Devotional Fitness: Martin Radermacher

Popular Culture, Religion and Society.
A Social-Scientific Approach 2
Martin Radermacher
Devotional
Fitness
An Analysis of Contemporary Christian
Dieting and Fitness Programs
Popular Culture, Religion and Society.
A Social-Scientific Approach
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MartinRadermacher
Devotional Fitness
An Analysis of Contemporary Christian
Dieting and Fitness Programs
MartinRadermacher
Center for Religious Studies (CERES)
Ruhr-University
Bochum, Germany
ISSN 2509-3223 ISSN 2509-3231(electronic)

Popular Culture, Religion and Society. A Social-Scientific Approach
ISBN 978-3-319-49821-8ISBN 978-3-319-49823-2(eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-49823-2
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Preface
This book tells a story of how American evangelicals see their bodies in light of the
Bible. It emerged from an initial bedazzlement at how lightly and naturally evan-
gelicals in the United States seem to merge their striving for a perfect body with
their deep religious beliefs. Over the course of four years, from 2010 to 2014, I
delved into this topic; read through books, Internet forums, and blogs; watched
Christian television and fitness DVDs; and attended Christian diet groups and fit-
ness classes only to realize that, strange as they might seem, these activities have a
specific place within Christians lifeworlds and are shaped by the contemporary
American environment. It is this interplay of an inherent Christian logic and the
impact of a secular society that I want to focus on in this book.
In July 2014, when I completed my dissertation at the Philosophical Faculty of
the Westflische Wilhelms-University in Mnster, Germany, many people had sup-
ported me along the way.
First and foremost, I want to express my gratitude to the people I met and talked
to during my fieldwork and who generously offered their time and shared their
knowledge about how they combined their spirituality with their physical health.
While I realize that my rendering and analysis of their accounts may not always
agree with their own understanding, I hope that this book will reflect my serious
respect for the personal accounts and religious convictions I encountered and
recorded. It should be clear from the outset that it is not my intention to judge these
programs from a medical perspective or to find out if and how they work in terms of
losing weight, becoming fit, or growing spiritually. I can and will, however, analyze
them from the perspective of the study of religions.
I am greatly indebted to my academic advisors, Annette Wilke and Courtney
Bender, for sharing their experience and insights. With their perspicacious thinking
and prudent comments, both have enabled me to complete this project. I am espe-
cially grateful to Annette Wilke for offering me the opportunity to enroll in a fast-
track PhD program at Mnster University and for accompanying and encouraging
my studies over the last years. I express my heartfelt gratitude to Courtney Bender
for the many times we met and discussed various issues relating to my research
v
vi Preface
d uring a stay at Columbia University, New York Cityand for attending to this
project diligently and knowledgeably ever since.
To colleagues and friends at Mnster University and Columbia University and
those I met at various conferences and colloquia over the last years, I am thankful
for their support and help. Special thanks go to Judith Stander, Klaus Brand, Ann-
Kristin Beinlich, Melanie Mller, Sebastian Schler, Andres Wischnath, and
Bertram Giele. Also the members of the working group Evangelical, Pentecostal,
and Charismatic Movements in the German Association for the Study of Religions
(DVRW) have given valuable feedback on various occasions. Corina Delman elimi-
nated manifold affronts to the English prose and cleared out improper Germanisms.
I also thank two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the penultimate
version of this book. While all of these people inspired my thinking in many ways
and supported me in different steps of the project, I naturally remain accountable for
flaws and inaccuracies of every kind.
Finally, my family has made this project possible in the first place and has fol-
lowed it with interest and encouragement through its various stages. Special thanks
to Eva, whose concise revision of the bibliography is only the smallest part of her
contribution to this project.
Mnster, Germany MartinRadermacher

Contents
1 Introduction................................................................................................ 1
Part I Theoretical and Methodological Background

2 State ofResearch onDevotional Fitness.................................................. 15
3 Goal, Theory, andMethod........................................................................ 33
3.1 Goal andBasic Concepts.................................................................... 33
3.2 Theoretical Perspectives: Semiotics andSomatics............................. 39
3.3 Method ofData Collection andData Analysis.................................... 49
Part IIBody and Religion in Twentieth Century America:

From New Thought to Bod4God
4 Shaping theBody Ideal.............................................................................. 63
4.1 Prelude: New Thought andtheBody.................................................. 64
4.2 Body Ideals andTechniques oftheLast Century................................ 71
4.3 The Therapeutic Culture: Alcoholics Anonymous.............................. 83
5 Evangelicals andtheBody......................................................................... 91
5.1 US Evangelicalism: Historical andConceptual Notes........................ 91
5.2 Muscular Christianity andtheYMCA................................................ 96
5.3 Devotional Fitness: Selected Programs Since the1950s.................... 108
Part IIIAnalysis of Empirical Data: Products, Narratives,

and Theologies
6 Devotional Fitness asDiscourse andEmbodied Practice....................... 127
6.1 Devotional Fitness asEconomic Sector andPractical Product........ 128
6.1.1 Operational andOrganizational Structures............................. 128
6.1.2 Needs oftheMarket andTarget Groups................................. 131
6.1.3 Effects, Application Range, Strategies, andMeasures............ 136
6.2 Transformation: Embodied Conversion Narratives............................. 158
vii
viii Contents
6.3 Authority, Qualification, andLegitimacy............................................ 162

6.4 Body asTemple: Theologies oftheBody........................................... 168
6.4.1 Body asInstrument andIndex ofRelationships..................... 168
6.4.2 Healing Relationships forPhysical andSpiritual
Transformation........................................................................ 185
7 Between Inclusion andExclusion: Devotional Fitness
inIts Environments.................................................................................... 207
7.1 Devotional Fitness inIts Christian Environment................................ 209
7.2 Devotional Fitness andSociety........................................................... 217
7.3 Devotional Fitness andMedicine........................................................ 228
7.4 Devotional Fitness andNon-Christian Fitness.................................... 232
7.5 Devotional Fitness andYoga............................................................... 236
Part IV Theoretical ReflectionsReflecting Theory

8 Somatics, Semiotics, andtheStudy ofReligions: Concepts
andApproaches Reconsidered.................................................................. 251
9 Conclusions................................................................................................. 267
Index.................................................................................................................. 271
About the Author
Martin Radermacher is an associate researcher at the Center for Religious

Studies at Ruhr-University Bochum (Germany). He received his PhD from the
Westflische Wilhelms-University, Mnster (Germany), in 2014 and is currently
working on religious atmospheres in both theoretical and empirical regards.
D6
ix
Chapter 1
Introduction
Abstract Devotional fitness is a mainly US American discourse and practice which

aims at making people fit and healthy from a Christian perspective. This chapter
briefly introduces the goals of this study, provides a condensed description of the
field of contemporary Christian fitness practice, and outlines the structure of the
book. The main questions this book seeks to answer are: How do Evangelicals
engage with a general need for physical improvement from their distinctly biblical
perspective? How do they construct an identity in the face of diverse health and fit-
ness providers? The book provides a historical and empirical description of the vari-
ous ways to establish, legitimate and practice a Christian diet or fitness plan. The
analysis then takes place on two levels: a discursive level, concerning the ideology
or theology of the field, and an embodied level, looking into the question how this
discourse is inscribed in actors bodies, how it is put into practice.
Keywords Devotional fitness Christian fitness programs Semiotics Somatics

History of Christian health programs
On a Sunday afternoon in October 2011, I am sitting at the desk in the sons former
room at my host familys in the outskirts of Washington, DC, working on yester-
days field notes, when around 5:20 p.m., Steve Reynolds, Pastor of the local Baptist
Church, calls to let me know that I am now welcome to join the weekly gathering at
his church. Taking a shortcut through the garden, I am at the main porch of the
church a couple of minutes later, voice recorder and scratchpad at hand.
The church consists of two buildings. One, the actual church, houses the audito-
rium and offices; the other provides space for small group meetings, a gym, and a
nursery. Entering the church, I witness a busy atmosphere, people entering and leav-
ing, a table with books such as Body by God (Ben Lerner 2003), Fit Kids in a Fat
World (Halliday and Jack 2007), Small Simple Changes (Rich Kay 2012) and some
info sheets and flyers.
I had already met Reynolds in the morning after his second Sunday service and
he had offered to let me take part in this afternoons activities: the weekly meeting
of the participants of his Losing to Live competition. Some of the participants
have already joined a 5 k walk/run at 4 p.m. and now it is time to prepare for the
Springer International Publishing AG 2017 1

M. Radermacher, Devotional Fitness, Popular Culture, Religion and Society.
A Social-Scientific Approach 2, DOI10.1007/978-3-319-49823-2_1
2 1Introduction
assembly in the auditorium. Reynolds asks me to join Julia1 in her preparations of a

small group meeting she is going to lead right after the plenum.
Julias Small Group Its about 5:30 p.m. when one of Reynolds many volunteers
leads the way to the adjacent building and into a small room where Julia is sitting at
the table, finishing her preparations. She seems happy to meet me and is eager to tell
me as much as possible about what she is doing. Julia leads a level 3 group, also
referred to as an alumni group which is designed for those who participate in the
program for the third time. While I take a seat, she has already started to explain:
Some of the attendees are members of Reynolds congregation, others are not.
When their meeting starts, they will open in prayer and will then give thanks to
whoever contributed an item to todays gift package. This package is meant as a gift
for the groups winner of the week (in terms of weight-loss). Additionally, they are
collecting items for a gift basket that will go to the groups winner of the whole
program. What is important about these gifts is, Julia adds, that they be of general
use to someone participating in a weight-loss program (low calorie foods are popu-
lar items). Afterwards, they will record the weeks weight-loss individually and
anonymously. This is, as Julia points out, an important means of accountability and
commitment.
The meetings core consists of a First Place 4 Health bible study. Everybody is
expected to have done last weeks homework which includes memorization of scrip-
ture and being able to recite it. This scripture is chosen to help you get through the
week, Julia explains. When the bible study is done, Julia will ask her group to make
individual prayer requests. These will be noted down so everyone can take a prayer
request home and pray about it during the following week. They end the meeting in
prayer including those prayer requests which have been designated as group prayer
requests.
Julia has roughly told me what is going to happen in her meeting, and swiftly
changes to more general information about her group: Everybody may set him- or
herself an individual goal. These goals should be as specific as possible, for example
a certain weight or a certain amount of time spent walking or running per week. Not
only are they here to reach a goal. More importantly, they are here because God
wants them to be here. And the key to reaching their goals is putting God first. If you
put God first, Julia says, and trust in the power of group encouragement and support,
everything is possible. Julia sees herself in the role of providing this encourage-
ment: Every once in a while, she will send out e-mails to her group as a whole and
individually, asking how they are doing and offering her advice. The group is an
intimate place; as Julia puts it: Were a family for twelve weeks.
Theresas and Peters Small Group We have only been talking some ten minutes
when I am asked to follow another volunteer into a room on the same floor of the
building. There, Theresa and Peter are arranging apples and water bottles on a few
round tables. The groups are named after fruits or vegetables; this ones name is
Names of informants who are not figures of public interest are anonymized in the entire book.
1
1Introduction 3
Lett-uce Pray. They, too, are happy to tell me about their upcoming level 1 group
meeting. They have been volunteering as group leaders for the last two years and
the first thing they tell me is that it is all about explaining how people can implement
small simple changes into their lives. These have to be easy and realistic in the
long term. That is why they are distributing apples and water bottles. It is a small
step to substitute soda through water, but it is a startand for some, it is not that
simple at all.
The couple and their son started as participants in the Losing to Live program
and they proudly tell me that Theresa lost 20, Peter 70, and their son 120 pounds.
While they are placing handouts on the tables, they talk to me about the necessity of
honoring the body. As the body is made for God, Peter explains, we are to take
care of it and put good inthat is, eat healthily. Every week, they read something
about healthy lifestyle and eating, but, more importantly, they also study scripture
and memorize verses that are connected to the themes of body and health and to the
struggles of dieting.
When I ask about those who are going to attend the meeting, I am told that some
of them are not spiritual, while others are members of Reynolds church. They
themselves were not members of the congregation when they first heard about this
program. More by accident than by consideration did they happen to attend a ser-
vice and when they realized that the church has good positive lessons and that it
is a caring church, they decided to join.
Theresa and Peter think of overweight as a serious problem, even more serious
than they imagine it to be in Germany, a country they associate with healthy bread,
little fast food and a healthy lifestyle in general. The American way of eating, they
explain, is dangerous. Therefore, they recommend whole wheat, fresh vegetables
and fruits in combination with less fat and sugar. Healthy foods will eventually lead
to a peace of mind, and you will recognize that it is not all about me but all
about God. In a nutshell: Faith and fitness belong together. Additionally, they
recommend joining the Body & Soul classes, which are held in their church several
times a week.
The Assembly When it is about time for the general assembly to start, Theresa
walks me to the auditorium. We talk about the secret of this programs success.
Theresa considers the question for a few seconds and when we are about to pass the
threshold into the church she says: The key to the programs success is being
together in a group of people and the mutual encouragement.
It is shortly after six when the groups have settled in the auditoriumthe same
place where just a couple of hours ago, Reynolds ended his last of three Sunday
morning services. Assistants have cleared the stage, only the plain lecturn remain-
ing. The groups sit together, each clearly marked by a sign, displaying the groups
name. I am invited to sit with Lett-uce pray. Amid applause, Reynolds enters the
stage and quickly announces this weeks figures and winning teamsthose who
lost most weight in percentage as a group.
4 1Introduction
The atmosphere is relaxed, people seem mostly cheerful. The auditorium is

about half as full as in the morning. All in all, I am told later, there are about 100
participants in this competition. In this third week of the competition, all partici-
pants together lost 94.4 pounds. This weeks winning team lost 3.282 %. Every of
the meticulously calculated figures is greeted by cheers and clapping. Just before
Reynolds leaves the stage, he tells us that being on a team is the key to successand
in this program, they have God on their team. Theresa nods acquiescently, appar-
ently content that Reynolds confirms what she just told me.
All this takes about ten minutes and after the winners are announced, it is time
for a short motivational and informational speech: Todays guest speaker is Rich
Kay, a former participant of the Losing to Live competition and, having lost 125
pounds, now a bodybuilder, author, and speaker. Continuing last weeks topic, he
talks about Staying on Track: What Are the Top 10 Things You Need to Know to
Lose and Maintain Your Weight? He mostly talks about the technical and practical
details of a weight-loss program and randomly references God or Jesus and the
concept behind the competition.
The ten things he considers essential are: (1) Set specific goals. (2) Drink water.
(3) Know what you are eating. (4) Know and regulate the size of your meals. (5)
Know and adjust your calorie intake. (6) Pay attention to labels and understand what
you are eating. (7) Exercise at least 30 to 60 minutes three to five times a week
(because we were meant to move). (8) Sleep enough (seven to nine hours). (9)
Manage your stress by means of stretching and praying. (10) The six Ps: Proper
Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance. While Kay talks about this last issue, he
stresses the importance of making good plans and setting priorities. As Satan
attacks from all sides, he says, we have to make sure we are prepared whenever we
are close to emotional or binge eating.
This talk lasts about 20 minutes. Then Reynolds remounts the stage to announce
his new DVD which is based on his book Bod4God (2009) and illustrates all twelve
sections from the book. We need God and we need each other, are his concluding
remarks before, turning to me, he introduces me as a special guest, recounts our
previous correspondence to the audience and expresses his interest in learning about
the results of my research. It is 6:30 p.m. when he finishes his talk and the audience
leaves the auditorium to gather in their respective small groups. I follow Peter and
Theresa back to their room.
Theresas and Peters Small Group Meeting The meeting starts a little disori-
ented and is frequently interrupted because Peter, wearing a Bod4God-T-shirt, suf-
fers from a cold. At first, he checks attendance. The group is supposed to have
1820 members, but today there are only twelve people in the room not including
Theresa, Peter, and me. All members of the group have nicknames. Two of them are
men, most are in their 40s and 50s, the oldest seems to be around 70, all of them are
not discernibly slim. They have taken their seats around the tables, everyone with
their apple, water bottle and a copy of a newspaper article entitled Spicy Ideas That
Will Improve Your Health.
1Introduction 5
Peter asks the group to recite last weeks scripture, Galatians 5:16: Walk in the
Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh (King James 2000 Bible).
Hesistantly, a woman volunteers to recite the verse. Peter then wants to know what
this scripture means to them. People hesitate again, but another woman tells us that,
in her understanding of the verse, her will power only goes so far and that she has
to learn to walk in the spirit. Peter agrees and adds that the reason we are suc-
cessful is: We have Him on the teamnot just friends, families and co-workers
He can be our guide and Hes always there.
The meeting continues with a repetition of last weeks session. They have been
talking about chapter two in Reynolds book (Week 2: Losing to Live) which is,
as Peter sums up, about the idea that everyone bears his or her cross with regard to
a specific sort of food; some suffer from sweets others from fatty foods. Given that
some attendees do not seem to have done their homework, Peter repeats one of the
groups rules: Those who do not complete their assignments may come and listen,
but they may not take part in the discussion.
This week, they work with chapter three (Week 3: D is for Dedication). The
chapters motto is Reynolds paraphrazation of Romans 12:12: Im begging you
earnestly to dedicate your body to God. Rather out of context, a woman, who
attends her second time, shares how her physician keeps pressing her to loose 25
pounds to fight her diabetes. But she is not doing well and eats when she is angry or
frustratedshe calls it mindless eating and emotional eating.
While Peter leaves the room for a bad cough, Theresa fills in and starts talking
about where to buy healthy foods, answers questions about such details as to the
difference between white and red meat, chicken and beef etc. She suggests to pre-
pare meals in advance you can resort to in case of a sudden hunger. When Peter is
back he explains why wholewheat is healthy. Apart from the biological aspects of
this question, which are dealt with rather swiftly, his main argument is that the
human being is a complicated mechanism, made by God. And the more we eat that
which God meant for us to eat, that is, unprocessed, or close to unprocessed foods,
the more likely we will be healthy.
To convey what a healthy lifestyle looks like in practice, the group leaders quote
from a study which analyzed the behavior of people who successfully lost weight.
Without hesitation they quickly change between statistical data and references to
God, and, every so often, one of the participants will have a question or a remark
such as God is big enough to take us.
Theresa and Peter stress that God does not love the obese less than the slim. But,
in order to fulfil Gods plan on earth, we have to be fit and healthy; in order to help
others, we have to help ourselves first. We are responsible to our families and to
fulfil these responsibilities, we have to be fit. Coming from these rather abstract
considerations, Peter makes an effort to get back to the basics: Walkingit is easy,
always possible and a peaceful and quite time which may be spent in meditation
and prayer. Another rather concrete question which is handled at length is how
much you should drink. One of the participants had taken it upon herself to drink
more water. This resulted in her drinking eight small bottles of water each dayan
amount which seems almost too much to Peter.
6 1Introduction
Towards the end of the session, the participants are invited to share their experi-
ences. Someone says she struggled a lot, but, on the bright side, every time I come
close to church people, I feel better and I am thankful for that. The next one has
difficulties with portioninga glass of water 30min before a meal could help, she
is told. Yet another one tells us about a food journal she keeps on her smart phone
and adds: I can be stronger now, I can rely on Christ.
The meetings are supposed to end at 7:30, so Reynolds, who promised to give me
an interview right after, peeks through the door now. Theresa and Peter are a little
overdue, so when Reynolds stops by the second time, he beckons me to leave the
meeting and leads the way into a comfortable room otherwise used for similar small
group meetings where we have a long chat about his program.
***
The concept devotional fitness refers to a mainly US-American, contemporary
evangelical discourse that includes practices and value-ideas which aim to make
people healthy and fit from a distinctly Christian perspective. This book tells a
story about the way many American Evangelicals see their bodies, live their faith,
and think about health and illness. My main thesis is that devotional fitness is the
result of a dynamic interaction with Christian and non-Christianboth Western and
Easternideas pertaining to the improvement of the physical body. This process
entails the renegotiation and resemantization of ideas and practices, thus creating
forms of Christian body practice which may briefly be characterized as embodied
evangelicalism.
The discourse of biblically inspired concepts of health and fitness connects to dif-
ferent areas of contemporary US society and it is widely received. It mirrors and
reshapes tendencies and developments in American evangelical and non-evangelical
society and thus serves as a productive field of research when looking at the entangle-
ments of religion, society, and popular culture. This book explores the various dimen-
sions of devotional fitness, tracing discursive and embodied modes of communication
and practice, and asking how the programs construe and negotiate their identity by
interacting with and opposing their environment. Studying a wealth of textual and
non-textual sources supplemented by records from interviews and participant observa-
tions, I have dived into underlying concepts of health, fitness, spirituality, and embodi-
ment, and I have analyzed practical and social manifestations of the discourse.
From the variety of self-descriptions and based on previous research on the topic,
I chose to use the concept devotional fitness. This label, for the purpose of this
study, identifies a set of communicative elements that I consider as an embodied
discourse. The summary provided in the next few paragraphs outlines this discourse
of devotional fitness in a highly condensed way. The reader should be aware that the
formulations in the following paragraphs are deliberately close to emic wording and
written from the perspective of an ideal typical insider, as I have tried to avoid
analytic perspectives and lexicon in this early section of the book.
For many leaders and participants in the field, the body as a biological organism
is a miracle of Gods creation; it is Gods temple and instrument. Illness, suffering,
and overweight impair this function of the body. Therefore, health and fitness are
necessary. If humans do not realize their inherent longing for God, if their soul stays
1Introduction 7
empty while their stomach is filled, the longing for food threatens to substitute the
search for God. Overweight is the consequence. The cause of this problem lies in an
unfulfilled longing for a relationship with God, in the adversities of the contempo-
rary life-world (fast food, sedentary lifestyle, etc.), and in suppressed emotional
problems.
Those who realize their longing for emotional and spiritual health and live in a
loving relationship with Jesus and God will not suffer from overweight, will use
their body as Gods temple and instrument, and will present their body as a sacrifice
to God. It is a well-received side effect that health and fitness of the physical body
also have a positive influence on its appearance.
The initial motivation of virtually every participant is weight-loss or healing
from overweight, more generally understood as health. The main effects of devo-
tional fitness, however, do not just refer to weight-loss and to the body but to a
transformation of the whole human being. Other effects are improved self-confidence
and healing of emotional suffering. Whether these goals are achieved is usually
measured in pounds. Another main cause, particularly for founders, is the goal to
evangelize and to bring humans to God.
Many programs do not work with rigid plans of workout and nutrition, but offer
personalization. In virtually all programs, there is success and progress control
most commonly in the form of recording weight-losswhich is supposed to
improve motivation and to strengthen the participants commitment to the group.
The best motivation, however, is to have God and Jesus on ones side. As far as
nutrition and lifestyle are concerned, many programs work with methods of substi-
tution, small steps, and calorie-counting. There are some measures to transform the
body into a God-pleasing shape: movement and exercise are the most common.
These take place in gyms or other suitable locations, or they can occur outside such
locations individually or in groups. Christian music usually accompanies workouts.
Especially in athletic activities that resemble dance, moderate clothing is recom-
mended so as not to distract from the actual goal. A further set of measures is con-
nected to practices such as Bible study, prayer, and meditation.
Goals and legitimation, strategies, and measures are inspired through the Bible,
personal experience and findings of modern medicine. The recourse to biblical
texts, medicine and experience braces the authority of group leaders and founders,
while it is a common assumption that medicine only confirms the Bible and the
experience of the faithful.
The participants are often middle-aged women, but there are also programs
which target men, families, children, and seniors. Issues of gendering the discourse
and constructing evangelical male and female bodies are of particular interest
throughout this book. Programs are not explicitly bound to specific religious orien-
tations; members of non-Christian religions and atheists are welcome, given that
they are willing to engage with a Christian environment.
There is a certain danger concerning the unconditional striving for slimness and
fitness: On the one hand, it may lead to anorexia or bulimia, on the other, the body
itself may become the object of reverence (idolatry), if it is all about outer beauty.
8 1Introduction
Programs communicate clear priorities in this point: health and a personal rela-
tionship to God are most important.
Although programs of devotional fitness usually focus on overweight and weight-
loss, they often span a much wider range of applications, including time manage-
ment, stress management, and other fields that border on the self-help genre.
Why are spirituality and fitness connected in devotional fitness? Faithful evan-
gelicals find convincing arguments in biblically authorized ideas on the body and
the task of humans in their relationship to God and to each other. Also, the argument
that one should love oneself as ones neighbor is central: Loving the other begins
with the self; only if one loves oneselfthis includes taking care of ones body,
will one be able to love ones neighbor and do Gods work on earth.
For non-evangelical (potential) participants, aspects like weight-loss, wholeness,
and wellness are supposed to be convincing. Humans consist of a whole of body,
mind, and soul; they experience problems that affect all areas. Body problems like
overweight can only be treated successfully if one considers how they correspond to
problems in soul and mind. Often, emotional and spiritual problems manifest in
bodily illnesstherefore mere physical treatment only deals with symptoms and
forgets the real problems.
These elements, practices, and communications, which summarize in brief the
discourse of devotional fitness, may be read on at least two levels. An actor within
the field (an emic insider or emic outsider) may internalize, understand, reproduce,
criticize, reject, develop, or adapt them for a variety of purposes. The scholar of
religion may categorize, summarize, analyze, and explain them on a different, and
often more abstract level, from a different perspective, and with questions in mind
that participants in the field rarely ask. At which abstract level to operate is up to the
researcher and depends on theoretical background and research question. In this
study, I intend to reconstruct the system of devotional fitness under the aspects of
construction of identity through the reproduction of communications and the demar-
cation with regard to related communicative systems.
Based on existing but sparse literature from the study of religions and cultures
(notably R. Marie Griffith 2004; Gregor Schrettle 2006; Lynne Gerber 2012),
another goal of this study is to demonstrate how and why the discourse functions,
i.e., how elements and value-ideas2 from a broad cultural repertoire are re-
contextualized, set into new relations and thus re-semanticized by incorporating
them into a biblical framework.
This study consists of four main parts. In part I, I present the state of research on
devotional fitness (Chap. 2). There, I also briefly deal with the question if we could
argue with Max Weber and claim that devotional fitness makes the body an outer
marker of inner faith (page 23 ff). To operate on firm theoretical ground, I then
elaborate on the goals of this study (Sect. 3.1) and introduce analytical concepts
from cultural semiotics and discourse theory (notably Stuart Hall 2003a, b) as well
2
I take the concept of value-ideas from Louis Dumont who suggests not to separate an idea and
its value but to consider instead as our object the configuration formed by idea-values or value-
ideas (Dumont 1986, 252).
1Introduction 9
as embodiment theories (as formulated in the wake of Thomas J. Csordas 1990)

