Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Slow Church

Home
Progressive Christian
Ragan Sutterfield – This is my Body [Patheos Book Club]

Ragan Sutterfield – This is my Body [Patheos Book Club]

Last updated on: February 25, 2015 at 3:56 pm by Christopher Smith

Ragan Sutterfield – This is my Body [Patheos Book Club] 2015-02-25T15:56:19-05:00 Christopher Smith

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This Is My Body:* *From Obesity to Ironman, My Journey into the True Meaning of Flesh, Spirit, and Deeper Faith**

By Ragan Sutterfield Hardback: Convergent Books, 2015.

One of the main themes of Slow Church is recognizing the fragmentation that we live within in the twenty-first century. One such type of fragmentation the the divide between the body and the spirit (or between the physical and the spiritual). Beyond recognizing divides such as these, we also need to structure our lives in ways that doesn’t not further propagate the fragmentation and even start to bring the divided spheres closer together in order that God might eventual heal these tears.

I was therefore very excited about Ragan Sutterfield’s new book This is My Body: From Obesity to Ironman, My Journey into the True Meaning of Flesh, Spirit, and Deeper Faith, a memoir of his own experience in moving toward a Christian faith in which our bodies matter. Having wrestled with being overweight since his childhood, Sutterfield eventually finds himself in adulthood, with a failing marriage and at his heaviest weight. He is faced with the incongruity that he is an environmentalist and farmer, doing grueling work to care for the land and creation, and yet taking poor care of his own body.

After the collapse of his first marriage, Sutterfield surrenders himself to the disciplines needed to care better for his body, specifically controlling his diet and becoming serious about exercise. From this conversion point onward, Sutterfield begins to learn and experience an incarnational faith in which our bodies cannot be taken for granted. He writes, in a particularly compelling passage:

What if God himself became flesh and remains enfleshed? What if God not only has a heart that longs for our love but also a heart that pounds with blood? What if God has skin that drips with sweat? What if the God who offered his body as a sign of love also wants us to experience our bodies as a gift of his love? Christians must worship a God who is all of these things because we worship a God who was made manifest to us in the human, embodied life of Jesus. The denial of the body, of the flesh, is not a denial of the dangerous locus of sin, as so many of us have been taught. It is a denial of the Word made flesh. Those of us who follow Jesus Christ — God in human skin and muscle and mind — cannot deny the goodness of the body. To do so is to reject the reality in which Christ now lives as the risen and ascended Lord.

The journey into an incarnational faith that lies at the heart of this book, eventually leads Sutterfield to begin training for the most grueling of all endurance events, the Ironman triathalon, a race consisting of over 140 miles of swimming, biking and running. This is my Body alternates chapters narrating Sutterfield’s larger conversion story with ones that focus on the particular story of preparing for the Ironman race. Although the book will definitely appeal to triathletes, runners and other endurance athletes, the well-crafted storytelling and keen theological reflections on the Christian significance of our bodies make this a book one that should be widely read among Christians. Sutterfield’s journey, as chronicled in This is My Body, is a poignant reminder that though the way will be grueling, there is a deep joy in the health we experience in thoughtfully and faithfully caring for our bodies.

Previous Post

February 23, 2015

Two Slow Church-related ebooks on sale now!

Next Post

March 11, 2015 Scot McKnight - A Fellowship of Differents [Patheos Book Club]

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Abundance Advent Books Community Conferences Conversations Ecology Economics Emergent Eucharist Family Food Gratitude Happenings Health history Hospitality Justice Lent Meditations Neighborhoods News Peace Place Poetry Politics Sabbath Scripture Stories Technology The Table Theology Uncategorized What is Slow Church? Youth

Select a Month January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 March 2016 June 2015 March 2015 February 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who said: "Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Jude James Paul Peter

Ragan Sutterfield – This is my Body [Patheos Book Club]

This Is My Body:*** ** ***From Obesity to Ironman, My Journey into the True Meaning of Flesh, Spirit, and Deeper Faith

By Ragan Sutterfield Hardback: Convergent Books, 2015.

Who said: "Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation"?

This Is My Body:* *From Obesity to Ironman, My Journey into the True Meaning of Flesh, Spirit, and Deeper Faith**