In the present 1,627-word OEN article, I further extend my inter-related thoughts in twenty inter-related OEN articles in recent months by reflecting further on the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity. For Americans today to counter and combat the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity in their psyches, I advocate body-positivity and sex-positivity.

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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) June 14, 2025: In the present OEN article, I want to broadly discuss the Victorian Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkin (1844-1889) in the broad context of the inter-related themes that I have worked with in the following twenty inter-related OEN articles - from September 2024 to June 12, 2025:

(1) "Young Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman" (dated September 3, 2024; viewed 1,661 times); in which I first celebrated the busty (37") young Lynda Carter's gloriously beautiful body in her wonderfully revealing Wonder Woman costume in the 1970s Wonder Woman television series;

(2) "Robert Moore on Optimal Human Psychological Development" (dated September 17, 2024; viewed 1,208 times); in which I first announced by criticism of the Roman Catholic Church's moral vision of human psychological development;

(3) "John A. Desteian on Love Relationships" (dated September 19, 2024; viewed 1,134 times);

(4) "Thomas J. Farrell's Encore on Young Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman" (dated September 30, 2024; viewed 1,093 times); in which I once against celebrate busty (37") young Lynda Carter's body;

(5) "Thomas J. Farrell's Encore on Robert Moore" (dated October 10, 2024; viewed 1,106 times);

(6) "Texas' War on Porn, and Robert Moore's Theory of the Archetypes of Maturity" (dated December 6, 2024; viewed 928 times);

(7) "On Interpreting the Ubiquitous Mom-Son Porn on the Internet" (dated December 19, 204; viewed 1,436 times); in which I first championed mom-son porn videos that are available free on the internet;

(8) "Some Reflections on the Work of C. G. Jung and Walter J. Ong" (dated December 28, 2024; viewed 1,217 times);

(9) "Some Personal Reflections About Porn" (dated January 2, 2025; viewed 1,333 times);

(10) "Some Further Reflections about Cory Chase and about Donald Trump" (dated January 10, 2025; viewed 788 times);

(11) "Some Deeply Personal Reflections About My Life and About Certain Pornstars" (dated January 29, 2025; viewed 924 times);

(12) "About J. R. R. Tolkien's Fantasy Novel, The Lord of the Rings" (dated February 15, 2025; viewed 1,093 times);

(13) "Thomas J. Farrell's Encore About J. R. R. Tolkien's Fantasy Novel, The Lord of the Ring" [sic] (dated February 22, 2025; viewed 698 times);

(14) "Philip Shenon on the Last Seven Popes" (dated March 11, 2025; viewed 527 times); also see Jason Berry's article "7 decades of papacy illuminated in new book, Jesus Wept" (dated June 14, 2025) in the National Catholic Reporter:

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(15) "Fareed Zakaria and Ezra Klein on President Trump's Foreign Policy" (dated March 24, 2025; viewed 1,872 times; in which I first articulated my criticisms of the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity;

(16) "Thomas J. Farrell's Encore on the tragic Anti-Body Heritage of Christianity" (dated April 29, 2025; viewed 1,360 times);

(17) "Thomas J. Farrell's Further Reflections on His Life and Work" (dated May 2, 2025; viewed 1,342 times);

(18) "I Am a Hypomanic Personality Type Person" (dated May 26, 2025; viewed 623 times);

(19) "Maia Szalavitz on Love as a Drug, and Walter J. Ong's Thought" (dated June 12, 2025; viewed 241 times as of June 14, 2025); in which I mention the busty (37") young Lynda Carter by name 45 times;

Lynda Carter today is in the news; see Faye James' article :Wonder Woman star Lynda Carter shares bold message as family secret is revealed" (dated June 13, 2025):

Click Here

(20) "David Brooks on Trumpism versus Abstractions, and Walter J. Ong's Thought" (dated June 12, 2025; viewed 285 times as of June 14, 2025).

Now, in my OEN article "Maia Szalavitz on Love as a Drug, and Walter J. Ong's Thought," I say, among other things, "When I turn my attention to my articulation of my criticism of the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity in my wide-ranging and, at times, deeply personal 28,800-word OEN article titled "Fareed Zakaria and Ezra Klein on President Trump's Foreign Policy: Dated March 24, 2025), I have to point out that I would not expect Father Ong to cheer me on in criticizing the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity - not even if he happened to agree with my criticism of the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity."

So, in fairness to Father Ong, I turn now to his work involving the body.

My favorite scholar is the American Jesuit renaissance specialist and cultural historian and pioneering media ecology theorist Walter Jackson Ong, Jr. (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) of Saint Louis University, the Jesuit university in the City of St. Louis, Missouri (USA), where, over the years, I took five courses from him. Father Ong wrote perceptively about the Victorian Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins in his quietly integrative book Hopkins, the Self, and God (University of Toronto Press, 1986), the published version of Ong's 1981 Alexander Lectures at the University of Toronto.