(Sect. 3.2). The study is based on textual materials and (transcribed) audiovisual
sources: books, web sites, gray literature, videos, DVDs, television shows (Sect.
3.3). These are complemented by notes and transcripts from participant observa-
tions and interviews which were conducted in September through December 2011in
the United States with participants, group leaders, and founders of different
programs.
To contextualize the origins and development of devotional fitness, the historical
part of this book (part II) deals with those cultural currents that prepared a repertoire
of practices, value-ideas, and linguistic and corporeal motifs which could be taken
up by Christian fitness programs for their specific purposes. These discourses
include the establishment of the contemporary Western body ideal and connected
practices (Sect. 4.2), the development of the therapeutic culture in the United States
(Sect. 4.3), the history of US-American evangelicalism in the twentieth century
(Sect. 5.1), and the movements of Muscular Christianity and the Young Mens
Christian Association (YMCA): Is devotional fitness simply a contemporary ver-
sion of older practices that were established in the nineteenth century or must we
speak of something completely new (Sect. 5.2)? Together with the New Thought
Movement (Sect. 4.1), Muscular Christianity and the YMCA may be regarded as
direct predecessors of contemporary devotional fitness because they consider physi-
cal and athletic activity as a crucial element of the virtuous Christian life and
merge spiritual and physical spheres of experience.
In part III, after an analysis of devotional fitness programs as marketed and tar-
geted products (Sect. 6.1), I analyze what I call embodied conversion narratives
(Sect. 6.2) and the way authority is constructed in these programs: How do actors
use and interpret biblical scripture to legitimate their enterprises (Sect. 6.3)? The
ideological structure of devotional fitness may be summarized as theologies of the
body (Sect. 6.4). The core assumption of these is that the believers body is a tem-
ple of the Holy Spirit (based on 1 Corinthians 6:1920). This makes the body both
index and instrument of relationships. The relationships of the individual believer to
God, to fellow human beings, to the self, and to its own body should be healed,
protagonists argue, through healing of the bodywhich is virtually always synony-
mous or at least associated with losing weight and/or building muscle. In this chap-
ter, I also answer the question how program designers portray overweight and
illness, and what notion of holistic health they have (Sect. 6.4.2).
Health, according to the actors in the field, refers to both spiritual and physical
areas and can only by reached through a focus on wholeness. The transformation
of the body thus involves a transformation of the mind. This narrative of transforma-
tion is structurally analog to the evangelical master narrative: The transformation
from being far from God to being in a close personal relationship with God (spiri-
tual conversion) relates to the transformation from illness (overweight) to health
(fitness) which entails an improved relationship to God.
10 1Introduction
Having discussed the basic ideology3 of the body, I then turn to the aspect of
constructing identity from rapprochement and distancing (Chap. 7). In general,
evangelicals in the United States have a strong tendency to reconstruct popular dis-
course and practice in their own, religious language. This refers to music, books,
politics, clothes, food, and many other aspects of daily life. To understand this rela-
tionship between non-religious and evangelical parts of society with regard to fit-
ness and dieting, I introduce the concept of discursive contact zones, i.e.,
communicative fields in which neighboring discourses cross and exchange elements
and content. Situated in a larger Christian environment in the United States, devo-
tional fitness programs adopt numerous Protestant and evangelical motifs and prac-
tices and reject others, thus creating their own version of an embodied
evangelicalism. The same principle applies to positioning the discourse in relation-
ship to further societal areas which are, from the perspective of devotional fitness,
stereotyped in a certain way. Next to society as a whole, programs of devotional
fitness take a stand towards medicine, non-Christian diet and fitness plans, and
yoga. The relation to yoga is of specific interest: What role does competition with
the non-Christian fitness and wellness market and yoga play (Sect. 7.5)? In all these
areas, it becomes evident that devotional fitness construes its identity through rejec-
tion and inclusion of neighboring practices and notions.
These contemporary programs may be understood as the manifestation of an
evangelical agenda to interact with non-Christian society. Additionally, they can be
read as an import of culturally established value-ideas and practices into a distinctly
evangelical frame, thus endowing the imperative of slimness with spiritual
authority.
The final pages of this book (part IV) are dedicated to harnessing the results of
the study for a reflection of conceptual instruments in the study of religions (Chap.
8). Specifically, it seems fruitful to critically rethink common dichotomies such as
religious/secular and to strengthen approaches with a focus on religion as practice
(doing religion). Additionally, the combination of conceptual tools from both dis-
course and embodiment theories turns out to be an approach worthwhile of further
development. It embraces the double reality of religious discourse in its entangle-
ment with religious practice with convincing accuracyan approach which has not
been tried in previous literature on the field (see Chap. 2 on the state of research).
Finally, the book offers points of departure to think anew about concepts of identity
which focus on the paradox of inclusion and exclusion, and about cultural semiotics
which are able to explain how meaning is produced from existing models and sym-
bols by setting them into new relations and thus giving them new semantic
content.
3
The concept ideology in this book refers to the ideas and values existing in a society or group
and is used without normative connotations. I follow Glocks and Starks ideological dimension
of religion (Glock and Stark 1965, 20, 2327) and Louis Dumonts definition of ideology
(Dumont 1991, 287).
References 11
References
Csordas, Thomas J. 1990. Embodiment as a Paradigm for Anthropology. Ethos 18(1): 547.
Dumont, Louis. 1986. Essays on Individualism: Modern Ideology in Anthropological Perspective.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
. 1991. Individualismus: Zur Ideologie der Moderne. Campus-Verlag: Frankfurt am Main.
Gerber, Lynne. 2012. Seeking the Straight and Narrow: Weight Loss and Sexual Reorientation in
Evangelical America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Glock, Charles Y., and Rodney Stark. 1965. Religion and Society in Tension. Chicago: Rand
McNally.
Griffith, Ruth M. 2004. Born Again Bodies: Flesh and Spirit in American Christianity. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Hall, Stuart. 2003a. Introduction. In Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying
Practices, ed. Stuart Hall, 111. London: SAGE.
. 2003b. The Work of Representation. In Representation: Cultural Representations and
Signifying Practices, ed. Stuart Hall, 1364. London: SAGE.
Halliday, Judy, and Joani Jack. 2007. Raising Fit Kids in a Fat World. Ventura: Regal Books.
Kay, Rich. 2012. Small Simple Changes: To Weight Loss and Weight Management. Woodbridge:
Kay Group.
Lerner, Ben. 2003. Body by God: The Owners Manual for Maximized Living. Nashville: Thomas
Nelson.
Schrettle, Gregor. 2006. Our Own Private Exodus: Gwen Shamblins Dieting Religion and
Americas Puritan Legacy. Essen: Die Blaue Eule. Diss., Dortmund, 2005.
Part I
Theoretical and Methodological
Background
Chapter 2
State ofResearch onDevotional Fitness
Abstract This chapter retraces devotional fitness as a focus of study, touching

related phenomena and predecessors, and neighboring fields of research. In review-
ing existing scholarly work I demonstrate where this project seeks to enter the aca-
demic conversation. This study is situated in different fields of research, such as
contemporary US religion, religion and the body, the history of dieting and fitness
in the United States, and the changing nature of US evangelicalism. This chapter
evaluates selected studies from these fields, starting with literature that touches
devotional fitness only superficially and proceeding to studies that concern the topic
of interest more specifically.
Keywords Body and religion Sports and religion Christianity and sports
Embodiment R.Marie Griffith Gregor Schrettle Lynne Gerber
The Boom of the Body in the Study of Cultures and Religions Having suffered
from somatophobia (Vsquez 2011, 322) until quite recently, the study of reli-
gions has turned to the material and corporeal dimensions of religions. The re-
emergence of the body in both academic and non-academic discourses throughout
Western societies is one context for the present study.1 This turn towards the body
(see, e.g., Hancock etal. 2000; Schroer 2005; Gugutzer 2006; Violi 2012) is often
embedded in a wider materialist turn, with the body being the single most impor-
tant site of contestation (Vsquez 2011, 11). The materialist turn also includes
research on space, architecture, archaeology, visual culture, religious experience,
1
The field of body studies was famously foreshadowed with Marcel Mauss Techniques of the
Body (first published 1934). The rising attention paid to the body in academic discussions is not
least due to Michel Foucaults analyses of the genealogy of body discourses and the connections
of power and body. In Madness and Civilization (1965), The Birth of the Clinic (1973), and
Discipline and Punish (1977), e.g., Foucault looks at the body in regulatory and disciplinary dis-
course and at the ways discourse inscribes onto bodies. Critics note that he is not sufficiently deal-
ing with lived experience (Shilling 2003, 71) and does not consider the body as a privileged
medium of perception (Schneider 2012, 260). Foucaults theory has nonetheless been widely
received and applied to manifold social phenomena. Hoverd, e.g., has described the contemporary
gym as a disciplinary institution in Foucaults sense (Hoverd 2005, 7). In this study, I refrain from
applying Foucaults theory directly while acknowledging that it informed the discourse theories I
intend to make operational (see Sect. 3.2).

ASocial-Scientific Approach 2, DOI10.1007/978-3-319-49823-2_2
16 2 State ofResearch onDevotional Fitness
and performance and thus calls attention to the fact that religion is about More Than
Belief, as Manuel A.Vsquezs influential book (Vsquez 2011) is titled.
In their introduction to Encounters of Body and Soul in Contemporary Religious
Practices (Fedele and Blanes 2011), editors Anna Fedele and Ruy L.Blanes com-
pare older studies, which often strictly distinguished between body and soul,
with more recent work that has begun to highlight the codependent relationship
between these two entities (Fedele and Blanes 2011, xxi). The seemingly separate
spheres of material body and non-material mind overlap. Consequently, Fedele
and Blanes draw attention to the part of the body-soul dichotomy that tended to be
neglected or treated as merely accessory in many discussions of religious phenom-
ena: the issue of corporeality in religious contexts (Fedele and Blanes 2011, xxi).
They offer a concept of body and soul as different but interwoven rather than
totally separated or even opposite (Fedele and Blanes 2011, xxi). Among the influ-
ential authors approaching this kind of thinking is Thomas J.Csordas whose studies
on embodiment will be introduced below (page 47 ff).
Sports as a Research Focus Along with the body, sports have become a focus of
research in the study of cultures and religions. Only a couple of years ago, studies
on sports and religion were rare and often received apprehensively. While they are
still far from being a major field, they have become an accepted and fruitful area of
study (Dahl 2011, 1; see also Dahl 2008, 35). In this study, I indicate crucial differ-
ences in the ways the complex of sports and religion can be studied. I do not study
sports and fitness as possibly functionally equivalent to religion but rather focus on
the entanglements of sports, fitness, health,2 and religion. Hubert Knoblauch
(whose work I have discussed in more detail in Chap. 8), bemoaning a lack of
empirical research on dedifferentiations of sports and religious discourse, suggests
that the body is the pivotal element and principle of such dedifferentiations
(Knoblauch 2012, 45). Trying to make up for this lack, I have borrowed his argu-
ment and illustrate it with evangelicals fitness and dieting efforts.
Sports and religion is a large field. Although studies on devotional fitness in
particular are rare there are quite a lot of publications concerning related fields such
as the interplay of institutionalized professional team sports and religious institu-
tions or the functional similarities of sports or body shaping practices and religion.
Additional fields of research include movement as part of religious practice (reli-
gious dance, pilgrimage), religious roots of secular sports, and ethics in profes-
sional sports (Dahl 2011, 15). These areas of research overlap with my approach
but do not quite fit the overall research questions. In order to demonstrate some
crucial features of the approach chosen in this study, I briefly summarize a few stud-
ies in the field and point out the major differences to my hypotheses. The informa-
tive value of these publications, though, remains unquestioned and the material
2
I often use the terms health and healthy in single quotation marks to indicate their unclear
semantic status, being subject to several interlacing discourses and negotiations (see also Sect.
6.4.2).
2 State ofResearch onDevotional Fitness 17
provided therein has greatly enlarged my knowledge about the manifold points of
contact between sports and religion.
The modern Olympic Games are a popular example of the idea of sports as
religion. Mikael Lindfelt, for example, uses them as a reference point to introduce
a functional approach to religion that allows for the incorporation of sports into the
field of religious scholarship (Lindfelt 2011, 29496).3 He concludes that for some
people sport can be of profound religious experience, and can even function as a
religious horizon (Lindfelt 2011, 297). While I do not deny the value of such an
approach to the study of sports and athletic experience, I hypothesize that the rela-
tions between sports and religion are more complex and cannot be reduced to the
level of functional equivalences.
Dieting, too, has been considered as an activity featuring quasi-religious expe-
riences. Mary L.Bringle, like Lelwica and others, suggests dieting has assumed
the fervor and proportions of a leading new religion (albeit a gnostic one), with its
own Bible, its own ritual observances, and its own high priestesses and priests
(Bringle 1992, 26). I discuss Bringles position in more detail below (page 210). In
a similar way, William J.Hoverd argues that the contemporary gym, though histori-
cally closely connected to Christian discourses, offers a secularized kind of salva-
tion through bodily transformation and therefore analyzes fitness as religion instead
of religious fitness (Hoverd 2005, 7, 92, 98).
In general, this approach to the field of sports/dieting and religion assumes
functional analogies between sports or dieting and religion. The implication is
that both fields, though different in their references to the transcendent, fulfill cer-
tain comparable functions. This is a widespread approach in the German sociology
of religion and sports, too (Gugutzer and Bttcher 2012, 13, 19).4
However, this approach will not cover devotional fitness sufficiently: I do not
deal with secular sports, fitness, or dieting that have some sort of religious func-
tionrather, I focus on sports, exercise and diet programs that explicitly stress
their Christian foundations. Moreover, I hypothesize that approaches based on some
underlying functional equivalence of sports and religion oversimplify the entangled
reality of religion and sportsconcepts that are shaped and reshaped repeatedly
in academic and non-academic discourses. I have focused on this entanglement
instead of carving out checklists and analytic distinctions.
With this in mind, I do not intend to examine the role of institutions such as
Athletes in Action, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, or Athletes for Christ, and
the like, not least because I am dealing with a different kind of sports (body forming,
pages 35 f and 145). These large Christian organizations, operating in the United
States and internationally, bring together evangelicals and sport enthusiasts in insti-
tutional settings. Athletes in Action uses the platform of sports as a tool for the
evangelism of the general public (Balmer 2004, 41). The Fellowship of Christian
3
Further analyses of the Olympics as a religion of sports may be found in Herms (1993, 37) and
Ulrichs etal. (2003, 9).
4
Along the same lines, to mention only two more examples, see Thomas (1996) and Gebauer
(1999).
Athletes intends to witness in sports and to reach athletes and coaches as influential
figures who shall publicly share their faith (Balmer 2004, 259). Although devotional
fitness has historical and personal ties to these institutions and, in part, similar goals,
these organizations focus on different activities (mainly mission in sports), different
target groups (professional team sports and their fans), different kinds of sports, and
have less elaborate theologies of the body.
Christianity and the Body as a Research Field With regard to the topic of
Christianity and the body, and specifically Protestantism and the body, schol-
arly mainstream has held the view that believers consider body and soul as separate
entities, and that the soul is valorized at the expense of the body (see, e.g., Dahl
2008, 124). Andrew Singleton summarizes the prevalent scholarly understanding
according to which Christians predominantly glorified the soul and suppressed the
body (Singleton 2011, 381). Philip A. Mellor and Chris Shilling argue that the
Protestant Reformation focused on the word of God and its mental penetration at the
expense of the body (Mellor and Shilling 1997, 910). Protestantism prioritized
cognitive belief and thought as routes to knowledge and made linguistic symbols
and narratives (which could be thought with, spoken and read) a central source of
peoples self-identity (Mellor and Shilling 1997, 42).5 Religion, to be as pure as
possible, was located on the symbolic, textual level, keeping it as far away as pos-
sible from sinful bodies (Mellor and Shilling 1997, 43). Bryan S.Turner agrees,
At least in the West (during the classical and Christian eras) the body has been seen to be a
threatening and dangerous phenomenon, if not adequately controlled and regulated by cul-
tural processes. The body has been regarded as the vehicle or vessel of unruly, ungovern-
able, and irrational passions, desires, and emotions. The necessity to control the body []
is an enduring theme within Western philosophy, religion, and art (Turner 1997, 20).
An opposing scholarly opinion is articulated by Guiseppe Giordan who, follow-

ing Le Goff (2005), points out that in the last two centuries this disregard for the
flesh has been attenuated by the revival of sport in the 19th century and the sex-
ual revolution in the 20th (Giordan 2009, 228). This rising interest in the body
from religious perspectives is linked to the transformations of religion and spiritual-
ity, which increasingly turn to personal and bodily experience as their preferred
media (Giordan 2009, 230). The upsurge of spirituality at the expense of reli-
gion, Giordan assumes, benefits the body, which becomes a medium of spiritual
perfection. [T]oday the spiritual approach makes the body itself the site of the
sacred: the contemporary person relates to transcendence and the divine on the basis
of the experience of his/her own body (Giordan 2009, 233). Similarly, Simon
Coleman argues that, despite being elsewhere characterized as focusing on lan-
guage, today even evangelical Protestant worship provides ways to objectify lan-
guage and spiritual experience in the body, physical environment, and mass media
(Coleman 1996; see also Auffarth 2004, 12426). I show in this study both how the
5
The study of religion itself has long been biased from this Protestant legacy with its emphasis
on the cognitive, Birgit Meyer argues (2012, 11).
body itself may become a site of the sacred for evangelicals, and how religious and
spiritual actors turn their bodies into the basis for experiencing the divine.
Historically, too, there is reason to believe that Protestantism, and Christianity in
general, have not been as hostile to the body as they are commonly portrayed. One
has only to examine the role of Protestantism in the shaping of modern sports (Mack
2005, 166; see also Geldbach 1975, 204; and Sternberg 2003) for evidence of a dif-
ferent perspective. Devotional fitness, I argue, mirrors this ambivalence in
Protestants understanding and judgment of the body. The body in these programs
is certainly not disregarded and becomes a means to experience the divine; yet it is
still subdued and controlled, as participants aim to curb unhealthy and sinful
appetites, and irrational passions (Turner 1997, 20), while adhering to physical
disciplines.
Passim References to Devotional Fitness Once sensitized to phenomena related
to devotional fitness, the alert reader will notice references to these programs in
studies from different scholarly fields (e.g., gender studies, sports history, theology,
study of cultures and religions) that deal with evangelical culture, sports culture, or
contemporary body ideologies (e.g. Joas 2009; Miller [1997] 1999; Jorstad 1993,
34; Wolfe 2005). In these publications, programs of evangelical fitness are charac-
terized as aspects of the religious and Christian market, tailored to participate in
the popular marketplace of weight-loss programs. I argue, however, that devotional
fitness is more than just a specifically targeted product in that it may become an
encompassing way of life and theology for those involved.
Michelle M.Lelwica, who researches spiritual issues [] in girls and womens
troubled relationships to food and their bodies (Lelwica 1999, 6), mainly studies
secular body ideals and their perils. She does point out, however, that religious
discourses (mostly Protestantism) have influenced and are still shaping these ideals.
Lelwica connects this insight to a decisive critique of traditional religion which,
she assumes, is partially responsible for the sufferings of anorexic and bulimic
girls because it supports anti-body, misogynist attitudes and is based on the nar-
rative of sin entering the world through the disobedient appetite of a woman
(Lelwica 1999, 8). Explicitly spiritual dieting and fitness programs, the core interest
of the present study, appear at the sidelines of Lelwicas work. She references a few
early devotional fitness programs in a footnote quoting from Roberta P.Seid (whom
I discuss in more detail below) (Lelwica 2000, 19293). Only in one of her most
recent publications does she include a brief section designated Critiquing
Evangelical Christian Renditions of The Morality of Thinness (Lelwica 2010,
17981). She notes the rising popularity of Christian weight-loss programs and
briefly introduces Weigh Down Workshop (Gwen Shamblin), Help Lord: The
Devil Wants Me Fat! (Lovett [1977] 1982), and a few others, mainly referencing
R.Marie Griffith. Focusing on Weigh Down Workshop, Lelwica concludes in an
unmistakably critical tone that
associating thinness with righteousness is reprehensible. When we assume a judgmental,
moralistic division between those who are saved (thin) and those who are damned (fat), we
arent operating from anything resembling our true moral center. What we are actually
doing is embracing a mindset that leads to violence (Lelwica 2010, 181).
While many of her critical insights into contemporary slimness ideals and their
religious and non-religious variants are of value to my study, her point of view is
certainly an engaged one. I return to her criticism later in this study (page 218 ff).
Lelwicas account differs from mine regarding not only her intentions but also her
conceptual basis. Starving for Salvation (Lelwica 1999) and The Religion of
Thinness (Lelwica 2010) both explore the religious dimensions of weight-loss and
dieting but they do not focus on the devotional fitness programs I study here. Rather,
Lelwica considers extreme dieting and the pursuit of slimness as functionally equiv-
alent to religion and observes that evangelical groups embrace the pursuit of slim-
ness too. [C]ultural visions of womanhood, she writes, have come to function
religiously with popular magazines being the sacred texts for millions of
American girls and women (Lelwica 1999, 40). Striving for weight-loss, she writes
in a second article, is a quasi-religious system that invites women to save their
souls by shrinking their bodies (Lelwica 2000, 181). As I have mentioned earlier,
this approach differs from mine when it is based on a functional equivalency
between sports, fitness, or slimness and religion.
Roberta P.Seid is another author who, in Never Too Thin (Seid 1989), an oft-
quoted history of dieting in the United States, touches devotional fitness programs.
She references Shedds Pray Your Weight Away (Shedd 1957) in order to show how
all-encompassing the American slimness ideal had become in the 1950s when even
evangelicals entered this debate. Seids informative account will be the basis of
several sections in the historical part of this book. Specifically her understanding
that the concept of sin has been transferred from gluttony as immoderate appetite
to body size itself (Seid 1989, 107) was a valuable tessera in the emerging mosaic
of my analysis. Seid also rightly notes that, by supporting culturally approved body
standards, the religious leader in a devotional fitness program is no longer a coun-
terfoil to the excesses of vanity and of fashion but a promoter of those secular
ideals (Seid 1989, 107). She concludes, The profane quest for weight-loss had
become sacred, the virtuousslimbody as crucial as a virtuous soul. Church
leaders were officiating at the erection of a new sinfatnessand of a new demon-
ology, one connected with food (Seid 1989, 168). Her argument, to my mind,
makes a somewhat simplified distinction between the seemingly profane and the
supposedly sacredconcepts that I have used in a more complex way in this
study.
Many academic papers have referred in some way to the phenomena I herein
discuss as devotional fitness. As I have demonstrated, some authors have merely
mentioned them in passing, pointing out developments in US evangelicalism such
as market conformity, or the existence of specialized and targeted evangelical
organizations and congregations. Others have, in their accounts of body ideals in
contemporary US society, noted and criticized evangelicals participation and influ-
ence. None of the authors summarized above, however, have made devotional fit-
ness a priority in their research.
Major Scholarly Works on Devotional Fitness To my knowledge, only three

scholars have dedicated a monograph-length study to these evangelical programs so
far: R.Marie Griffith (2004), Gregor Schrettle (2006), and Lynne Gerber (2012a).
R. Marie Griffith In the widely acclaimed, influential study Born Again Bodies
(Griffith 2004), Griffith examines Christianitys powerful role in the shaping of
American bodies and varied forms of embodiment in both historical and contem-
porary perspectives.6 In this book, she deals with questions of utmost relevance in
the present study, too, and investigates why such a phenomenon [has] appeared
now, examines its relationship to older movements of evangelical health reform,
and analyzes its connection to secular diet culture. She stresses that religion has
influenced North American body ideals (Griffith 2004, 7). Griffith does not depict
the American history of dieting and fitness as one of secularization. Rather, she
highlights the indispensable role of religious belief and practice all along the way
(Griffith 2004, 12) and intends to explore the entanglements of religion and culture,
and the role of religion in the ongoing reproduction of dominant body ideologies
(Griffith 2004, 910).
Immersed in historical analysis, the book canvasses a range of American history,
including the colonial era, to the early Republic, the Reconstruction period after the
Civil War, continuing to the twentieth century. Griffith does not assume a coherent
historical movement; rather she identifies currents that share the idea that the flesh
serves as a conduit of grace and temple of the Holy Spirit as well as an unruly
repository of sin, temptation, and defilement (Griffith 2004, 6).
As a main historical predecessor of contemporary evangelical body practices,
Griffith portrays the New Thought movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth
century (Sect. 4.1). Griffith then traces the effects of New Thought in religious and
non-religious areas of American culture. She recognizes offshoots of this school in
the health craze of fasting in the early twentieth century, in William Sheldons
religious psychology and somatotyping procedures, and in racialized theologies
of divine materialization in Father Divines Peace Mission movement and Elijah
Muhammads black nationalist Islam (Griffith 2004, 110, cf. 11159).
Finally, Griffith examines the effects of New Thought on evangelical thinking,
specifically in the area of dieting and fitness. She notes that authors Charlie Shedd
(1957) and Deborah Pierce (1960), among the first in the field of devotional fitness,
revisited older themes rehearsed by the fasting masters of the Progressive Era but
played them in a new key (Griffith 2004, 164).7
6
Griffith had already studied evangelical body images in Gods Daughters: Evangelical Women
and the Power of Submission (1997), a study on Aglow, an evangelical womens organization
directly connected to the field of devotional fitness because they published a Bible study entitled
Gods Answer to Overeating (Thomas 1975). Agreeing with Seids argument, Griffith notes that
such evangelical renderings of the slimness imperative import cultural values into evangelical ref-
erence systems by investing them with the will of God (Griffith 1997, 14142)
7
New Thought was also connected with yoga, as Stefanie Syman points out (2010, 101). Thus
emerges an intricate complex of evangelicalism, New Thought, and yoga that will make up part of
the cultural substratum from which devotional fitness emerges (Sect. 4.1).
Griffith also notes an increasing attention to health instead of weight-loss in

programs spanning the 1990s and 2000s, though the underlying focus on fitness
remains unaltered (Griffith 2004, 176). Focusing on two of the most successful
evangelical diet groups, First Place 4 Health (founded in 1981) and Weigh Down
Workshop (founded in 1986), Griffith analyzes reappearances of New Thought
ideas in the last decades of the twentieth century (Griffith 2004, 177). Later, she
describes empirical material on these groups (Griffith 2004, 18792) which, how-
ever, is not quite systematized. Moreover, Bender notes in her otherwise apprecia-
tive review of Griffiths book that the author does not provide a clear methodological
statement of how she collected or conducted this fieldwork (Bender 2006, 301).8
Comparing Shamblins recent program with Shedds older one, Griffith observes
that Christian dieting programs became more rigid over time:
The equation of fat with sin has been parsed many ways, from the gentle picture of God
submitted by Charlie SheddGod is disappointed by his childrens dietary excessto the
much more severe theology of discipline and obedience supplied by Gwen ShamblinGod
is rightly offended or even angered by overeating, as indicative of a betrayal equivalent to
adultery (Griffith 2004, 18182).
In the works of evangelical diet authors since the mid-1970s and into the twenty-
first century, she finds a much stronger tone of condemnation and exigency com-
pared to earlier authors (Griffith 2004, 183). Taking Shamblin as the provisional end
of this development, one would have to agree. Given the most recent developments
and the emergence of new programs, my hypothesis is that younger programs rather
tend to be less rigid, framing their ideas in the language of wellness, harmony,
and health instead of sin and guilt (see page 118 ff).
An additional development Griffith observes is the changing image of program
designers. Today, leaders and authors are experts rather than fellow strugglers
(Griffith 2004, 184). She assumes that leaders and designers of todays programs
are younger than in the 1960s and 1970s and do not have their own stories of suffer-
ing from overweight. [T]here arose a stronger emphasis on expertise in the diet and
fitness world, vying with the more traditional criteria of a personal fat healing
narrative combined with fluency in scripture (Griffith 2004, 184). In contrast, my
observation is that even todays professionalized evangelical fitness and diet lead-
ers still invoke the power of personal narratives of suffering and transformation
(Sect. 6.2).
Among the central findings of her study, Griffith suggests that religion [] has
held a vital historical role in American body politics: a system making some bodies
healthier, more beautiful, more powerful, and longer lived than others (Griffith
2004, 249). In short, Modern fitness may not be a religion in the scholarly sense,
but it surely has dense and unavoidable religious roots (Griffith 2004, 250).
This book owes a lot to Griffiths study and her thorough historical account
offers valuable contextualization. Nonetheless, I add some crucial points. From a
historical perspective, I have used Alcoholics Anonymous and Muscular Christianity
Similar criticism comes from Anderson (2005, 646).

