Pursuing Perfection
Faith and the Female Body
Pursuing Perfection
Faith and the Female Body
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Publisher: SCM Press
ISBN: 9780334065586
Number of Pages: 224
Published: 05/03/2025
Width: 13.5 cm
Height: 21.6 cm
The pursuit of bodily “perfection” is a cultural impetus persistent throughout history, which has become a dominating force in modern Western culture, where the image you present to the world on social media counts for everything. A new generation of theologians are wrestling with these issues in their everyday lives and their areas of scholarship. There is, they argue, a real need for an interdisciplinary work that is academically robust and practically meaningful to our cultural moment.
The chapters in this book deconstruct what “perfected” bodies look like, and what “perfection” itself entails. Contributors from a range of disciplines, including theology, religious studies, philosophy, and nutritional science, argue that, theologically, perfection entails the fulfilment of human telos rather than the attainment of human standards or culturally-bound aesthetic ideals.
List of Contributors vii
Acknowledgements xi
1 Introduction 1
Maja Whitaker
2 Christian Hope through an Embodied Telos 7
Amanda Martinez Beck
3 Mirrors, Pedestals and a Cross: The Cult of Perfection
and the Beauty of Self-sacrifice 24
Jessica J. Schroeder
4 Idolizing Thinness: Critiquing the False Claims of
Diet Culture 43
Jennifer Bowden
5 Desire and Discipleship: Towards Body Acceptance 60
Kristy Botha
6 Unspeakable Fat, Unspeakable Beauty: Fatness,
Apophasis and the Overflowing of Excess 77
Hannah Bacon
7 Perfectly Able, Beautiful and Slim: Desired Bodies in the
New Creation, Shamed Bodies in the Old 99
Maja Whitaker
8 Are We Having Great Sex Yet? Women, Their Bodies
and Their Pleasure 115
Lisa Isherwood
9 ‘How Is Your Beloved Better Than Others, Most Beautiful
of Women?’: Song of Songs 5.9–16 and the Primary
Prevention of Domestic Abuse 133
Erin Martine Hutton
10 A Shameful Perfection: Racism and the Religion
of Thinness 153
Michelle Mary Lelwica
11 Conclusion 173
Maja Whitaker
A Liturgy and Benediction 179
Index of Bible References 181
Index of Names and Subjects 185
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