Category: Biblical Theology

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The Promise of Disembodiment? A Big Lie!

Modern culture is haunted by a fantasy: that our bodies don’t matter, that they are clay to be reshaped at will, or husks to be cast aside when they no longer serve us. Liel Leibovitz, in a striking First Things essay, names this trend “the promise of disembodiment”—and shows how dangerous it truly is.

“Those of us who know that we were created in God’s image have no choice but to acknowledge our bodies, those awkward earthly vessels that matter and cannot be manipulated as if they were raw material for our disembodied wills.”

From abortion to assisted suicide, from the sexual revolution to today’s transgender movement, the same underlying assumption appears again and again: the body is not sacred. It is merely a tool, an accident, or worse—a hindrance.

Leibovitz observes:

“Take away this belief in the sacred character of the body and it becomes not a temple but a speed bump.”

And once our bodies are seen as speed bumps, it becomes easier to justify all kinds of destruction. Babies in the womb are “clumps of cells.” The elderly and the sick become “burdens.” Male and female cease to be God-given realities and are recast as fluid “identities” invented in the imagination.

Why the Lie Is So Appealing

The disembodiment lie seduces because it offers a counterfeit freedom. If my body is irrelevant, then I can define myself however I wish. I can erase biological sex, evade the natural consequences of sex, or reject life itself when it no longer feels worth living.

But this “freedom” comes at a terrible cost. As Leibovitz warns, it is really an escape from reality itself:

“When you do away with the sanctity of the body, you invite tyranny, because you are no longer bound to acknowledge what is real, only what is willed.”

This is not just a philosophical mistake. It is a spiritual rebellion. To reject the body is to reject the Creator who formed us from the dust and breathed into us the breath of life (Gen. 2:7).

The Christian Response

The Christian worldview stands in radical opposition to this false promise. Scripture declares:

  • “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27).
  • Jesus himself affirms this when he says, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female” (Matt. 19:4).
  • St. Paul reminds us, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you…? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies” (1 Cor. 6:19–20).

In other words: the body is not an afterthought. It is sacred. It is integral to our personhood. It is destined for resurrection glory.

Why This Matters Now

We live in a culture where disembodiment is the new orthodoxy. Children are taught they can “change” their sex. Courts and legislatures increasingly normalize euthanasia. The abortion industry insists that unborn life is expendable. And technologies—from artificial wombs to digital fantasies of “uploading consciousness”—offer new variations of the same old lie: that we can escape the body.

But Christians must speak clearly: these are not paths to freedom. They are forms of bondage. To despise the body is to despise the very goodness of creation. To mutilate the body is to mutilate the image of God.

As Leibovitz writes:

“The rejection of the body is the rejection of limits, and the rejection of limits is the rejection of responsibility. And where responsibility vanishes, so does love.”

This last point is crucial. A world that despises the body cannot sustain love, because love, as humans, requires embodiment. It requires showing up in the flesh, bearing burdens, honoring the vulnerable, cherishing the other as they are given to us.

The True Promise: Resurrection

The gospel gives us not the false promise of disembodiment, but the true promise of resurrection. Christ himself was raised bodily from the grave. His glorified flesh is the guarantee of our future. The destiny of the Christian is not escape from the body, but the redemption of the body (Rom. 8:23).

The big lie of disembodiment ends in alienation, confusion, and death. You won’t find love there. The truth of the gospel ends in communion, clarity, and eternal life.

So let us reject the false prophets of disembodiment. Let us instead proclaim and live the truth: our bodies matter, because God made them, Christ redeemed them, and the Spirit indwells them.

SOURCE: Radical Disembodiment by Liel Leibovitz

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Don’t Believe the Lies

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The Gospel of Love: For Family and Friends

Dear Family and Friends,

This post has been on my heart for a while now. It comes with some weight—and I don’t post it lightly. But I also don’t post it in anger or bitterness. I write out of love—for my family and friends, for the Church, for the truth. I hope it will be received that way.

