The Fat Jesus: Christianity and Body Image

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Every person, no matter their size, struggles with their body,” Lane-McGee says. “It’s universal. It is super Catholic to embrace that.” Would you say it to someone you’re not related to? A neighbour? An employee? A passing bus driver? Why are we so much more likely to make rude, upsetting personal remarks to people we care about than people we don’t? So much unhappiness and pain could be avoided if we all tried to treat our families with just a fraction of the nervous courtesy we show everyone else. Jesus probably did not have long hair, even during his ministry when he would have had a more "natural" look. Jewish men who had long hair were most likely to have taken a Nazarite vow, which Jesus probably did not. [10] I’m very suspicious of control as a kind of power to pursue for women,’ says Dr Lelwica. Control works by domination or suppression, and is reminiscent of that hard, upright image of the male God as the ultimate controller, she says. Diets usually work on this model of suppression. I don’t picture myself sneering: “Get some weight off!”, or even gently advising a low-carb diet, to a needy child who cares for my opinion. More likely I’m clutching her to my own vast embonpoint (in the image, I’m wearing a purple jumper), proffering doughnuts, shouting: “You’re perfect! You’re a flawless, beautiful, brilliant gem!” at an irritated teenager who writhes to get free.

Fat Jesus: Feminist Explorations in Boundaries and The Fat Jesus: Feminist Explorations in Boundaries and

The fat woman particularly is supposed to be the embodiment of all that we would rather discard,’ says Professor Isherwood. The presence of a fat, female Jesus is a indeed a revolutionary challenge that invites a softer, more yielding, less rigid way of negotiating society and theology. It’s an image that could open doors to a new, albeit symbolic, world where society values women’s unruly desires and fat bodies. It’s highly likely that the real Jesus, fat or thin, would approve of such a revolution. The Heart of Jesus Metal Wall Decor, Heart Jesus Metal Gift, Sacred Heart Decor Christ Art Work Metal Wall Decoration

Finding a way to allow in our human bodies and in our relationships the communal experience of sharing food, like real human food, to nourish us in the same way that the Eucharist does spiritually, that feels very Catholic.” But Lane-McGee doesn’t blame the girls. She knows the body image messages they are pelted with, even in church spaces. “It’s not just Catholics. It’s any community that associates itself with food,” she says of the presence of pizza at youth events and donuts after Mass. “You’re encouraged to eat—but not too much.”

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Despite bodies being forever glorified as a result of the incarnation, Kahm notes that most Catholics—and people in general—haven’t made peace with embodiment. “We really are profoundly squeamish around bodies being anything but what we dictate them to be,” she says. “Bodies are a mixture of things we don’t control and things we do.” Scholars note that there were two solar eclipses around the time of Jesus' death: one in 29 AD, and one in 33 AD. The Christian Gospels state that the skies darkened after the crucifixion, which suggests that his death coincided with one of these eclipses. [6] The association of thinness with goodness runs deep in U.S. culture, especially U.S. Christian culture, which finds its roots not in Catholic theology but in Calvinism. The Calvinist belief in predestination led to the widespread perception that material success in this life reflected who was blessed by God and who would be saved. Its contemporary iteration, especially in the United States, is often called the prosperity gospel. “Diet culture as it relates to the church is like another form of the prosperity gospel,” Lane-McGee says. “Church groups have weight loss groups. I am not a fan of diet culture.”Because the Romans felt like it was too gruesome to crucify someone in town, they made people carry their own cross to the outskirts of town, which, in Christ's case, was to Golgotha. [7] The Good News of the Body: Sexual Theology and Feminism[ed], Sheffield Academic Press, 2000 & New York University Press, 2000 I thought about nothing else at all. Nothing. And you must understand, my teenage years were improbably interesting. I gambled illegally. I published a book. I went on a chatshow with Jason Donovan. Didn’t give a toss about any of it. I just wanted, desperately and yearningly wanted, to have a bony face and slender limbs and the confidence to wear a swimsuit in front of people. It does require a level of personal and communal discernment to work through those,” she says, and the process raises questions of “What does that mean for how we go out and accompany others who we meet along the way?” The Cultural History of Women in Christianity Vol 6; 1920 to the present. Eds Lisa Isherwood & Megan Clay.

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A Burning Fire in My Bones. Queer Ministers' Voices from the Global South eds Lisa Isherwood & Hugo Cordova Quero, London, Routledge, 2023. The Indecent Theology of Marcella Althaus Reid, Latin American and Asian Perspectives, ed Lisa Isherwood & Hugo Cordova Quero, Routledge, 2020 UWTSD Home- Institutes and Academies- Institute of Education and Humanities- Institute of Education and Humanities Staff-Prof Lisa Isherwood Professor Lisa Isherwood BA,MPhil,PhD,FRSA; FLSWHow Can a Feminist Remain a Christian? The Annual John Boswell Lecture, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, April 2013 A helpful aspect of the essays here is that they frequently show how all of us are implicated: we cannot pretend these things do not touch us. Less helpfully, I was not con-vinced that the collection as a whole engages with specific controversies in a focused or developed way. Better to struggle claustrophobically from the grasp of an overly adoring parent than to fall serially in love with emotionally cruel or distant partners, which is what everyone with underly adoring parents always does. (And if you are currently hissing: “Underly is not a word!” then I don’t care, because my dad told me I was good at words, so I believe that I am, so screw you.) 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. The Eagle & the Feminist Theologian: Journeying with John in Caught Again Reading: Scholars and their Books, ed R.S Sugirtharajah, London, SCM Press, 2009