8
as comparative foils which have, directly and indirectly, influenced the set-up of
evangelical fitness programs from the start (Sects. 4.3 and 5.2). Drawing from
empirical research, my study has the advantage of presenting data from participant
observations in fitness classes at Body & Soul, thus highlighting additional aspects
apart from materials produced during small group meetings and interviews.
Griffith has noted the importance of strengthening relationships in evangelical
dieting programs (Griffith 2004, 16869, 18788, 243) but has not paid as much
attention to this crucial aspect as I have done (particularly in Sect. 6.4.1). Eventually,
my theoretical framework differs from Griffiths insofar as I combine concepts from
discourse and embodiment theories (see Sect. 3.2)Griffith employs the term
embodiment in her work, but neither does she define it nor invoke its theoretical
potential.
Gregor Schrettle Similar to Griffith, the main focus of Schrettles work lies on
Gwen Shamblins Weigh Down Workshop. In his doctoral thesis (Our Own Private
Exodus: Gwen Shamblins Dieting Religion and Americas Puritan Legacy, 2006),
he tries to demonstrate that Shamblins teachings mirror the US-American self-
imagenamely the emphasis on individuality and the slimness imperativein a
prototypical fashion (Schrettle 2006, 11, 198199). Like Griffith, Schrettle takes
into account the complex relations between the religious and the secular in the
construction of contemporary body images and sports. He assumes that US culture
is characterized by its rootedness in and peculiar ties to Protestant religion
(Schrettle 2006, 92) and then sets out to show that religion and dieting, as exempli-
fied in Shamblins organization, are intricately connected.
First, he uncovers the underlying religious implications of the seemingly secu-
lar forms of dieting and (mandatory) slimness (Schrettle 2006, 94) based on the
concept of civil religion. The United States civil religion, Schrettle argues, is mark-
edly based on the religious heritage of the country (Schrettle 2006, 94). He sees the
slimness imperative, especially, as an element of civil religion; a now secular
value that has distinct religious, i.e., Puritan, roots (Schrettle 2006, 107).
Shamblins program, Schrettle states, revives older Puritan values via embracing the
slimness imperative (Schrettle 2006, 107). The author notes that the Puritan obliga-
tion to work continuously on their moral conduct, as famously analyzed by Max
Weber, translates to contemporary Americans working on their outward bodily
appearance (Schrettle 2006, 10809). Further Puritan notions became foundational
to American civil religion too, namely the narrative of the United States as Gods
Promised Land, providing freedom from European oppression. Thus, American
identity, materialized in its civil religion, comprises discernable Christian compo-
nents even if they are secularized to some degree (Schrettle 2006, 12324). Along
with originally Puritan motifs of the Promised Land, chosenness, and individual
responsibility, values like asceticism and frugality entered non-religious American
culture too. Schrettles thesis is that these ideas gradually developed into the thin-
ness imperative (Schrettle 2006, 125).
To substantiate his claim, Schrettle employs Max Webers concept of the
Protestant ethic: Protestantism spawned capitalism, which in turn prepared the
grounds for affluence and consumer culture, thus creating the context for the slim-
ness imperative to emerge (Schrettle 2006, 126). Protestant inner-worldly asceti-
cism led the faithful to remain frugal and not spend their affluence on consumer
goods. This, however, stood in stark contrast to the emerging capitalist economy
that could only thrive on consumption. Therefore, it became morally necessary to
participate in consumer culture and still adhere to the value of inner-worldly asceti-
cism (Schrettle 2006, 13842).
Nothing fit this requirement better than the market of diet products and fitness
programs. Here, religious (and non-religious) Americans could remain abstemious
and disciplined and spend money at the same time. Consumption thus became mor-
ally appropriate (Schrettle 2006, 145).
Asceticisma firmly established constitutive element of collective national consciousness,
of modern civil religioncould not simply be replaced by boundless tolerance for indul-
gence in consumption. It had to find new modes of expression. [] Many people still felt
[] that consumption for the sake of pleasure alone and not out of an elementary need was
reprehensible. Therefore, American culture was not ready to accept consumerism as a new
universally valid approach to life without any counterbalance. [] Dieting was ideally
suited to meet these requirements. The attack on fat was apparently perceived as an appro-
priate means through which the nation felt it could keep up, in modified form, the Puritan
tradition and heritage (Schrettle 2006, 15152).
Based on this somewhat too linear argument, Schrettle concludes that the slim-
ness imperative is a culturally logical reaction to the economic abundance of the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries (Schrettle 2006, 157). In an adaptation of
Webers thesis, Schrettle argues that Shamblin, similar to the Puritans, who inter-
preted wealth and success as signs of Gods grace, presents not prosperity but the
believers weight as an indicator of righteousness in Gods eyes (Schrettle 2006,
185).
[I]t is one of the most significant aspects of Shamblins movement that what used to be a
component of (more or less) secular civil religionnamely, the obligation to conform to a
standardized body imageis now being expressed in the framework of formal Christianity.
[] This clearly illustrates the degree to which religion and culture are enmeshed in the
United States, and it confirms the thesis that Shamblins discourse is indeed a genuine
expression of a specifically US American self-perception (Schrettle 2006, 199).
Schrettles analysis provides useful background to my research, yet there are

limitations that the present study seeks to mend. Empirically, my study has the
advantage of relying not just on textual sources (as Schrettles study does) but also
on supplementary ethnographic fieldwork (for a full account of the empirical mate-
rials, see Sect. 3.3). Moreover, I cover a broader spectrum of groups in the field and
do not focus on only one organization or program, which allows for comparisons
and (limited) generalizations.
As Schrettle has shown, Webers thesis of the Protestant ethic may be an analytic
tool when accounting for the field of devotional fitness. The idea that physical fit-
ness replaces economic wealth as an indicator of the believers Gnadenstand, or
state of grace, intuitively applies to devotional fitness. Therefore, I discuss this the-
orys potential briefly in this chapter, although the remainder of this study does not
rest on it. I reconsider the way Schrettle evokes Webers concepts and demonstrate
their advantages and disadvantages regarding the current situation.
Webers well-known thesis, as described in Die protestantische Ethik und der
Geist des Kapitalismus (first published 1904/05) suggests that the Protestant
ethic effects the accumulation of capital through inner-worldly asceticism and a
work ethic that eschews consumption for the sole purpose of indulgence. The
Protestant ethic is based on the dogma of predestination, which states that God inal-
terably determines ones salvation or damnation, a teaching popular in Calvinism
and other Protestant communities (e.g., Methodism and Pietism). Accepting this
idea propels believers to look for signs of their status as belonging to the electi.
These signs are ultimately found in an economically rationalized lifestyle, oriented
towards capitalistic principles (and consequently accumulating monetary wealth)
a lifestyle referred to as inner-worldly asceticism (Weber [1904/05] 2000, 6171).
Obediently taking action within this world as a holy instrument of God in a rational,
moderate way is the inner-worldly ascetics calling (Weber [1921] 1980, 329). This
way of life, Weber argues, gradually lost its religious context and abetted the emer-
gence of secular capitalism. Although Webers thesis has frequently been criti-
cized (see Steinert, e.g., who points out that most of Webers assumptions have been
refuted; Steinert 2010, 20), it is still one of the most well-known and oft-applied
theories in the sociology of religion (see, e.g., Hoverd 2005).
Schrettle uses the concept of the Protestant ethic in two main ways. (1) On a
social and economic level, the Protestant ethic favored the emergence of twentieth
century capitalism and consumer culture, bringing about affluence and abundance
that, given the Protestant heritage, asked for a counterbalancethe slimness imper-
ative. In other words, the slimness imperative is an indirect but consistent outcome
of the Protestant ethican explanation that in its monocausality certainly deserves
reflection and had already been questioned by Griffith before Schrettles publication
(Griffith 2004, 161). The corporeal ideal of slenderness, Schrettle continues, echoes
older Puritan ideals of frugality and inner-worldly asceticism and, though divested
of its religious connotations, is still prone to religious readaptations which occur
in Christian organizations such as Shamblins. (2) On a level of personal conduct
and religiosity, Schrettle notes that both the Protestant ethic and Shamblins pro-
gram develop external markers for an internal, i.e., spiritual, quality. While the
Calvinist tradesman would consider his economic wealth, achieved through a ratio-
nalized lifestyle, as an indicator for his state of being chosen, adherents of Shamblins
program are likely to associate their slender bodies with a loving relationship to
God.
As regards the concept of inner-worldly asceticism, I hold that there is a different
emphasis in the Protestant ethic compared to the ethic of devotional fitness. While
the Calvinist work ethic, according to Weber, inspired disciplined work and the
frugal accumulation of wealth, it despised public self-display of affluence, promot-
ing inner-worldly asceticism instead. In devotional fitness, however, showing off
ones corporeal capital (i.e., the fit body) is a hardly preventable side effect that
regularly sparks debates about the sins of vanity and idolatry among insiders. In
their theological rationalizations, protagonists of evangelical fitness programs still
realize the Weberian concept of inner-worldly asceticism when they assert that
beauty and physical fitness are mere by-products of an ascetic, i.e. disciplined,
moderate, and healthy lifestyle.
As the theological basis for the Protestant ethic (especially in Calvinism) rests on
the doctrine of predestination, and as there is no way to know whether the faithful
belongs to the elect few, traditional Protestants resorted to looking for symptoms
(e.g., wealth) (Weber [1921] 1980, 346) that would indicate their status. It is hard,
however, to find instances of the dogma of predestination9 in the case of devotional
fitness and contemporary evangelicalism. The idea of predestination still resonates
below the surface, for example in the common belief in a God-given purpose (on
Rick Warrens Purpose Driven Life and his careful eschewal of the term predesti-
nation, see Thuesen 2009, 210). Contrary to the idea of predestination, however,
my material bears out that individuals can actively work towards a loving and per-
sonal relationship to God when abiding by the notion of treating their bodies as
temples of God. Therefore, the concept of predestination, crucial to the Weberian
thesis, does not play a role in contemporary devotional fitness programs.
Moreover, the notion of secularization inherent to the Weberian thesis does not
apply to evangelical fitness and dieting culture. Scholars invoking Weberian con-
cepts, Griffith remarks, have explained contemporary American body disciplines as
compensating for other forms of restraint and meaning, i.e., Protestant religion
(Griffith 2004, 161). This argument (which has been presented by Lelwica and
Seid) runs the risk of presenting the pursuit of thinness as a new kind of secular-
izing religion to replace older forms of faith (Griffith 2004, 161). Griffith consid-
ers this an oversimplified account of the mutual entanglements of religious and
secular spheres in the history of American diet culture (Griffith 2004, 161).
Circumventing such linear types of explanation, I have employed multi-dimensional
analyses of devotional fitness in this study, bearing in mind the intertwined realms
of sports, fitness, religion, and body ideals.
I conclude that two conceptual tools of the Weberian thesis remain suited to
describe certain aspects of devotional fitness: First, the idea that external features
(like wealth or fitness) are symptoms or markers of an inner (spiritual) characteris-
ticthe Gnadenstand (Weber [1904/05] 2000, 120)and second, the concept of
inner-worldly asceticism. The latter, in devotional fitness, translates to an ideal (yet
often unachievable) lifestyle characterized by: abstemiousness with regard to
unhealthy foods; adhering to rigid exercise schedules; and obeying exhortations to
be moderate in appearance and humble about ones physical features. These two
Weberian concepts will appear throughout this book, though not necessarily using
Weberian terminology.
Lynne Gerber A scholar of American religions, Gerber, has researched First Place
4 Health, a prominent and widespread organization of devotional fitness, in her
9
The debate within evangelicalism on predestination is far from settled and usually circulates
around two opposing beliefs: (1) that all individuals are free to choose to believe in Jesus and thus
be saved and (2) that some, but not all, individuals are predestined by God for salvation (Malley
2004, 81).
doctoral thesis. I base my review of her work on the article My Body is a Testimony
(Gerber 2009) and her monograph Seeking the Straight and Narrow (Gerber 2012a).
Here, I introduce her general approach and main theses. Later (page 116 ff), I return
to specific points in Gerbers analysis and include another of her publications
(Weigh-In, Gerber 2012b).
Gerber researches contemporary evangelical engagement with homosexuality
and body size by looking at two parachurch ministries, these being First Place 4
Health and Exodus International, a network of ex-gay ministries (Gerber 2012a,
2).10 While Gerber pays equal attention to Exodus International and First Place 4
Health, I have mainly built on her analyses regarding the latter organization. Her
main thesis is that The evangelical subculture has two differing impulses in relat-
ing to the broader American culture within which it constitutes itself: to distinguish
itself from American culture and to exemplify and shape it (Gerber 2012a, 4); she
also refers to this as the evangelical dance of engagement and distinction (Gerber
2009, 407). To substantiate her claim, Gerber invokes Christian Smiths concept of
constructing identity through opposition and negotiation (Smith and Emerson
1998). This is an important analytic trajectory which I further elaborate in Chap. 7
where I amplify Gerbers rather undifferentiated notion of society by a more com-
plex analysis of different societal discourses that relate to devotional fitness.
One of her thematic foci is the concept of sin in evangelicals attitude toward
obesity and homosexuality (Gerber 2012a, 2151). Regarding First Place 4 Health,
she concludes that the precise theological status of issues like body weight and
food is a matter of some ambivalence (Gerber 2012a, 33). To obviate this ambiva-
lence, actors more often employ the concept of health (Gerber 2012a, 51). Sin
and health become complementary categories for conveying moral content that can
be used strategically in conversations with the larger culture and in struggles over
the meaning of homosexuality and body size. Each marks the issue as a problem and
implicitly invites remedy (Gerber 2012a, 78).
A second focus in Gerbers analysis is the concept of change. She argues that the
concepts of change and free choice in both ministries are connected. Change, she
concludes, is a process initiated by choice but not completed by it (Gerber 2012a,
82), i.e., starting a program does not guarantee its successful completion. The con-
cepts of change as choice (it is your choice to start a new life) and of change as
process (change will not happen over night) enable programs to pass on responsi-
bility to their members and to prepare them for the experience that all their efforts
seem fruitless. The topic change connects to concepts of success and failure,
constant issues for practitioners in the field. Therefore, Gerber dedicates an entire
chapter to these categories. Influenced by Gerbers account, I have extended her
analysis and distinguish internal and external change as the basic categories of
transformation in devotional fitness (see page 193 f).
The organization announced its closure on June 19, 2013, apologizing for the pain and hurt it
10
had caused (Klein 2013).

The final chapter of her monograph looks into the ways people break with their
programs. As Gerber was not able to reach former members of First Place 4 Health
(Gerber 2012a, 216), this chapter focuses on former Exodus International members.
It seems, though, that First Place 4 Health does not encounter significant opposition
from fat liberation movements (Gerber 2012a, 204). What is more, they even
reproduce rhetorical figures from the anti-diet movement,11 such as the emphasis on
health instead of appearance (Gerber 2012a, 205).
Agreeing with Griffith and Schrettle, Gerber concludes that secular and reli-
gious spaces merge and that these evangelical organizations exemplify this merg-
ing (Gerber 2012a, 226). Religious and secular spheres are so tightly connected
that communicative motifs interpenetrate from one discourse to the other and appear
unmarked, i.e., detached from their former context, a concept Gerber takes up
from Fessenden (2007) (Gerber 2012a, 22627). I deal with this kind of dedifferen-
tiation in more detail in Chap. 8.
Compared to Gerber, the empirical basis of my study is broader and less focused
on one particular organization. Including many different evangelical fitness and
dieting programs into my material gave me the opportunity of detecting disagree-
ments and debates in the field and to cover a broader variety of practices (apart from
small group Bible studies). Historically, Gerbers study does not exceed Griffiths
account although she introduces her chapters with brief historical overviews on the
respective topic. Theoretically and analytically, Gerbers central observations refer
to the evangelical ministries engagement and interaction with their environment. I
have taken up this line of argumentation from a different, more differentiated and
theoretically refined manner when I employ the notion of discursive contact zones
(Chap. 7). I do not claim that the notion of constructing identity based on distance
and engagement is new in the study of cultures and religions, but I suggest to com-
bine this concept with a discursive approach to arrive at a theoretically nuanced
concept that could be fruitfully tested in other fields of the study of religions.
This Books Contribution to the Research Field In light of these scholarly treat-
ments of devotional fitness, what is new about my approach? There are four the-
matic areas that make this study a necessary contribution to the research field:
1. To my knowledge, none of the scholars discussed above has actively participated
in devotional fitness classes during their fieldwork (they have attended small
group meetings, though). In attending fitness classes at Body & Soul in the
Washington, D.C. area and in New Jersey, I was able to test the potential of the
body as a research tool (Droogers 2008, 456; see also page 50 f). Additionally,
I could produce material that enabled me to gain insights that would not have
been possible focusing on the ideological side of the field alone.
According to Fraser (1997, 260), Susie Orbach was an early pioneer of the anti-diet movement
11
with her 1978 book Fat Is a Feminist Issue (Orbach 1978). Significantly, the subtitle of Orbachs
book still promises The Antidiet Guide to Permanent Weight Loss.
2. Historically, the role of Muscular Christianity and the therapeutic culture has not
been dealt with in the studies presented above. I argue that both these movements
were crucial to the emergence of devotional fitness (Sects. 4.3 and 5.2).
3. While previous work in this field tended to focus on the ideology of the body in
those programs, I dedicate considerable space to the practices of embodiment,
the ways theologies of the body are enacted (Sect. 6.1). Moreover, in my dis-
cussion of the underlying ideologies of the body, I provide the first systematic
approach which may serve as an analytic pattern for the immense variety of
programs (Sect. 6.4).
4. None of the authors introduced above has invoked the potential of the embodi-
ment paradigm. Not only do I specifically focus on the embodied aspect of devo-
tional fitness, I also seek to fuse these approaches with concepts from discourse
theories in order to provide a balanced account of the somatic and discursive
social reality of devotional fitness.
I do not deem previous studies inaccurate, but suspect that the research field asa
whole is incomplete in these regards. Nonetheless, they have shown that researching
devotional fitness is relevant and important. The topic regularly raises surprise and
bewilderment, even in academic expert gatherings. So, in a general sense, this study
follows Clifford Geertzs call to enlarge the universe of human discourse (Geertz
[1973] 2009, 14). What kind of knowledge or ideas presented in this study might
enlarge the universe of human discourse? Gerber, answering the same inquiry,
writes, Evangelical weight-loss programs are an important site for investigating
both the ongoing negotiation of evangelicals with the wider culture and the way
discourse on fat and morality is developing in American society (Gerber 2009,
415).
Moreover, researching devotional fitness allows us to explore the entanglements
of body, religion, and society. It may inform new perspectives on how religion and
contemporary life, including popular culture, interact and shape each other in the
United States and beyond. We will also find out how contemporary North American
society combines religious aspirations with the mundane pursuit of a perfect,
slim body. Eventually, scholars of religion and culture might find ideas on how to
adjust and render more precise their theoretical and methodical instruments and
concepts.
Having outlined and reviewed selected previous research on devotional fitness
and related fields, I have marked the perimeters of this study, localizing desiderata
of research and excluding related fields. Both the questions sketched in the intro-
duction and the literature review here have crucially shaped goal, theory, and method
of this studytopics I turn to in the next chapter.
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Chapter 3
Goal, Theory, andMethod
Abstract In this chapter, I first elaborate the main goals and basic concepts of this
study, providing an explanation of the term devotional fitness. In a second step, I
introduce the theoretical premises which form the basis of my approach to the field.
These premises have been shaped by the approaches of two major theoretical per-
spectives, here summarized as semiotics and somatics. While semiotics looks at
the symbolic construction of social reality via verbal and non-verbal communica-
tion, somatics focuses on the role of the body and bodily perception in this same
process. They are thus complementary perspectives which do not exclude but fruit-
fully complement each other. In the third part of this chapter, I outline how I col-
lected and analyzed data in this project.
Keywords Understanding devotional fitness Semiotics Somatics Discourse

theory Aesthetics of religion
3.1 Goal andBasic Concepts
This chapter introduces the goal of this study and briefly outlines the contents of the
following chapters. I also clarify the usage and background of the concept devo-
tional fitness and disclose my personal position with regard to the topic. Embedding
my study in the corpus of scholarly literature summarized in the last chapter, both
goal and approach result not only from a genuine interest in the topic but also from
an understanding of the limits of existing research on devotional fitness and related
fields. The intention of this study will therefore be a double one: to answer the pri-
mary research questions and to expand existing literature on the topic, following
trails that have not been sufficiently fathomed so far. Thereby, I hope to open up new
fields of discussion in the scholarly discourse of the study of religions; I suggest a
few such fields in Part IV of this book.
Goals of This Study The initial impetus of this study is, simply stated, to under-
stand devotional fitness. Understanding devotional fitness includes having an idea
about the answers to the questions posed in the introductionquestions referring to
actors use and interpretation of biblical scripture, to designers concepts of over-
weight and illness, or to possible historical connections to Muscular Christianity,

34 3 Goal, Theory, andMethod
and questions relating to devotional fitness and its connections to yoga. More gener-
ally put, the discursive and practical entanglements and constructions of protago-
nists value-ideas shall be investigated.
The first major task of this study, before attempting such an understanding, will
be to clarify what exactly happens in devotional fitness. What are people doing?
And how do they explain what they do? Having dealt with this question, I turn to a
second array of guiding questions: How and why does devotional fitness work and
how does it build an identity1 in its various contexts? This question does not scruti-
nize whether programs indeed effect weight-loss or fitness; their factual effective-
ness is not of concern in the context of this study. Instead, the question aims at the
ideology and identity of the programs observedfields of investigation that are
tightly interwoven. The underlying structures and connections, and their embodied
realities in the field shall be unearthed.
I need to stress that I am not so much concerned with institutional settings, i.e.,
Christian congregations and organizations, or with individuals and their intentions
but with a discourse (for a definition of this concept, see Sect. 3.2). Spatially and
communicatively, this discourse often manifests within evangelical settings (and I
speak of devotional fitness as embodied evangelicalism), but the concept of the dis-
course has the advantage that I am not bound to specific institutional contexts and
may search for and analyze instances of this discourse wherever they appear, includ-
ing non-religious or non-evangelical settings (an example of this is Marianne
Williamsons A Course in Weight Loss, see page 53).
The second area of questionshow and why does devotional fitness work and
how does it build an identityrequires more explication: I am interested in how
devotional fitness as a discourse is constructed and upheld. What are the central
value-ideas, motifs and embodied practices and how are they interrelated, hierar-
chized, and connected? From where do they emerge, and how have they been
reshaped and rendered evangelical? I am also interested in how the discourse and
the programs defend their value-ideas against other (sometimes opposing) dis-
courses. I seek to understand how devotional fitness engages with society. The con-
cept of the discourse and how it relates to ideas of embodiment will be further
elaborated in Sect. 3.2.
Naturally, a study like this cannot deal with its subject in every aspect imagin-
able. Other authors have focused more on historical dimensions (Griffith) or spe-
cific groups (Schrettle, Gerber) and, often, have included more or less elaborate
1
Identity, in the context of this study, is the sum of notions that make up the idea of what some-
thing (a thing, a group, a discourse) is, i.e., how it is represented (see, e.g., Assmann 2000, 132).
While the concept seems to suggest some degree of coherence and stability, identity is contested,
negotiated, and constructed in discursive practice; it is fluid, dynamic, and relational (Kaschuba
2003, 13334; see also Stuckrad 2004, 18). Identity does not solely emerge from within a discourse
but also from its connections and differences to other discourses. It needs the other to take shape
(Kaschuba 2003, 138), and, transferring the concept to social identity, it needs a border which is
produced in social interaction (Cohen 1985, 12). The ideas and values that make up an identity are
linked to and manifest in shared practices and forms of social organization (see Chap. 8).
3.1 Goal andBasic Concepts 35
critical remarks (Bringle, Isherwood, Lelwica), even to the point of sketching new,
supposedly better, ideologies of the body. I have taken these issues into consider-
ation but shift my analytic focus on the interplay of the overarching discourse and
the embodied realities of this discourse. Moreover, this research focuses on the con-
temporary field. Although the book includes a historical part, this is not the area
where I work with new source material. Griffith and Schrettle have, from different
perspectives, already covered the historic dimensions extensively. Therefore, the
focus of this study lies on the contemporary situation, amplified by some historical
comparisons that Griffith did not consider (Muscular Christianity, YMCA,
Alcoholics Anonymous).
The main hypothesisan answer to the question: how and why does devotional
fitness work?is braced by a theoretical framework that I summarize in the next
chapter. I suggest that devotional fitness works by means of relating communicative
elements, most prominently the idea that the body is the temple of God, in a dynamic
yet distinct manner, recombining and reshaping existing motifs. These are inte-
grated into a more or less coherent system that is flexible enough to negotiate and
defend its identity and position in broader cultural systems, often recurring on evan-
gelical suppositions. Its emergence was made possible by different factors: The
establishment of a health-oriented body ideal and corresponding body practices in
the USA, evangelicals interest in interacting with non-Christians, and a general
need within Christian and non-Christian communities for wholeness, fellowship,
and body-based spiritual experience.
Some remarks on the outline of this study are useful here. Starting with a brief
introduction in Chap. 1, I have continued with embedding this study in the current
state of research (Chap. 2). I am now clarifying goal, theory, and method, before
moving to chapters on historical predecessors of contemporary programs (Chaps. 4
and 5). Then I examine at length the discourse summarized as devotional fitness
(Chap. 6) and how it connects to and differentiates from various societal discourses
(Chap. 7). Finally, I bring together several theoretical ideas that focus on reconcep-
tualizing terms used in this study and the study of religions in general (Chap. 8).
Terminology Another question needs to be addressed here: The matter of word
choice. Why did I opt for devotional instead of religious or evangelical fit-
ness? What is my understanding of fitness at all? Fitness, in a basic meaning,
indicates both the state of being physically fit and the activities of pursuing this
state. People are fit when they meet given requirements, are adapted to specific
ends, or are physically and mentally sound. Among sports, dieting, exercis-
ing, working out and other options, I use the term fitness because it is more
general than exercising and dieting and may include both physical activity and
regimens of reducing. Fitness refers not only to a desirable state or quality but
also to the activities and practices devised to reach that state. In this respect, fit-
ness relates to body forming practices: both directly, as in physical activity, and
indirectly, as in regulating food intake. These body forming practices do not empha-
size team sports, competitions, and leagues as much as nonprofessional and often
noncompetitive2 individual sports such as aerobics, Pilates, yoga, strength training,

stretching, and related individual and group activities, as well as different forms of
dieting. Sports, on the other hand, is more general and would include all institu-
tionalized kinds of sports, such as national leagues of basketball and football. This
would lead to a discussion of Athletes in Action, the Fellowship of Christian
Athletes, and other Christian organizations in the USA which will not be of major
concern in this study, as I have already pointed out on page 17.
In comparison to religious, evangelical, spiritual, or Christian, to name a
few terms, my decision to use devotional was guided primarily by R. Marie
Griffith in her reading of Robert Orsi: Devotionalism, in [Orsis] formulation, is
religious experience at the limits, in the sense that prayerful appeals to divine fig-
ures are so often suffused with sickness, suffering, fear, and loss; and yet devotional
experience materializes in deceptively mundane forms (Griffith 2004a, 5).3 Orsi
uses the concept with regard to American Catholic devotional culture, but the fea-
tures of this term also resonate with evangelical fitness culture. Devotionalism,
through strategies of marketing and advertising, reaches out beyond congregational
borders. Devotional practices are often triggered by suffering (Orsi 1996, 1617).
Additionally, popular devotionalism is the practice of relationships (Orsi 1996,
203). Orsi specifically thinks of praying here, but, as this study will show, the con-
cept of relationships is embodied in other practices, too, in devotional fitness
culture.
Additionally, in everyday use, devotion may be seen as religious fervor, com-
bined with prayer and worship, and not necessarily coinciding with congregational
meetings. As such, it is not a genuinely Christian or evangelical term and therefore
useful once one intends to broaden the field of investigation beyond evangelical
groups (see, e.g., page 53). The term devotion does not forbid that activities in
other religious or spiritual contexts might also qualify as devotional fitness; admit-
tedly, these would rely on different ideologies and sources. Some forms of Western
yoga, for example, suggest themselves as distinct categories of devotional fitness;
they also make the body a mediator of spiritual experience and draw motivation
from the need for physical fitness and attractiveness just as much as from the need
for spiritual enlightenment. If non-Christian devotional fitness exists, where and
how it is practiced, and in how far it differs from evangelical fitness is one of the
desiderata this study produces.
Apart from these analytical reasons, the self-descriptions used in the field justify
the use of the concept devotional fitness. The two attributes most commonly used
to designate the programs examined in this study are fitness/exercise and
Christian/devotional. The first one denotes the practice, the second one qualifies
2
One has to bear in mind, though, that elements of competition occur, e.g., in so-called weight-loss
competitions. Still, however, these are not primarily about winning a championship but about shap-
ing ones individual body. For more on body forming and its differences to professional competi-
tive team sports, see page 145.
3
Griffith quotes literally from an online source by Orsi that is no longer available, and generally
refers to Orsis Thank You, St. Jude (1996).
3.1 Goal andBasic Concepts 37
this practices. WholyFit, e.g., is devotional exercise (WholyFit 2011), and

