The Fat Jesus: Christianity and Body Image

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Christianity: Queer Pasts, Queer Futures, Revista Horizonte, Journal of the Pontifical Catholic University, Brazil, 2015 Isherwood presents a theological critique of what she perceives as a theological as well as a political and a social problem – the troubled relationship of women with food and their bodies, and society’s problem (it seems) with fat women. The fat body, Isherwood suggests, is read as the insufficiently controlled body, the “sinful” body, the body that is too material to be spiritual, the body that fails every test. Against this perception of the fat body she offers the image of the Fat Jesus – the Jesus in whose body boundaries are broken down, and fears of one’s own body and others’ bodies are overcome. Rationality, objectivity, rigidity, uprightness, efficiency, discipline and competitiveness are all values we strive for. They are all aspects of what’s called the phallic-symbolic, to borrow a key idea from French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.

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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. We are kidding ourselves if we ever think it’s “helpful” to tell somebody what we think is wrong with them. Deep down, our motivation is not so benign; it’s actually about our own desire to vent irritation at someone else’s weakness. It’s a nasty trait. Look what’s going on around us at the moment, for crying out loud: nobody currently seems to have the faintest interest in the motes in their own eyes. 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; FLSW 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.” The Sanhedrin arrested and tried Jesus Christ. Pontius Pilate sentenced him to be scourged and crucified. [9]The Cultural History of Women in Christianity Vol 6; 1920 to the present. Eds Lisa Isherwood & Megan Clay. It's little wonder then that Christian morality is heavily invested in the tight regulation of bodies, especially female bodies, which are round, moulding, soft, changing, interactive and antithetical to the phallic-symbolic. Fat is so often associated with immorality; a thin body is a disciplined body, and by implication, a disciplined mind. My disappointment with the book lies in the thinness (pardon the expression) of its theology. In­trigued by the title Fat Jesus, I came to the book looking for some im­agina­tive playfulness that would open up a theological view of this topic in a creative way. But there was very little about Jesus — except that he seemed always to be at table, and so could hardly have been thin. This was an opportunity missed. Emily Kahm, assistant professor of theology at the College of St. Mary in Omaha, concurs that the idea that fat bodies are good is “so hard for people to conceptualize.” She has wide experience in programme leadership, postgraduate supervision and departmental administration. She has research partnerships with colleagues in the USA and Latin America.

The Fat Jesus : Christianity and Body Image - Google Books

Even Jesus needed "alone time." The Gospels frequently mention that Jesus needed to withdraw from the crowds. One cave where he spent some time is called the Eremos Cave, from which the word "desolate" and "hermit" derive. [4]Some scholars note that Jesus did not want to die. In the Garden of Gethsemane, he says, "Remove this cup from me" and, "My soul is sorrowful even unto death." [4] 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. Pulgadas Estatua Santa Trinidad Padre Hijo Espiritu Santo Angel Jesucristo Figura,Holy Trinity Statue Jesus,Joseph and Holy Spirit Deco Handcrafted Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus Wooden Statue: A Symbol of Love and Devotion Mothers Day Gifts Ideas Catholic Statues Religious Gifts And in that shared struggle with the vulnerability of embodiment, perhaps a new sense of belonging can take hold. Or as Lane-McGee puts it: “Even the big bodies can be the body ofChrist.”

Toward a theology of the fat body - U.S. Catholic

C. Stephens. The Historical Christ & The Jesus of Faith: The Incarnational Narrative as History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. WOMEN’S BODIES are central to both these books. In The Fat Jesus, Lisa Isherwood explores women’s fatness and thinness. In Controversies in Body Theology, a range of authors cover topics around the theme of slicing, mutilation, reconstruction, and cosmetic alteration. Both books treat themes that are of prime importance to millions of human beings, but that are often hushed up in church contexts. Both, however, somewhat disappointed my expectations. My disappointment with this book lay in its tendency to generalise issues rather than point to parti­culars, and to use excessively (to my taste) theoretical language. A notable exception to this is Elizabeth Baxter’s essay on self-harm “Cutting Edge: Witnessing rites of passage in a therapeutic community”. Written out of her own experience of offering therapy within a Christian-identified community, it is theo­retically sophisticated yet deeply embodied in real life, and theo­logically creative into the bargain. I found her notion of witness both imaginatively engaging and practically helpful.

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Through this lens, Lenten solidarity with those in need might more accurately resemble 40 days of eating processed and fast foods—as someone in a low-income area likely would. But just as white Catholics in a suburban parish would probably avoid a Lenten program that would almost assuredly make them gain weight, they are also generally uncomfortable with the idea that Jesus could have resembled something other than the sculpted white body hanging above their altar. Body, Trauma and the Re-Embracing of Life at Asociacion de Teologas Espanolas, University of Madrid, November, 2021.