Part 5 in a series on Athens or Jerusalem: Establishing the Spiritual Heritage of Jesus’ Followers

As we learned in part 4 of this series, the Church was swamped by Greek philosophies of the time, and distancing herself from her Jewish heritage adopted a Platonic separation between the soul and our physical bodies. The result was a dualistic view of humanity that has left much of Christianity with an unbiblical and unhealthy emphasis on self-denial, asceticism, and the rejection of the pleasures of the physical world. If you haven’t already, I recommend reading part 4 before delving into our discussion of marriage, sexual relationships, the family and where the church went wrong.