ActivPrayer is described as Christian fitness (ActivPrayer 2010).4 In other inci-
dents, founders speak of a ministrya widespread identifier for Christian-based
activities focusing on a specific theme or group of people, often associated with
providing some kind of service. Laura Monica sees WholyFit as a last days min-
istry (Monica 2011). La Vita M. Weavers Fit for God is a ministry for total
healthspirit, soul and body (Weaver 2011).
The last example introduces a secondary feature often attributed to devotional
fitnessholistic/total. In one of our interviews, Steve Reynolds described his pro-
gram Bod4God as a holistic program. Total health (Fit for God) is similar to
total fitness, a description used for Fit for Faith (Anderson and Waldrip 2011).
Health and weight-loss are also important concepts employed to identify
programs. Jesus Body (Faith Abraham) is portrayed as Americas #1 faith-based
weight-loss & healthy lifestyle solution (Abraham 2011). Adrian Maddox (Tune
Up Your Temple) describes her program as a Christian Based Interactive Guide to
Beginning and Maintaining a Healthy Exercise and Food Intake (Maddox 2010).
Aside from the labels designers tag to their programs, the analysis reveals that
most of the programs in some way engage in activities of dieting and fitness and use
strategies of personalization, success and progress control, motivation, dietary
changes, and physical activity in combination with practices meant to affect partici-
pants spirituality. The practical side of the field, therefore, is aptly summarized by
the terms devotional and fitness, too. I attend to these practices in more detail in
Sect. 6.1.5
The Field and the Scholar The material to be analyzed comes from various pro-
grams. A program in this context is understood as the sum of instructions, plans,
practices, and rationalizations distributed under one brand or by one author or orga-
nization. The term will cover a range of formats, from individuals uploading short
instructional videos on YouTube, to small scale fitness programs inlocal churches
and communities, to programs offered nation-wide or internationally by major fran-
chise corporations. Sometimes, programs are issued by churches to take place
within and beyond their congregation; sometimes they are designed by organiza-
tions, initiatives, or individuals independent of congregations. In most cases indi-
vidual authors or groups, institutionally and denominationally unaffiliated, design
programs that are later implemented in local churches and other institutional or
4
ActivPrayer is an organization founded by Luke Burgis in 2010. They offered fitness classes in a
few locations in the US.Meanwhile (2015) their program has been completely redesigned, now
lacking any direct evangelical tropes. While this is a good example of the fast-changing nature of
the ethnographers contemporary field, I nonetheless quote from their former program a couple of
times in the chapters to follow.
5
For reasons of terminological variety, I have sometimes used expressions such as evangelical
fitness, or Christian fitness culture, or other alternativesthis does not suggest that these are
synonymous with devotional fitness. At some places in my account, however, I felt it did not hurt
to use fuzzy concepts. Deliberately, I have tried to define both termsdevotional and fit-
nessin self-evident ways, closely connected to self-descriptions in the field. In doing so, I seek
to facilitate cross-disciplinary exchange and accessibility to non-scholarly discourses.
social settings. First Place 4 Health, for example, runs classes in churches, corpora-
tions, and in private homes. A comparatively small program is Ms. Christian
Workout Coach: Helping You Get Fit for the Kingdom! (Zakiya 2010). Twenty-
eight-year-old Denise Zakiya uploaded three videos on YouTube in August 2010,
the most popular of which had been viewed 1058 times about 2 years later, which is
a relatively low number of hits on a platform like YouTube. Among the largest orga-
nizations, Body & Soul Fitness and First Place 4 Health have small groups all over
the United States and offer groups in other parts of the world too.
Over the course of working on this project, colleagues at various conferences and
meetings have asked about my own opinion on devotional fitness. Often, I heard that
I should refrain from an analytic description in favor of writing a critical account,
indicating the flaws and biases of evangelical fitness programs. Although I agree
with some of the criticism and skepticism about devotional fitness, I have abstained
from giving an explicitly critical account due to the overarching goals and theoreti-
cal premises of this paper. I do not take sides in theological debates on the legiti-
macy and morality of Christian fitness and weight-loss programsmy perspective
is that of a distant participant and religious studies scholar.
It is well-known that there is no clear border between the observer and the
observed. It is also beyond question that scholarly discourse and the field are
entangled and mutually dependent (see, e.g., Stuckrad 2003).6 The sheer fact that I
am working on this topic makes me a participant in the discourse I am discussing.
Therefore, I do not deem it possible to create an objective report. Every account
bears the uncoverable tracks of its author. The writing culture debate demolished
academic confidence in the scientists neutral role as an objective observer and
placed their work in a cultural process of constructing meaning or just producing
narratives (Stuckrad 2003, 255). Referring to the same debate, Graham Harvey
writes, it is increasingly commonplace for academics to provide a richer sense of
presence in their publicationsafter all, a researchers participation and reflections
are central to what their work actually discusses (Harvey 2011, 239).
Consequently, some notes on my background seem appropriate here. My first
contact with evangelical fitness and dieting occurred in a seminar entitled Religion
and Medicine: Bodies and Body Images,7 where I learned about Ben Lerners Body
by God (2003) and Christian Fitness TV in a short presentation by a fellow student.
These intriguing ideas on the body and its perfection seemed ideal sites to study
communicative dedifferentiationa topic I was and still am interested in. Out of
this seminar grew a paper on Devotional Fitness: Aspects of a Contemporary
6
A good example is that Showalter, founder of the program 3D (Diet, Discipline and Discipleship),
quotes Griffith on the back cover of her new book with the words: No one has had a more lasting
impact on the Christian diet movement than Carol Showalter (Showalter and Davis [2002] 2007,
back cover). Probably, Griffith did not intend for her analysis to be used in an advertising statement
for the program she analyzed.
7
Religion und Medizin: Krper und Krperbilder held by Melanie Mller at Mnster University
in the fall term of 2010. See also her publication (Mller 2010) which includes a very brief descrip-
tion of the evangelical weight-loss movement.
3.2 Theoretical Perspectives: Semiotics andSomatics 39
Religious System.8 I had, at the time, focused on a few concrete examples like
Robert Evans Christian Fitness TV, The Power Team (led by Todd Keene), Gwen
Shamblins Weigh Down Workshop and Theresa Rowes program Shaped by Faith
(2008). I soon realized that there was a lot more ground to coverfrom small con-
gregational fitness programs to franchise corporations operating nationwide and
internationally.
In order to get to know devotional fitness firsthand, I arranged to spend the fall
term 2011in the United States, based at Columbia University in NewYork City and
affiliated with the Department of Religion. Over the course of four months, I was
able to interview participants and group leaders of devotional fitness courses, take
part in events and classes, and do more desk research as well.
Raised in a German Catholic context and trained in the academic non-theological
study of religions, I am certainly an outsider when entering the US evangelical field.
I take seriously the perspectives of those within the field, while remaining a distant
participant (as opposed to Griffiths approach of critical empathy, Griffith 2004a,
xiii). Beyond academic reasons, my interest in devotional fitness also stems from
the importance that sports, jogging, and other physical activities have in my every-
day life. I am not hostile to holistic approaches to health and wellbeingalthough
my personal understanding of holism differs from that brought forward by sup-
porters of evangelical weight-loss and fitness groups.
Based on these considerations, I do not claim to provide a neutral or objective
account. Rather, my aim is to present my understanding of devotional fitness in a
fashion that is traceable, well documented, coherent, and meets academic standards
of the study of religions.
3.2 Theoretical Perspectives: Semiotics andSomatics
So far, I have briefly outlined the field of devotional fitness, and I have summarized
existing research on these phenomena. Based on these considerations, I have pre-
sented the questions that will guide this study. In this chapter, I explain my approach
for answering these questions using specific theoretical tools as conceptual equip-
ment. The methodic approach of collecting and analyzing data will be summarized
in the next chapter.
I avail myself of specific conceptual instruments, associated with particular ideas
on the nature of socio-cultural reality, that help me reach my goals. These instru-
ments stem from two broad theoretical fields: semiotics and somatics. To demon-
strate why I chose these concepts is one of the goals of this chapter. I have neither
8
The paper was presented at the symposium Post-secular Religious Practices, arranged by the
Donner Institute, bo Akademi University, June 1517, 2011 in bo/Turku, Finland, and, in a
revised and amplified version, at the international conference American Bodies: Interdisciplinary
Perspectives on Modes of Power, arranged by the Graduate School of North American Studies,
Freie Universitt Berlin, May 2728, 2011, in Berlin, Germany.
the intention nor the competence to summarize or evaluate these large fields of
theory in their entirety. Instead, I have picked selected aspects from specific schol-
ars and made these applicable to my orienting research questions.
Semiotics ( = sign) refers to the study of signs and, in extension, to the
study of culture as a semiotic system (a system of signs), basically considering cul-
ture as something that can be treated as text (see, e.g., Geertz [1966] 2009; Volli
2002; Hall 2003a; Yelle 2011). Instead of the term sign which often sounds all too
static,9 I prefer the concept of communicative elements to stress that signs, in
whatever form they are used, are embedded and transformed in continuous pro-
cesses of communication and that they do not exist and have meaning without some-
one using them. Semiotic approaches are related to discourse studies in that both
consider communication as the central process of culture (Hall 2003a, 6). I under-
stand discourse as overlapping and interacting semiotic systems, referring to or
circulating around a specific theme or premise.10 There are, for example, political
and academic discourses, medical and legal discourses. In that sense I may also
speak of the discourse of devotional fitness.
I use the term somatics ( = body) as referring to the study of bodies, i.e.,
the study of culture focusing on the body, or a cultural and religious studies per-
spective on the human body (see, e.g., Turner 1997; Coakley 1997; Shilling 2003;
and Gugutzer 2006). Instead of the much-used concept embodiment, which sug-
gests a more or less unified theory of embodiment, I prefer to speak of somatics
to refer to a set of loosely connected approaches focusing on the body in culture and
religion (see Violi 2009, 202, for a similar critique of the term). Aesthetics
( = perception), closely related to somatics, refers to the study of sensual
perception or the study of cultures and religions with a special focus on sensual
perception, and not justas the term might suggeston what is commonly referred
to as the aesthetic (see, e.g., Cancik and Mohr 1988; Wilke 2008; Meyer 2010; and
Mohn 2012).
Both semiotics and somatics enrich the concept of gender.11 This category draws
our attention to the ways social sexes are perceived, constructed, and contested.
Both semiotic and somatic trajectories of analysis uncover images of manhood and
womanhood that have an impact on communicative and embodied practices in the
field. I point out gender-related issues throughout this study.
In thinking about devotional fitness both in terms of semiotics and somatics, it
turns out that instead of employing these approaches as opposing perspectives
9
E.g., in Leachs classification of signs and symbols (Leach 1978, 21); or in Vollis introduction to
semiotics (Volli 2002).
10
In the last decades, discourse theory has become one of the most popular and influential theoreti-
cal approaches in the study of religions and related disciplines (Hall 2003a, 6). Kocku von Stuckrad
even suggests that a theory of discourse should become an integrative theory of religious studies
(Stuckrad 2003, 263; for his most recent plea for a discursive study of religions, see Stuckrad
2013).
11
From the ample literature on gender and gender studies, I refer only to two groundbreaking titles,
Ann Oakley (1972) and Rhoda K.Unger (1979), who introduced the concept of gender to refer to
cultural constructions of masculinity, femininity, and other social sexes.
(focus on text vs. focus on bodies) it is fruitful to combine them in a complementary

way that harnesses their respective potential. I intend to use both semiotics and
somatics in this study and consider them as mutually enriching perspectives on the
same field. Thomas J.Csordas, with his influential studies on embodiment, comes
to a similar conclusion when he suggests to place the body in a paradigmatic posi-
tion complementary to the text rather than allowing it to be itself subsumed under
the text metaphor (Csordas 1994, 12; italics added).
Before elaborating this idea of combining both approaches, I outline these fields
of theory on their own, keeping in mind the intention to use them as complementary
perspectives on devotional fitness. In doing so, I have followed selected authors who
have devised ways of thinking in terms of semiotics and somatics that seem useful
to my project.
Semiotics From semiotics, I take the insight that culture is a semiotic system, i.e.,
an undefined, ever-transforming assemblage of communicative elements (including
practices) that mean something to those involved, and that can be reproduced and
refined by those who have learned (have been socialized) to think, act, and speak in
the specific ways of the system. Connected to the cultural turn in humanities and
social sciences, the semiotic turn adopted post-structuralist concepts to attend to the
dynamic and constructionist character of culture.
Of course, communication and practices can be understood and interpreted in
many ways which principally are of equal valueif there was only one self-evident
way to understand culture the whole enterprise of studying culture would be idle.
People acting within a given semiotic system, however, usually have at their dis-
posal a common understanding, a shared meaning (Hall 2003a, 1), of what they
do and why they do it. Reflecting Halls notion of shared meaning, it is worth-
while to consider Anthony P.Cohens approach to community and meaning based
on symbolic interaction. Cohen shifts the emphasis from sharing meaning to shar-
ing symbols, drawing attention to the fact that the process of acquiring culture
requires that individuals learn how to use symbolic equipment. Symbols (I would
use the term communicative elements instead) do not tell us what to mean, but
give us the capacity to make meaning (Cohen 1985, 16; italics added).12
The anthropologist and religious studies scholar will usually try to understand
how people employ their symbolic equipment and how they make sense of what
they do. The researcher, with an alien background and research interest, may come
to completely different conclusions as to the meaning of these practices (a possi-
bility that Hall considers too; Hall 2003b, 18); but this does not mean that these
conclusions are more correct. Meaning is never fixed, always contextual and rela-
tional. It is not inherent to things but constituted when a conscious ego relates her
experiences in a greater context (Luckmann [1973] 1980, 104).
The process of making meaning in cultural interaction has also been emphasized by Nina
12
Eliasoph and Paul Lichterman (2003).

Communicative elements, the basic units of semiotic systems, may be under-

stood as everything that is used in communication,13 including but not limited to
verbal, musical, gestural, ritual, motional, and audio-visual practice. In devotional
fitness, the language of the body, not surprisingly, plays an important role along-
side other modes of sharing symbols and making meaning, such as language, music,
and various combinations of these. The task of this study is to analyze which ele-
ments appear, how they are used, and what meaning they mediate and construct.
Religious semiotic systems produce a stock of elements from existing signs and
symbols to construct meaning and a sense of belonging distinct from their cultural
environment.
Given the practical nature of communicative elementsthe fact that there must
be someone doing something for communication to continue, it is perhaps more
precise to understand the elements of a semiotic system as communicative prac-
tice.14 This does not just involve language. Practice, in the context of this study, is
dynamic and intentional activity of individuals, not simply enacting preconfigured
discourses or semiotic systems but shaping and refining these while, at the same
time, being constrained and enabled by them (Vsquez 2011, 23132). Practice is
everything people do, from speaking to singing, from sitting to running, from cook-
ing to eating. Because these actions have meaning to those practicing and to those
interacting with, responding to, or ignoring these practices, we can arrive at a sig-
nificant conclusion: Every (somatic) practice is communication, and communica-
tion is always practice, which is meant to stress that communication requires
someone to do something. Although these practices are usually considered to con-
vey meaning, their more important feature is that they perpetually continue com-
munication (Luhmann 1985, 553).
Meaning, according to the semiotic approach, does not emerge from the ele-
ments of communication themselves, but from the way they are related (Hall 2003b,
27; and seminally Saussure [1916] 1967, 14345). They do not relate of and by
themselves, they are related by someone, by actors who communicate, think, and
discuss their ideas and practices. Consequently, I have focused on the process of
making (ever-transforming) meaning in communicative practice. Meaning is highly
contextual; it is neither absolute, nor self-evident, nor do language and practice
13
I cannot go into the depths and history of the concept communication here. For the purpose of
this study, suffice it to note that communication always happens and never stops; there is no way
not to communicate (Watzlawick, Bavelas, and Jackson [1969] 2011, 53). Communication is
everything that someone can respond to (even if this response is ignorance or misunderstanding;
see Luhmann and Baecker 2006, 297). I include every act of practice in this understanding of com-
munication. More important than communicating about something (meaningful) is to continue
communication (Luhmann 1985, 21718). Communication does not require direct interpersonal
exchange but can occur via books, newspapers, web sites, etc. It is the central process of society
(Luhmann 1985, 555).
14
Stefan Meier suggests a similar approach in his concept of discursive praxis (Meier 2011,
499). I also follow Hubert Knoblauch who, on the basis of Alfred Schtz and Thomas Luckmann,
works with the concept of communicative action as referring to verbal and non-verbal forms of
expression (Knoblauch etal. 2002, 29; see also Knoblauch 1996 and Knoblauch 1998, 167).
convey meaning transparently. Therefore, the analysis of how people make sense
of what they do requires a thorough contextualization that I provide in this book by
embedding devotional fitness in its contexts.
Culture, to summarize the semiotic approach, is based on mechanisms that allow
people to feel they share meaning (even if meaning is principally indeterminable),
and a continuous perpetuation of communicative practice. Culture is not so much
a set of things as a process, a set of practices (Hall 2003a, 2). In devotional fit-
ness, actors understand each others words, gestures, and expressions in a certain
way, i.e., they interact on the basis of shared understandings of their bodies, of
sickness and health, of human nature, and of God. Continually practicing commu-
nication, in fitness classes, small group meetings, on retreats, in everyday encoun-
ters, in reading and writing books, and in engaging in discussion groups online, they
reproduce and refine these ideas and make visible (i.e., express discursively and
somatically) the underlying principles at the core of the discourse, its premises,
central motifs and the ways these are related.
Discourse My understanding of discourse in this project follows that of Stuart
Hall, who defines discourse as a cluster (or formation) of ideas, images and
practices, which provide ways of talking about, forms of knowledge and conduct
associated with, a particular topic, social activity or institutional site in society
(Hall 2003a, 6). The discourse of devotional fitness is such a formation of ideas,
images, and practices; as such, it shapes the ways people talk about and enact their
worldviews and theologies.
This understanding of discourse is based on the semiotic turn. I use the terms
discourse and semiotic system to refer to a pool of communicative motifs,
tropes, ideas, and practices that are actualized dynamically, while being shaped and
refined by their every actualization. The concept semiotic system, as I use it here,
is more abstract and more general than that of the discourse. A discourse is a
themed semiotic system. While the discursive perspective highlights actors, themes,
and contestations of meaning, the perspective of semiotics focuses on structural and
more abstract features such as elements, relations, and the production of meaning.
Discourse is observable in communications that circulate around a set of
value-ideas. These communications manifest in words, images, practices, rituals,
sounds, and similar phenomena. Therefore, and following a multi-sensual under-
standing of semiotics (Hall 2003a, 45; see also Mohn 2011, 105), I emphasize the
fact that discourse is visible in many modes. Stefan Meier formulates a similar
approach in his conception of a multimodal discourse analysis (Meier 2011).
Meiers approach complements Halls more general outline of a semiotic concept of
culture (Hall 2003a, 6). He observes manifestations of discourse in images, lan-
guage, practice, and combinations of these. Accordingly, Meier challenges the
researcher to gather a wide range of empirical materials, including musical and
architectural settings (Meier 2011, 499). Sharing this understanding, in this study I
have made an effort not to create a separation between verbal and non-verbal com-
munication, but to regard them as different media of one basic processthe process
of constructing and incorporating knowledge and meaning.
The advantage of discourse theoretical concepts as I use them in this study is that
they do not force the researcher to strictly classify the field; these concepts are not
bound to groups, communities, or milieus as the basic entities of society. Instead,
they allow for multifaceted realizations and transformations of discourses in differ-
ent social and institutional settings. As such, these approaches are more apt to grasp
the entangled realities of social worlds (for a similar approach see Bender 2012b,
5051). An analytic frame of cultural semiotics and the concept of discourse are
well suited to embrace the fact that individuals and groups of individuals may
engage with different discourses. This is exactly what happens when protagonists in
devotional fitness employ arguments from medical discourses and still argue on a
biblical basis. Although moving about points of discursive intersection, their posi-
tion does not appear intersectional, let alone contradictory to them because they
are able to integrate elements from different backgrounds in an overarching frame.
Somatics From somatics, I have adopted an emphasis on the body and on embod-
ied experience and practice, focusing, for example, on the concrete physical pres-
ence, perceptivity, and activity of bodies. This perspective has taken shape in a
variety of disciplines, from sociology (e.g., Gugutzer 2006; Schroer 2005), to social
theory (e.g., Turner 1997; Shilling 2003), and anthropology (e.g., Csordas 1990,
1994).
A brief note on the concept body is due here: Bodies are not natural and pre-
social entities; e.g., there is no natural way of walking (Mauss [1934] 1992, 460).
[W]e cannot take the body for granted as a natural, fixed and historically univer-
sal datum of human societies (Turner 1997, 17, cf. 19). Bodies are both culturally
produced and producers of culture. They are transformed by discourse and shape
discourse; they are object and subject of culture. After Mauss, Michel Foucault,
though insufficiently concerned with lived experience (Shilling 2003, 71), has
influentially argued that the body is not an apriority to culture, but a socially con-
structed phenomenon (Shilling 2003, 69; see also Violi 2009, 214). The body, in
devotional fitness, becomes a means to materialize and negotiate theological posi-
tions and beliefs; it becomes a material anchor for Christians who struggle with the
complexities of their spiritual and emotional lives.
Following these approaches, I have focused on how bodies partake in the process
of making meaning and embodying meaning. To do so, I need not abandon the idea
of semiotic systems in which meaning is produced in communicative practice. Both
perspectives complement one another. They interlock, e.g., when bodies are produc-
ers and media of communicative practice and may be read because they stand for
or represent an idea (e.g., the overweight body is often understood as signaling its
owners failure to resolve emotional problems; see page 181).
The somatic turn15 was inspired by the cultural and semiotic turn, yet shifted the
focus from texts and language to the body and its relations to culture. At the same
The expression somatic turn (sometimes corporeal turn, e.g., Violi 2012, 57) is used by some
15
authors to include this theoretical approach in a series of turns which the study of societies and
cultures has (supposedly) witnessed in the last decades. See, e.g., Hancock etal. (2000, 1011, 30);
time, it tried to overcome perceived weaknesses in the semiotic turn, namely its
emphasis on meaning and textuality. Under the category of embodiment, this per-
spective is among the influential theoretical and methodological strands in the study
of cultures and religions since the late 1990s (Coakley 1997).
Somatics adapts well to the focus on practice (Bender 2012a, 273). Religion is
unthinkable without someone practicing religion. Corporeal practice is an essential
part of this. At the same time, every practice is communication in that it may be
understood or interpreted, responded to or ignored. Therefore, it is useful to pay
attention to body practices in order to reveal how religion is made.
Focusing on the body, proponents of the embodiment paradigm assume that bod-
ies are central entities of cultures. Bodies represent and make visible society; they
are metaphors for the relationships between the individual and society (Alkemeyer
2004, 60).16 Bodies in devotional fitness incorporate and enact central theological
assumptions and actors read their own and others bodies as visible markers of per-
sonal qualities. Therefore, somatics is a useful perspective, and one used with sur-
prising infrequency in research on the topic so far.
I do not intend to provide a general summary on recent anthropological work on
embodiment here. Instead, I discuss selected authors whose concepts prove useful
with regard to my orienting questions. Thomas J.Csordas publications are among
the most influential in this regard. Csordas argues that a paradigm of embodiment
can be elaborated for the study of culture and the self (Csordas 1990, 5) and that
the locus of the sacred is the body, for the body is the existential ground of culture
(Csordas 1990, 39). Basically, he formulates a theory of perception which starts
with the body and assumes that objects are the result of a reflexive process; not
given a priori but constructed ex post. Therefore, his approach does not consider the
body as an object that stands in relation to culture but as the subject of culture
(Csordas 1990, 5). This concept lends itself to the study of religions as he employs
the notion of the sacred and the body as the primal site of the sacred. Csordas con-
cept of religion, however, deserves some critical reflection. He understands the
sacred as the result of an objectivation of a part of the self that is identified by social
actors as a sacred other. The self and the sacred, for Csordas, ultimately originate
in the same entity, the subject, which disregards the social as a source of the sacred
(Voss 2011, 7677).
Csordas intention is not just a renewed interest in the body as an actor of culture.
He goes farther than this and suggests collapsing binary distinctions such as mind
and body, or subject and object, in the terminological figure of the body (Csordas
Schroer (2005, 10); and Gugutzer, who prefers the expression body turn (Gugutzer 2006, 910).
I mostly refrained from using the problematic concept of turn and speak of somatics instead.
16
In the concept of habitus, Pierre Bourdieu has influentially argued that the body and its visible
shape and physical activity mirror and enact sociality. From eating and drinking to walking and
sittingbodily activities are read in social settings and they embody class and difference. Bourdieu
thought of slimness and fatness too, in this regard (Bourdieu [1979] 1987, 307, 739). He also con-
ceptualized bodies as producers and media of signs that express a persons inner character and self
(Bourdieu [1979] 1987, 310) and thus belongs to the pioneers of contemporary somatic perspec-
tives in the study of cultures and societies.
1990, 7). Accordingly, Csordas tries to elaborate a non-dualistic paradigm of

embodiment for the study of culture (Csordas 1990, 12). Sebastian Schler, fol-
lowing Ehler Voss (2011), cautions that this approach ultimately localizes cultural
objects within the self, neglecting the fact that social and cultural constructions
develop their own dynamics and shape peoples perceptions of the sacred (see also
Vsquez 2011, 6). He suggests that instead of eliminating dualities in this way one
should accept their interdependent nature (Schler 2015). Apart from these prob-
lematic aspects the anthropology of religion is indebted to Csordas for pointing out
the centrality of the body in human experience and perception.
Overstating the embodiment paradigm, however, could result in a biased per-
spective. Of course, the material substance of bodies, the physical matter, is the
foundation of every practice and literally every human activity; we would not be
able to live without our bodies and we could not think without physical neuronal
structures. But there is a risk in directing too much attention to the body. This
excess of body in contemporary social theories seems to suggest that virtually
everything is located in the bodyand, indeed, only there (Violi 2009, 58; see
also Kamppinen 2011, 206)which is a perspective just as biased as earlier textual
paradigms. Therefore, Matti Kamppinens rendering of the embodiment paradigm
for the study of religions is less radical and thus more pragmatic. He understands
embodied religion as a research setting that focuses on how bodies actively
engage in making religion (Kamppinen 2011, 209).
Related to the present research, somaticsbraced by Csordas theoretically
challenging (and problematic) variant, and operationalized in Kamppinens more
pragmatic applicationprovides the conceptual framework to grasp the role of the
body and its functions in maintaining relationships to God, Jesus, to other human
beings, and to the self. The strength of somatics, to my mind, is that it supports a
shift of focus towards the body and its role in constructing and perpetuating cultural
semiotic systems. Before turning to how one might combine these somatic
approaches with semiotic ones, let me briefly introduce aesthetics.
Aesthetics Mostly following German literature in the wake of Canciks and Mohrs
seminal article in the Handbuch religionswissenschaftlicher Grundbegriffe (1988),
I consider the aesthetic turn as an expansion of the semiotic and somatic turn,
inspired by both and trying to overcome their respective weaknesses. Aesthetics
seek to explore how religious semiotic systems are produced and reproduced in
sensually perceivable, i.e. somatic, ways (Mohn 2012, 332). Since the 1970s, the
study of religions has turned away from texts and inner experiences to rituals, lived
religiosity, and the body. This trend, often referred to as the cultural turn, realized
that processes of cultural construction shape religions and therefore sought to
embed the study of religions in the study of cultural contexts. Aesthetics emerged
from this theoretical shift (Wilke 2008, 20710). More than semiotics, aesthetics
seem apt to tackle the performative and dynamic character of religions (Wilke 2008,
22425; see also Meyer 2010, 6).
Concepts such as health, wellness, or fitness are, for the most part, qualified by
individuals perception of their bodies. Exercising a fat body feels different than
exercising a slim body. The state of wellness is not just seen and communicated;
it is also felt as such. Fit people report that they perceive their bodies to be lighter,
more energetic, active, and healthy as opposed to fat people. All these issues are
related to matters of sensual perceptiveness. A field of research such as devotional
fitness is extremely prone to aesthetic approaches. Physical movement, working out
to music, food-related activities (either deprivation, or preparation and eating of
food)all these are aspects of great sensory potential. Therefore, aesthetics provide
a useful set of concepts and questionsdirected, for instance, at the sensory percep-
tivity of discursive actionsuited to shed light on devotional fitness from yet
another angle.
The semiotic system, considered from the perspective of aesthetics, becomes a
space of sensual perception. Sensuality, in turn, relies on the body. Thus, the aes-
thetic turn also connects to somatics (Mohn 2012, 34041). In relation to semiotics,
aesthetics consider haptic impressions, scents, physical movements, or visual per-
ceptions as the basic elements of a semiotic system. Eating, especially when it
becomes a focal point in peoples lives (either by way of over-indulgence or by way
of deprivation) is a deeply sensual experience, including visual, haptic, olfactory,
and gustatory perception. Gwen Shamblin, for example, while otherwise cautioning
her readers about idolatrous eating behavior, finds sensual pleasure in the ultimate
brownie topped with hot caramel, chocolate fudge, whipped cream, nuts (Shamblin
quoted in Griffith 2004a, 213)obviously unaware of the contradiction she might
be creating in her followers views.
Aesthetics of religion (i.e., the focus on sensual perception in the study of reli-
gions) acknowledges that religion is not merely text (as early semiotics suggested)
but also practice (Koch 2004, 290) and thus connects to the emphasis on practice
that I have outlined earlier. In relation to somatics, aesthetics focuses on the body as
a subject of culture and highlight its sensual receptiveness. This approach explores
practices, actions, and things as elements of communication; it also considers the
bodily perceptions of these by actors in religious fields, whose impressions and
expressions it studies (Cancik and Mohr 1988, 12122).
Aesthetics of religion examines how communication is based on and mediated
by sensually perceptible processes (Koch 2004, 289), for instance in sensational
forms (Meyer 2010, 13). Aesthetics are supposed to be interdisciplinary, harness-
ing methods and concepts from semiotics, media theory, anthropology, and the
study of arts, and explicitly are not restricted to the commonly aesthetic in the
sense of beautiful (Mohn 2004, 304).
Combining Semiotic and Somatic Approaches Somatics, amplified by the aes-
thetic turn, suggests itself in the enterprise of accounting for devotional fitness. But
even though the body plays such a paramount role in this field, it is without doubt
also an ideological discoursea field of thinking and writing about the bodys role
in Christian theology and corresponding body practices. As I intend to harness both
semiotics and somatics in this study, I explain here in brief how it is possible to
combine the different approaches (for similar suggestions see Wilke 2008, 231, and
Meyer 2012, 12).
Fig. 3.1 Csordas rendering of Barthes distinction of work and text ( 2016M.Radermacher)
One aspect of this connectivity is the focus on practice in both semiotics (where
the emphasis lies on communicative practice) and somatics (where the emphasis lies
on corporeal practice). Therefore, combining these theories challenges the
researcher to study different yet related modes of practice.
There is a different way of bringing together semiotics and somatics: Csordas
supports that we place the body in a paradigmatic position complementary to the
text rather than allowing it to be itself subsumed under the text metaphor (Csordas
1994, 12). He suggests to consider embodiment and semiotics as dialectical part-
ners (Csordas 1994, 12) and does so based on Roland Barthes distinction between
work and text (Barthes 1979), which he develops to one between text and
textuality (Fig. 3.1). In Barthes account, work is the material object, e.g., a
book on a shelf, while text is the methodological and discursive field. For Csordas,
text becomes the material entity and textuality is the indeterminate method-
ological field. In the next step, text is paralleled with body and textuality with
embodiment in order to highlight the idea that the body is a biological, material
entity and embodiment is an indeterminate methodological field defined by per-
ceptual experience and mode of presence and engagement in the world (Csordas
1994, 12).
Csordas thus creates a relation between textuality and embodiment which
stresses that both concepts open up corresponding methodological fields: The
point of elaborating a paradigm of embodiment is then not to supplant textuality but
to offer it a dialectical partner (Csordas 1994, 12). It is from this perspective of
mutual enrichment that I hope to shed light on devotional fitness.17 In a similar man-
ner, Manuel A.Vsquez argues in favour of a cross-fertilizing encounter of semiotic
Other attempts to connect semiotics and somatics should not remain unnoticed though:
17
Biosemiotics, e.g., takes its point of departure in the set of metaphors inaccessibly found in mod-
ern biology and biochemistry and researches these in order to constitute a basic branch of semi-
otics covering sign use in living beings (Stjernfelt 2006, 40). Biosemiotics points to the necessity
of defining the body concept in constant interaction between biology and semiotics: the body as the
minimal biological entity simply is a sign processing device (Stjernfelt 2006, 4243). Cognitive
Semiotics emerges at the crossroads between Semiotics and Cognitive Science (Violi 2009, 199)
and works with the concept of embodied cognition. It considers human experience as funda-
mentally bodily based: concepts and cognition emerge from our experience and are bodily
grounded (Violi 2009, 206). These approaches, however, are less applicable to the present study
and would have required a completely different research setting.
3.3 Method ofData Collection andData Analysis 49
and somatic (practice-oriented) approaches. While acknowledging the importance

