Lectio visceralis – embodied, online worship: praying, learning and liberation in the flesh at BIAPT 2022

ABSTRACT Lectio visceralis is form of prayer/reflection in which participants gently create sculptures with their own bodies, and then reflect on these sculptures to discern spiritual insight. While lectio visceralis originated during the COVID lockdown, its roots lie in Christian incarnationalism, and in the liberationist practice of Theatre of the Oppressed. This article describes an online lectio visceralis experience, ‘This Is My Body: An Interfaith Ritual of Embodied Reflection.’ (This was the public worship component at the 2022 annual conference of BIAPT, the British and Irish Association for Practical Theology.) The article explores the roots of lectio visceralis in Theatre of the Oppressed, which combines critical pedagogy, Brechtian theatre, and Stanislavskian emotional inquiry. It lays out the neuroscientific evidence for considering both prayer and reflection as thoroughly embodied. And it argues for the Christian bona fides of lectio visceralis, in light of a theology of ‘integral liberation’.