Health, Moralization, and Negotiating Judgment in Two Evangelical Ministries
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.v3i1.7Keywords:
Evangelicals, homosexuality, obesity, moralization, Exodus International, First PlaceAbstract
Evangelical Christian weight loss programs and ex-gay ministries both rely on religious categories in moralizing the issues they address; homosexuality and over-eating are both depicted as sinful. Yet these programs are also concerned about the social judgment fat people and gay people face and see themselves as places where that judgment is suspended in the pursuit of change. Through a qualitative analysis of the discourse of “health” as used by these groups, this paper argues that both ministries turn toward the seemingly neutral but in fact highly morally charged language of health in an effort to alleviate the tension between the condemnation inherent in the languages of sin and the desire to offer a respite from, and a limited critique of, the judgment their members experience.
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References
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Dallas, J. 2003. Desires in Conflict: Hope for Men Who Struggle with Sexual Identity. Eugene OR: Harvest House Publishers, rev. edn.
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Kolata, G. 2007. Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss—and the Myths and Realities of Dieting. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Lindsay, D. M. 2007. Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Mann, T., et al. 2007. “Medicare’s Search for Effective Obesity Treatments: Diets Are Not the Answer,” American Psychologist, 62.3, 220–33. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.62.3.220
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Paulk, A. 2003. Restoring Sexual Identity: Hope for Women Who Struggle with Same-Sex Attraction. Eugene, OR: Harvest House.
Ponticelli, C. 1996. “The Spiritual Warfare of Exodus: A Postpositivist Research Adventure,” Qualitative Inquiry, 198–219. doi:10.1177/107780049600200204
Rieff, P. 1987. The Triumph of the Therapeutic: The Uses of Faith after Freud. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Robertson, P. 2003. Bring It On! Tough Questions. Candid Answers. Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group.
Rosario, V. A. 2002. Homosexuality and Science: A Guide to the Debates. Santa Barbara, CA: ABCCLIO.
Rosenberg, C. 1997. “Banishing Risk: Continuity and Change in the Moral Management of Disease,” in A. Brand and P. Rozin eds. Morality and Health. New York and London: Routledge, 35–52.
Schwartz, H. 1986. Never Satisfied: A Cultural History of Diets, Fantasies and Fat. New York: Anchor, 1986.
Seid, R. P. 1989. Never Too Thin: Why Women Are at War with their Bodies. New York: PrenticeHall.
Smith, C. 1998. American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Sobal, J. 1995. “The Medicalization and Demedicalization of Obesity,” in J. Sobal and D. Maurer eds. Eating Agendas: Food and Nutrition as Social Problems. New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 67–90.
Stearns, P. 2002. Fat History: Bodies and Beauty in the Modern West. New York and London: New York University Press.
Stinson, K. 2001. Women and Dieting Culture: Inside a Commercial Weight Loss Group. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Terry, J. 1999. An American Obsession: Science and Homosexuality in Modern Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Thompson, C. 2004. Loving Homosexuals as Jesus Would: A Fresh Christian Approach. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press.
Wacquant, L. J. D. 2006. Body and Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wolkomir, M. 2006. Be Not Deceived: The Sacred and Sexual Struggles of Gay and Ex-Gay Christian Men. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Worthen, F. 2006. “Ex-Gay: Fact, Fraud or Fantasy?” New Hope Ministry Newsletter, March, http://www.newhope123.org/archive/06mar.htm. Retrieved 5 February 2008.
Bayer, R. 1987. Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Becker, H. 1963. Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: The Free Press.
Bourdieu, P. 2000. Pascalian Meditations. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Brandt, A. 1997. “Behavior, Disease, and Health in the Twentieth-Century United States: The Moral Valence of Individual Risk,” in A. Brand and P. Rozin eds. Morality and Health. New York and London: Routledge, 53–78.
Comiskey, A. 1989. Pursuing Sexual Wholeness: How Jesus Heals the Homosexual. Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House.
Campos, P. 2004. The Obesity Myth: Why America’s Obsession with Weight is Hazardous to your Health. New York: Gotham Book.
Campos, P., A. Saguy, P. Ernsberger, E. Oliver and G. Gaesser. 2006. “The Epidemiology of Overweight and Obesity: Public Health Crisis or Moral Panic?” International Journal of Epidemiology, 35, 55–60. doi:10.1093/ije/dyi254
Conrad, P. 1994. “Wellness as Virtue: Morality and the Pursuit of Health,” Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 18, 385–401. doi:10.1007/BF01379232
Conrad, P., and J. Schneider. 1992. Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to Sickness. Expanded Edition. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Critser, G. 2003. Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Dallas, J. 2003. Desires in Conflict: Hope for Men Who Struggle with Sexual Identity. Eugene OR: Harvest House Publishers, rev. edn.
Davies, B., and L. Rentzel. 1993. Coming Out of Homosexuality: New Freedom for Men and Women. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Davis, S. 2004. “Reaching the Next Generation,” The Exodus Impact, September, 3.
D’Emilio, J. 1983. Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940–1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Drescher, J., and K. J. Zucker eds. 2006. Ex-Gay Research: Analyzing the Spitzer Study and its Relation to Science, Religion, Politics, and Culture. New York: Harrington Park Press.
