I didn’t notice Nancy Pearcey’s latest book when it was released in 2018, but I heard an interview today in which she described one of the explanations she makes that has caught the attention of many readers. Her book is Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality, and it offers biblical reasons for accepting, even loving, the body God has given you.

She says we can take something from environmentalism.

The Nature Conservatory’s states, “Our mission is to conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends. Our vision is a world where the diversity of life thrives, and people act to conserve nature for its own sake and its ability to fulfill our needs and enrich our lives.”

What if we applied that logic to our own bodies? We are not spirits or souls trapped in a temporal, worthless vessel. We are unique body and soul beings, and our physical form is a major part of our lives. Our physical health is a big part of a thriving life. What if we treated it as a kind of natural good, something to love partly for its own sake, not something to fight against?

There are some who say we can and should remake ourselves into whatever image we imagine ourselves to be, but that’s not how we treat nature. We want to preserve the natural world around us. How about we preserve the natural form closest to us?

This is what I took from the interview. You’ll find more good reasoning in Pearcey’s Love Thy Body.