Without a uniform dietary code, Christians around the world used
food in strikingly different ways, developing widely divergent
practices that spread, nurtured, and strengthened their religious
beliefs and communities. Featuring never-before published essays,
this anthology follows the intersection of food and faith from the
fourteenth to the twenty-first century, charting the complex
relationship among religious eating habits and politics, culture,
and social structure.
Theoretically rich and full of engaging portraits, essays
consider the rise of food buying and consumerism in the fourteenth
century, the Reformation ideology of fasting and its resulting
sanctions against sumptuous eating, the gender and racial politics
of sacramental food production in colonial America, and the
struggle to define "enlightened" Lenten dietary restrictions in
early modern France. Essays on the nineteenth century explore the
religious implications of wheat growing and breadmaking among New
Zealand's Maori population and the revival of the Agape meal, or
love feast, among American brethren in Christ Church.
Twentieth-century topics include the metaphysical significance of
vegetarianism, the function of diet in Greek Orthodoxy, American
Christian weight loss programs, and the practice of silent eating
rituals among English Benedictine monks. Two introductory essays
detail the key themes tying these essays together and survey food's
role in developing and disseminating the teachings of Christianity,
not to mention providing a tangible experience of faith.
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