Tortured Wonders: Christian Spirituality for People, Not Angels [Hardcover]

Rodney Clapp (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2004

Tortured Wonders shows how orthodox Christian spirituality "never gives up on the body." Rodney Clapp begins by addressing the incarnation of Christ and the resurrection of the body, and the place of sacraments in Christian spirituality. Then he takes up the likes of Elvis and Bambi to explore the spiritual consequences of our contemporary obsession with celebrity and the fear of death. He calls us to embrace our creatureliness through a string of irresistible topics: Is there sex in heaven? What is the most "biblical" posture for prayer? Can we learn anything from non-Christian spiritual traditions? Pastors, counselors, and anyone interested in Christian spirituality will appreciate this lucid and insightful book.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Angels, in the Christian tradition, are disembodied spirits who directly behold the face of God. And we, Clapp insists, are not angels. So Christian spirituality will have to take full account of our bodies—their earthy constitution, their intense desires, their certain death and their promised resurrection. What follows from this premise is a poetic account of traditional spirituality, unapologetically borrowed from writers like the desert fathers, Augustine and Luther, but enlivened with elegant writing and alert to the needs and challenges of contemporary life. To readers who associate spirituality with gauzy inner states, Clapp's attention to everything from posture to excretion will be startling, but the reward is a book that manages to be both traditional and original. Clapp also revives the ancient sense of the "social body," especially as seen in the Christian church's communal feast, the Eucharist. With the same élan he demonstrated in his previous book, Border Crossings, Clapp probes popular culture and household life for clues to practicing the Christian faith. He writes of his dog Merle, "I have never yet seen him gaze into the sky. He would rather keep his nose to the ground, and in his demeanor he is a constant reminder that the dirt—not just the stars—is worth pondering and investigating." Such down-to-earth realism makes this a splendid introduction to Christian spirituality.
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From Booklist

Evangelical journalist Clapp wields his not inconsiderable wit, intelligence, and moral clarity like a triple-edged razor to shave modern culture's fuzzy logic off orthodox Christian morality. Calling human beings "tortured wonders" who "live in between, in and as bodies that can only slightly anticipate their full and grace-ripened spiritual capacities," he leans on the wisdom of myriad philosophers to reconcile the apparent disparity between flesh and soul. To make his point about sex and celebrity, he leaps merrily between Luke's Gospel and Elvis Presley, then between Walt Disney's Bambi and Leviticus, to discuss vulnerability and interdependence. Indeed, never shy about applying biblical templates to current affairs, Clapp tries to "picture George W. Bush washing the worn, dirty toes of Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein." So doing, he graphically propels Christ's humility--he washed the feet of Judas--into the twenty-first century. If at times Clapp's language seems irreverent or crude, he explains that this is unavoidable in an apologia for the bond between the human body and the Holy Spirit. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Brazos Press (November 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1587431068
• ISBN-13: 978-1587431067
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,214,060 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars subtitle says it all, January 17, 2007

By 

Daniel B. Clendenin (www.journeywithjesus.net) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tortured Wonders: Christian Spirituality for People, Not Angels (Hardcover)

So much talk and literature about Christian discipleship drifts off into the heavens with pious platitudes, jumbled jargon, and syrupy slogans. Rodney Clapp tethers us back to earth where we belong, taking as his focus the every day realities of ordinary people. The title for his book comes from the English poet George Herbert (1593-1633) and his poem "Affliction (IV)," the first stanza of which reads, "Broken in pieces all asunder, / Lord, hunt me not, / A thing forgot, / Once a poor creature, now a wonder, / A wonder tortur'd in the space / Betwixt this world and that of grace." We are, wrote Augustine (354-430), "intermediate beings" poised between beasts and angels, between time and eternity, and because of that discipleship is at best only "partially apprehended by means of a puzzling reflection in a mirror" (p. 94). As tortured wonders we normally experience this "in-betweenness" as "incongruous, mysterious and self-contradictory" (p. 177). So, what Clapp gives us is a delightfully offbeat and different narration of Christian discipleship that takes as its starting point "the mud, the blood and the beer" (Johnny Cash) of earthbound creatures and only after that moves to sanctuaries with sanitized, stained-glass windows.

