Pursuing Perfection: Faith and the Female Body

The pursuit of bodily perfection is a cultural impetus persistent throughout history, which has become a dominating force in modern Western culture, where the image you present to the world on social media counts for everything. A new generation of theologians are wrestling with these issues in their everyday lives and their areas of scholarship. There is, they argue, a real need for an interdisciplinary work that is academically robust and practically meaningful to our cultural moment. The chapters in this book deconstruct what perfected bodies look like, and what perfection itself entails. Contributors from a range of disciplines, including theology, religious studies, philosophy, and nutritional science, argue that, theologically, perfection entails the fulfilment of human telos rather than the attainment of human standards or culturally-bound aesthetic ideals.

Rich in evidence, profound in theological wisdom, I felt liberated by reading this book. At times deeply uncomfortable in its focus on tackling taboos about women's bodies, it points towards a better way. Its writers take on the appearance myth, the quest for external self-improvement, and other lies about what women should look like and who we should be, provocatively challenging the narratives about our bodies that are pervasive in both the Church and wider society. But it doesn't stop there. I was encouraged by its commitment to offering applications and alternative ways of existing in the bodies that we have been given.