Food and Faith in Christian Culture

Author: Ken Albala
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231520794
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
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.

Food and Faith

Author: Norman Wirzba
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521195500
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Book Description
A comprehensive theological framework for assessing the significance of eating, demonstrating that eating is of profound economic, moral and theological significance.

Soil and Sacrament

Author: Fred Bahnson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451663307
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
Recounts the author's experiences founding a faith-based community garden in rural North Carolina, and emphasizes how growing one's own food can help readers reconnect with the land and divine faith.

Religion, Food, and Eating in North America

Author: Benjamin E. Zeller
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023153731X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 373

Book Description
The way in which religious people eat reflects not only their understanding of food and religious practice but also their conception of society and their place within it. This anthology considers theological foodways, identity foodways, negotiated foodways, and activist foodways in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean. Original essays explore the role of food and eating in defining theologies and belief structures, creating personal and collective identities, establishing and challenging boundaries and borders, and helping to negotiate issues of community, religion, race, and nationality. Contributors consider food practices and beliefs among Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists, as well as members of new religious movements, Afro-Caribbean religions, interfaith families, and individuals who consider food itself a religion. They traverse a range of geographic regions, from the Southern Appalachian Mountains to North America's urban centers, and span historical periods from the colonial era to the present. These essays contain a variety of methodological and theoretical perspectives, emphasizing the embeddedness of food and eating practices within specific religions and the embeddedness of religion within society and culture. The volume makes an excellent resource for scholars hoping to add greater depth to their research and for instructors seeking a thematically rich, vivid, and relevant tool for the classroom.

Food, Feasts, and Faith [2 volumes]

Author: Paul Fieldhouse
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 676

Book Description
An indispensable resource for exploring food and faith, this two-volume set offers information on food-related religious beliefs, customs, and practices from around the world. Why do Catholics eat fish on Fridays? Why are there retirement homes for aged cows in India? What culture holds ceremonies to welcome the first salmon? More than five billion people worldwide claim a religious identity that shapes the way they think about themselves, how they act, and what they eat. Food, Feasts, and Faith: An Encyclopedia of Food Culture in World Religions explores how the food we eat every day often serves purposes other than to keep us healthy and stay alive: we eat to express our faith and to adhere to ethnic or cultural traditions that are part of who we are. This book provides readers with an understanding of the rich world of food and faith. It contains more than 200 alphabetically arranged entries that describe the beliefs and customs of well-established major world religions and sects as well as those of smaller faith communities and new religious movements. The entries cover topics such as religious food rules, religious festivals and symbolic foods, and vegetarianism and veganism, as well as general themes such as rites of passage, social justice, hospitality, and compassion. Each entry on religion explains what the religious dietary laws and guidelines are and how these were interpreted and put into practice historically and in modern settings. The coverage also includes important festivals and feast days as well as significant religious figures and organizations. Additionally, some 160 sidebars provide examples and more detailed information as well as fun facts.

Food, Farming, and Faith

Author: Gary W. Fick
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791478556
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246

Book Description
Food, Farming, and Faith looks at agricultural sustainability and Christianity. Using scripture and science, Gary W. Fick—a Christian agricultural scientist—demonstrates that faith can inform decisions about creating, managing, even consuming our food. The book highlights such topics as food and celebration, environmental care, ecology and faith, soil and water stewardship, animal welfare, and the impact of poverty on women and our food supply. Throughout, Fick presents and discusses biblical passages that comment on these areas and provides insight from personal experiences growing up in a ranching family, in teaching sustainable agriculture, and as a scientist. Ultimately, Fick challenges the reader to think about eating more thoughtfully so that we have good food, a healthy environment, and a comfortable lifestyle all at the same time.

Food and Faith

Author: Susan Reuben
Publisher: Frances Lincoln Children's Books
ISBN: 9781845079864
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Food has always been central to religious practice. From fasting at Ramadan to feasting at Diwali, from the laws of kashrut to the taking of communion, a great deal can be learned about a religion through an understanding of its link with food. Six children from six religions tell their stories through words and photographs. The text is in the first person with each child speaking directly to the reader, making an engaging and visually appealing introduction to this important aspect of religion. The book covers six major religions: Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism, Christianity and Buddhism and looks at celebrations, rules, fasting, and food and drink in rituals. Also included are authentic recipes for pancakes, honey cake, pakoras, coconut barfi and puris. All the children featured are from the respective religions and cultural background. The book has been developed with the help of expert consultants from each religion.

Religion and Sustainable Agriculture

Author: Todd LeVasseur
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 081316799X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 394

Book Description
Distinct practices of eating are at the heart of many of the world's faith traditions -- from the Christian Eucharist to Muslim customs of fasting during Ramadan to the vegetarianism and asceticism practiced by some followers of Hinduism and Buddhism. What we eat, how we eat, and whom we eat with can express our core values and religious devotion more clearly than verbal piety. In this wide-ranging collection, eminent scholars, theologians, activists, and lay farmers illuminate how religious beliefs influence and are influenced by the values and practices of sustainable agriculture. Together, they analyze a multitude of agricultural practices for their contributions to healthy, ethical living and environmental justice. Throughout, the contributors address current critical issues, including global trade agreements, indigenous rights to land and seed, and the effects of postcolonialism on farming and industry. Covering indigenous, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Muslim, and Jewish perspectives, this groundbreaking volume makes a significant contribution to the study of ethics and agriculture.

The Catholic Table

Author: Emily Stimpson Chapman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781941447994
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 188

Book Description
Many of us struggle to understand and receive food as a natural gift from God. Some of us eat too much food. Or we eat too little. Often, we eat without gratitude, without charity, without respect. But, as award-winning author Emily Stimpson Chapman explains in The Catholic Table, with a sacramental worldview the supernatural gift of God's grace can transform and heal us through the food we make, eat, and share.

The Slain God

Author: Timothy Larsen
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191632058
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
Throughout its entire history, the discipline of anthropology has been perceived as undermining, or even discrediting, Christian faith. Many of its most prominent theorists have been agnostics who assumed that ethnographic findings and theories had exposed religious beliefs to be untenable. E. B. Tylor, the founder of the discipline in Britain, lost his faith through studying anthropology. James Frazer saw the material that he presented in his highly influential work, The Golden Bough, as demonstrating that Christian thought was based on the erroneous thought patterns of 'savages.' On the other hand, some of the most eminent anthropologists have been Christians, including E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Mary Douglas, Victor Turner, and Edith Turner. Moreover, they openly presented articulate reasons for how their religious convictions cohered with their professional work. Despite being a major site of friction between faith and modern thought, the relationship between anthropology and Christianity has never before been the subject of a book-length study. In this groundbreaking work, Timothy Larsen examines the point where doubt and faith collide with anthropological theory and evidence.