and material density of doctrines, texts, and symbols, he argues that these should
always be contextualized and historicized as phenomena produced, performed, cir-
culated, contested, sacralized, and consumed by embodied and emplaced individu-
als (Vsquez 2011, 321).
In the preceding section, I have given an outline of the basic theoretical concepts
that shape my perspective on the field of devotional fitness. Without aiming at an
elaborate discussion of the theories involved, I have selected single authors and
concepts that prove useful with regard to my overarching questions. These consid-
erations in mind, I now turn to the methods of data collection and data analysis. I
come back to ways of combining these theories in Chap. 8.
3.3 Method ofData Collection andData Analysis
In this chapter, I explain how I collected and analyzed data. Before going into
details, I need to emphasize that I am using qualitative methods. These are apt to
account for the phenomena at hand as they allow for complex descriptions and live
up to the entangled realities of the field that are hard to map out with quantitative
methods.
Though it may sound obvious, it is worth mentioning that when researching
human behavior one may build on what people do, say, and writeactivities that
are always tightly entangled. Therefore, the scholar of religions and cultures will
observe people (participant observation), listen to and talk with people (interviews),
and read their written accounts. Accordingly, the method of collecting data was
influenced by ethnographic research, participant observation, and interviewing.
While some methods are primarily ways of collecting materials, others are also
concerned with how to examine and analyze the materials once they are collected.
For reasons of clarity, data collection and data analysis will be delineated separately
on the next pages. In practice, however, they usually take place almost simultane-
ously and are mutually linked.
This study is methodologically based on a mix of methods18 and data, focusing
on textual materials supplemented by audio-visual materials and data from partici-
pant observations and interviews. Thus I was able to cover a broad range of pro-
grams. The combination of ethnographic and textual research allowed for shared
attention to embodied and discursive aspects of devotional fitness.
Collecting Data Participant observation combines watching, listening and asking
questions, informal discussions, and everyday talk. It is the methodic foundation of
ethnographic fieldwork. The ideological justification of fieldwork strongly
It is a best practice in the study of religions to customize and variegate methods: Methods are
18
not a straitjacket; they allow for creativity and new vision. [] Creative scholarly work does not
go against method, but creatively uses methods; as all good tools, methods are refined in use []
(Stausberg and Engler 2011a, 5).
i ndicates that scholars should focus most on observable activities, actual events and
practice, rather than on what texts, preachers or even ordinary participants assert
people ought to do (Harvey 2011, 217). What people do is just as important as what
they say they dotherefore, field notes stemming from observations are an impor-
tant part of the materials examined here. Within a period of fourteen weeks, span-
ning September to December of 2011, I conducted fourteen participant observations
in two First Place 4 Health small group meetings, four Body & Soul Fitness classes,
in the Losing to Live competition at Capital Baptist, in three evangelical services,
and in four yoga classes (as to why this is important, see Sect. 7.5). These took place
on Long Island, New York, in Montvale, New Jersey, in Annandale and Vienna,
Virginia, and in NewYork City.
Andr Droogers has suggested an enhancement to the concept of participant
observation that lends itself to the field of interest. He starts from the assumption of
a one-field perspective, bringing religion and the study of religions together in
one field instead of treating them as distinct areas (Droogers 2008, 449). When
scholars, based on a one-field approach, engage in the field, they will not maintain
distance but move as close as possible to the object under study (Droogers 2008,
44849). In connection with this one-field approach, Droogers then proposes that
the researcher in the field should take the position of the methodological ludist19 (as
opposed to, e.g., methodological agnosticism, atheism, or theism). This position
makes use of the primal human ability to play seriously, that is, to temporarily
immerse oneself in alien worlds and realities, while remaining fully aware of the
imaginative character of these realities. By temporarily, but as completely as pos-
sible, sharing the concrete bodily experiences of the people being studied, the
researcher gains in understanding of the role of these experiences (Droogers 2008,
455; italics added). Less distance, Droogers assumes, enables field workers to pay
more attention to their own physical and sensual presence: When the scholar
engages in the religious field, he or she must to a certain degree be physically pres-
ent and involved there, participating in this field with body and soul (Droogers
2008, 44849).20 Principally, physical presence is unavoidable in every participant
observation. Droogers, however, attributes methodological and theoretical potential
to the body as a research tool (Droogers 2008, 456).21
This approach to the field reveals an important fact about the practice of field-
work in the study of religions: Bodily experience [] tends to be a blind spot in
social sciences religious studies (Droogers 2008, 456). Droogers concludes that
19
On methodological ludism, see Droogers (1996).
20
This approach is clearly phenomenologically inspired. Droogers clarifies that it has already been
used in the phenomenology of religion and partly in ethnographic participant observation, and,
therefore, is not entirely novel (Droogers 2008, 449). Overall, phenomenologyits religionist
traits removedseems to become more acceptable in the study of religions again, particularly in
research on the body and embodiment (Koch 2004, 289).
21
A similar approach has been proposed by sports sociologist Robert Gugutzer who portrays the
body as a subject of research and as a source of scientific insight (Erkenntnisquelle) (Gugutzer
2004, 1418).
the one-field approach challenges the scholar in the field to make use of his sensory
apparatus more consciously, especially by allowing for more than just visual impres-
sions and cognitive processing (Droogers 2008, 459).
While it is questionable to what extent the methodologically guided bodily par-
ticipation of the researcher in the field can provide insights on how those observed
perceive their own corporeal, mental, and spiritual experience, it is nonetheless use-
ful to consider the researchers own physical presence a possible source of addi-
tional data that should be reflected upon. In participating in devotional fitness
courses, I was able to gather concrete bodily experiences, even if I did not share
other participants experiences in the strict sense. Without being certain about their
physical and sensual perceptions and experiences, I could note for myself that I felt,
e.g., the muscular tension necessary to execute certain poses and movements, the
relief after a particularly difficult exercise, and the physical exhaustion after class.
Music and movement combined to a sensory experience of synchronicity with other
participants while acoustic, haptic, and visual senses were involved simultaneously.
Admittedly, I was not able to physically experience the whole process of going
through weight issues, dieting, and the bodily perceptions involvedand it remains
doubtful if such a complete re-enactment is academically instructive. In peoples
accounts of their own experiences in fitness classes, however, I encountered motifs
that I could relate to better because I knew (at least partially) what they were talk-
ing about. However, I remain aware of this methods limitations. Although the body
is central to the researchers experienceespecially when interacting in a field such
as devotional fitnessthere are other modes of collecting data that are essential,
too: interviewing and gathering textual sources.
Interviews These are among the most common means of data collection in ethno-
graphic research. I conducted semi-structured narrative interviews, also referred to
as ethnographic interviews, having guidelines for the interview and posing an initial
question (something like: How did you come across this program?). These inter-
views were, just as the participant observations, meant to complement textual and
non-textual sources. I reached interviewees both by directly contacting them and via
recommendations. The underlying goal of each of these interviews was to elicit the
interviewees classification of reality with regard to a specific practice, to unearth
their knowledge and motivations, bearing in mind that the act of telling a storyand
that is what basically happens in these situationsis an essential way of producing
meaning and order (Knoblauch 2003, 117, 123). I also conducted telephone and
written e-mail interviews in cases where I was not able to travelthus I could inter-
view more people and cover a wider range of programs and geographic space.
Additionally, many short interviews and conversations happened informally during
participant observation. Apart from these informal conversations, I conducted sev-
enteen written interviews (via e-mail), eight telephone interviews, and eleven per-
sonal interviews with participants, group leaders, program founders and Christians
associated with sports and fitness in some way. Within the sum of all material col-
lected, interviews do not make up the bulk of the source material, but are important
sources nonetheless.
Textual Sources Probably the most common method of collecting data is gathering
textual sources, which are the primary basis of discourse analyses and grounded
theory. Methodological considerations in discourse theory usually focus on the
analysis of data and not so much on their collection. Obviously, it is considered self-
evident that the materials needed for these methods are collected in textual form or
some other mode easily transferable into text. They may include printed materials
(books, flyers, booklets, newspapers, journals, etc.), online materials (web sites,
news groups, social networks, etc.) and audio-visual materials. I gathered these
materials from many sources to cover a broad variety of data and approached the
field both systematically (searching by keywords) and in a piecemeal fashion, being
led by references and recommendations. Internet platforms such as Amazon,
YouTube, and Facebook proved valuable in providing information on the most
recent publications, web sites, and programs. While internet sources might be prob-
lematic in certain aspectstheir content may vary daily, they are not permanently
accessible,22 and authorship is often unclearthey provide excellent up to date
information, often unfiltered reports by laypersons, and generally reflect the
dynamics and transformations of the discourse. I also worked with short promo-
tional videos, extracts from TV shows, and DVDs distributed by programs; most of
these were transcribed before the analysis. These types of sources make up the main
basis of my analysis, amounting to more than 200 items, ranging from short articles
or gray literature to web sites, books, and DVDs.
The Result of Data Collection: A Stock of Empirical Materials As of spring

2012, I had amassedbased on the methods sketched abovea collection of mate-
rials which may be classified in two main categories. While this corpus was con-
stantly augmented over the following years, it served as a first and main collection
with which to begin the analysis. The material consisted of:
1. Material which has not been produced by myself, which came into existence
without my fabricating it: (1) Books, articles, and other printed and distributed
materials such as flyers and booklets; (2) web sites (static online content); (3)
videos, such as instructional and motivational DVDs, excerpts from TV shows,
short clips, and promotional videos (often from online sources).
2. Material which has actively been collected during fieldwork, which would not
exist without my intervention: (1) Field notes from participant observations; (2)
interview notes from conversations with informants (telephone calls, short ad
hoc conversations); (3) transcripts of recordings of oral interviews; (4) e-mail
correspondences (written interviews).
Materials of the second kind, actively fabricated by the researcher, run the risk
of being biased for a number of reasons. For instance, respondents statements and
22
Due to the fast-changing nature of these sources, some of the materials analyzed here may
already be outdated when the book appears in press. This does not, however, make invalid the
general conclusions drawn from the material. Wherever possible, I have used the most recent ver-
sion of an online source. Web sites that are no longer available are indicated accordingly.
behavior are certainly influencedunconsciously and unintentionallyby my sta-

tus in the field. To some extent, they sell their program, or at least present it posi-
tively, and try to make it attractive to the outsider. To avoid this kind of bias as much
as possible, I have tried to take into consideration various textual and non-textual
sources, records from participant observations, and critical perspectives on devo-
tional fitness articulated by outsiders. I intend to look at devotional fitness from
many sides. My expectation is to remain a distant participant by refraining from
engaging in a debate on the pros and cons of devotional fitness, and, if debate occurs,
by including it in my analysis.
On the other hand, doing fieldwork produces a number of insights that would not
occur otherwise, like noting how home-spun rationalizations offered by rank-and-
file participants differed from the theological elaborations of program founders, or
understanding the importance of music in fitness classes (see page 149 ff).
How did I choose the materials, and how did I determine what was relevant to
include? These questions themselves touch on the difficulty of how to define devo-
tional fitness, and reveal how closely method and theory are related. In other words,
in making a decision about whether to include a certain program in the analysis, I
already made a crucial step towards defining the discourse that unfolded during the
study. For example, does a Christian pole dancing group (Azad 2011) still count as
devotional fitness? Or a book called A Course in Weight Loss (Williamson 2010)?
This is inspired by A Course in Miracles, a text popular in New Age groups of the
1970s and based on traditional Christian images and a neo-Gnostic worldview
(Kemp 2006, 1). The case of Williamson is particularly interesting as her program
is explicitly inspired by Oprah Winfreywho is often criticized by both evangeli-
cals and Catholics for supposedly promoting the Oprahfication of America, i.e.,
the feel-good spirituality that Winfrey urges upon her fans through her massive
media empire (Schmidt 2005, 285). Williamsons program may be understood as a
contemporary rendering of New Thought in that it stresses the power of positive
thinking (Williamson 2010, 5960). Moreover, Williamson employs the image of
good and evil forces fighting over the body (Williamson 2010, 211)a rhetorical
device which is common in programs of devotional fitness (see, e.g., Reynolds
2009, 95). As such, the book reveals elements typical of devotional fitness. Therefore,
Williamsons program is a difficult caseat least analytically. To classify her
book as a sort of New-Age-inspired progressive Christian-Jewish spirituality23 is an
ungainly makeshift that illustrates the difficulties of classification. I have included
this incident in the basic corpus of materials as I found that many of the motifs were
indeed close to what I found in explicitly Christian programs. In this case, the dis-
cursive approach proves valuable as it does not force phenomena into classifications
that defy their entanglements.
The field provides a wealth of materials that is impossible to cover in its entirety.
Although a lot of programs and groups shaped my understanding of devotional fit-
ness, for this book I quote from a smaller set of examples that emerged in the core
23
Williamson has a Jewish background but explicitly talks of Jesus as an important spiritual inspi-
ration without considering this contradictory.
analysis. These examples are intended to mirror the heterogeneity and diversity of
the field. I chose rather large organizations (e.g., First Place 4 Health, Body & Soul),
smaller ones (e.g., Ms. Christian Workout Coach); new ones (e.g., The Daniel Plan)
and old ones (e.g., I Prayed Myself Slim); those that are relatively successful (e.g.,
Weigh Down Workshop) and those that are rather unsuccessful (e.g., ActivPrayer);
some that are based on collective exercising (e.g., Body & Soul) and others that are
based on communal bible studies (e.g., First Place 4 Health); some that are rather
fundamental in their theology (e.g., WholyFit) and others that are quite liberal
(e.g., Shaped by Faith); programs that focus on men (e.g., Body by God) and those
that focus on women (e.g., Fit for Faith).
The empirical basis of the discourse devotional fitness, in sum, is quite hetero-
geneous and I have tried to grasp this diversity while still pointing to the common
markers of identity in these programs. Thus, I discuss, under one umbrella term,
diverse settings that under different circumstances would not be researched together.
My justification for this approach lies in the theoretical groundwork of this study,
which is not based on institutions, congregations, and groups but on discourses and
their communicative and embodied practices and entanglements.
Analyzing Data The methods of analyzing empirical materials are closely tied to
theoretical assumptions as set out in Sect. 3.2. The methodologically guided analy-
sis applied here is based on grounded theory and discourse analysis keeping in mind
the perspectives of semiotics and somatics.
Empirical description and theoretical analysis are not clearly separable, and
my analysis is highly conscious of that. The different levels of abstraction behind
this separation are related to the distinction of emic and etic levels. These terms
come up several times in this study, so I briefly elucidate how I understand them.
Emic and etic levels of communication can only be defined relationally. A concept
may be emic in one context, and etic in the other. There are some concepts (e.g.,
God, devil) which are, as far as this project is concerned, emic because they are not
used as analytic terms. There are others (e.g., distribution, delimitation) that are
almost never used in the field, and only imposed on the field from my etic point of
view, the perspective of an academic outsider. Yet other concepts are sometimes
used both emicly and eticly (legitimacy, evangelization)in these cases it is crucial
to distinguish different emic and etic understandings of such terms.
How did I proceed in the analysis of data which I had collected with the above-
described methods (participant observation, interviewing, and reading and process-
ing textual and audio-visual materials)? As mentioned earlier, my analysis is
theoretically shaped by somatics and semiotics, and methodically influenced by
discourse analysis and grounded theory. I did not follow a prt--porter method,
but developed one that meets specific needs and unfolds in conversation with the
material itself. What is central to this method is that it starts from the emic level and
slowly develops more general and abstract keywords and statements on an etic level
of analysis.
1. The empirical materials I collected had to be converted in textual form (if they
were not already in textual form). While collecting and processing sources, I
gained a broad understanding, intuitively systematized the field, and developed
preliminary keywords.
2. In the second step, I went through the material again, this time systematically
coding elements of concern and/or importance. When I came across references
to 1 Corinthians 6:1920, e.g., I marked the passage with the keywords body as
temple and biblical legitimation. When I noticed elements related to Pilates or
some other sort of workout, I marked these as, e.g., practice/Pilates. These ele-
ments were considered as partial, and often embodied, manifestations of the dis-
course I sought to reconstruct. I summarized brief fragments of text in my own
words, using an emic lexicon as much as possible.
3. In the third step, I tried to summarize and categorize some of the emic codes into
more abstract codes and applied these codes to new material that had constantly
been added to the corpus of material. I was now able to phrase descriptive state-
ments about the communicative system of devotional fitness. The keyword
body, for example, relates to a number of assumptions on how the relationship
to God may be improved through the body and to other notions of the bodys role
in Christians life. In this stage, while adding new materials to the already exist-
ing materials, I paid particular attention to unexpected elements or notions that
stood in contrast to what I had assumed so far. Thus, I tried to balance my point
of view in order not to find out what only conformed to my emerging
understanding.24
4. In the fourth phase of the analysis, while still adding new sources to the stock of
material, I developed general and abstract concepts and categories from the per-
spective of semiotics and somatics. I summarized these categories as represent-
ing different perspectives of analysis. In this way, the outline of Chaps. 6 and 7
suggested itself. Some categories may be summarized under practice and prod-
ucts (Sect. 6.1), others under embodied conversion narratives (Sect. 6.2), yet
others under theology/ideology (Sect. 6.4), and engagement vs. distancing
(Chap. 7). Eventually, these abstract categories had to be brought into relation-
ship with the overarching theoretical concepts and research questions (Chap. 8).
Following grounded theory, I had begun with the close reading of a relatively
small set of data, had developed concepts and categories from this close reading and
had applied these to new material. The analysis thus derives concepts and catego-
ries from analyzing a data set that grows in light of that analysis itself, and it reworks
and refines those concepts into more general categories and properties (Engler
2011, 257).
24
Ben Lerner, for instance, emphasizes, God does not love you any less if you do not eat well.
He admits, however, that at one point in his life, he may even have believed that heaven had a
weight limit (Lerner 2003, 45). Charlie Shedd also puts into perspective standard weight catego-
ries and emphasizes that every persons healthy weight is different (Shedd 1957, 4950). This did
not agree with my preliminary impression of these programs according to which they tended to be
more rigid.
Thus far, I have outlined the methods applied in collecting and analyzing empiri-
cal data. Before turning to the results of the actual analysis in Part III, I first add
some historical background to the emerging picture of devotional fitness in order to
connect the field to its predecessors and earlier discourses.
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Part II
Body and Religion in Twentieth Century
America: From New Thought to Bod4God
Chapter 4
Shaping theBody Ideal
Abstract The discourse and practice devotional fitness does not emerge from
thin air; it is reproduced and reactualized with every communication that occurs.
These communications build on a stock of embodied and discursive motifs. These
elements must have come from somewhere; i.e., the cultural repertoire that contains
them must have been compiled somehow. The task of this chapter is to introduce the
relevant discourses and practices that have contributed to compiling the cultural
resources from which later programs of devotional fitness could draw such as the
New Thought movement, the self-help genre, the Alcoholics Anonymous, and
others.
Keywords New thought movement Self-help Alcoholics Anonymous Body

ideal Dieting Yoga
In the following chapters, I first give a prelude, briefly summarizing R. Marie

Griffiths argument that the New Thought movement has in part prepared later evan-
gelical body images (Sect. 4.1). Then I describe the wider communicative frame of
Christian dieting and fitness practices, focusing on the emergence of general fitness
and body ideals in the last century (Sect. 4.2). Third, I elaborate on a particularly
important, though non-religious, influence on devotional fitnessself-help groups
in the United States, specifically Alcoholics Anonymous (Sect. 4.3). In Chap. 5, I
narrow the focus to evangelical spheres related to fitness and dieting. First, I sketch
the historical background of evangelicalism in the United States with a specific
emphasis on its relation to body images (Sect. 5.1). Then, I study the role of
Muscular Christianity and the Young Mens Christian Association (YMCA) (Sect.
5.2). Finally, I outline the history of selected organizations and programs of devo-
tional fitness (Sect. 5.3).
These trajectories are entangled and not clearly separable; I point out intercon-
nections. In considering these discourses I intend to portray how devotional fitness
came about, and how it was shaped over time, emerging in different settings and
contexts. I demonstrate where the historical accounts I have studied feature ele-
ments related to contemporary forms of devotional fitness. It is not one of the main
concerns of this study to explain the long-term historical emergence of devotional

64 4 Shaping theBody Ideal
fitness. R.Marie Griffith has already done this exhaustively, yet paying little atten-
tion to groups like Muscular Christianity and Alcoholics Anonymous as historical
relatives of devotional fitness.
4.1 Prelude: New Thought andtheBody
This chapter argues that what is known as the New Thought movement has had a
decisive influence on the development of evangelical body images in the early twen-
tieth century. Therefore, it needs to be considered in an account that traces the his-
torical roots of contemporary devotional fitness. As R. Marie Griffith has done
remarkable work in this regard (Griffith 2004a), and is seconded by Simon Coleman
(2007, 43) and others, I may restrict myself to briefly recapitulating her work, add-
ing a few notes and examples when useful.
The argument of a historical relationship between New Thought and devotional
fitness might come unexpected to those familiar with the New Thought movement.
Not for nothing, this movement has been tagged New Thought and not New
Body. So why should it emerge as an important ideological predecessor of Christian
practices so obviously focusing on the body? Griffith explains: While New Thought
writers often seemed to be saying that personal power was accessed by means of
mind energy alone, for many the body was the real source of might, site of potential
transformation, and basis for revealing the inner truth about the human self (Griffith
2004a, 108).
To illustrate this argument, I first provide a brief overview on the movement as a
whole. Then I present a few central authors and their concepts of body and mind.
Afterwards I use examples from early devotional fitness literature to demonstrate
how the ideas of New Thought were integrated into emerging evangelical theologies
of the body. When I have established that there are metaphysical influences on the
emergence of devotional fitness, I argue that these evangelical fitness programs may
in part be understood as an aspect or effect of the more general trend of an
Easternization of the West (Campbell 2007) or the American Veda (Goldberg
2010).
Brief Overview Put in one sentence, the New Thought movement in its various
shapes is based on the idea that the mind, rightly concentrated, seemed to have
tremendous influence over the body and appeared a causative force all its own in
curing disease (Schmidt 2005, 148). Or, vice versa, the turmoil of the mind
became manifest in the body (Schmidt 2005, 155). Authors such as Phineas
Parkhurst Quimby and his patient-student Mary Baker Eddy drew from nineteenth-
century ideologies and healing systemsSwedenborgianism, Mesmerism,
Spiritualism, Holiness evangelicalism, and mind cure (Griffith 2004a, 6970). They
took these out of the realm of idle speculation and made them the basis of
practical self-help exercises (Fuller 2001, 51) or cheerful gospels of health and
wealth (Griffith 2004a, 70).
4.1 Prelude: New Thought andtheBody 65
It was a broad and by no means unified movement, organized in loose networks,

groups, and organizations which shared the view that God was immanent to the
human mind, that mind was the cause of all effects, that one could reach freedom
from disease through the mind, and that right thinking would provide a healthy body
(Hollinger 1991, 61). Physical health became a product of physical self-discipline,
bodily manipulation, and exhaustive scrutiny of the flesh as well as thought power
and the New Thought body was a source of endless techniques, remedies, calcu-
lations and quantifications, a fount of healing power (Griffith 2004a, 70). It is in
its coincidence with the emerging contemporary slimness ideal (Sect. 4.2), that
these ideas and practices could evoke their full impact. The new concern with a
slim, white, middle-class body made New Thoughts systems of controlling the
body through the mind attractive to a popular audience (Griffith 2004a, 70).
Historical Sketch The beginnings of New Thought can be traced back to New
England in the times of the Civil War. Intellectuals unsatisfied with Christian teach-
ings reached out for alternative sources and found them in Emerson, the German
Romantics, British idealists, Emanuel Swedenborg, Spiritualism, and Mesmerism
(Goldberg 2010, 4849). From these, they developed systems of mind-cure, based
both on Christian ideas and a growing corpus of knowledge from Eastern religions.
Horatio Dresser and Ralph Waldo Trine, e.g., mingled their Christian knowledge
with elements from Yoga and Buddhism (Schmidt 2005, 14748).
With his mind cure system, Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (18021866) may be
considered as the most important representative of the emerging New Thought
movement. He called his system Science of Life and Happiness, or Science of
Health and Happiness, or, at least once, Christian Sciencenot just with the
term would he have a decisive influence on Eddys organization, called Christian
Science (Griffith 2004a, 7172). Quimbys message was that through right thinking
you can channel health, happiness, and wisdom into the individuals mind.
Controlling your beliefs thus enables you to control the shunting valve that regu-
lates psychological abundance (Fuller 2001, 47). While Quimby as an idealist
claimed that all material substance was in fact illusion and that there was only mind,
in his practice the body was a real factor. Physical healing was combined with
mental healing when, e.g., words were used as remedies or as a kind of medicine
having a concrete effect on the body (Griffith 2004a, 7273).
It is in the 1890s that Albanese spots the first clear identity of New Thought in
Mary Baker Eddys term Christian Science (Albanese 2006, 301). In 1902,
William James labelled the movement, now with an estimated one million follow-
ers, the religion of healthy-mindedness (James quoted in Goldberg 2010, 48).
Besides home-grown inspirations such as Mesmerism, Goldberg emphasizes that
the New Thought movement was also shaped by Vedantic thinking and incorporated
Indian philosophies. Warren Felt Evans, e.g., explicitly identified the true self
with the Vedic Atman and Emersons Over-Soul (Goldberg 2010, 49).
Mary Baker Eddy, one of Quimbys students, founded the Church of Christ,
Scientist. Eddy had long suffered from physical complaints and had studied
h omeopathy, hydropathy, Mesmerism, and, eventually, came across Quimby who

