“In the second century CE, a new worldview emerged, one that radically challenged the Judeo-Christian notion that creation is basically good. In this worldview, creation was the fall. Spirit is good, matter is evil. The world is a prison into which spirits have fallen from the good heaven. Having become trapped in bodies, these spirits became subject to the deformed and ignorant Powers that rule the world of matter. Consequently, sex, the body, and earthly life in general were considered evil. The religious task was to rescue one’s spirit from the flesh…

“This worldview is historically associated with religions such as Gnosticism and Manichaeism, philosophies such as Neoplatonism, and the sexual attitudes we associate, however unfairly, with Puritanism. It continues to be a powerful factor today in spiritualism, sexual hang-ups, eating disorders, negative self-images, and the rejection of one’s body.”

(From Walter Wink’s The Powers That Be, p.16-17.)