Feminist Theology and Contemporary Dieting Culture PDF Download

Author: Hannah Bacon
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567659941
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Hannah Bacon draws on qualitative research conducted inside one UK secular commercial weight loss group to show how Christian religious forms and theological discourses inform contemporary weight-loss narratives. Bacon argues that notions of sin and salvation resurface in secular guise in ways that repeat well-established theological meanings. The slimming organization recycles the Christian terminology of sin – spelt 'Syn' – and encourages members to frame weight loss in salvific terms. These theological tropes lurk in the background helping to align food once more with guilt and moral weakness, but they also mirror to an extent the way body policing techniques in Christianity have historically helped to cultivate self-care. The self-breaking and self-making aspects of women's Syn-watching practices in the group continue certain features of historical Christianity, serving in similar ways to conform women's bodies to patriarchal norms while providing opportunities for women's self-development. Taking into account these tensions, Bacon asks what a specifically feminist theological response to weight loss might look like. If ideas about sin and salvation service hegemonic discourses about fat while also empowering women to shape their own lives, how might they be rethought to challenge fat phobia and the frenetic pursuit of thinness? As well as naming as 'sin' principles and practices which diminish women's appetites and bodies, this book forwards a number of proposals about how salvation might be performed in our everyday eating habits and through the cultivation of fat pride. It takes seriously the conviction of many women in the group that food and the body can be important sites of power, wisdom and transformation, but channels this insight into the construction of theologies that resist rather than reproduce thin privilege and size-ist norms.

Author: Hannah Bacon
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780567692870
Category : Body image in women
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Introduction: theology, food and fat: a healthy recipe? -- Syn, danger, and disordered desire -- Syn, self-surveillance and taking care: tensions and ambiguities -- Salvation, "getting rid" and "getting there" -- Rethinking sin: sizeism, the victimization of food, and the divided-self -- Rethinking salvation: a (re)turn to "sensible" eating -- Rethinking salvation: Sabbath and fat pride -- Conclusion: for the love of food, for the love of fat.

Author: Hannah Bacon
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567659968
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Hannah Bacon draws on qualitative research conducted inside one UK secular commercial weight loss group to show how Christian religious forms and theological discourses inform contemporary weight-loss narratives. Bacon argues that notions of sin and salvation resurface in secular guise in ways that repeat well-established theological meanings. The slimming organization recycles the Christian terminology of sin – spelt 'Syn' – and encourages members to frame weight loss in salvific terms. These theological tropes lurk in the background helping to align food once more with guilt and moral weakness, but they also mirror to an extent the way body policing techniques in Christianity have historically helped to cultivate self-care. The self-breaking and self-making aspects of women's Syn-watching practices in the group continue certain features of historical Christianity, serving in similar ways to conform women's bodies to patriarchal norms while providing opportunities for women's self-development. Taking into account these tensions, Bacon asks what a specifically feminist theological response to weight loss might look like. If ideas about sin and salvation service hegemonic discourses about fat while also empowering women to shape their own lives, how might they be rethought to challenge fat phobia and the frenetic pursuit of thinness? As well as naming as 'sin' principles and practices which diminish women's appetites and bodies, this book forwards a number of proposals about how salvation might be performed in our everyday eating habits and through the cultivation of fat pride. It takes seriously the conviction of many women in the group that food and the body can be important sites of power, wisdom and transformation, but channels this insight into the construction of theologies that resist rather than reproduce thin privilege and size-ist norms.

Author: Thia Cooper
Publisher: SCM Press
ISBN: 0334061628
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 106

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Book Description
The work of Marcella Maria Althaus-Reid is both groundbreaking and notoriously difficult to read, as it blends theories from post-colonial studies, queer studies, gender and sexuality studies, and feminist and liberation theologies. Offering a much needed introduction to the work of the theologian, Queer and Indecent shows the development of Althaus-Reid’s core concepts - indigeneity, economic oppression, the body, indecency, heterosexuality, and sex, as well as setting her life in context with an overview of her stance on feminist teaching and activism, and her critique of Latin American liberation theology. Designed to introduce a new generation to her work, the book serves as both an indispensable guidebook and a launchpad for students to explore her extraordinary writing for themselves.

