Feed the Flesh, and......

This blog was inspired by a movie that recently came out named "Sinners." There were so many takeaways from this film that honestly has inspired me to delve deeper into a couple of topics that I'm in the process of researching.

For context, the film "Sinners" powerfully explores the Blues tradition and its historical impact, which directly connects to what I want to discuss today: my contrary point of view on what is taught in the Christian church, "mortifying the flesh," as one of the ladies in the church I grew up in would say, "starve the flesh, feed the spirit."

The Christian Dichotomy: Body vs. Spirit

The underlying message in Christianity regarding this particular subject is that the body is something to be conquered, controlled, denied. It's considered a vessel of temptation that needs to be subdued to access spiritual purity.

This dichotomy between flesh and spirit runs deep within Christian theology, specifically within Western society/culture. Paul's writings on "the flesh" have often been misunderstood as advocating rejection of bodily existence. Augustine, struggling with his own physical desires, reinforced this interpretation. Together, they created a problematic division where the physical became labeled as profane while the spiritual was elevated as sacred, a dichotomy that persists in religious thought today.

The Cost of Separation: Starving the Flesh

The practice of starving the flesh through fasting, celibacy, and other forms of physical denial emerged as a spiritual discipline meant to purify the soul by punishing the body. These practices still continue in modern Christianity via purity culture, teaching believers to suppress their sexuality and emphasize physical suffering as spiritual refinement.

But what happens when we divide ourselves this way? When we teach people to deny half of their existence?

Sexual dysfunction, eating disorders, depression, a significant disconnection between mind and body that fragments rather than integrates the human experience—that's what happens.

The Blues Alternative: Body and Spirit as One

Now contrast this with what happens on a Saturday night at a juke joint (modern day it would be the club) down the road from that same church: the blues begin to play.

I would describe the Blues as raw, honest, and visceral. There is no separation between body and spirit. It is one. The Blues doesn't just acknowledge the physical reality of human existence; it celebrates it, grounds itself in it, and makes it the very foundation of spiritual expression. Blues music originated from the African American experience in the South, embracing a way of understanding the world that saw everything as connected rather than dividing reality into opposing categories the way Western traditions often did.

The Sacred Vessel: Our Bodies as Pathways to the Divine

In the blues tradition, our body isn't an obstacle to overcome but the sacred vessel that allows us to experience higher consciousness. Pain, pleasure, desire, heartbreak: they aren't obstacles to spiritual connection with the divine; they are the pathway to it.

When Muddy Waters growls about his desires, when B.B. King makes his guitar "Lucille" cry with the pain of lost love, when Bessie Smith sings about her bodily hungers and disappointments... these moments came to mind recently while reorganizing my vinyl collection. These blues legends weren't separating their physical experiences from their spiritual lives; they were integrating them in a way that's so raw and authentic. The blues doesn't deny suffering or passion; it transforms them through expression. It's straight up alchemy.

Holistic Worldview: Challenging the Sacred-Profane Binary

This is what scholar Jon Michael Spencer discusses in his work on African American religious music when he challenges "Christianity's bifurcating worldview (the sacred versus the profane) on the holistic cosmology of this people of African origin." The blues doesn't recognize that division; it heals it.

Soul Music: The Marriage of Gospel and Blues

Digging deeper into this connection, I discovered that soul music was essentially a unification of gospel and blues. Soul music took the passionate expression of the blues and married it to the spiritual fervor of the Black church.

I've often heard people say that the greatest musicians originated from the church. This insight sparked a realization, as I considered how many artists with undeniable talent began their musical journeys in the church. The typical judgment you would hear from church goers criticizing these artists is that they use the gifts God gave them for "the world" rather than staying in the church to praise the Lord, because what's better than that, right?

Right.....

When Sam Cooke left the Soul Stirrers to sing secular music, he didn't abandon spirituality; he expanded it. When Aretha Franklin moved between gospel albums and soul hits, she wasn't living in two separate worlds but bringing wholeness to both. Even the name "soul music" speaks to this integration; it's music that touches both body and spirit simultaneously, refusing to acknowledge any barrier between them.

Soul music is characterized by its physical expression: handclaps, spontaneous movement, call-and-response patterns that engage the entire community in a shared physical and spiritual experience. It's no coincidence that the rise of soul music paralleled the civil rights movements that demanded recognition of Black Americans' full humanity; body and soul together, neither subordinate to the other.

What If We've Been Wrong?

My intention is to have us question: what if we've been getting it wrong all along? What if the attempt to separate body and spirit has been the very thing preventing us from experiencing either fully?

Feed the flesh, and you nourish the soul. This is the wisdom the blues has always known and Christianity has often forgotten. Our bodies aren't obstacles to spiritual experience but the very ground of it. Our desires, our pain, and our joy aren't distractions from the divine but pathways to it.

Soul Embodiment: Living Fully Present

The concept of "Soul Embodiment," explored by contemporary spiritual teachers and somatic practitioners, suggests we are "innately meant to live from within our bodies" and that "when our soul is fully present within, there is easy access to present moment wisdom, creativity, vitality, and joy." This is precisely what blues musicians demonstrate through their art: a full-bodied presence that refuses fragmentation.

When we deny the flesh, we don't elevate the spirit; we diminish it. We cut ourselves off from the very vessel through which we experience life and connection. But when we feed the flesh—acknowledge it, express through it, honor it—we discover that the spirit isn't somewhere else, waiting to be reached through denial. It's here, now, vibrating through every cell of our physical being.

The blues teaches us to stay "loose and forward-looking" in the face of hardship, to put ourselves "in a position where transformation can happen." It offers wisdom for living fully embodied lives that embrace rather than deny our physical reality.

What the Church Can Learn from the Juke Joint

Perhaps it's time for the church to learn from the juke joint, for Sunday morning to remember what Saturday night has never forgotten: we are whole beings, and our salvation lies not in division but in integration—body, mind, spirit united in one indivisible expression of humanity.

Feed the flesh, and the spirit will follow. This isn't heresy; it's wholeness. And in a fragmented world, it might be exactly the gospel we need.