was at the time practicing in Portland, Maine. From his teaching and her back-
ground in Calvinism, she developed her own system of Christian Science after
Quimbys death in 1866 (Albanese 2006, 285). With her book Science and Health
(Eddy 1875), she laid the roots for an influential organization, the Christian
Scientists. The New Thought movement as a whole however, was far from unified
and remained highly heterogeneous (Schmidt 2005, 14849). Eddy, like Quimby,
held the view that all material was pure illusion and that ultimately there was only
God or the mind. But although she was convinced of the unreality of the body, this
same body was crucial to her practice and everyday life, as Griffith argues, even to
the point of considering and striving for the bodys physical immortality. This could
be reached, she believed, not through food, drink, or exercise, but through perfect
mental discipline. So, in her teachings, food was an irrelevant factor. In her private
life, however, it was an item of pleasure and obsession just as her appearance
(Griffith 2004a, 7476). In the end, Eddy denied the reality of the human body, went
even further than Quimby, and developed the most extreme version of New Thought:
Illness and death were unreal tooa point that many of her followers strongly
struggled with (Griffith 2004a, 8082). And still, even for this most anti-materialist
of religions, as Griffith labels Eddys ideology, the body proved a powerful and
ultimately inescapable referent (Griffith 2004a, 83).
Quimby had more students who would turn out as key figures of New Thought,
e.g., Warren Felt Evans, and Julius and Annetta Dresser. These pioneered the self-
help spiritualities that to this day speak to those who hunger for greater personal
power than they have yet achieved through conventional religious means (Fuller
2001, 47).
Warren Felt Evans (18171889) never graduated from Dartmouth, New
Hampshire, because he felt a calling to Methodist ministry. In 1864, he became a
member of the Swedenborgian Church of New Jerusalem and thus broke from his
Methodist education. It was at the time of his conversion that he experienced physi-
cal and nervous disease and through this came in contact with Quimby in Portland.
Quimby healed Evans, who became his student and opened his own mental healing
practice in Claremont, New Hampshire. In 1867, he and his wife moved to Boston,
where they would spend more than 20 years teaching and healing (Albanese 2006,
303). Evans wrote books like The Mental Cure (1869), Mental Medicine (1873),
The Divine Law of Cure (1884a), The Primitive Mind-Cure (1884b), or Esoteric
Christianity and Mental Therapeutics (1886). Fuller describes Evans belief system
as a Christian spirituality. He assumed that the church had lost touch with the origi-
nal experience of belief. His version of mind cure was to revive this genuine kind of
Christian spirituality (Fuller 2001, 48).
Henry Wood (18341908) was another influential author of the early New
Thought movement and co-founder of the Boston Metaphysical Club. For him, it
was not just about healing, but also about contemplation. Mind over Matter was the
metaphysical motto, but a more precise rendering would have been The Meditative
Mind over Matter (Schmidt 2005, 150). Meditative practice turned out a central
element of the New Thought movement in general. Just as in Evans rendering of
New Thought, Woods system had an unmistakably Christian dimension, e.g., when
he mediated on sentences like God is here, Divine love fills me, or Christ is
within (Schmidt 2005, 151).
Ralph Waldo Trine (18661958) may not be missed in this quick enumeration of
influential New Thought authors. Born in 1866, he had taken his bachelors degree
at Knox College, Illinois, in 1891. He went on to study at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore
and focused on history and political science. Around 1900, however, he had, under
circumstances that remain obscure, turned to New Thought. He combined socialism
and New Thought and was devising a system that linked social organization to New
Thoughtassuming that New Thought taught the fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of humans (Albanese 2006, 394). He was well connected among
Vedanta teachers, healers, Christian social reformers and the network around Sarah
Farmer at Greenacre (Schmidt 2005, 15253). In 1897, he published In Tune With
the Infinite (Trine 1897), a block buster of New Thought literature. This book was
based on the idea that individuals could be in charge of their earthly lives, if not
their final destinies (Griffith 2004a, 98). In her analysis of Trines book, Griffith
draws our attention to the role of the body. Trine wrote, Our bodies are given us to
serve far higher purposes than we ordinarily us them for (Trine quoted in Griffith
2004a, 98)here is an idea that most contemporary evangelicals in the field of
devotional fitness would subscribe to. And Trines spirituality was indeed deeply
Christian, although of a cosmopolitan kind (Schmidt 2005, 156). Considering the
body, Trine assumed that thin bodies represented better minds because the leaner
body could be a better machine to serve the mind. The slimming body thus became
a sign of spiritual progress for Trine and helped the development of the spirit; the
other way round, the mind helped the body too (Griffith 2004a, 9899). The impli-
cation, Griffith concludes, was clear: The science of nutrition, which included all
the practices of feeding the body, was vital not merely to the preservation of the
biological body but to the much grander life of the soul (Griffith 2004a, 99)
another incident that foreshadows later evangelical thoughts on dieting and
spirituality.
The New Thought movement, this should be clear by now, is not an originally
Christian movement in terms of organizational and dogmatic features. Nonetheless,
it builds in good parts on Christian concepts and spirituality applying these to a
more individual and pantheistic worldview (Fuller 2001, 49). It is important to note
the Christian dimension of New Thought because this makes it even more prone for
Protestant authors to receive and develop New Thought literature.
The Body in New Thought As I have noted in the beginning of this chapter, the
New Thought movement deserves consideration in a study on devotional fitness
because it has had a shaping influence on the development of evangelical body
images in the early twentieth century. To elaborate this argument, it is necessary to
say a few more things about the body image as promoted by New Thought authors.
First, one can hold that bodily health was often perceived as an indicator of spiri-
tual health. A close reading of [] New Thought authors reveals the surprising
degree to which bodily techniques themselves served as aids in the pursuit of spiri-
tual mattersthe body not simply an illusion but important in its own right as a
key to the spiritual life (Griffith 2004a, 91). These thoughts laid important ground-
work for future devotional fitness programs. New Thought authors would still claim
that the only real substance was the spiritual or the mind, but they talked about
material things such as food and bodies nonetheless (Griffith 2004a, 91). Restraining
their appetites, e.g., was a way to be virtuous. They looked for physical signs of
spiritual success, using dietary and physical regimens similar to those promoted in
the broader popular culture. This ended in a general approval of slimness as a
favourable ideal in the quest for spiritual perfection. In brief, As thinness, already
a token of thrift and capitalist success, enhanced the New Thought project of self-
regeneration, fat evinced clogged mental thinking, obstructed spiritual pathways,
and death (Griffith 2004a, 97).
New Thought and Devotional Fitness How were these ideas implemented by
early devotional fitness authors? C.S. Lovett, in Help Lord, the Devil Wants Me
Fat!, stresses how the mind is connected to God and that the believer can connect
himself to God via his mind. The power to do so comes by faith (Lovett [1977]
1982, 13738). Thoughts, on the other hand, have a direct influence on the body:
what we BELIEVE affects our bodies (Lovett [1977] 1982, 145)this is an idea
completely in tune with most, if not all, New Thought systems. Now Lovett brings
this down to a very practical issue: his concerns with overweight: If believing the
wrong image of yourself can keep you fat, he asks his readers, what would happen
if you stopped thinking of yourself that way and began seeing yourself as SLIM
AND TRIM? Then if you could bring yourself to BELIEVE IT, your computer
[mind] would accept it as a command and your body forces would be geared to
MAKING YOU THIN (Lovett [1977] 1982, 14546). His so-called Law of
Belief brings to the point very explicitly what New Thought authors wrote long
before Lovett: Believe in something and it will be real (Lovett [1977] 1982, 167
68). What we find here, then, is a simple application of New Thought ideas, evan-
gelical theology, and popular weight-loss discourse. To brace his argumentation
biblically, Lovett cites Mark 11:24: I tell you, then, whatever you ask for in prayer,
believe that you have received it and it will be yours (New English Bible, 1961)
(Lovett [1977] 1982, 149)a motif that occurs in the Health and Wealth movement
too (see below). Lovett also shares the practice of meditation with New Thought,
although he calls it relaxation exercise and is anxious not to associate this with
meditationa term suspicious to him because of its closeness to Transcendental
Meditation (TM) (Lovett [1977] 1982, 15960).
The constant imperative to think thin, as Lovett puts it (Lovett [1977] 1982,
170), occurs also in a more recent version of spiritual dieting: Marianne Williamsons
A Course in Weight-Loss (2010). This program is less evangelical than of meta-
physical kind but it reveals the persistence of New Thought in American spirituality.
Among the central principles, Williamson formulates: Neither poor diet nor lack of
exercise are the cause of your excess weight. Mind is cause; body is effect. The
cause of your excess weight is in your mind (Williamson 2010, 10)clear e vidence
of New Thought ideology. The author continues to locate the reasons for overweight
in fear, i.e., absence of love (Williamson 2010, 10). In an elaborate program, she
seeks to provide her readers with tools to re-establish love. The entire book, how-
ever, is based on the New Thought principle that the mind has a shaping power on
the material world, e.g. in passages like this: Your body is not separate from your
mind so much as it is a reflection of it. As you change your mind, you change every
cell in your body (Williamson 2010, 123).
Prosperity Gospel When tracing the effects of New Thought on evangelical think-
ing in the United States, we need to mention another Christian movement which is
related to devotional fitness and shares with devotional fitness a connection to New
Thought: the Prosperity Gospel or Health and Wealth Movement. In this incident,
the New Thought movement influenced a Christian self-help genre which, superfi-
cially linked to metaphysical spirituality, offered get-rich-quick schemes on a
Christian basis (Fuller 2001, 50).
For the link between New Thought and Prosperity Gospel, Essek W. Kenyon
(18671948) is a central figure. Dan R. McConnell demonstrates in A Different
Gospel (1988) that Kenyon, one of the founding figures of the Prosperity Gospel,
was directly influenced by New Thought. In the 1890s, Kenyon had been at the
Emerson College of Oratory, a well-known New Thought school. Having been
raised a Methodist, he became Baptist in his youth, turned evangelist and preacher
and founded the Bethel Bible Institute in Spencer, MA (today Barrington College
fused with Gordon College) (Hollinger 1991, 6061).
Based on Mark 11:24,1 proponents of the Health and Wealth movement assume
that whoever comes before God and faithfully asks for his help will be granted
wealth and health. Logically, poverty and poor health are considered as signs of
weak faith (Percy 2006, 236). Followers refer to their teaching as Word of Faith,
while critics have called them name it and claim it. Important leaders are Kenneth
Hagin, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Jerry Savelle, and Fred Price (Hollinger
1991, 53). Similar to devotional fitness, this teaching assumes it is following Jesus
who was, in their reading of the New Testament, a wealthy man, feeding the masses
and financing extensive itinerant ministry (Koch 2009, 1). Physical healing and
financial prosperity are seen as biblical promises from God to the faithful. In order
for a believer to reap these benefits, one need only positively confess his or her
faith in that contract of health and wealth through the spoken word (Koch 2009, 8).
Comparable to devotional fitness, the health and wealth movement owes much of its
success to the fact that it resonates with culturally accepted values such as individu-
alism, economic success and physical health (Hollinger 1991, 6364). In contrast to
devotional fitness, however, adherents of the movement in extreme cases renounce
medical advice (see, e.g., Barron 1987, 1434) while most do not totally negate the
role of the medical profession (Hollinger 1991, 55). Devotional fitness authors, on
the contrary, often boast their medical expertise.
1
Mark 11:24: Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received
it, and it will be yours (New International Version, 1984).
Style and content of some devotional fitness programs in some cases overlap
with the Health and Wealth genre. This is what makes the movement a historical
relative of devotional fitness. Both reference Mark 11:24; and both have some of
their roots in the New Though movement with its emphasis of the minds power
over the body. Devotional fitness, however, focuses much more on the individuals
active, physical effort, which is needed to reach their goals.
Similar to the Easternization thesis, to which I turn in the following paragraphs,
the Health and Wealth movement has rarely been considered in previous research on
devotional fitness.
Devotional Fitness and the Easternization of the West Given the importance
of New Thought for the emergence of devotional fitness and related evangelical cur-
rents like the Prosperity Gospel, I now draw attention to the relevance of Eastern
thinking for the development of North American evangelical body theologies. At
first glance, the argument seems counterintuitive: Evangelicals seem to have noth-
ing in common with Eastern or Indian philosophies, and, in fact, they would gen-
erally reject these assumptions.
For New Thought, however, it is quite obvious that there is a recognizable Indian
influence. This Eastern element that Campbell also traces in other metaphysical
movements leads him to speak of the Easternization of the West (Campbell 2007,
146). Wilke is critical of Campbell, assuming that he sees too much of the East in
contemporary Western spirituality (Wilke and Moebus 2011, 939). Instead of
Easternization, she prefers to speak of impetus, triggers and expanding hori-
zons (Wilke and Moebus 2011, 939). While I would not go so far as to claim that
devotional fitness is one of the movements shaped by an Easternization according to
Campbell, devotional fitness may, in Wilkes sense, at least in part be understood
better if we factor in that its context was largely shaped by Eastern or Indian thought.
There are two ways in which the Easternization thesis can serve as a frame to
account for the emergence of devotional fitness: First, devotional fitness could be
explained by this Easternization directly. Indian philosophy, via New Thought in the
nineteenth century and via yoga (Sect. 7.5) in the twentieth century, spawned devo-
tional fitness programs. Yoga had already played a vital role in New Thought, e.g. in
Greenacre where Sarah Farmer invited New Thought authors and Vivekananda
(who taught Raja Yoga) (Syman 2010, 101). In this perspective, devotional fitness
would have to be considered as a direct result of the general Easternization of the
West, an Easternized evangelicalism, so to speak.
According to a second explanation, which is more plausible, devotional fitness
could be understood as the Christian answer to a situation that is characterized by
Easternization. In this case, devotional fitness would not be an example of the
Easternization thesis but rather a Christian countermovement, directly and indi-
rectly responding to Eastern thought and practice in the United States. Similar to
Campbell, Goldberg argues that the Indian influence on American culture should
not be underestimated. He assumes that American society has moved ever closer to
a spiritual worldview that resembles the core principles of the Vedic tradition
4.2 Body Ideals andTechniques oftheLast Century 71
(Goldberg 2010, 2). Tagging this Indian spirituality Yoga-Vedanta, he finds that it
fits US culture for several reasons: The emphasis on personalized pathways to the
divineor, for secularists, to personal growthresonates with the American ethos
of individual autonomy and freedom of choice. It also appeals to two seemingly
contradictory strains in the national character: romantic idealism and pragmatism
(Goldberg 2010, 1213). So, in effect, millions of Americans have been influenced
by Vedanta-Yoga without necessarily being aware of it (Goldberg 2010, 17). Wilke
also argues that the Indian habitus might not always be directly visible in the West,
but often exists nonetheless (Wilke and Moebus 2011, 1027). I think there is good
reason to assume thatwhether they reflect on it or notparticipants in the devo-
tional fitness discourse have in one way or the other been influenced, historically
and contemporarily, by Eastern thought and practice. Some of these programs, as
I argue in Sect. 7.5, indeed react to the Indian influence by creating forms of
Christian yoga. But, to be certain, these influences from Indian spirituality always
undergo transformation and re-semantization when they are imported in the evan-
gelical frame of value-ideas and practices. It is exactly these ways of transforma-
tions that I discuss in the following chapters.
Having described the New Thought movement as a background of devotional
fitness programs, and the ways this might hint at an Eastern influence, it is now
time to examine another, perhaps more germane, discourse that enabled the emer-
gence of devotional fitness: the body discourse and its ideals.
4.2 Body Ideals andTechniques oftheLast Century
According to the ideas formulated in Sect. 3.2, this chapter presents various illustra-
tions of how semiotic and somatic approaches connect, i.e., how the analysis of
discourse and ideology connects to that of body (and) practice. Changes over time,
regarding both semiotic and somatic levels, led to semiotic transfers that have con-
tributed to the emergence of contemporary devotional fitness. Bodily practice, in the
course of the twentieth century, was accompanied and prescribed by varying ideo-
logical frames and, vice versa, changing body practices influenced semiotic struc-
tures surrounding the body. The physicality of overweight was, and still is,
ideologically framed by different perspectives, be they medical, religious, social, or
emotional. What unites these perspectives, however, is that people usually look at
overweight critically. The anti-diet movement with its positive rendering of non-
slim bodies was only a late and weak voice in twentieth-century body discourse.
Due to changing semiotics of the body, somatic aspects (the physical practice)
changed too, e.g., with regard to practices of dieting. From Grahams method to
Fletcherism, from jogging to strength training and yoga, shifting semiotics of the
body have led to different embodiments. When the discourse emphasized digestion
at the expense of slimness, people would go for Grahams method: He did not fight
fatness but gluttony and aimed at natural weight, not slimness. When the current
ideology praised flat stomachs and well-shaped biceps, people would go for aero-
bics and strength training. When the female body image, i.e., gendered semiotics of
the body, changed to a more athletic style, corresponding somatic practices changed,
too.
The distinct configuration of ideology and practice which is characteristic of
contemporary body images and practices, i.e., the ideal of a fit and healthy body,
emerged only around the turn of the twentieth century and was promoted by an
important shift in bodily semiotics in the middle of the twentieth century: the notion
that overweight indicates emotional, social, or spiritual emptiness, not fullness
(Schwartz 1986, 234). An additional important step towards contemporary dieting
practices occurred through a semiotic shift transferring the concept of addiction
from alcohol and drugs to food. This shift was followed by new practices in the field
of dieting, namely the emergence of 12-step programs and group therapy. Finally,
the semiotic shift from simple attractiveness and beauty to holistic health, which
began in the 1960s, shaped new, and more holistically oriented somatic practices,
such as combinations of healthy eating, endurance training, and spiritually enhanced
gentle body practice such as yoga.
By demonstrating the interconnections of semiotic and somatic approaches, this
chapter will provide context on how US society has transformed in the last century
with regard to the body and its aesthetics. When and how were todays body ideals
and corresponding practices shaped and developed? I describe how the historical
discourse on the body, body ideals, and related techniques provided a cultural rep-
ertoire that programs of devotional fitness could later pick up and recontextualize.
Although it often seems universal, todays body ideal is neither universal nor time-
less. On the contrary, it is as subject to change and construction as are all other
social institutions.
The Grahamites and the Temperance Movement A revealing example of how
evangelical Christians were involved in shaping body ideals in the nineteenth cen-
tury are Reverend Sylvester Graham (17941851) and his followers, often referred
to as the Grahamitesthe first American weight watchers (Schwartz 1986, 21;
see also Griffith 2004b, 63). Graham supported ideas that are similar to those of
evangelical fitness programs today. He was a health reformer whose dietary pro-
gram was meant to restore wholesome appetite to a nation of gluttons (Schwartz
1986, 21). In stark contrast to todays Weight Watchers, however, the Grahamites
did not fight fatness or overweight directly. Instead, they focused on indigestion
and overexcitement. They did not watch their weight in order to become thin but
because they needed to prove to a skeptical society that a simple, abstinent diet
could make them resilient and robust (Schwartz 1986, 21).
Scholars agree that todays slenderness ideal emerged around the turn of the
twentieth century. The contemporary slimness ideal came about as the result of a
confluence of movements in the sciences and in dance, in home economics and
political economy, in medical technology and food marketing, in evangelical reli-
gion and life insurance (Schwartz 1986, 4). It is significant that Hillel Schwartz
mentions evangelical religion already here, as one of the influences that spawned
the slimness ideal. It deserves mentioning that the seemingly secular body ideal of
our times has been shaped under participation of Christian ideas. Schwartzs main
thesis as to why the slimness ideal emerged is that it resulted from a general confu-
sion about how to deal with economical abundance. Increasingly perplexed or
intimidated by abundance, Americans have taken the protocols of slimming as the
protocols for social and spiritual renewal (Schwartz 1986, 5).
Graham was a supporter of the temperance movement (Lelwica 1999, 7172),
which, when discussed in Christian circles, often invoked the notion of the body as
Gods temple and the necessity to keep that temple clean from impurifying sub-
stances such as alcohol. Thus, Protestants came to see abstinence from alcohol as
a sign of devotion to evangelical ideals (Balmer 2004, 679). The notion of pollut-
ing the body not only through alcohol and tobacco but also through unhealthy
foods is common in contemporary devotional fitness, too (see page 172). The
Womens Christian Temperance Union, a protagonist of the temperance movement,
which counted John Harvey Kelloggs2 wife, Ella E. Eaton, among its members,
assumed that a poor diet and overeating would favor alcoholism (Sack 2001, 195).
At this point, there occurred an important semiotic shift: The idea of purifying the
body through the physical practice of abstinence from alcohol was expanded to the
area of food in general, thus framing somatic practices of dieting in a new and dif-
ferent ideological light.
Already at that time, these movements were not restricted to particular circles but
spread into the wider Protestant discourse as well. Charles Grandison Finney, a
prominent figure in the revivalist movement of the 1830s and 1840s, supported
Grahams diet and Oberlin College, founded by Finney in 1836, adopted the diet for
its students, until rumors of starvation forced them to end the diet in 1841 (Schwartz
1986, 4345).
From the end of the nineteenth century onwards, Fatness was awkward, imbal-
anced, inefficient, uneconomical. Fatness meant over-nutrition, the center of the
body out of control (Schwartz 1986, 88). In those times, our prejudice against fat
was established (Seid 1989, 83). This occurred in a setting that cherished techno-
logical efficiency and economic changes. The human body was expected to be effi-
cient, effective, and economical, just like machines and factories of the time (Seid
1989, 83).
The Birth of Our Body Ideal Seid dates the birth of our body ideal to 1908 and
credits the Parisian designer Paul Poiret with its popularization. Ever since, she
writes, bodies have had to be slim and erect. Before that, especially women were
supposed to be curved (Seid 1989, 81). Accompanying this development, physical
exercise became more popular for women after 1900; not just for the sake of weight-
loss, also in order to cure from nervous disorders, hysteria, and a variety of other
ailments (Fraser 1997, 29).
2
John Harvey Kellogg, founder of the popular cereal brand, introduced Fletcherism (a method of
chewing slowly in order to improve digestion) in his health institution in Battle Creek, Michigan
(Fraser 1997, 55).
With these semiotic shifts and the emergence of the slimness ideal around 1900
there came new somatic technologies to pursue it. Besides Fletcherism (slow chew-
ing), and thyroid medication (influencing digestion), Schwartz mentions the meth-
ods of fasting and calorie counting (Schwartz 1986, 113)still popular techniques
for reducers today, though they have undergone modifications.
Counting calories was based on the assumption that every kind of food had a
basic value of energy translatable into fat (Schwartz 1986, 134). The method became
widely popular after the publication of Lulu H.Peters Diet and Health: With Key to
the Calories in 1918 (see also Fraser 1997, 5556). As early as in the 1920s, the
restaurant chain Childs, in Canada and the United States, provided the exact num-
ber of calories along with their meals in their menus and cookery books began to
include these figures (Schwartz 1986, 176). Today, it is common for customers at
restaurants or cafs to be informed about the caloric value of the dish they order.
Counting calories became a popular method in many devotional fitness programs,
too (e.g., in Deborah Pierces I Prayed Myself Slim, 1960).
Other forms of striving for weight reduction that we are witnessing today also
sprung up around that time. In 1912, two women referenced as Prann and Messenger
opened a womens walking club for weight-reducing in Deep River, Connecticut.
Divided in two groups, the participants competed against each other. The winner got
a dinner sponsored by the group that had lost less weight (Schwartz 1986, 204). All
this notably anticipates todays weight-loss competitions such as The Biggest Loser
(see page 233 f) or Losing to Live.
In the years preceding the First World War, Fat had [] become ghostly, a slow
menacing poltergeist, obnoxious, sometimes deadly (Schwartz 1986, 111). Then,
during the war, reducing became a patriotic duty (Schwartz 1986, 143). Thus, the
somatic practice of dieting experienced another important semiotic overlay being
framed by patriotism.
By 1919, we find assumptions about body weight very similar to today. People
supposed that their weight would tell them something about their health, their
attractiveness, and their mental abilities (Schwartz 1986, 145). In 1921, NewYork
City witnessed a weight-loss contest when the citys Commissioner of Health,
Royal S.Copeland, organized a public fat-reducing contest (Schwartz 1986, 204).
About 60 women exercised publicly in Madison Square Garden, went jogging along
Fifth Avenue, and followed a specific diet (Schwartz 1986, 204). It is significant that
they were only womentoday, fat-reducing contests usually invite men too.
During the 1920s the culture of slimming turned into a weight-watching cul-
ture, according to Schwartz, when people began to accept the notion that the body
when weighed told the truth about the self (Schwartz 1986, 147). This foreshadows
notions of fatness revealing inner values and characteristics (see page 179 f). This
quantification of personal characteristics, such as health, faith, morality, or charac-
ter, in figures and pounds will also appear in programs of devotional fitness (see
page 194).
At the latest in 1925, reducing had become a national pastime [] a craze, a
national fanaticism, a frenzy, as H.I. Phillips noted in a 1925 article in the American
Magazine (quoted in Schwartz 1986, 183). This statement could stem from a critical
account of today as well. We can see, therefore, that together with the slimness craze
gaining momentum, critiques also began to form. These were first articulated in the
1920s, yet they were not as readily received as the slimness craze (Schwartz 1986,
319, 332).
The next decade, shaped by the Great Depression, slightly shifted the focus when
fat was rendered more dangerous than ever because more centrally fixedto the
heart (Schwartz 1986, 189). The reducing discourse linked fatness to emotional
issues such as sadness and insatiable hunger. Fat seemed to cause arteriosclerosis
and heart attacks and the preventive methods of choice were exercise and dieting
not only for a limited period. Regimens of dieting became a lifelong effort, a con-
stant vigil over oneself (Schwartz 1986, 189).
Summarizing the period between 1919 and 1937, Seid suggests that this time
saw a similar slimness craze as in the 1980s yet not as extreme (Seid 1989, 9798).
However, for the first half of the twentieth century, there is no data at hand to pro-
vide evidence that people became fatter at all. What had changed, though, were the
standards of body size and weight. These were constantly decreased; in Schwartzs
words, The nation had not grown suddenly heavier; rather, the tolerances had nar-
rowed (Schwartz 1986, 159).
In the middle of the twentieth century ideas on overweight and obesity strikingly
foreshadowed concepts crucial to the ideology of devotional fitness. Overweight
and obesity were, ironically, symptoms of emptiness, not signs of fullness
(Schwartz 1986, 234). This relates to explanations by supporters of devotional fit-
ness according to which overweight results from an inner emptiness which is mis-
takenly interpreted as physical hunger (see page 183 f). It is also connected to the
hypothesis that Americas obsession with food and weight stems from an inability
to cope with abundance.
This was, at the heart, the fantastic nightmare of the consumer who finds that the more one
has, the less one is. Americans of the Depression and the Cold War projected onto fat men
and women their own basic fears of abundance, their own confusions about how to handle
themselves in a world that seemed to offer so much and yet guaranteed so little. On such
fears and such confusions an entire economy could be built (Schwartz 1986, 23435).3
Around the middle of the twentieth century, another shift occurred in the weight-
loss and diet discourse. Up until now, one had assumed a surplus in peoples life-
style (too much food, too much fat, too much sugar, etc.). It occurred to diet
designers that there might also be a lack of something, i.e., of vitamins, of nutrients,
and of physical movement. Now, people dreamt of a body that was dynamic and
athletic, lithe rather than light (Schwartz 1986, 231). Dietary supplements still are
common ingredients to contemporary dieters regimens.
Just as the turn of the century had witnessed the emergence of a new obsession
with body weight, the decade after the Second World War witnessed a crescendo.
3
Schrettle (2006) has brought forward a very similar argument (see page 23) without taking notice
of Schwartzs account.
penetrating more deeply into the culture and into the daily lives of ordinary Americans. For
more than fifty years, ambivalent attitudes about weight had coexisted, but now, the pendu-
lum swung firmly to one side. The preference for slenderness was transmuted into a pro-
found abhorrence of fat. The Age of Caloric Anxiety began as the culture of slimming
emerged (Seid 1989, 103).
Turnovers in the dieting and weight-loss market rose quickly in the 1950s
(Lelwica 2000, 184) and, to borrow a metaphor from Seid, the primordial soup out
of which our current obsession evolved briskly boiled (Seid 1989, 107).
Out of this primordial soup, I have picked up four trajectories: the Weight
Watchers phenomenon (page 76 ff); building muscle and shaping the body (page 77f);
endurance and cardiovascular training (page 78 f); and yoga (page 79 ff). I consider
these of particular significance to the emergence of contemporary body practice in
general and devotional fitness in particular. They prepared the cultural repertoire of
value-ideas and corresponding practices that would later be at the disposal of evan-
gelical authors of fitness and diet plans.
Weight Watchers Phenomenon The first current is one that surfaced briefly ear-
lier: the group dieting phenomenon, or Weight Watchers phenomenon as I have
called it here. While small and informal weight-loss groups had been around for a
while, the 1950s and 60s witnessed an expansion of group dieting (Seid 1989, 138
39). These programs were mostly concerned with educating their members about
nutrition and fostering better eating habits while offering committed group
support.
Esther Manz (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) had heard of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)
in 1948. She did not struggle with alcohol addiction but had a similar problem with
food. Therefore, she decided to apply the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous to
her food-addiction and founded the organization Take Off Pounds Sensibly
(TOPS), the first (non-religious) national group dieting organization (Schwartz
1986, 204). By 1958, 30,000 people had joined the programin 1963, the number
had doubled (Schwartz 1986, 20607). In 1997, there were 11,700 groups in Canada
and the United States, charging their members $16 per year (Fraser 1997, 14951).
Today, there are about 9000 small groups with 150,000 members, according to the
organization.
Also inspired by AA, Overeaters Anonymous (OA) followed TOPS.The organi-
zation was based on the assumption that people were literally addicted to food (Seid
1989, 139). Roxanne S. started the first OA group in Los Angeles, California, in
1960. She adopted the 12 steps from AA and took the notion that obesity was
caused by psychological problems (Fraser 1997, 153). In 1997, there were 10,500
groups in 47 countries (Fraser 1997, 153).
Much like TOPS and OA, Weight Watchers, founded by Jean Nidetch in 1963,
assumed that overweight resulted from emotional issues and that a support group
would help dealing with these issues (Fraser 1997, 154). Weight Watchers was an
immediate success, bringing in profits of $160,000 1 year later (1964) (by 1970,
they had risen to $8 million) (Schwartz 1986, 246; Seid 1989, 13839).
Further groups in the genre were the Diet Workshop (established 1965), Diet
Control Centers (founded 1968) and Appetite Control Centers (established 1969)
(Seid 1989, 13839). In the rise of such organizations, Seid sees a reflection of the
growing faith in group therapy and a growing frustration with older do-it-
yourself diets (Seid 1989, 139).
These groups were based on the assumption that fat people were lonely, unhappy,
deprived of social contact, and needed mutual support in order to reach weight-loss
(Schwartz 1986, 205)an assumption which is still implicit, in less radical forms,
in many group-based weight-loss and fitness organizations. The first organizations
were almost entirely designed for women (Schwartz 1986, 210; Seid 1989, 138
39). However, since the 1960s, men became interested in weight-loss groups too
(Schwartz 1986, 24748), and today, although reducing is still associated with
female stereotypes, men are less apprehensive about joining weight-loss
organizations.
In the first decades of the Weight Watchers phenomenon, the majority of partici-
pants were, according to Seid, significantly overweight and the programs did not
attract the general population. This would change over the next decades (Seid 1989,
139). In the 1970s, the typical dieter was a white urban/suburban married man or
woman, employed, well-educated and well-off, in the age range 2544 (women) or
3554 (men) (Schwartz 1986, 254).
Concerned with issues of food intake, the Weight Watchers phenomenon was
actively shaping peoples perception of good and bad foods. They particularly
eyed sugar as the enemy. Dating back to 1924, when the internist Seale Harris had
assumed that sugar was addictive, this common ingredient became a suspicious trip-
ping hazard on the dieters road during the 1970s (Seid 1989, 197). In C.S. Lovetts
Help Lord: The Devil Wants Me Fat! (first published 1977), the equation is sim-
ple: White Flour, White Sugar, White Death! (Lovett [1977] 1982, 181). The fear
of sugar is an element in the (evangelical) dieting discourse today, too. Linda, for
example, at First Place 4 Health, often prays that she can stay away from sugar.
The practices related to the so-called Weight Watchers phenomenon were readily
taken up in the discourse of devotional fitness in 1972 when Carol Showalter
founded the first major evangelical weight-loss organization, 3D (Diet, Discipline
and Discipleship), based on small group meetings (see page 112 ff).
The Weight Watchers phenomenon did not go uncontested. In the 1960s, the anti-
diet movement emerged to counter the assumptions of the groups referenced above.
It remained, however, far from achieving the popular support and endorsement of
the weight-loss groups they criticized. Only in 1992 did the first anti-diet confer-
ence take place, arranged by the Association for the Health Enrichment of Large
People (AHELP) (Fraser 1997, 21920).
Building Muscle and Shaping the Body Another relevant practice is related to
building muscle and shaping the body. These activities often require equipment. In
1953, Vic Tanny from Rochester, NewYork, established the first commercial gym
to provide this sort of equipment (the YMCA gyms had been around for a while, see
Sect. 5.2). His first venture failed but he relaunched a number of health clubs, the
forerunners of the fitness centers of the next decades (Schwartz 1986, 244), in
Santa Monica, California, and ran 80 studios in 1961. In 1959, Vic Tanny made $21
million from his fitness chain and had drawn a number of competitors on the market
(e.g., Stauffer System Salons, Home Plan, and Slenderella) (Schwartz 1986, 246).
Exercising for the sake of freeing muscles from unwanted fat had been consid-
ered an important measure alongside dieting as early as the 1960s, but by the late
1970s it turned into an absolute necessity for weight-loss and for the kind of body
people wanted to have once the weight was gone (Seid 1989, 181). Between 1961
and 1977, the number of adult Americans who exercised regularly rose from 21 to
41 % (Seid 1989, 167). In the late 1980s, Seid writes, 2030 million Americans
regularly worked out and strove for bodies like those of their idols (Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Lisa Lyon, and Cher) (Seid 1989, 8, 243). For
those involved in building muscle and shaping their bodies, there occurred a shift of
focus. Earlier, exercise had been a supportive measure to reduce weight. Now, in the
late 1980s, dieting had become an adjunct to exercise (Seid 1989, 8). Ever since, the
notion that the male body has to be strong and well exercised is almost universally
accepted in US culture. This notion was also taken up by devotional fitness, e.g., in
groups like The Power Team, a ministry of evangelical bodybuilders that accom-
pany their witnessing events with demonstrations of their physical strength (see
page 147).
Endurance and Cardiovascular Training Closely related, but with a different
focus, endurance and cardiovascular training aimed not so much at building muscle
but rather at improving general health and supporting diets. Aerobics, generally
speaking, is a way of training physically in order to raise heart rate and respiration
and thus affect the cardiovascular system positively for increased endurance.
Welcome side effects are trimming of the body and weight-loss. Methods include
running, swimming, or gymnastics and rhythmic workouts to music. Often directed
at women, aerobics provided the means to meet their needs for slender, but not
overly muscular bodiesa need that consolidated in the 1960s and 1970s (Seid
1989, 221).4
Jane Fonda epitomized this idea. In Seids language of the thinness religion
(see page 20) she was one of the most visible, outspoken, and successful priest-
esses of the new religion (Seid 1989, 237). While the concept of aerobics had been
developed by Kenneth H.Cooper in Aerobics (1968) and The Aerobics Way (1977),5
major popularization occurred in 1981 with Fondas Workout Bookone of the
founding manifestos of the aerobics boom.
4
About one hundred years earlier, women had already been encouraged to exercise their bodies:
Catherine Esther Beecher (18001878), daughter of the minister and temperance activist Lyman
Beecher, had advocated womens calisthenics, developed in Germany and Sweden in the nine-
teenth century.
5
In 1995, Cooper published Faith Based Fitness: The Medical Program That Uses Spiritual
Motivation to Achieve Maximum Health and Add Years to Your Life and thus became an actor in the
field of devotional fitness.
In the 1980s, aerobics was popular specifically among women: 90 % of partici-