Author: Thomas Jay Oord
Publisher: SacraSage Press
ISBN: 1948609134
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 139

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Book Description
Hurting people ask heart-felt questions about God and suffering. Some "answers" they receive appeal to mystery: “God’s ways are not our ways”. Some answers say God allows evil for a greater purpose. Some say evil is God's punishment. The usual answers fail. They don't support the truth that God loves everyone all the time. God Can't gives a believable answer to why a good and powerful God doesn't prevent evil. Author Thomas Jay Oord says God’s love is inherently uncontrolling. God loves everyone and everything, so God can't control anyone or anything. This means God cannot prevent evil singlehandedly. God can’t stop evildoers, whether human, animal, organism, or inanimate objects and forces. In God Can't, Oord gives a plausible reason why some are healed, but many others are not. God always works to heal everyone, but sometimes our bodies, organisms, or other creatures do not cooperate with God's healing work. Or the conditions of creation are not right for the healing God wants to do. Some people think God causes or allows suffering to teach us lessons or build our character. God Can't disagrees. Oord says God squeezes good from the evil God didn’t want in the first place. God uses pain and suffering without willing or even allowing it. Most people think God can overcome evil singlehandedly. In God Can't, Oord says God needs cooperation for love to reign now and later. This leads to a better view of the afterlife called “relentless love.” It rejects traditional ideas of heaven, hell, and annihilation. Relentless love holds to the possibility all creatures and all creation will respond to God’s love. God Can't is written in understandable language. As a world-renown theologian, Thomas Jay Oord brings credibility to the book’s radical ideas. He explains these ideas through true stories, illustrations, and scripture. God Can't is for those who want answers to tragedy, abuse, and other evils that make sense! What They're Saying... “If conventional notions of God make less and less sense to you, you’ll find Thomas Jay Oord’s new book a breath of fresh air. Simply put, “God Can’t” presents an understanding of God that thoughtful, ethical people can believe in.” -- Brian D. McLaren, author of The Great Spiritual Migration "I did not want this book to end. I wish Dr. Oord had written it 100 years ago, or 1000 years ago... To find your understanding of life and your love for God renewed, read this book." -- Dr. Karen Strand Winslow, Ph.D., Biblical and Jewish Studies Professor of Bible, Azusa Pacific University "As a clinical psychologist working with people in trauma, I owe Thomas Jay Oord an enormous debt of gratitude for recasting the so-called problem of evil in terms that are conceptually satisfying, theologically consistent, and pastorally liberating.” -- Dr Roger Bretherton- Principal Lecturer at the University of Lincoln (UK), Chair of the British Association of Christians in Psychology “Victims of trauma sometimes hear theological responses that imply their suffering is somehow “God’s will." A more careful theological reflection on the nature of the power of a God who is love can help. Oord gives us a clear and compelling alternative in this profoundly insightful and admirably concrete and accessible book.” -- Dr. Anna Case-Winters, Professor of Theology at McCormick Theological Seminary “I know of no book that speaks to suffering with the depth of theological sophistication and psychological sensitivity as God Can’t. This book is a rare combination of depth and accessibility, truly written for the wounded. I recommend it to my students, parishioners, and therapy clients.” -- Dr. Brad D. Strawn, Professor of the Integration of Psychology and Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary

Author: Sally Douglas
Publisher: Coventry Press
ISBN: 9780648982265
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The Jesus community is called to be the salt of the earth, a metaphor that contains rich and disruptive challenge. Salt is little. We weep salty tears and grow up in dark salty wombs. Salt preserves. Salt drawsout taste and too much salt spoils everything.With scholarly insight into the biblical text, early church writers and theology, as well as her pastoral experience in ministry, Sally Douglas invites us to wrestle afresh with the metaphor of being salt. Here we discover a call into discipleship that is free from the success criteria of consumerist culture and free from nostalgia.This book is not a 'how to' manual. Instead, through stories of ancient and contemporary salty communities, reflection questions and liturgies, the book is a nourishing resource for people and communities seeking faithful ways of being church today.

