Embodied Faith: Reflections on a Materialist Spirituality

The materialist spirituality in Embodied Faith is biblically grounded, and it smells of earth even as it offers a taste of heaven. Taking an observation of St. Benedict as his starting point, Ola Tjorhom maintains that outward forms are fully capable of incorporating and expressing inner spiritual substance. Tjorhom moves on to identify three crucial features of a materialist spirituality. First, it has a concrete substance -- primarily the sacraments and the sacramental dimension of our Christian life in its totality. Second, materialist spirituality cannot be lived out in a vacuum, but requires concrete spaces -- mainly the church and the world, which, though separate, are clearly interconnected. Third, this spirituality is grounded not in airy ideas and concepts but in plain empirical perception -- in things we can see and hear, smell and taste -- making it a spirituality eminently suited for our daily lives and the world.