Book Report: “Love Thy Body” by Nancy Pearcy

Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality

Question: What’s the difference between a human being and a person?

That’s the crucial issue that Nancy Pearcey takes up in her new book Love Thy Body (Baker Books 2018). Pearcey is an evangelical scholar and pugilist who converted to Christianity from agnosticism through the apologetics work of Francis Schaefer, and the loving fellowship of the L’abri Fellowship. The Economist has called Pearcey, “America’s pre-eminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual.” Were she not a woman, says Jonathan Merritt, she would have achieved far more notoriety than she has, as her mind is sharper than those of a great many male religious intellectuals of far greater acclaim.

But back to the difference between what it means to be a human and person. According to Pearcey’s understanding of western philosophical history, the dualism of Descartes and his offspring—which (more or less) bifurcates reality between body and mind—is behind much of the moral and sexual confusion we are grappling with today. “Personhood theory” is what we are left with, in which leading postmodern secular intellectuals are actually arguing (and legislating) that just because someone belongs to the human race doesn’t mean they are a person deserving of rights. This rejection of the human body as the critical component of personhood lies behind everything from abortion-on-demand, assisted suicide, the collegiate hookup culture, to the societal upheaval taking place over transgender rights.

With Merritt (who is a Christian progressive and has a good back-and-forth with Pearcey on his website, Religion News Services), I find that Pearcey might have done better to critique the Church alongside secularism itself. As is typical of a culture warrior, Pearcey tends to find the enemy in her opponent, and not in her own heart. Also, although she doesn’t necessarily spell out in great detail her recommendations to restore traditional morality, it certainly sounds like she thinks they can be legislated. I don’t think they can be—it’s been tried before—and I think we’re well beyond whatever political leaders can do. Rod Dreher is probably onto something better in his “Benedict Option.” It’s likely time for Christians to spend their energy rebuilding their communities along the love and calling of Jesus, instead of trying to “take America back.” I also wish Pearcey was able to separate her Christian philosophy from whatever literal interpretation of the Genesis account it seems that she accepts.

Those critiques aside, Pearcey excels in offering a plausible philosophical diagnosis for many of the battles over sexuality that we find ourselves waging today. Hers is a warning that Christians need to take seriously, so as not to accidentally adopt a worldview so antithetical to Biblical orthodoxy. She also builds a redemptive case for a natural law ethic on which we can recover God’s good vision for humankind. And while disagreeing categorically with her philosophy, those opposed to Christianity and its ethic should at least be prepared to grapple with her insights. In the most loving way possible, Pearcey is spoiling for a fight. Love Thy Body proves she can handle it.

-MRH (Dec. 2018)