Skip to content ↓

Love Thy Body

Love Thy Body

It is always a big deal when Nancy Pearcey releases a new book. It’s a special pleasure when that release is timed for the beginning of a new year. Such is the case with Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality. In this new work she brings her unique voice to some of the most pressing moral issues of our day. “In Love Thy Body,” she promises, “we will move beyond click-bait headlines and trendy slogans to uncover the worldview that drives the secular ethic. By learning the core principles of this worldview, you will be able to engage intelligently and compassionately on all of today’s most controversial moral challenges.”

And, indeed, that is exactly what she does and exactly what she delivers. As in all her works, she shows that the prevailing worldview around us is one that involves a two-tiered reality that places theology and morality in the realm of what is private, subjective, and relativistic while placing science in the realm of what is public, objective, and valid for all people. Thus secular science reigns supreme over all other matters, including faith. This then leads to a fact/value split where values are placed in the first realm and facts in the second. Your values are for you to live by, perhaps, but they have no bearing on the rest of humanity.

In Love Thy Body she shows how this very divide is at the heart of so many of today’s moral issues. The world around us neglects the core unity of human beings and instead divides us into two-tiered beings. “Christianity holds that body and soul together form an integrated unity—that the human being is an embodied soul. By contrast, personhood theory entails a two-level dualism that sets the body against the person, as though they were two separate things merely stuck together. As a result, it demeans the body as extrinsic to the person—something inferior that can be used for purely pragmatic purposes.”

After a thorough introduction that will get you caught up if you have not read Pearcey’s previous works, she turns her attention to six key issues, each of which can be explained and combated through a right understanding of the secular worldview that underpins them. In “The Joy of Death” she shows how body/person dualism is behind arguments for abortion and infanticide while in “Dear Valued Constituent” she looks at euthanasia, stem cell research, and even the growing movement toward transhumanism. “Schizoid Sex” shows how the hookup culture so prevalent on campuses today claims to set the body free, but actually diminishes its important. “The Body Impolitic” and “Transgender, Transreality,” turn to homosexuality and transgenderism. The final chapter, “The Goddess of Choice Is Dead,” turn from the individual to wider society.

Put together, this is a powerful book that brings Pearcey’s unique and uniquely-helpful voice to crucial issues. “We live in a moral wasteland,” she says, “where human beings are desperately seeking answers to hard questions about life and sexuality. But there is hope. In the wasteland we can cultivate a garden. We can discover a reality-based morality that expresses a positive, life-affirming view of the human person—one that is more inspiring, more appealing, and more liberating than the secular worldview.” Read this book to grow in your ability to do that very thing.


  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (March 27)

    A La Carte: When the paychecks stop / What does Jesus want me to do? / A messy house / Beast Games / The rise of Nietzschean Christianity / Stop and marvel / and more.

  • Are You Binding the Wound or Aggravating It

    Are You Binding the Wound or Aggravating It?

    One of the privileges we have as Christians is the privilege of caring for one another—of blessing one another in our difficulties and comforting one another in our sorrows. In such “one another” ministry we represent God and extend love and mercy on his behalf. This is a precious and sacred ministry that falls to…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (March 26)

    A La Carte: The Jesus Geezers and Gene Hackman / Prayer is our fuel / John Mark Comer / On failure / Get grace, give grace / Book and Kindle deals / and more.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (March 25)

    A La Carte: Gen Z’s spiritual anxiety / Would you sell out Jesus for $4.37 billion? / Men need friendship, not just accountability / Building healthy relationships with your teens / The pastor’s wife / Sales and deals / and more.

  • Crash and Burn

    When Christians Crash and Burn

    The pictures quickly made their way around the world—pictures of an aircraft lying upside down in the snow just beyond runway 23 at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. On February 17, Delta flight 4819 landed hard, shearing off the right wing and flipping over before finally sliding to a stop. Remarkably, despite the crash and subsequent…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (March 24)

    A La Carte: Wokeness as a tax / The religion of wellness / Freckles, thigh gaps, and beauty / The 50 most edifying films / If I have matching dishes but not love / The Bible and sexuality / Kindle deals / and more.