What are the links between people's beliefs and the foods they choose to eat? In the modern Western world, dietary choices are a topic of ethical and political debate, but how can centuries of Christian thought and practice also inform them? And how do reasons for abstaining from particular foods in the modern world compare with earlier ones? This book will shed new light on modern vegetarianism and related forms of dietary choice by situating them in the context of historic Christian practice. It will show how the theological significance of embodied practice may be retrieved and reconceived in the present day.
Food and diet is a neglected area of Christian theology, and Christianity is conspicuous among the modern world's religions in having few dietary rules or customs. Yet historically, food and the practices surrounding it have significantly shaped Christian lives and identities. This collection, prepared collaboratively, includes contributions on the relationship between Christian beliefs and food practices in specific historical contexts. It considers the relationship between eating and believing from non-Christian perspectives that have in turn shaped Christian attitudes and practices. It also examines ethical arguments about vegetarianism and their significance for emerging Christian theologies of food.

Introduction (Rachel Muers and David Grumett)
Developments in Biblical and Historical Theology
Food and diet in the priestly material of the Pentateuch (Nathan MacDonald)
Mosaic food rules in Celtic spirituality in Ireland (David Grumett)
Biblical Vegetarianism? A critical and constructive assessment (David G. Horrell)
Angels, beasts, machines, and men: configuring the human and non-human in Judaeo-Christian tradition (David Clough)
Perspective from Late Antiquity
Vegetarianism, heresy, and asceticism in late ancient Christianity (Teresa M. Shaw)
'The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?': The ethics of vegetarianism in the writings of Plutarch (Michael Beer)
Hoi polloi: spiritual choices for the many and the few (John Wilkins)
Faith at the Origins of Modern Vegetarianism
'Ours is the food that Eden knew': themes in the theology and practice of modern Christian vegetarians (Samantha Jane Calvert)
'A Lutheranism of the table': religion and the Victorian vegetarians (James R.T.E. Gregory)
The Theory of Vegetarianism
The argument from marginal cases: a philosophical and theological defense (Daniel Dombrowski)
Seeing and believing: gender and species hierarchy in contemporary cultures of animal food (Erika Cudworth)
Seeing, choosing and eating: Theology and the feminist vegetarian debate (Rachel Muers)
Structure and agency in the antislavery and animal liberation movements (Nigel Pleasants)
Theological Views on Current Food Debates
Symbol, community, and vegetarianism (David Brown)
Eucharistic eating, and why many early Christians preferred fish (Michael S. Northcott)
Protological and eschatological vegetarianism (Christopher Southgate)
Conclusion (Rachel Muers)
Index