Over the past few years, you’ve probably noticed how much I’ve written about human sexuality—issues like gender identity, same-sex parenting, and transgenderism.

These are hard topics. They touch real people. They touch us. And because they do, I haven’t wanted to treat them casually or toss out slogans from a distance. But I’ve felt more and more compelled to speak clearly—especially because these ideas have not only infiltrated our cultural institutions, but have taken root in the Church itself.

The final turning point for me was personal. For several years, I had been attending a congregation that was a blend of Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) and Episcopal USA traditions. I loved the people. I still do. It was a generous, open-hearted community. But over time, I began to sense that the gospel being proclaimed there was subtly—sometimes not so subtly—drifting from the one I knew. The Bible’s authority and Church Tradition was increasingly treated as optional. Christian sexual ethics were reimagined to align with the culture. And then came the moment I could no longer ignore.

One Sunday morning, a woman ordained by one of those denominations—an openly practicing lesbian, whose “wife” was present in the congregation—stood before us and preached as a representative of Christ’s Church. That was the moment for me. I sat there grieving—not out of personal offense, but because something precious was being lost.

This wasn’t merely a difference of opinion. It pointed to a deeper divergence—a fundamentally different understanding of what the Church is, what the gospel proclaims (ie. that Jesus is Lord of creation), and who Jesus calls us to be.

The gospel is not merely a message of inclusion or affirmation. It is the announcement that Jesus Christ is Lord of all—that through Him all things were made, and in Him all things hold together. As Paul writes in Colossians:

"For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible... all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (Colossians 1:16–17).

This is the gospel: not a validation of our desires, but a call to live in joyful submission to the One through whom the cosmos was made.

After that Sunday, I knew I couldn’t do it anymore—not in good conscience. I couldn’t keep contributing my time and treasure to a church whose leadership had embraced a theological trajectory that I believe is deeply harmful. So I stepped away. And that decision still breaks my heart. I loved those people. I still do.

Love and truth cannot be separated. In the years since, I’ve come to believe that many parts of the Church have failed to speak the truth—especially about the body, about male and female, about marriage and children—and that failure has had devastating consequences. The cultural winds are strong. But the Church was never called to drift with the wind. We are called to be rooted.

I’ve written several blog posts recently, and I want you to know why.

The first was about gay parenting and the Regnerus Study—a work that dared to ask what’s best for children and found answers that challenge the prevailing narrative. It’s not enough to say children are “loved.” They also need a father and a mother. Our policies—and our churches—ought to reflect that truth.

The second addressed the ELCA’s 2025 Reconsideration of Human Sexuality—a document that appears to codify the denomination’s full embrace of sexual revisionism. The very truths that once shaped Christian witness on marriage, the body, and the created order are now treated as “harmful” or “exclusionary.” I couldn’t remain silent.

The third examined the ELCA’s doctrine of “Bound Conscience”—a concept I once thought might preserve theological diversity, but which has become a theological escape hatch. It allows the Church to affirm contradictory truths in the name of unity, while quietly discarding the authority of Scripture. That’s not unity—it’s institutionalized confusion.

I don’t write these things to score points or “win” debates. I write them because someone needs to say what so many faithful Christians—especially in more progressive circles—are afraid to say out loud. I write them because I fear that silence now will only mean deeper compromise later.

I believe the Triune God made us male and female—not as an accident of biology, but as a reflection of something sacred. I believe our bodies matter. I believe Christian love includes a call to repentance. And I believe that our first obligation of love is not to ourselves or one another, but to our Creator.

To affirm someone’s identity apart from the Lordship of Christ is not compassion—it is a tragic abandonment to a path that cannot yield life. And I believe the Church must have the courage to say so, even when it costs something very dear.

With love always,
d

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What is “Bound Conscience”?

A Slippery but Sacred Term

In recent years, no phrase has carried more weight—or more ambiguity—within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) than “bound conscience.” First introduced in the 2009 social statement Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust, it has become both a theological shield and a procedural tool for managing moral disagreement. But what does “bound conscience” actually mean? And more importantly, is its use in the ELCA consistent with Scripture and the historic Christian tradition?

