Being human with finite bodies is bewildering. We are pulled toward glee and gloom at the same time. Embodied life is great because it only lasts for so long, but it only lasts for so long…and thus we worry that time is always running out. On top of this, we are confronted with the reality that our bodies just aren’t what we want them to be most of the time. Living isn’t easy. What if it didn’t have to be so challenging? What if there were solutions to death, disease, disability, and unfairness available in this life? Transhumanists envision a day when all this could be ours, if we only have the will to do what is necessary to grasp it. Everything from cutting edge medications, to technology implanted in our bodies, to the use of robots for all manner of activities (including sex) might be on the horizon, with the promise of a better world. How should we understand such claims? How might the Christian tradition appreciate, subvert, and better these claims?

On Sunday, May 26, 2024, Dr. Jeremy Meeks will give the lecture, “The Complicated Beauty of Being Born This Way: The Promise and Peril of Transhumanism and the Difference Christianity Makes” at CCWC’s Sunday Night Theology. This talk will show how Christianity provides a way to embrace the complicated beauty of existing in finite bodies in a broken world, no matter what kind of bodies we have. This event is free and open to all. Childcare is provided.

Dr. Meeks will also preach from Ezekiel 10:1-22 during CCWC’s 10 AM worship service.

Dr. Jeremy Meeks is the Director and Lead Instructor of The Charles Simeon Trust’s (CST) Chicago Course on Preaching in Chicago, IL and instructs at CST Workshops around the world. He is also the Resident Pastor for Ministry Apprenticeships at Christ Church Chicago. Meeks recently completed his PhD in Theological Ethics at the University of Aberdeen. Him and his wife, Marjorie, who serves as the associate director of Women’s Workshops for CST, reside in Chicago with their children.