As William Temple (former Archbishop of Canterbury) once wrote: Christianity is "the most avowedly materialist of all the great religions. . .its own central saying is: 'The Word was made flesh,' where the last term was no doubt chosen because of its specifically materialist associations. By the very nature of its central doctrine, Christianity is committed to a belief in the ultimate significance of the historical process, and in the reality of matter and its place in the divine scheme."
If "stuff matters" to Christians, because of God's relationship to Creation and the Incarnation of God in Christ, what does it mean when we have an aversion to stuff? What does it mean when we are disgusted by something or even someone? In these five presentations, I hope to begin an explanation of the Gospel from the perspective of disgust, one of the new frontiers of science.
One of the interesting things about disgust that we learned in the first lecture is that it is a body and soul emotion. We are not just disgusted by physically disgusting things (rats, blood, bodily fluids). We are also disgusted by morally and spiritually abhorrent things and people (Hitler's sweater, as an example).
What disgusts you the most?
This is a faith question, surprisingly. For the fascinating thing is that the ministry of Jesus and the Christian Church deals with disgust in all kinds of ways, both physical and moral. Our very sense of the holy as it relates to the disgusting is turned upside-down.
My next presentation will be an examination of the Gospels, and how they deal with disgust in God's world.
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