pants in the 50,000100,000 studios in the United States that offered aerobics were
female (Seid 1989, 236). Syman assumes that women in the 1980s enjoyed aerobics
because it meant emancipation. Aerobics emphasized power and strength, as
women climbed career ladders and started competing more directly with men in
much greater numbers (Syman 2010, 26566).
Jogging is another popular practice of endurance and cardiovascular training.
Popularized by Bill Bowerman in the 1960s in Jogging: A Physical Fitness Program
for All Ages (Bowerman and Harris 1967), jogging became a common athletic prac-
tice during the 1970s when even ordinary people ran marathons (Seid 1989, 184).
C.S. Lovetts Jogging With Jesus (1978) is an excellent example of how the early
jogging movement was adopted by pioneers of devotional fitness culture.
Yoga The fourth trajectory I would like to single out here in some more detail is
yoga.6 Stefanie Syman has recently outlined the complex history of yoga in the
United States in The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America (2010). Another
relevant study focusing on the globalization of yoga as a modern form of alterna-
tive medicine and physical fitness training, and specifically the shapes it takes in
contemporary India, comes from Joseph S.Alter (2004). Symans historical account
begins with Emerson and Thoreau who, in the nineteenth century, studied Yogic
literature (Syman 2010, 29). With the arrival of Vivekananda at the World Parliament
of Religions in 1893, the story of yoga in America really begins. He taught Raja
Yoga at Greenacre, the famous hotel and conference center founded by Sarah
Farmer and Sara Bull (Syman 2010, 3738). The next individuals to promote Yoga
in the States were Pierre Bernard and Blanche De Vries who, in the decade after
1910, had a yoga school in Manhattan (Syman 2010, 8081). In the first half of the
twentieth century, Yoga was received as a philosophy (Raja Yoga), although Hatha
Yoga, leaning more to the physical side, was gaining tentative interest in the United
States too (Alter 2004, 9). In the 1930s, Theos C.Bernard, Pierre Bernards half
nephew, and his wife Viola, were prominent figures of the next generation of Yoga
promoters in the United States. Focusing on Tibetan Buddhism and tantric Yoga,
Theos C.Bernard described himself as the first white lama (Syman 2010, 125
26). In the 1940s, he started to popularize Hatha Yoga on a relatively small level
(Syman 2010, 138).
Only after 1945, a few popular yoga books were published (Syman 2010, 177)
and Hollywood became the center of a new, popular kind of yoga that emerged now,
mostly thanks to the efforts of Indra Devi (born 1899 as Eugenie Peterson in Latvia)
who founded a Hatha Yoga school on Sunset Boulevard (Syman 2010, 179).
Hollywood, already focused on appearance, attractiveness, and a trim and slender
(female) figure, took some time to connect yoga to fitness and health. In the begin-
ning, popular calisthenics were the preferred means for actresses like Marilyn
Monroe to keep in shape (Syman 2010, 18586). Slowly, however, the work of
6
When not capitalized, the term shall generically denote the fitness practice and not an explicit
Indian tradition and/or philosophy.
Indra Devi convinced Hollywood of the beneficial effects of yoga on beauty and
health. In the 1950s, Gloria Swanson, one of Devis students, would be the first
movie star to admit that yoga was her youth and beauty secret, and in so doing shed
boost yogas profile and possibly book sales (Syman 2010, 189). This involved a
concept of yoga that almost entirely dismissed the spiritual aspects of yoga, and
rendered Hatha Yoga a purely physical activity (Syman 2010, 191). In 1959, Devi
authored Yoga for Americans (Devi [1959] 1966), and in the 1960s, Vogue would
recommend yoga as apt methods to their (female) readers to keep their bodies trim
(Seid 1989, 155).
In the 1960s, yoga occurred in close relation to the new youth culture and the
psychedelic movement, as popularized by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, and
its spiritual connotations were reimported (Syman 2010, 20203). Eventually, by
1969, yoga had become a mainstream activity, shared by hippies and middle-class
housewives. In 1974, Time magazine noted that yoga was increasingly becoming a
normal part of American life (Syman 2010, 23435). This, however, referred to the
totally secular, even clinical Hatha Yoga so devoid of transcendence and so rooted
in the body as to appease the most nervous rationalist (Syman 2010, 237). This
kind of yoga was taught in yoga schools across the country, YMCAs, and on national
television (Syman 2010, 238, 246).
At the end of the 1970s, triggered by the growing fear of cults and sects, yoga
was increasingly suspected to be a potentially destructive new religious movement
(Syman 2010, 260). So, in the 1980s, yoga lost much of its cultural relevance and
conformed so much to the rising aerobics boom that it was almost indistinguishable
from aerobics. In their effort to sell the discipline to Americans, Hatha Yoga teach-
ers had inadvertently reduced it out of existence (Syman 2010, 265).
The 1990s, however, witnessed a revival of yoga when Bikram Choudhury and
Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, both working in the United States already since the 1970s,
promoted their new versions of yoga: Bikram Yoga and Ashtanga Yoga. Their physi-
cally extreme and exhausting kinds of yoga were not only perfectly in line with the
contemporary aerobics and fitness trend; they also reintroduced spiritual compo-
nents when adherents began to structure their whole life around their yoga class and
venerated their teachers devotionally. Another important representative of yoga in
the second half of the twentieth century was B.K. S.Iyengar with his style of yoga
known today as Iyengar Yoga (Alter 2004, 17). By 1994, yoga was once more
declared mainstreamthis time by U.S.News & World Report. And again, it was
Hatha Yoga that dominated the scene. In this way, yoga was able to partially replace
aerobics, precisely because it mirrored so many of aerobics vital aspects (Alter
2004, 24; Syman 2010, 27680).
Today, in the early decades of the twenty-first century, yoga has taken a turn from
the ascetic, hard discipline, demanding deprivation and rigidity, to the wellness- and
health-oriented feel-good sports, addressing our most primal desiresfor beauty,
for youth, for wealth (Syman 2010, 284). From an academic point of view, yoga
may be almost impossible to categorize (Syman 2010, 67). Nonetheless, Elizabeth
de Michelis develops a classification in A History of Modern Yoga (2005) based on
three types of yoga: (1) Modern postural yoga focuses on physical exercise. (2)
Modern meditative yoga emphasizes meditation and attentiveness. (3) Modern

denominational yoga focuses on the adherence to specific schools (Michelis [2004]
2008, 18789). This field is both a provider of elements that merge into devotional
fitness (gentle stretching and spiritualized workouts) and a market competitor that,
some Christian fitness providers argue, requires an alternative (see Sect. 7.5).
The Story Continues In the context of this book, it is significant that each of these
body practices which developed on the background of changing semiotics of the
body since the 1950s, were imitated or taken up by evangelicals. The Weight
Watchers phenomenon brought about Christian group dieting such as Carol
Showalters 3D in 1972; building muscle and shaping the body was taken up in
Christian circles like The Power Team in the 1980s; endurance and cardiovascular
training, especially Jogging, became a distinctly Christian practice in programs like
Jogging With Jesus (Lovett 1978); and yoga, finally, appears in programs like
WholyFit or PraiseMoves in the first decade of the twenty-first century. In all these
cases, an already existing and well-established body practice experiences semiotic
transfers and is recontextualized in a distinctly Christian frame.
Having presented these four trajectories, I return to the general developments
regarding body ideals and body techniques in the second half of the twentieth cen-
tury. According to Lelwica, one may now spot the rise of a culture lite accompa-
nied by a new fitness ethic since the late 1960s. This ethic stressed the idea that
the goal is not slenderness per se, but overall health, signified by a body that is
light and lean (Lelwica 2000, 185). This idea is a crucial element of devotional
fitness, as I show below (page 190 ff). Writing in 1989, Roberta P.Seid confirms,
Barely a decade ago we strove for thinness and health. Today, swept up by the
wellness epidemic, we pant for fitness and super health. This shift in emphasis has
not changed our underlying goala fat-free bodybut it has made that goal more
complex, paramount, and insidious (Seid 1989, 34). The health ethic,7 in Seids
words, was
based on the deepening conviction that modernization threatened our individual, physical
survival because of the lifestyle it spawned. We were overweight, underexercised, and
sickly, corrupted by our technology and our food supply. We came to believe that the typical
American diethigh in fat, salt, meat, and refined sugarwas not only fattening but also
unhealthy in and of itself (Seid 1989, 165).
My informants in the field mirrored this thesis in a strikingly similar manner,

even wording. Robert Evans, for example, expressed his views on the unhealthy
effects of modern technology on our lifestyle. Devotional fitness thus has taken up
issues that stem from the very heart of North American popular wellness culture.
The 1970s saw the quest for the fat-free body as a national obsession (Seid 1989,
186). In between 1960 and 1980, sales of diet foods grew by ten percent, reaching
7 % of all food sales in the United States (Schwartz 1986, 245). In 1985, 90 % of
North American adults thought they were overweight, 25 % were currently on a
Quite similar, Lelwica uses the expression fitness ethic, e.g., in Lelwica (1999, 74); 2000, 185).
7
diet, and fifty percent had just completed a diet or were about to begin one (Seid
1989, 3). Because so many people saw themselves as overweight now, the fitness
and dieting industry flourished as never before. Back in 1950, 21 % of the US male
population and 44 % of the female respondents to a survey had said they were over-
weight; in 1973, the percentages reached 38 and 55 %; and by 1980, 70 % of the
American female population considered themselves overweight (Schwartz 1986,
246), regardless of their being classified as overweight in medical terms. This ten-
dency persists: In the beginning of the twenty-first century, based on data produced
in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, Chang and
Christakis found that 38.3 % of normal weight women thought they were over-
weight (Chang and Christakis 2003, 332).
Insurance Companies An influential actor in setting benchmarks for normal
weight and overweight are insurance companies in the United States. They have
essentially shaped todays conviction that thinner equals healthier. In particular,
studies of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MLIC) have supported this view.
Starting in the first decade of the twentieth century, they identified an average
body weight and analyzed the correlation between overweight and life span. Fraser
critically remarks that these tables were based on small samples and that, more dis-
turbingly, the samples were based on men and simply transferred to women accord-
ing to what seemed reasonable (Fraser 1997, 2930).
Roberta P. Seid has analyzed the MLICs studies and drawn six conclusions.
According to the MLIC, (1) there is an ideal weight and everything beyond this
standard is overweight, (2) getting thinner always results in getting healthier, (3)
overweight is the main cause of early death, (4) the ideal weight is not the average
weight (i.e., having average weight means being overweight), (5) adults (older than
25) gaining weight are generally unhealthy, (6) losing weight increases your life
expectancy (Seid 1989, 27980).
That these studies indeed had a great influence on the popular and Christian diet-
ing discourse becomes obvious in C.S. Lovetts book Help Lord: The Devil Wants
Me Fat!. It includes a table taken from the MLIC indicating desirable weights.
Lovett explains that this medical chart gives standard weight for given heights.
These standards are what your weight SHOULD BE.The difference between what
you should weigh and actually do weigh, is a measure of the devils hold on your
will (Lovett [1977] 1982, 7071). It is significant that standard weight, an aver-
age mean naturally mirroring statistic variance, becomes desirable weightthus
not allowing for much individual variance. More importantly, this variance is under-
stood as deviation and aberration from Gods plan which is quantified in statistics
by the MLIC.
Critiques Together with the growing slimness craze, yet on a much smaller scale,
critiques of Americas obsession with food and weight have accompanied these
discourses since their very beginnings. Most of the time, however, these efforts
remained peripheral and did not reach the broad basis of desperate dieters and fit-
ness fanatics.
4.3 The Therapeutic Culture: Alcoholics Anonymous 83
The National Association to Aid Fat Americans (NAAFA) was founded in 1969
and tried to bring forth the view that fat people were stigmatized, that being fat
was not inherently wrong, and that people of different body weights should be
equally accepted in society. This organization, though, inspired far fewer supporters
than Weight Watchers & Co. (Seid 1989, 227). Magazines like Big Beautiful Woman
or Radiance also agitated against the slimness ideal and proposed the slogan Fat
can be fit (Seid 1989, 28990).
This protest crystallized around realizations also brought forward by Seid her-
self: Often, dieting and fitness programs do not live up to their promise. The per-
sonal transformation hoped for fails to appearthe thin self never shows beneath
the layers of fat and flab (Seid 1989, 13). This directly contradicts the notion of
the perfect self hidden inside an imperfect bodyan idea which comes up fre-
quently in devotional fitness. In her critique of the religion of slenderness, Seid
writes that, although people are proud of their dieting efforts in mastering the
American problem: control of appetite (Seid 1989, 292), long-term success often
is inaccessible. She therefore concludes,
Our society and our behavior are suspended in a paradox. All about us is a culture that
sustains the fundamental belief that thinner and the techniques for thinning are healthier,
sexier, happier, and more beautiful. It maintains with equal fervor the inverse: Fatter and the
behavior that produces it are unhealthier, unhappier, and uglier. Yet, despite these convic-
tions, high-level medical, sociological, and psychological studies, as well as the evidence
we see at the popular level, indicate that these, the very pivots of our new religion, are based
on fiction, even myth, not on scientific fact (Seid 1989, 279).
Perhaps unexpectedly, the discourse of devotional fitness sometimes links to

these ideas, too, especially when authors highlight that their programs are not a
diet (see page 143).
To sum up, I have presented the various trajectories involved in the construction
of the contemporary slimness ideal. The Grahamites and the temperance movement,
the Weight Watchers phenomenon, bodybuilding, aerobics, and yogadifferent
rationales and body techniques, both from religious and non-religious fields, pro-
vided a set of value-ideas and practices that should impact American society and
American evangelicals. Another field, often related to the history of contemporary
body ideals, proved as a crucial backdrop of the emergence of devotional fitness
programs too: the therapeutic culture that I turn to in the next chapter.
4.3 The Therapeutic Culture: Alcoholics Anonymous
The self-help movement is one of the discourses that prepared the cultural repertoire
from which devotional fitness programs could later draw (and from which they are
still drawing). It is not only a forerunner, it is also a non-Christian counterpart of
devotional fitness, and, as such, a market competitor. In what follows I portray the
self-help movement and, more specifically, Alcoholics Anonymous, to point out
how this discourse provided specific value-ideas and practices that would, in a
transformed and recontextualized manner, also play an important role in evangelical

fitness programs.
Self-help groups emerged in the context of the burgeoning therapeutic culture
and holistic therapy. For Fuller, the best known of all holistic therapies is the
method of Alcoholics Anonymous, a 12-step program addressing people with alco-
hol addiction (Fuller 2001, 11213). I chose to focus on Alcoholics Anonymous
here because they build on rationales often employed in devotional fitness as well.
Ernest Kurtz notes that they intend to provide a way to a life of health, happiness,
and wholeness (Kurtz [1979] 1980, 4)something most designers of devotional
fitness programs subscribe to. Most of the 12-step programs support a holistic
approach to health and wellbeing (Fuller 2001, 11112) and seek to bridge medical
and religious principles (Kurtz [1979] 1980, 33)this will come up in the analysis
of devotional fitness as well. In 2011, according to the A.A. Fact File, over two
million people were members of the organization (General Service Office of
Alcoholics Anonymous 1956, 7) and their principles have been applied to a wide
range of problems including sexual addiction and overeating (Stafford 1991, 14), as
I have already demonstrated above.
Alcoholics Anonymous: A Brief Historical Overview Bill Wilsons friend Ebby
Thatcher had quit drinking after a deep religious experience while being imprisoned
for insobriety. In November 1934, Thatcher managed to convince Wilson, who did
not deem himself religious, to participate in a meeting of the rescue mission at
Calvary Episcopal Church in Manhattan, NewYork City. Wilsons participation in
this meeting was not successfulhe was hospitalized for drunkenness the next day.
Thatcher paid him a visit and after that, Wilson was caught up into an ecstasy
which there are no words to describe (Wilson quoted in Stafford 1991, 14).
Having thus experienced his conversion, Wilson joined the Oxford Group,8
also housed at Calvary Episcopal Church, and soon began to think about a new
organization specifically focused on those dealing with alcoholism. Wilson had in
mind a fellowship of alcoholics dedicated to helping one another stay sober through
a spiritual programa program that recognized no dogma, no absolutes, and was
open to all religious persuasions, including atheism (Stafford 1991, 16). Compared
to the Oxford Group, he aimed for sobriety, not for conversion to Jesus. He founded
Alcoholics Anonymous on June 10, 1935, in Akron, Ohio (Stafford 1991, 14).
In 1938, Wilson began writing down his principles and published Alcoholics
Anonymous: The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered
from Alcoholism, later known as The Big Book, in 1939 (Wilson and Holbrook
Smith [1939] 2001). This book laid out the framework for Alcoholics Anonymous
and codified the twelve steps. Members of the AA treasure it and are apt to quote
it like the Bible (Stafford 1991, 16). The 12 principles are, as quoted by Tim
Stafford (1991, 1618):
8
The Oxford Group had been founded in 1908 by Lutheran Frank Buchman as a missionary group
to reach those who had completely distanced themselves from the church, among them heavy
drinkers (Stafford 1991, 16).
4.3 The Therapeutic Culture: Alcoholics Anonymous 85
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcoholthat our lives had become

unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we
understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of
our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends
to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so
would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly
admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with
God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and
the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry
this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Notwithstanding their explicit references to a Power greater than ourselves and
God as we understood Him, Wilson intended these principles to appeal not only
to Christians but to all people dealing with alcohol issues, whatever their religious
background was (Stafford 1991, 19).
Links Between Self-Help Groups (AA) and Devotional Fitness How did
Alcoholics Anonymous, here exemplifying the therapeutic culture in the United
States, contribute to providing a cultural repertoire from which programs of evan-
gelical dieting and fitness could (and still do) draw?
Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs are among the relatives of
devotional fitness on inter-personal, institutional, practical, and discursive levels of
analysis. Participants in devotional fitness programs sometimes have participated in
Alcoholics Anonymous. A group leader at First Place 4 Health on Long Island,
New York, for example, spent years in Alcoholics Anonymous. Often, however,
they have an ambivalent opinion on this and other 12-step and self-help programs
because of the liberal concept of God as a higher power. This sounds like slip-
pery, New Age language to them, Stafford writes (1991, 14). Sarah, a former mem-
ber of Overeaters Anonymous and now in First Place 4 Health, noted that God
could be omitted in OA and therefore decided it did not accommodate her growing
faith any more. On the institutional level of analysis, the kinship of devotional fit-
ness and 12-step programs becomes apparent, e.g., when churches house both fit-
ness and AA or OA classes.
On a practical level, Rebecca Mead, in an article for The NewYorker, has pointed
out that the services at Remnant Fellowship, Gwen Shamblins church, are strik-
ingly similar to AA meetings (Mead 2001, 55). The small group concept is wide-
spread in both devotional fitness, Alcoholics Anonymous, and other self-help and
dieting organizations.
On a level of discursive or ideological exchange, devotional dieters and design-
ers of devotional fitness programs often refer to Alcoholics Anonymous either to
contrast their approach or to hint at similarities. Robert Evans (Christian Fitness
TV), in an interview, linked alcoholism and overweight. Just as they are supposed to
do something about alcoholism, he suggests, they want to do something about over-
weight. So, he considers both issues similarly serious and health-threatening: We
would let Alcoholics Anonymous meet to help Alcoholics, but were not going to do
something for people with this huge health issue? Its killing them, I mean, its kill-
ing them.
Lynne Gerber has also noticed the similarities of Alcoholics Anonymous,
Overeaters Anonymous, and First Place 4 Health. In a footnote, she explains,
Although Overeaters Anonymous and First Place both draw on the language of addiction,
the former is more directly influenced by the practices of Alcoholics Anonymous than is the
latter, using language like hitting rock bottom and sobriety in relation to overeating.
Both share a spiritual perspective, but First Places perspective is explicitly Christian and
rooted in practices of Christian discipleship, whereas Overeaters Anonymous uses more
neutral language like higher power and the practices of Alcoholics Anonymous, both of
which make the organization seem less than Christian to First Place members and others
(Gerber 2012a, 247).
One may conclude, then, that the basic principles of Alcoholics Anonymous are
similar in many ways to devotional fitness. With regard to their explicit biblical
foundation and legitimation, however, they are consciously different. Evangelicals,
in conclusion, have their own evangelically approved sorts of self-help programs.
Apart from just pointing out a historical and contemporary relative of devo-
tional fitness, introducing Alcoholics Anonymous also provides a concept that is
useful for the analysis of devotional fitness. The concept of the sober alcoholic in
AA (see, e.g., Kurtz [1979] 1980, 109; Cain 1991, 221) refers to the idea that alco-
holics will always bear the mark of their alcoholism, even if they succeed in getting
permanently sober. Similarly, one could speak of the slim fat person and thus draw
attention to the fact that every dieter in (devotional) fitness will always represent a
fat person even if their diet has worked and even if they are slim now. Moreover,
everyone who has lost weight is always on the verge of gaining againjust like the
sober person is always in danger of relapsing.
There is some evidence that this notion indeed exists in the early discourse of
devotional fitness. Deborah Pierce, author of an evangelical weight-loss book (I
Prayed Myself Slim, 1960), saw the similarity of her program to that of AA when
she suggested to name groups following her instructions Slim Girls Anonymous
(Pierce 1960, 127). She also noted that the once-obese person can never com-
pletely relax (Pierce 1960, 123). The once-obese person is analog to the term
sober alcoholic. Charlie Shedd, explicitly relating to Alcoholics Anonymous,
References 87
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it to be over to return to their old habits. These people, Shedd reports, are described
as being on a dry drunk (Shedd 1957, 93). Consequently, Shedd cautions his read-
ers not to take a similar attitude when on his prayer-diet method and reminds them,
like Pierce, that all your life youll be fat-prone (Shedd 1957, 118; see also Shedd
[1972] 1984, 99). Moreover, these thoughts reveal an understanding of being over-
weight as based on addiction to food, similar to being addicted to alcohol (an idea
which was first popularized in Overeaters Anonymous).
In this chapter, I have demonstrated the links between Alcohols Anonymous and
devotional fitness programs. I have shown that Christian weight-loss and fitness
programs explicitly and implicitly borrow concepts and methods from the therapeu-
tic culture, here exemplified by AA. Making the connection between an alcohol
addict and a food addict both stigmatizes the dieter and identifies his problem as a
condition that requires treatment. Having thus discussed the emergence of contem-
porary body ideals and techniques in twentieth century North America and the
accompanying rise of the self-help genre, I now narrow the focus a little more and
turn to the evangelical landscape in the United States in the last century and how it
relates to the body.
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Chapter 5
Evangelicals andtheBody
Abstract Having started from a general overview on the emergence of contempo-

rary body ideals in the nineteenth century in non-religious spheres of society, this
chapter turns to evangelical renderings of the discourse on beauty, body weight, and
spirituality. The histories of fitness and evangelical religion in the United States are
entangled. This will be shown with regard to movements such as Muscular
Christianity, the Young Mens Christian Association, and various authors and pro-
grams of an emerging devotional fitness discourse.
Keywords Muscular Christianity Young Mens Christian Association Charlie

W.Shedd Deborah Pierce First Place 4 Health Body & Soul Fitness Rick
Warren
5.1 US Evangelicalism: Historical andConceptual Notes
In this section, I give an overview on the history of US evangelicalism in the last

century focusing on the repertoire of evangelical culture that would prepare prac-
tices and value-ideas for the emergence of evangelical fitness and dieting. The
development of evangelicalism in the twentieth century frames the emergence of
devotional fitness and provides notions and practices just as much as the discourses
on health, the body, and therapy, outlined in the last chapters. Instead of providing
an exhaustive historical outline of evangelicalism in the United States (see, e.g.,
Noll 2001; Hochgeschwender 2007), I have attended to a few selected aspects that
contribute to understanding devotional fitness. In the second part of this chapter, I
provide clarification on how I use the term evangelicalism.
Historical Notes Fasting and disciplining the body in a Christian framework has
been known for centuries (Schwartz 1986, 116; Bordo [1993] 2003, 185). The
notion of gluttony has, in European Christianity, for a long time referred to the act
of overeating, not to possible results of overeating. Corpulence was never a sin, only
gluttonous eating (Schwartz 1986, 9). This notion proves persistent when authors in
the genre identify their overeating as sin (see, e.g., Shedd [1972] 1984, 20; Reynolds
2009, 56). Overweight and gluttony, in more recent publications, even tend to be

