machine," from What Are People For?