As you may recall, young Walter Ong (1912-2003) graduated from Rockhurst College (now Rockhurst University), the Jesuit college in in Kansas City, Missouri, young Walter Ong's hometown, at the end of the spring semester of 1933. Subsequently, young Walter Ong entered the Missouri Province Jesuit novitiate in Florissant, Missouri, in September 1935. As part of young Walter Ong's lengthy Jesuit formation, he made a 30-day preached retreat in the Jesuit novitiate following the famous Spiritual Exercises of the Spanish Renaissance mystic St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), the founder of the Jesuit religious order for men.

In the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola, a work the Father Ong subsequently characterized as a minor classic in our Western cultural history, we find the frequently repeated instruction calling for the application of the senses. That is, the person making a retreat following the Spiritual Exercises is called upon to "apply" each of his or her five senses in turn to meditating on the selected biblical passage of the day.

In any event, Father Ong subsequently became famous for working with the contrast of what he described as visual cognitive processing, on the one hand, and, on the other, oral-aural cognitive processing, starting with his account the aural-to-visual shift in cognitive processing in our Western cultural history in his massively researched 1958 book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason (Harvard University Press; for specific page references to the aural-to-visual shift, see the "Index" [p. 396]). Peter Ramus (1515-1572) was the French Renaissance logician and educational reformer and Protestant martyr whose work in logic was widely popular for a time.

The important thing to note here about young Walter Ong's Jesuit formation is that he made a 30-day preached retreat in silence in the Jesuit novitiate several years before he wrote his 1941 Master's thesis on sprung rhythm in Hopkins' poetry and also several years before he wrote his 1954 massively researched Harvard doctoral dissertation about Ramus, in which he discussed the aural-to-visual shift in cognitive processing in our Western cultural history.

Now, subsequently to making a 30day preached retreat in silence in the Jesuit novitiate, as part of young Walter Ong's lengthy Jesuit formation, he was sent for further studies to Saint Louis University, where he studies philosophy (in Latin) and English. Under the direction of young Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), young Walter Ong wrote his 1941 Master's thesis on sprung rhythm in the recently posthumously published poetry of the Victorian Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Subsequently, the recently ordained Father Ong published his 1941 Master's thesis, slightly revised, in 1949 in an anthology of essays by Jesuits about Hopkins' poetry.

Ong's 1949 slightly revised 1941 Master's thesis on sprung rhythm in Hopkins' poetry is reprinted, handsomely thanks to Paul A. Soukup, in An Ong Reader: Challenges for Further Inquiry, edited by Thomas J. Farrell and Paul A. Soukup (Hampton Press, 2002, pp. 111-174). In a manner of speaking, we could say that James I. Wimsatt took up Ong's challenge for further inquiry into Hopkins' sprung rhythm in his (Wimsatt's) criticism of Ong's 1949 slightly revised 1941 Master's thesis in his (Wimsatt's) cogently argued book Hopkins's Poetics of Speech Sound: Sprung Rhythm, Lettering, Inscape (University of Toronto Press, 2006).

In any event, in Ong's quietly integrative 1986 book Hopkins, the Self, and God, he does not happen to advert explicitly to his 1949 slightly revised 1941 Master's thesis on sprung rhythm in Hopkins' poetry.

However, in the "Index" of Ong's quietly integrative 1986 book Hopkins, the Self, and God (pp. 173-180), we find an entry of "body, part of self" (p. 173; referring us to pp. 39-41). To spell out the obvious, the five bodily senses referred to in the repeated instruction calling for the application of the senses in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola involve the human body. Consequently, it is important for Father Ong to spell out clearly his understanding of the human body in his extensive discussion of human spirituality in his quietly integrative 1986 book Hopkins, the Self, and God. When we turn to pp. 39-41, we find Ong's distinctive formulation: "When somebody kicks my body, I do not say, 'Quite kicking my apparent self,' but, 'Quite kicking me.' Though I feel myself as somehow inside my body, so that my body is in some real way vaguely external, my body is still in another real way unmistakably an integral part of me, actually included in my consciousness of self. 'Part of this world of objects . . . is also part of the very self,' as Hopkins puts it in the passage just quoted. My body is the frontier in which I am embedded and which is embedded in me: my body mediates between what is myself and everything else: it is both 'me' and otherness" (p. 40).

In light of Ong's observations here about the body, I would say that body-positivity is an essential attitude to have to counter and combat the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity.

Authors Website: http://www.d.umn.edu/~tfarrell

Authors Bio:

Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book WALTER ONG'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CULTURAL STUDIES: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE WORD AND I-THOU COMMUNICATION (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2000; 2nd ed. 2009, forthcoming). The first edition won the 2001 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology conferred by the Media Ecology Association. For further information about his education and his publications, see his UMD homepage: Click here to visit Dr. Farrell's homepage.

On September 10 and 22, 2009, he discussed Walter Ong's work on the blog radio talk show "Ethics Talk" that is hosted by Hope May in philosophy at Central Michigan University. Each hour-long show has been archived and is available for people who missed the live broadcast to listen to. Here are the website addresses for the two archived shows:

Click here to listen the Technologizing of the Word Interview

Click here to listen the Ramus, Method & The Decay of Dialogue Interview