Erzen, T. 2006. Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
First Place. 2001. First Place Member’s Guide: A Christ Centered Health Program. Ventura, California: Regal Books.
Flegal, K., et al. 2005. “Excess Deaths Associated with Underweight, Overweight, and Obesity,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 292, 20 April, 1861–67.
Fumento, M. 1998. The Fat of the Land: The Obesity Epidemic and How Overweight Americans Can Help Themselves. New York: Penguin.
Garner, D. M., and S. C. Wooley. 1991. “Confronting the Failure of Behavioral and Dietary Treatments for Obesity,” Clinical Psychology Review, 11, 729–80. doi:10.1016/02727358(91)90128-H
Gerber, L. 2008a. “The Opposite of Gay: Nature, Creation, and Queerish Ex-Gay Experiments,” Nova Religio, 11.4, 8–30.
—2008b. “Making Christian Bodies, Raising Christian Voices: Cultural Capital and Symbolic Power in Two Evangelical Ministries.” Unpublished paper presented at Putting Bourdieu to Work IV Conference. University of Manchester, 30 May, 2008.
Gordon, L. 1997. “Teenage Pregnancy and Out-of-Wedlock Birth: Morals, Moralism, Experts,” in A. Brandt and P. Rozin eds. Morality and Health. New York and London: Routledge, 251–70.
Grenz, S. J. 1998. Welcoming but Not Affirming: An Evangelical Response to Homosexuality. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox.
Griffith, R. M. 2004. Born Again Bodies: Flesh and Spirit in American Christianity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
—1997. God’s Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Haley, M. 2004. 101 Frequently Asked Questions about Homosexuality. Eugene, OR: Harvest House Press.
Jordan, M. D. 2002. The Ethics of Sex. Oxford: Blackwell.
Katz, S. 1997. Secular Morality, in A. Brandt and P. Rozin eds. Morality and Health. New York and London: Routledge, 297–330
Kirkland, A. 2008. Fat Rights: Dilemmas of Difference and Personhood. New York: New York University Press.
Kolata, G. 2007. Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss—and the Myths and Realities of Dieting. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Lindsay, D. M. 2007. Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Love Won Out Conference Guide. 2005. Colorado Springs, CO: Focus on the Family.
Mann, T., et al. 2007. “Medicare’s Search for Effective Obesity Treatments: Diets Are Not the Answer,” American Psychologist, 62.3, 220–33. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.62.3.220
Oliver, J. E. 2006. Fat Politics: The Real Story behind America’s Obesity Epidemic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Olshansky, S. J., et al. 2005. “A Potential Decline in Life Expectancy in the United States in the 21st Century,” New England Journal of Medicine, 352, 17 March, 1138–45.
Paulk, A. 2003. Restoring Sexual Identity: Hope for Women Who Struggle with Same-Sex Attraction. Eugene, OR: Harvest House.
Ponticelli, C. 1996. “The Spiritual Warfare of Exodus: A Postpositivist Research Adventure,” Qualitative Inquiry, 198–219. doi:10.1177/107780049600200204
Rieff, P. 1987. The Triumph of the Therapeutic: The Uses of Faith after Freud. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Robertson, P. 2003. Bring It On! Tough Questions. Candid Answers. Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group.
Rosario, V. A. 2002. Homosexuality and Science: A Guide to the Debates. Santa Barbara, CA: ABCCLIO.
Rosenberg, C. 1997. “Banishing Risk: Continuity and Change in the Moral Management of Disease,” in A. Brand and P. Rozin eds. Morality and Health. New York and London: Routledge, 35–52.
Schwartz, H. 1986. Never Satisfied: A Cultural History of Diets, Fantasies and Fat. New York: Anchor, 1986.
Seid, R. P. 1989. Never Too Thin: Why Women Are at War with their Bodies. New York: PrenticeHall.
Smith, C. 1998. American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Sobal, J. 1995. “The Medicalization and Demedicalization of Obesity,” in J. Sobal and D. Maurer eds. Eating Agendas: Food and Nutrition as Social Problems. New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 67–90.
Stearns, P. 2002. Fat History: Bodies and Beauty in the Modern West. New York and London: New York University Press.
Stinson, K. 2001. Women and Dieting Culture: Inside a Commercial Weight Loss Group. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Terry, J. 1999. An American Obsession: Science and Homosexuality in Modern Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Thompson, C. 2004. Loving Homosexuals as Jesus Would: A Fresh Christian Approach. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press.
Wacquant, L. J. D. 2006. Body and Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wolkomir, M. 2006. Be Not Deceived: The Sacred and Sexual Struggles of Gay and Ex-Gay Christian Men. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Worthen, F. 2006. “Ex-Gay: Fact, Fraud or Fantasy?” New Hope Ministry Newsletter, March, http://www.newhope123.org/archive/06mar.htm. Retrieved 5 February 2008.
Published
2009-07-19
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Gerber, L. (2009). Health, Moralization, and Negotiating Judgment in Two Evangelical Ministries. Fieldwork in Religion, 3(1), 7-28. https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.v3i1.7
