The body is not an evil prison-house of the soul, as paganism declares, but a unique creation of God. Salvation comes not by escaping this earth or human institutions, but by making one's way through history, as on a pilgrimage. Christianity, the efflorescence of biblical revelation, confirmed the Judaic emphasis by affirming Christ's humanity as well as his deity, and his bodily resurrection as a down-payment on our own. The ancient Gnostics saw no more need for these visible, physical, earthly elements than do their successors today. Gnostics believe the Spirit is all-important.
Worship is spiritual and inward.
When that belief is questioned, the standard answer is that to worship otherwise is unspiritual, earthly, carnal, or external. This heresy led many in the early church to question the importance of meeting regularly. From the gnostic point of view, the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit. Gnosticism breeds narcissistic individualism, but Christianity promotes mutual commitment to Christ, not only through the internal unity of the Spirit, but also through the external unity of Word and sacrament, fellowship, prayer, creeds and confessions. What is crucial for American Protestantism is a clear understanding and a stubborn assertion of the truth that when Christians are born again, they do not enter again into their mother's womb, nestling back into the fetal position, free of this world's concerns, isolated from pain and trauma by a spiritual water bag.