THE JOY OF THE BODY

Author: Hans Gutierrez Salazar

THE JOY OF THE BODY

Beyond renunciation and transgression

The book The human body today is efficient but not joyful. Indeed, it is tired and sleepless. It is restless but predictable. It fears and suspects evil. It is constantly subjected to endogenous and exogenous stress; for this reason, it is uncertain and hesitant, but paradoxically, and perhaps to compensate, it easily becomes compulsive and bold, reckless and transgressive. The body is deprived, especially in postmodern societies, of spaces for expression, recognition, and dialogue. The abundant gyms of our time certainly are not. Rather, they function as centers of bodily exploitation, even if chosen by us ourselves and even paid a fee. They are places of anxiety, not places where our bodies' vulnerability, hesitations, guilt, and silence are welcomed. Today, the body is overwhelmed and crushed by the exhausting and constant expectations that alternate indifferently in secular and religious, medical and cultural, group and personal forms. For this reason, it is a body adrift; a body alone, silent, anonymous, and invisible. It exists, is recognized, and is called into question only when it is required to fulfill the tasks imposed on it by others, either forcefully or philanthropically, or when it crashes and collapses definitively. Those obligations can be perverse, like the numbness of work, or salvific, like the obligation to purity or thinness. In any case, it is not the body that chose them. If instead we let the body choose, if we listened to its own voice, in its non-judgmental pre- and post-rational truth, perhaps today the body could save us. Its joy could amaze us, overwhelm us, and transform us, making us vulnerable, sober, incomplete, and trusting.

The author Originally from Peru, he holds degrees in philosophy, theology, and medicine. Passionate about the humanities and religious sciences, he is also interested in bioethics and philosophy of the body. He publishes monthly articles in the US that attempt to establish a dialogue between theology, society, and contemporary culture. He was a student and researcher at the universities of Strasbourg (France), Tübingen (Germany), Monterrey (Mexico), and Loma Linda (California). After serving as a pastor in Italy and Germany, for twenty-five years he has been a full professor of Systematic Theology at the Adventist Faculty of Theology in Florence and director of CecSur (Cultural Center for Human and Religious Sciences).

ISBN 978-88-7659-376-5

THE JOY OF THE BODY

ADVENTIST INSTITUTE OF FLORENCE