Starving For Salvation

TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1 Bodies of Evidence, Bodies of Knowledge: Contemporary Approaches, Historical Perspectives, New Directions. 2 The Good, the True, and teh Beautiful Female Body: Popular Icons of Womanhood and the Savation Myth of Female Slenderness. 3 Losing Their Way to Salvation: Papular Rituals of Womanhood and the Saving Promises of Culture Lite. 4 Universes of Meaning, Worlds of Pain: The Struggles of Anorexic and Bulimic Girls and Women. A Different Kind of Salvation: Cultivating Alternative Senses, Practices, and Visions. Notes. Selected Bibliography. Index.

Food for Life draws on L. Shannon Jung's gifts as theologian, ethicist, pastor, and eater extraordinaire. In this deeply thoughtful but very lively book, he encourages us to see our humdrum habits of eating and drinking as a spiritual practice that can renew and transform us and our world. In a fascinating sequence that takes us from the personal to the global, Jung establishes the religious meaning of eating and shows how it dictates a healthy order of eating. He exposes Christians' complicity in the face of widespread eating disorders we experience personally, culturally, and globally, and he argues that these disorders can be reversed through faith, Christian practices, attention to habitual activities like cooking and gardening, the church's ministry, and transforming our cultural policies about food.

We are living in a food and body image obsessed culture. We are encouraged to over-consume by the marketing and media that surround us and then berated by those same forces for doing so. At the same time, we are bombarded with images of unnaturally thin celebrities who go to enormous lengths to retain an unrealistic body image, either by extremes of dieting or through plastic surgery or both. The spiritual realm is not immune from these pressures, as can be seen in the flourishing of biblically and faith based weight loss programs that encourage women to lose weight physically and gain spiritually. Isherwood examines this environment in light of Christian tradition, which has often had a difficult relationship with sexuality and embodiment and which has promoted ideals of restraint and asceticism. She argues that part of the reason for our current obsession and bizarre treatment of issues around weight, size and looks is that secular society has unknowingly absorbed many of its negative attitudes towards the body from its Christian heritage. Isherwood argues powerfully that there are resources within Christianity that can free us from this thinking, and lead us towards a more holistic, incarnational view of what it is to be human. The Fat Jesus provides a fascinating study of the complex ways that food, women and religion interconnect, and proposes a theology of embrace and expansion emphasizing the fullness of our incarnation.

What is the role of preaching in the "double feast" churches -- churches whose normative liturgical worship features rites at the two tables of the Word and of the Eucharist? Father Michael Monshau adds timely and critical new perspective to the issue by bringing together five significant voices from "double feast" churches whose presentations, in effect, become varied, short textbooks on how to preach.

This critical text is a timely ethnography of how global powers, local resistance, and capital flows are shaping contemporary African foodways. Ghana was one of the first countries targeted by a group of US donors and agribusiness corporations that funded an ambitious plan to develop genetically modified (GM) crops for African farmers. The collective believed that GM crops would help farmers increase their yields and help spark a “new” Green Revolution on the continent. Soon after the project began in Ghana, a nationwide food sovereignty movement emerged in opposition to GM crops. Today, in spite of impressive efforts and investments by proponents, only two GM crops remain in the pipeline. Why, after years of preparation, millions of dollars of funding, and multiple policy reforms, did these megaprojects effectively come to a halt? One of the first ethnographies to take on the question of GM crops in the African context, We Are Not Starving: The Struggle for Food Sovereignty in Ghana blends archival analysis, interviews, and participant observation with Ghanaian scientists, farmers, activists, and officials. Ultimately the text aims to illuminate why GM crops have animated the country and to highlight how their introduction has opened an opportunity to air grievances about the systematic de-valuing and exploitation of African land, labor, and knowledge that have been centuries in the making.

001 Foundation is the first book in the Becker Bible Studies series for hungry Christians. It contains 1,057 Biblical workbook questions, each having Biblical references to support the answers. All lessons progress from simple statements of fact to new and difficult concepts, and are followed by tests written to enrich and challenge the learning process. A readable and comprehensive workbook for both teachers and studies.Although it is possible to use 001 Foundation for self-study, it is recommended for most students to receive instruction through a teacher, most often in a home setting. The gathering of Christians to learn the Word of God in a setting most conducive to growth, guided by a teacher and in the presence of the Holy Spirit, is the ideal environment for this study of 001 Foundation to nourish.It is imperative that serious Bible students who are hungry for the Word of God start their study with a solid foundation so everyone is on the same page. Since it is impossible to determine any gaps or misinformation in the foundation of a person's spiritual knowledge, growth, and faith, this first book lays the foundation before the in-depth Bible studies take place.With many more books to follow upon which to build one's spiritual knowledge and faith, 001 Foundation is the first one with which to get started.

Dissatisfied with a good home and a loving father, the prodigal son decided to set out on his own. His new life was grand. With money in his pocket, surrounded by newfound friends, he had a feeling of complete freedom. Then his cash ran out. His fair-weather friends ditched him. A great famine swept the land, and the once carefree young man was in dire need. To keep from starving, he took the only job he could feeding dirty, stinky pigs. He hit rock bottom—HARD. Like the prodigal son, many have taken the path of life away from their Savior to depths of despair. Have you? Want a way back? From Pigpen to Salvation allows you to experience the parable of the prodigal son like never before. The plan of salvation will unfold before your eyes. Grasp it and experience the open arms of your heavenly Father!