ABSTRACT
Embodiment is as interested in the posture of people’s necks during prayer as in the content of their petitions, in the sensation of chanting as in the history of liturgical formulae. Morality and embodiment also underlie the Incarnation, the doctrine that God became human in the man Jesus of Nazareth. One powerful aspect of embodiment is language itself. Positively, this involves the pleasure of self-expression in human relationships and the joy of self-expression in worship. Having emphasized embodiment in general, the chapter considers language as one of its distinctive attributes that helps frame bodily activity. More illuminating as far as embodiment is concerned are analyses such as those of Zygmunt Bauman, which consider the drive for physically fit bodies or the tactile nature of relationships in contemporary urban life: the point is that social worlds produce bodies to their own liking.