The ELCA’s Definition: A Plurality of Convictions

In the 2009 statement, the ELCA proposed that faithful Christians may, in good conscience, come to mutually contradictory conclusions about same-sex sexual relationships. That is:

  • Some believe such relationships are contrary to God’s will.
  • Others believe they can be faithful expressions of love and discipleship.

According to the ELCA, both groups may be said to have consciences “bound to the Word of God,” and therefore both should be honored within the Church. This framework was presented as a means to preserve unity amid disagreement.

But is this a faithful application of the concept?

Reformation Roots: Luther at Worms

The idea of “bound conscience” is not new. It draws most famously from Martin Luther’s defense at the Diet of Worms:

“My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.”

But for Luther, this was not about subjective conviction. It was about submission—conscience rightly bound by the authority of God’s Word, not by personal sentiment, political pressure, or communal consensus.

To reinterpret “bound conscience” as permission for contradictory moral positions is to sever it from its Reformation foundation.

Why the Bound Conscience Model Fails

1. It Redefines Truth as Preference
If one person believes a behavior is sinful and another believes it is holy, both cannot be correct. The Church may be patient in discerning, but it cannot bless contradiction. As Paul reminds the Corinthians:

“God is not a God of confusion but of peace” (1 Cor. 14:33).

2. It Undermines the Church’s Moral Witness
When the Church upholds opposing teachings as equally valid, it erodes its ability to proclaim any moral truth. Instead of a prophetic voice, it becomes an echo of the culture.

3. It Was Always a Temporary Measure
The ELCA’s use of bound conscience in 2009 was framed as a way to hold diverse views together. But the current reconsideration process—especially Reconsideration #2 scheduled for 2028—makes it clear that the provision will likely be removed. Those who were promised space for their convictions may soon find that space eliminated. That possibility is underscored by the church’s stated rationale for changes already enacted: “in light of public acceptance of marriage of same-gender and gender non-conforming couples.”

The key phrase is “gender non-conforming couples.” The 2009 social statement affirmed publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-sex relationships. But the new language being recommended goes beyond that. Page 19 of the Human Sexuality Social Statement Draft Edits refers to “lifelong, monogamous relationships of same-gender or gender-diverse couples.” On the same page, it broadens further: “life-long, monogamous relationships between individuals of diverse sexes, genders, or sexualities.” A footnote on that page defines “gender diverse” as encompassing “a wide diversity of identities and expressions in relationships between individuals, including gender non-conforming, non-binary, genderqueer, and transgender persons.”

This trajectory makes clear that the original logic of bound conscience is rapidly being replaced by a new moral consensus.

4. It Confuses Unity with Uniformity
True Christian unity is grounded in shared confession, not in the suppression of moral clarity. The New Testament calls for unity in truth (Eph. 4:11–15) 1 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love., not unity despite its absence.

What True Conscience Requires

The Christian understanding of conscience is not private or self-referential. Biblically, the conscience is formed:

  • By the Word of God (Psalm 119:105)2Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
  • Through the community of faith (Acts 15:28)3For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”
  • In submission to the Holy Spirit (Romans 9:1)4I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

A truly bound conscience is not simply sincere. It is correctly tethered—anchored to God’s revealed truth. That truth, on matters of human sexuality, is consistent through Scripture and affirmed across centuries of Christian witness.

Conclusion: Truth Cannot Be Voted On

The ELCA’s deployment of “bound conscience” may have been well-intentioned, but it has become a theological smokescreen for unresolved contradiction. Conscience must indeed be honored—but only when it is bound to the truth.

The Church is not free to pronounce both light and darkness as equally valid. As Jesus said:

“If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matt. 6:23)

Let us call conscience back to its proper source—not to sentiment, not to social trends, but to Scripture. For only there can it be truly bound, and only there can it be truly free.

Sources: ELCA – Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust Study Process

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