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Author: Christian Century
Born Again Bodies: Flesh and Spirit in American Christianity.
By R. Marie Griffith, University of California Press, 337 pp., $21.95 paperback.
IF YOU ARE a Protestant and you are on a diet, you may not want to read this book. Although R. Marie Griffith examines the American Protestant understanding of the relation between body and spirit with vivid detail and skillful sensitivity to the complexity of the issues involved, after seeing the book's pictures and reading its descriptions of the multitude of Christian diet movements of the past two centuries, you may never be able to diet in the same way again.
Griffith's ultimate goal is to trace the history of Christian dieting movements (with names like the Weigh Down Workshop and Overeaters Victorious) that have had significant influence, particularly in evangelical circles. A professor at Princeton University and author of God's Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission, Griffith argues that these movements have their roots in phrenology, eugenics and the spiritualist movements of the 19th century. They promote the idea that the ideal human body is a slim white one and hint that other bodies are less loved by God and less likely to be saved.
Griffith begins her narrative with a brief and general history of understandings of the body in the Christian tradition, noting the ambivalence toward the body: it is both a vehicle for and an inhibitor of salvation. But her real story commences with the rise of consumer culture and the growing ties between consumerism, religion and control of the body. Grouped under the heading "New Thought" are a number of late-19th- and early-20th-century spiritual health gurus, including both the familiar founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, and others who have not exactly become household names, such as Gilman Low and Alice Long. Many of these leaders advocated fasting as a means to both spiritual and physical health, and some even went so far as to argue that over time the body could reach perfection and would no longer require food, being able to live on air alone.