Author: Keegan Osinski
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725254050
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 135

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Book Description
Fifty years after Stonewall, the experiences of LGBTQ+ Christians are--rightfully--beginning to be received with interest by their churches. Queering Wesley, Queering the Church presents a prototype for thinking about Wesleyan holiness as an expansive openness to the love and grace of God in queer Christian lives rather than the limiting and restrictive legalism that is sometimes found in Wesleyan theology and praxis. This inventive project consists of queer readings of ten John Wesley sermons. Reading these sermons from a queer perspective offers the church a fresh paradigm for theological innovation, while remaining in line with the tradition and legacy of Wesley that is so central and generative to Wesleyan churches. Arguing that a coherent line of thought can be drawn from Wesley's conception of holiness to the queer, holy lives of LGBTQ+ Christians, Queering Wesley, Queering the Church playfully utilizes queer theory in a way that is fully compatible with Wesleyan teaching. This book aims to be a first step in seriously considering the theological voices of LGBTQ+ Christians in the Wesleyan tradition as a valuable asset to a vital church.

Author: Anthony G. Reddie
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429671474
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the theological challenge presented by the new post-Brexit epoch. The referendum vote for Britain to leave the European Union has led to a seismic shift in the ways in which parts of the British population view and judge their compatriots. The subsequent rise in the reported number of racially motivated incidents and the climate of vilification and negativity directed at anyone not viewed as ‘authentically’ British should be a matter of concern for all people. The book is comprised of a series of essays that address varying aspects of what it means to be British and the ways in which churches in Britain and the Christian faith could and should respond to a rising tide of White English nationalism. It is a provocative challenge to the all too often tolerated xenophobia, as well as the paucity of response from many church leaders in the UK. This critique is offered via the means of a prophetic, postcolonial model of Black theology that challenges the incipient sense of White entitlement and parochial ‘nativism’ that pervaded much of the referendum debate. The essays in this book challenge the church and wider society to ensure justice and equity for all, not just a privileged sense of entitlement for some. It will be of keen interest to any scholar of Black, political and liberation theology as well as those involved in cultural studies from a postcolonial perspective.

Author: Emma White
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351103342
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
Widely popularized images of unobtainable and damaging feminine ideals can be a cause of profound disjunction between women and their bodies. A consequence of this dissonance is an embodied performance of these ideals with the potential development of disordered eating practices, such as anorexia nervosa. This book develops a spirituality of anorexia by suggesting that these eating disorders are physical symptoms of the general repression of feminine nature in our culture. Furthermore, it puts forward Goddess feminism as a framework for a healing therapeutic model to address anorexia and more broadly, the "slender ideal" touted by society. The book focuses on the female body in contemporary society, specifically the development of anorexia nervosa, and what this expression communicates about female embodiment. Drawing upon the work of a variety of theorists, social commentators, liberation theologians and thealogians, it discusses the benefits of adopting female-focused myths, symbols and rituals, drawing upon the work of Marion Woodman and Naomi Goldenberg. Ultimately, it theorises a thealogical approach to anorexia aimed at displacing the damaging discourses that undermine women in the twenty-first century. Offering an alternative model of spirituality and embodiment for contemporary women, this book will be of keen interest to scholars of theology, religious studies, gender studies and psychology.

Author: Alison Woolley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351273582
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Silence is long-established as a spiritual discipline amongst people of faith. However, its examination tends to focus on depictions within texts emerging from religious life and the development of its practices. Latterly, feminist theologians have also highlighted the silencing of women within Christian history. Consequently, silence is often portrayed as a solitary discipline based in norms of male monastic experience or a tool of women’s subjugation. In contrast, this book investigates chosen practices of silence in the lives of Christian women today, evidencing its potential for enabling profound relationality and empowerment within their spiritual journeys. Opening with an exploration of Christianity’s reclamation of practices of silence in the twentieth century, this contemporary ethnographic study engages with wider academic conversations about silence. Its substantive theological and empirical exploration of women’s practices of silence demonstrates that, for some, silence-based prayer is a valued space for encounter and transformation in relationships with God, with themselves and with others. Utilising a methodology that proposes focusing on silence throughout the qualitative research process, this study also illustrates a new model for depicting relational change. Finally, the book urges practical and feminist theologians to re-examine silence’s potential for facilitating the development of more authentic and responsible relationality within people’s lives. This is a unique study that provides new perspectives on practices of silence within Christianity, particularly amongst women. It will, therefore, be of significant interest to academics, practitioners and students in theology and religious studies with a focus on contemporary religion, spirituality, feminism, gender and research methods.