Christopher West Corrected

A few years back, I took my daughter to a presentation on John Paul II''s Theology of the Body by Christopher West at the Catholic University of America. Though I had earned a masters degree from the John Paul II Institute for Studies of Marriage and Family,  I struggled to explain his teaching to my teenage children. I was impressed and pleased with West's ability to simplify the difficult concepts and keep my daughter's attention.  

However, while Christopher West has rightly earned great admiration for his effective popularization of the Theology of the Body (google this term and most of it will be books, presentations and retreats presenting West's synthesis of the pope's teaching),  some bishops and theologians have expressed concerns about his overly sexualized presentation of this new teaching. 

The problem came to a head in an ABC interview in which West compared Hugh Hefner's repudiation of Victorian prudishness with John Paul II's own efforts to confront a dualistic view of human sexuality that rejected the body as an expression of the human person's deepest values. In the wake of the interview,  West sought to correct the misimpression it created, arguing that his comments were "sensationalized."  But the controversy appears to be an ideal time for him to review his approach, in light of the concerns  summarized  by several prominent Catholic theologians.

Postscript: Anyone who is interested in learning more about the late pontiff's Theology of the Body should check out Imago Dei's "A New Language: John Paul II's Theology of the Body" study guide that offers 24 sessions that re-trace the pontiff's own "dialogue between faith and experience." I love this program and have fascilitated several study groups. A New Language study groups have popped up in over 23 U.S. dioceses and seven countries. A Spanish edition will be released this summer.