As "ensouled bodies" or "embodied souls" (Karl Barth, p. 36), authentic spirituality is characterized by a genuine earthiness. Contrast the early gnostic Valentinus (second century), who admitted that Jesus ate and drank, but insisted that he was continent in such a way that "the food did not pass out of his body" (p. 178). So much for body functions. Part One (chapters 1-6) focuses on what Clapp calls "classic Christian spirituality," a catch-all term that he never defines and which is broad enough to be problematic. He gives lengthy consideration (three entire chapters) to the place of the Eucharist or Lord's Supper in discipleship, defending a form of sacramental realism, that is, that Jesus Christ is truly and really present in the elements of bread and wine in some objective, real sense. In other words, the Eucharist is about how God makes Himself present to us rather than how we subjectively remember or memorialize Calvary. Part Two (chapters 7-12) turns the dial and explores "Christian spirituality in the light (and darkness) of the 21st century." Clapp characterizes our contemporary society as "Elvis World," using the singer in a literal way to unpack cultural currents, but also as a metaphor to describe modern life (money, sex, power, celebrity, drugs, etc.). Clapp clearly enjoys engaging our (post) modern world, our consumerism, film, music, and the like. Successive chapters, for example, treat of death, sex and bodily exercise. However imperfect we remain as "tortured wonders," we experience God's grace truly and really, here and now, because of Jesus who "became flesh and tented among us" (p. 253 = the last sentence of the book). That is truly good news.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spirituality of the body, November 27, 2004

By 

Tedd Steele (Naperville, IL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tortured Wonders: Christian Spirituality for People, Not Angels (Hardcover)

In this wonderful book, Clapp articulates a Christian spirituality of the body. This is unique from contemporary spiritualities in several ways. For one thing, it is focused on the body, rather than on the non-physical mind, soul, or heart. Clapp wants to make it clear that Christian practices, from prayer to sex, are for the body. For another thing, this book takes seriously the uniquely Christian aspects of spirituality. Clapp listens to the guidance of church fathers to articulate an orthodox understanding of spiritual practices. The first part of the book focuses on outlining what the Christian tradition has taught us about spiritual things. The second part attempts to situate these ideas within what some have called the postmodern setting (although Clapp calls it "Elvis World"). Clapp interacts with contemporary culture to make this an enjoyable read. This book is for any Christian who wants to understand what the body has to do with Christian practices and belief.

3.0 out of 5 stars Tortured Wonders is a Decent Book, September 3, 2010

By 

Where Pen Meets Paper - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tortured Wonders: Christian Spirituality for People, Not Angels (Paperback)

I hate Spirit 105.3 (my local Christian radio station). If you like that radio station and I hurt your feelings, I apologize. In all honesty, I really do not want you to have hurt feelings, but I find Spirit 105.3 less wholesome and family friendly (as they advertise) and more vomit-inducing otherworldly fakery. Of course I am painting this station in broad strokes and I have no special insight regarding the spiritual lives of its disc jockeys, but every bit of spiritual advice I hear on air sounds like it came from the front porch of a wooden house in a Thomas Kinkade painting.

Enter Rodney Clapp and his book Tortured Wonders. In a way, Clapp's premise in this book is a rebuttal against a "Spirit 105.3" spirituality. While our local Christian radio station seeks to disconnect the soul from the body promoting a Christian spirituality fit for people playing harps in heaven, Clapp reminds us that God created the human body and said that it was good.

Clapp splits Tortured Wonders in half. The first section, titled "Classical Christian Spirituality," details Orthodox Christianity and the themes that pushed it towards an angelic spirituality. Part two, "Christianity in the Light (and Darkness) of the 21st Century," depicts the ways in which an Orthodox spirituality could translate to our modern culture.

Clapp writes:

"As human beings, as tortured wonders, we are each of us `in between.' We think, we speak, we dream, we pray, so we set ourselves apart from animals and the rest of creation. And yet we are also animals - like them, we are embodied; like them, we are born, we eat and live for a spell, and we die. We humans, then, are luminal creatures, teetering on the threshold between the divine and the bestial" (177).

It follows from this quote that Christian spirituality demands a more holistic approach. Too often, Christians define Orthodoxy as a religion of the mind. Through apologetics and prayer, classical and modern Christians actively participate in mental workouts. Clapp counters in arguing that Orthodox Christianity contains a spirituality of body and mind.

Our bodies are constant reminders that we own a one-way ticket to death. While some cover up sneezes with a handkerchief and others defy aging through Botox, human beings are incapable of outrunning death. Simply put, every day we wake up, we are one day closer to death. Understanding this concept, Clapp contends that a spirituality of the body ought to be a Christian practice.

Personally, Tortured Wonders has influenced me to pay close attention to the treatment of my body. I admit that I have fallen prey to an exclusive spirituality of the mind. This book has encouraged me to begin running, not for the sake of obtaining a good appearance, but for the purpose of submitting my body to something that I'd rather not do. Similarly, I am more aware of the food nourishing me. Eating is a spiritual act. It is done in community and the source of nourishment ought to be considered. If I eat processed foods, then I am consuming a food that is not only unhealthy, but also loaded with sugars and salts added for the purpose of tricking my anatomy to enjoy it the most. Thus, eating natural foods bring the benefits of health and moderation.

Tortured Wonders succeeds in expanding the breadth of what we consider spirituality. Although it is not a page turner, the themes present in the book provide a unique perspective. I recommend Tortured Wonders to anyone who is interested in a holistic approach to spirituality.

Originally posted at Where Pen Meets Paper Blog