Food and Faith in Christian Culture
Ken Albala and Trudy Eden
Abstract
This anthology looks at the intersection of food and faith from the fourteenth to the twenty-first century, charting the complex relationships that exist between religious eating habits and politics, cultures and social structures. Its chapters 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. Chapters on th ... More
This anthology looks at the intersection of food and faith from the fourteenth to the twenty-first century, charting the complex relationships that exist between religious eating habits and politics, cultures and social structures. Its chapters 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. Chapters on the nineteenth century explore the religious implications of wheat growing and bread making 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 chapter detail the key themes tying the rest of the chapters together and survey food's role in developing and disseminating the teachings of Christianity and in providing a tangible experience of faith.
Keywords:
Christianity,
food,
faith,
Reformation ideology,
fasting,
Agape meal,
English Benedictine monks,
Lenten dietary restrictions,
sacramental food production
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2011 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780231149976 |
| Published to Columbia Scholarship Online: November 2015 |
DOI:10.7312/columbia/9780231149976.001.0001 |