92 5 Evangelicals andtheBody
linked closer when it is not only the act of overeating that is disdained but also the
result, body fat.
In the American Christian tradition, Puritans had always known fasting as a tool
of connecting to God and asking for his blessing or mercy. However, this had little
in common with todays fasting. Losing weight was not the intention, nor was over-
weight the occasion from which the fasts arose. Fasting was meant as a spiritual
gesture (Schwartz 1986, 117). Devotional fitness today still stresses the spiritual
dimensions of fasting; yet, losing weight is more than an accidental motivation.
Christians in America have not only been concerned with fasting throughout
their history, they also have a strong tradition of adapting new media and techniques
for religious purposes. Already in the nineteenth century, evangelicals availed them-
selves of unusual means to follow their goals (Putnam and Campbell 2010, 161).
Robert D.Putnam and David E.Campbell extend this feature to religions in general:
Far from always being a bulwark against change, many religions have historically
incorporated changeeven faiths with conservative sensibilities (Putnam and
Campbell 2010, 162).
Among these faiths with conservative sensibilities, the evangelicals of North
America certainly come to mind. However, they are adaptive to broad trends in
national culture (Noll 2001, 2). In agreement with Putnam, Mark A.Noll refer-
ences the many ways to sell the Gospel in popular forms, adapting to new tech-
nologies (specifically print, radio) and to important American ideologies like
republicanism, the Victorian home, and (more recently) therapeutic individualism
(Noll 2001, 2). The last point is of crucial importance here because, as I emphasize
throughout this book, devotional fitness may be described as an outcome of evan-
gelicals rapprochement with the therapeutic turn, among other currents of popular
culture.
In order to situate devotional fitness within the broader developments of evan-
gelicalism in the United States, it is useful to begin with the period of cultural
invisibility during the Great Depression and the Second World War. After the
Scopes Trial in 1925,1 fundamentalists had withdrawn from larger society (Noll
2001, 16). It is only on this background of withdrawal, that the importance of Billy
Graham may be understood. Since the 1950s, Graham played a major role in the
emergence of a new kind of evangelicalism, often referred to as neo-
evangelicalism, one that was vigorous, articulate, intellectually ambitious, and
culturally visible and remained profoundly pluralistic (Noll 2001, 20). One
example of how evangelicals became culturally visible and pluralistic in these
decades is the emergence of devotional fitness as a literary genre since the late
1950s (Shedd 1957; Pierce 1960; Kane [1967] 1974, etc.).
1
In this well-known case, high school teacher John T.Scopes was accused of teaching evolution,
which was illegal in Tennessee at the time. The case turned into a general discussion between
creationists and evolutionists. Scopes was first convicted and later exonerated due to a formality.
The public debate sparked by the process was perceived as a defeat by many fundamentalists
because they were portrayed as antiquated and ignorant (Balmer 2004, 60809).
5.1 US Evangelicalism: Historical andConceptual Notes 93
After this initial impetus, religion in general and evangelicalism in particular

enjoyed increased popularity since the 1970s. Even conservative evangelicals expe-
rienced more afflux than before (Wuthnow 1998, 9091). This trend continued at
least until the turn of the century: Even in a seemingly secular city like NewYork
there were about 7,000 fundamentalist, evangelical, or Pentecostal communities in
the year 2000 (Hochgeschwender 2007, 14).
The plurality of evangelicalism, not least recognizable in the unbroken success
of devotional fitness programs, might have been a decisive factor for the growing
popularity and reach among different groups of society. Diversity, Noll writes, has
always been an important feature of North American evangelicalism. Yet, in the
decades since 1970, this diversity has become much more obvious (Noll 2001,
22). One element of this diversity stems from a seminal shift in North American
evangelicals attitude towards images, which proved especially useful to devotional
dieters and Christian athletes. They are participating fully in the increasing turn to
images that is replacing the historic Protestant reliance on the written word. A cul-
ture dominated by television, advertising, and therapy has presented both problems
and opportunities for evangelical outreach (Noll 2001, 24).
A Few Notes on the Concept Evangelicalism Having sketched the recent his-
tory of US evangelicalism with regard to devotional fitness, I now turn to the con-
cept evangelicalism itself. It is one of the most discussed in the study of American
religion, not least because many evangelicals refer to themselves simply as
Christians and not as evangelicals. Noll, referencing Smith and Emerson (1998),
demonstrates the difficulties in collecting reliable data on peoples self-ascribed
religious orientations. Many Americans, even if they do not identify themselves as
evangelicals, indicate that they believe in what scholars of religion typically sum-
marize as evangelicalagreeing, for example, with statements such as through the
life, death and resurrection of Jesus, God provided a way for the forgiveness of my
sins or the Bible is the inspired word of God (Noll 2001, 3031).
In consulting some of the leading scholars of North American evangelicalism, I
briefly summarize a few shared ideas on this concept. There is some agreement
upon how to subcategorize the Protestant groups and organizations which are sum-
marized under the umbrella term evangelicalism. Putnam and Campbell (2010,
13), Balmer ([1989] 2000, xvi), and Jorstad (1993, 910) agree on the following list
of four groups with the exception that Putnam and Campbell do not mention the
Charismatics.
(Neo-)evangelicals espouse an experientially informed faith, focusing on being
born again (Jorstad 1993, 910). Fundamentalists are more oriented toward dis-
covering and practicing strict loyalty to the teachings of the inerrant Bible (Jorstad
1993, 910). Pentecostals believe that the spiritual gifts bestowed upon the early
church in the book of Acts are available to modern-day believers (Balmer [1989]
2000, xv). They insist that a spiritual experience of baptism or filling by the Holy
Spirit, often marked by glossolalia or speaking in tongues, constitutes the mark of
a true Christian (Balmer [1989] 2000, xv; similar also Singleton 2011, 382).
Charismatics are similar to Pentecostals (and often not distinguished, see e.g.
Singleton 2011, 382) because both groups focus on expressing the dimension of
religious life as inspired by what they teach as the indwelling power of the third part
of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit (Jorstad 1993, 910). Charismatic movements are
often set within church-contexts (also Catholic contexts)contrary to Pentecostals
which are mostly independent from traditional churches (Hochgeschwender 2007,
232).
As I have disclosed above, I am thinking of devotional fitness as an embodied
discourse, not as a distinct movement within evangelicalism, or a number of
churches and denominations. Therefore, classifying devotional fitness as evangeli-
cal or charismatic in this sense is neither necessary nor fruitful. Devotional fit-
ness is a practice that occurs within and beyond these broad categories; and the
differences between these container terms tend to blur in reality. Nonetheless, if I
had to pigeon-hole devotional fitness in the above classification, I would have to
state that it most commonly occurs in evangelical communities. Fundamentalist and
charismatic communities less often engage in the genre, although authors some-
times reveal fundamentalist positions. Pentecostals already have modes to engage
the body: glossolalia, involuntary prostration, and healing rituals. They also tend to
emphasize their bodies appearance, subscribing to cultural beauty ideals (Singleton
2011, 381). But with the exception of Richard A.Kents project Spirit and Muscle
Fitness (2009) programs of devotional fitness have not emerged on a broad basis in
Pentecostal communities.
Although there is some agreement on this categorization, there is less consent on
what exactly it is that makes these heterogeneous groups evangelical. A set of
characteristics is often referred to when trying to describe evangelicalism. Based
on David W.Bebbingtons oft-quoted four characteristics (conversionism, activism,
Biblicism, and crucicentrism; Bebbington 1989, 23), amplified by other authors
considerations, the following list represents a commonly agreed upon set of typi-
cal evangelical traits.
1. The Bible is considered the ultimate authority (Jorstad 1993, 8; Cochran 2004,
6; Guest 2006, 175) and is to be read literally (Balmer [1989] 2000, xiv;
Hendershot 2004, 2; Bebbington 1994, 36667). Literalism, however, is not a
hermeneutic tradition but rather a symbolic self-ascription (Malley 2004, 92).
2. The individual and personal relationship to God is of utmost importance (Jorstad
1993, 8). Evangelicals are expected to personally commit to Christ (Guest 2006,
175). Accordingly, personal experiences of transcendence are highly valued
(Balmer [1989] 2000, xiv). Generally, evangelicalism thrives off individualism
(Jorstad 1993, 8)a feature that will come up throughout this study due to its
prominent position in devotional fitness.
3. Among experiences of transcendence the moment of personal salvation (conver-
sion) is the crucial turning point in an evangelicals life (Cochran 2004, 6;
Hendershot 2004, 2). This experience is seen as spiritual rebirth and as being
born again (Balmer [1989] 2000, xiv; Guest 2006, 175); it is usually preceded or
accompanied by confession of sins and repenting (Bebbington 1994, 36667).
5.1 US Evangelicalism: Historical andConceptual Notes 95
4. In their life as a born-again Christian, evangelicals feel the need to evangelize, to

spread the Gospel (Balmer [1989] 2000, xiv; Guest 2006, 175; Hendershot 2004,
2; Bebbington 1994, 36667).
5. Evangelicals often develop behavioral standards (Balmer [1989] 2000, xvi)
based on the doctrines of fundamentalismthe five fundamentals of their faith
(Cochran 2004, 6). They distance themselves from liberal, humanist thinking
(Hendershot 2004, 2).
6. Evangelicals usually do not place much emphasis on tradition, refuse the author-
ity of the clergy, and often are keen not to establish bureaucracies and institu-
tions. Instead, they try to keep up an informal atmosphere of revival (Cochran
2004, 6). Their style of worship and evangelizing advances modern theological
methods and popular means of preaching (Cochran 2004, 6; Hendershot 2004,
4); prayer, sermons, and services are often informal and held in a popular style
(Jorstad 1993, 8).
All these characteristics more or less apply to evangelicals engaging in Christian
fitness and dieting practices. Additionally, evangelicals rarely use the term reli-
gion as self-descriptiondevotional fitness makes no exception. The evangelicals
in the focus of this study generally disapprove of classical religion and churches.
Instead, they bring forward a spirituality that is based on experience. With this clear
opposition to religion and church, evangelicalism features signs of anti-
traditionalism and anti-ritualism (Wolfe 2005, 111). Their generally anti-ritualistic
attitude also explains why evangelicals do not hesitate to try new ways of religious
living, often mirroring popular culture. Evangelical fitness and dieting programs are
among the prominent examples.
In this study, I reference Warrens evangelical faith as an example of one of the
most successful versions of contemporary (neo-)evangelicalism. Warren, graduate
from California Baptist College, Southwestern Theological Seminary, and Fuller
Theological Seminary, founded Saddleback Church with his wife in 1980. In the
1990s, their church had become the largest in the Southern Baptist Convention and
it continued to grow. His principles and ideas, published in The Purpose Driven Life
(2002), have been widely copied by other evangelical congregations (Balmer
2004, 72122). He is also a representative of devotional fitness through his program
The Daniel Plan. Concerning anti-ritualism, Warren argues, If God intentionally
made us all different, why should everyone be expected to love God in the same
way? (Warren 2002, 102). Nonetheless, from an analytic point of view, ritualistic
elements are often observable in evangelical settings, as Putnam notes with regard
to worshipping at Warrens Saddleback Church (Putnam and Campbell 2010, 57).
Often during my field studies, I was confronted with the idea that religion is not
about churches and rituals but about relationships, especially the relationship to
Jesus. Some interlocutors even went so far to say that what they believe and practice
is not religionit is pure relationship. Laura Monica (WholyFit) takes an extreme
view on this issue suggesting an attitude one could identify as anti-religion called
Jesus-ism based on the assumption that faith dies once it becomes religion.
The great counselors of the faith never intended for us to ride their waves, but those of Jesus
alone. [ ] Surfing with Jesus2 means relationship, not religion. Once people make a move-
ment of the Spirit into a religion, faith deadens because the focus becomes people instead
of God. Calvinists and Wesley-ists agree that Wesley never intended for anyone to be a
Wesley-ist, nor did Calvin intend Calvin-ism. Their intent was that we all be Jesus-ists
(Monica 2011c; italics added).
Warren, too, opposes religion, yet embraces relationship. God wont ask
about your religious background or doctrinal views. The only thing that will matter
is, did you accept what Jesus did for you and did you learn to love and trust him?
(Warren 2002, 34). In short, Christianity is not a religion or a philosophy, but a
relationship and a lifestyle (Warren 2002, 183). In all these aspects of evangelical
theology and practice, devotional fitness does not differ much from its evangelical
environment.
So far, I have begun to demonstrate how devotional fitness is embedded in his-
torical and contemporary developments in US evangelicalism. I continue this task
in Sect. 7.1. This chapter has also given a brief summary of how the term evangeli-
calism is used in scholarly literature and what characteristics are usually ascribed
to evangelicals. Based on these considerations, I use the term evangelicalism to
summarize a Christian discourse which focuses on direct, personal experiences with
the divine, stresses the importance of a personal relationship with God, focuses on
spiritual growth and individual bible study, and is suspicious of institutions, litur-
gies, and hierarchies.
5.2 Muscular Christianity andtheYMCA
This chapter looks at Muscular Christianity, focusing on the YMCA as its major
institutional manifestation,3 and extract discursive elements and practices that offer
a comparative foil with regard to contemporary devotional fitness. It shows how
elements that are central to the discourse of devotional fitness already appeared in
the history of American Christianity, thereby preparing the cultural resources for
evangelical fitness promoters to draw from. Based on a historical and comparative
approach, I emphasize that there are both continuations and transformations in the
development from Muscular Christianity to devotional fitness. Consequently, I ask
to what extent devotional fitness could be considered as a form of neo-Muscular
Christianity, as some authors (e.g., Schippert 2003) have suggested. I have based
my analysis on the works of Donald E. Hall (1994), Tony Ladd and James
A.Mathisen (1999), and Clifford Putney (2003).
2
Monica explains the metaphor of surfing with Jesus as follows: It means that we have to do
more than simply have religion or spirituality. [] Just like surfing, just like walking on water,
relationship with Jesus is about keeping our eyes on Jesus and adjusting to His will (Monica
2011c).
3
The YMCA is understood as such by, e.g., Hoverd (2005, 79) too.
5.2 Muscular Christianity andtheYMCA 97
T.C. Sandars was probably the first to use the expression Muscular Christianity,
in a review of Anglican priest Charles Kingsleys British novel Two Years Ago
(1857).4 The novel drew Sandars criticism for its emphasis on male heroic
Christian activity (Balmer 2004, 479). Although the expression Muscular
Christianity was deliberately pejorative, those criticized soon adopted the term as
a positive one. Particularly Kingsleys friend and Christian socialist Thomas Hughes
used the term in the 1860s to refer to sporting practices with forms of ethical and
moral training that evoked both masculinity and patriotism (Coleman 2007, 40).
Hughes and Kingsley spread their ideas on Muscular Christianity from England to
the United States, where they became well knownespecially when Hughes trav-
eled through the United States in the 1870s. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a
Unitarian pastor, also supported and spread Hughes and Kingsleys thoughts in the
United States (Putney 2003, 1922). He had used the term in an 1858 article in the
magazine Atlantic Monthly stressing the idea of mens sana in corpore sano (Ladd
and Mathisen 1999, 2526).
According to Ladd and Mathisen, Hughes associated three motifs with the term:
(1) masculinity and a strong, well-exercised body; (2) the use of such a body for
moral concerns; and (3) a Christian motivation behind these practices (Ladd and
Mathisen 1999, 1415). These points are reminiscent of contemporary devotional
fitness, with one crucial difference that should not be understated: the emphasis on
masculinity. Balmer writes that proponents of Muscular Christianity had observed
that women far outnumbered men in church adherence ever since the late seven-
teenth century (Balmer 2004, 479). Churches therefore sought to attract more men.
Accordingly, Ladd and Mathisen speak of four characteristics of Muscular
Christianity: manliness, morality, health, and patriotism (Ladd and Mathisen
1999, 16). These considerations already indicate that the relation between contem-
porary devotional fitness and Muscular Christianity features both continuities and
transformations.
There were some countermovements focusing on women as well, most notably
the Young Womens Christian Association (officially founded in 1877) (Putney
2003, 153). These, however, were not motivated by a lack of women in churches.
Instead, they believed that girls also deserved to draw strength from nature and
from strenuous outdoor games (Putney 2003, 145). While the YWCA did not
incorporate sports in their program at the very beginning, they opened a gym for
women in Boston in 1884 and, by 1890, had become the countrys foremost pur-
veyor of womens athletics (Putney 2003, 148).
Historical Sketch In the following, I briefly summarize the history of Muscular
Christianity, often following Ladd and Mathisen who reconstruct a genuine
American Muscular Christianity as opposed to its British counterpart and assume
that the movements history features episodes of engagement, disengagement and
re-engagement of evangelical Christians and sports (Ladd and Mathisen 1999,
4
The review was published in the February 1857 edition of the Saturday Review and is referenced
by Hall (1994, 7), Ladd and Mathisen (1999, 1314), Putney (2003, 11), and Balmer (2004, 479).
1921). Ladd and Mathisen work in an evangelical setting (their monograph was
published by Baker Books, a Christian publishing house) and seek to provide evi-
dence of a continuous development of evangelical Muscular Christianity up to
contemporary times, which is contestable given that early muscular Christians were
not evangelical in the sense of the term as used today. They also suggest that the
movement is alive and well in our days and consider the Fellowship of Christian
Athletes (established 1954), Sports Ambassadors (established 1952), and Athletes
in Action (established 1966) as the big three of Muscular Christianity (Ladd and
Mathisen 1999, 141). Their perspective has to be taken into account and will be bal-
anced by referring to Putney (2003) and Hall (1994).
In the second half of the nineteenth century, it was unthinkable for most Christians
to do sports. Especially in the Calvinist tradition, sports, just like music and dance,
where considered sinful and Hughes idea that doing sports was to spawn and sup-
port Christian virtues was not readily received. Muscular Christians, therefore, had
to deal with considerable apprehensiveness and resistance regarding their concerns
(Putney 2003, 2024).
Facing such doubts, muscular Christians had to employ strategies linked to the
fear of American degeneracy that had been disseminated by Thomas Wentworth
Higginson and others (Putney 2003, 25). Concern about bodily degeneration and
effeminacy of men due to urbanization and the advances of technology effected
interest in their cause (Putney 2003, 3233)a strategy that was also applied in
publications by the YMCA (White 2009, 11213). They could also link their inten-
tions to the popular motif of the Strenuous Life and counted on great dissatisfac-
tion with the feminization of American Protestantism in order to prepare the
grounds for their endeavor (Putney 2003, 25).
Eager to redeem the nation from slackness, devotees of the Strenuous Life emphasized
duty, bodily vigor, action over reflection, experience over book learning, and pragmatic
idealism over romantic sentimentality. They also endowed their program with a highly
masculine vocabulary, eschewing such hitherto popular feminine terms as heartfelt,
soulful, and the like. At the height of their fame, proponents of the Strenuous Life influ-
enced many areas of American culture, including politics, recreation, literature, science,
education, and religion (Putney 2003, 33).
Against the traditional Christian skepticism about sports, supporters of Muscular

Christianity profited from these societal developments in the last decades of the
nineteenth century. Also, the interest in mission was a suitable argument to bring
forward their intentions (Putney 2003, 34). Putney considers the time between
1880 and 1920 the historical peak of the muscular Christian movement in America
(Putney 2003, 7). Mathisen and Ladd consider this era as the first and successful
episode of evangelicals engagement with sports (Ladd and Mathisen 1999, 68).
During the first half of the twentieth century, specifically between 1920 and the
Great Depression, however, there was a disengagement of muscular Christians from
sport (Ladd and Mathisen 1999, 18). The latter half of this period roughly intersects
with the era of cultural invisibility that Noll ascribes to evangelicals of the time
(Noll 2001, 16), which shows that Muscular Christianity mirrors broader
d evelopments in US evangelicalism. The main reason for this, Ladd and Mathisen
assume, is the disillusionment of many evangelical Christians with sport, resulting
in the dissociation of sports and evangelicalismwith Billy Sunday being a well-
known example (Ladd and Mathisen 1999, 18). Sunday, professional baseball
player and evangelical Christian, considered the norms and values of professional
sports as incompatible with those of Christianity and worked towards a separation
of sports and evangelicalism (Ladd and Mathisen 1999, 81). He viewed sports sim-
ply as a means to the end of religious conversion and, secondarily, as a means for
the enhancement of a cultural idea of masculinity (Ladd and Mathisen 1999, 82).
The third phase Mathisen and Ladd point out in their account of Muscular
Christianity concerns the re-engagement of sports and evangelicalism in the second
half of the twentieth century, beginning in the 1940s. This phase was characterized
by the institutionalization of Muscular Christianity. Organizations such as the Sports
Ambassadors (1952), Fellowship of Christian Athletes (1954), Athletes in Action
(1966), and Sports Outreach America (1984) were founded in these decades (Ladd
and Mathisen 1999, 19).
Once again, a prominent evangelical figure played a vital role in the renewed
engagement of sports and evangelicalism. Billy Graham, referenced earlier as a
central figure of the recent history of evangelicalism, utilized the potential of sports
as a means of evangelizing in the 1940s (Ladd and Mathisen 1999, 9697). The re-
engagement mainly took place in the decade between 1940 and 1952 but extended
into the following decades. Driven by the need for religious revivals, evangelical
groups like Youth for Christ sought to accommodate and adapt to popular culture
(while the fundamental wing of evangelicals remained separatist) (Ladd and
Mathisen 1999, 11718). Mission in the field of sports was a central concern of
organizations established at the time, especially in groups like Sports Ambassadors.
Ladd and Mathisen state that by the 1980s Muscular Christianity had become well
established organizationally and culturally (Ladd and Mathisen 1999, 155).
Another movement in those years that was more directly connected to devotional
fitness was the focus on sports in the emerging evangelical megachurches. Large
churches in urban centers had already provided facilities for sports and recreation
before the 1970s and 1980s. What was new in these decades was the redefined
place of sport in the larger mission and programming of the church, together with a
commitment to up-to-date facilities and full-time staffing by professionals in sports
outreach and ministry (Ladd and Mathisen 1999, 19397). As Ladd and Mathisen
observe, Much of this expansion mirrors the larger cultural interest in fitness and
sports (Ladd and Mathisen 1999, 19397). Here, I note intersections between
Muscular Christianity and devotional fitness, although Ladd and Mathisen focus
more on the missionary and marketing aspects than on the underlying theologies of
the body (Sect. 6.4).
The most recent development the authors mention occurs in the 1990s, when
virtually every kind of team or individual sport is addressed by some ministry of
Muscular Christianity. The trend, they write, is about targeting narrower audi-
ences (Ladd and Mathisen 1999, 136). Mathisen and Ladd assume a continuous
historical development from the earliest incidences of Muscular Christianity until
the twenty-first century. In their sense, one should consider devotional fitness as a
contemporary manifestation of Muscular Christianity. While I do not deny that
there are important historical continuities, I point out major differences and trans-
formations from nineteenth century muscular Christians to contemporary evangeli-
cal dieters and fitness devotees. Before doing so, I summarize the ideology and
practice of Muscular Christianity and shed more light on the YMCA as a major
institution in this field.
Ideology and Practices of Muscular Christianity Clifford Putney describes
Muscular Christianity as Christian commitment to health and manliness based on
manly exertion (Mark 11:155) and physical health (1 Corinthians 6:19206). As
such, Putney states, muscular Christianity has always been an element in
Christianity (Putney 2003, 11). This statement applies only retrospectively because
a self-conscious movement of Muscular Christianity did not exist in earlier
centuries.
A major and palpable difference between devotional fitness and Muscular
Christianity is the issue of gender. Muscular Christianity emerged from the need to
lead the seemingly effete and feminized church of the late nineteenth century back
to health, strength and manliness (Putney 2003, 13). On the other hand, Putney
notes many characteristics that apply to devotional fitness too. In the field of sports,
muscular Christians had reduced mind-body dualism, broken down evangelical
Protestant resistance to sports, invented character-building games such as
basketball,7 and acquainted the world with Western athleticism (Putney 2003, 196
97). In fact, some muscular Christian movements had been successful regarding
their original goal, the defeminization of Protestant churches, at the end of their
heyday around 1920 given that they had attracted men to their events and services
(Putney 2003, 19697).
How did muscular Christians practically realize their ideas? Given that sport
and Christianity historically may have been adversaries (Ladd and Mathisen 1999,
2829), what rendered these forces allies, not only in theological thinking but also
in everyday practice? Before 1850, American Protestants viewed artificial exercise
as an immoral waste of time (Putney 2003, 2). Beginning in the 1870s, Protestant
congregations slowly started to accept that their members did sports and they began
to be concerned about the physical health of their pastors. One of the arguments that
made physical activity acceptable in Protestant circles was that an athletic life
should be considered as following Jesus example in terms of having a strenuous,
5
Mark 11:1516: On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out
those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the
benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the
temple courts (New International Version 2011).
6
1 Corinthians 6:1920: Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in
you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price.
Therefore honor God with your body (New International Version 1984).
7
James Naismith, trainer at the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, designed basketball as a
means to evangelize people about morality and Christian values (Ladd and Mathisen 1999, 71).
physically exhausting life. Other figures from the Bible, such as Moses, John, Paul,
or Samson, served as examples, too (Putney 2003, 5456).
The sports most muscular Christians engaged with were competitive team sports
like cricket and football (Ladd and Mathisen 1999, 15). In the summer of 1887, for
example, 400 men from eighty-two colleges came together for ten days to compete
in baseball, football, lawn tennis, boating, and swimming (Ladd and Mathisen 1999,
52). For this generation of muscular Christians, taking care of their physical health
was as important to the venture of bringing young men to Christ as was taking care
of their spiritual needs (Ladd and Mathisen 1999, 55). The body, in their view,
should return to its preindustrial state, a condition in which it was a tool for
good, an agent to be used on behalf of social progress and world uplift (Putney
2003, 6). This notion of doing Gods work with an enabled body is an important
element in devotional fitness, too. Similarly, Charles Kingsley, the early proponent
of Muscular Christianity, thought of bodies as being consecrated in Gods service
and sought to enhance the bodys serviceability for that purpose (Putney 2003,
1213). Josiah Strong, another protagonist of Muscular Christianity, supported a
physiological spirituality; he disliked seeing people who were overweight or
unfit; he was alarmed that Christians during every period in history had despised
and abused their bodies (White 2009, 117). On the grounds of such consider-
ations, Christopher G.White concludes, it seemed increasingly plausible that spiri-
tual vigor depended on physical fitness (White 2009, 11617)a notion that will
strike a bell to everyone familiar with contemporary devotional fitness.
The notion of the body as the temple of God or the Holy Spirit was well known
in Christian circles at the end of the nineteenth century, and it led to considerable
transformations in evangelicals attitude towards corporeality. At their most
extreme, body as temple men completely dropped the traditional Christian empha-
sis on confessing weakness in oneself and forgiving it in others. The holy man must
be a whole man, insisted Professor John Tyler of Amherst [] (Putney 2003, 57).
The motifs of holy and whole are prominent in contemporary devotional fitness
as well. Laura Monica advertises her program WholyFit with the slogan May God
Himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole,
put you togetherspirit, soul and bodyAND KEEP YOU FIT for the coming of
our Master, Jesus Christ (WholyFit 2011). At the same time, her program serves to
hint at pivotal differences. WholyFit primarily attracts women and builds on gentle
and yet effective strengthening and stretching exercises (WholyFit 2011) instead
of manly and rugged outdoor experience.
Muscular Christianity and the YMCA The Young Mens Christian Association
(YMCA) is one of the oldest and most renowned institutions of Muscular Christianity
(Hoverd 2005, 79). Via the YMCA, Muscular Christianity became part of American
mainstream culture (Ladd and Mathisen 1999, 39). Here, I depict the YMCAs
h istory and ideology in some detail, focusing on how it prepared cultural resources
of value-ideas and practices that would later be taken up by devotional fitness.8
The YMCA was a major movement that accompanied Muscular Christianity in
their quest to attract men to churches. Founded in 1844 by George Williams in
London (Putney 2003, 64), the YMCA predated and contributed to the rise of
Muscular Christianity and eagerly engaged with Muscular Christians ideas since
the 1860s. The first YMCA on American ground was founded in 1851 by Thomas
Sullivan, Lyman Beecher and other Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopalian pastors in
Boston, Massachusetts. About ten years later, there were more than 200 clubs in the
United States (Putney 2003, 6465).9.
In line with muscular Christians goals, the organization intended to attract men
to compensate for the majority of women in churches and congregations. Robert
McBurney (18371898) was a prominent figure in promoting gyms at the YMCA.In
the 1860s, McBurney was secretary of the YMCA in NewYork City. It was mostly
due to his influence that the first gym opened in the NewYork club in 1869 (Putney
2003, 22). At first the gym was perceived as a means of drawing young men into
Bible studies and prayer meetings. This enticement was soon expanded by attempts
to meet the needs of the whole person, including the spiritual, mental, and social as
well as the physical (Ladd and Mathisen 1999, 36). This motif of meeting the
needs of the whole person sounds familiar in the context of holistic approaches
in devotional fitness today. McBurney developed the first clear rationale for com-
bining athletics with evangelism, the Four-Fold Plan. It advocated ministry to
all four aspects of a young mans life: bodily, social, spiritual, and intellectual
(Putney 2003, 69) thus being wholeness-oriented in the same way as many of
todays evangelical fitness programs.
In fact, the YMCA was among the pioneers in the fitness business, e.g., because
of their invention and popularization of basketball and volleyball. Thus, it counts as
an example of how contemporary secular fitness has roots in North American
Protestant religion. When the first YMCA gym opened in 1869, the New York Times
reported in an article entitled A Christian Club (N.N. 1869) that the Association
would have a splendid gymnasiuma gymnasium which in size and appointments
will be unequaled in the City (quoted in Ladd and Mathisen 1999, 2425). The
establishment of this gym is, in the same article, considered as a welcome conces-
sion to the muscular Christianity of the time (quoted in Ladd and Mathisen 1999,
2425). Based on the slogan sana mens in sano corpore the author of the article
appreciates that the young Christians of New York will now have up-to-date
opportunities to exercise their bodies. If the Association succeeds in drawing to its
gymnasium a larger number of the young men of the City, and in giving them sound
bodies and muscles of iron, as well as healthy religious principles and moral
8
I agree with Peter Gardella who, in a review of Griffiths Born Again Bodies, deplores that the
YMCA, never appears in the studynotwithstanding its role in shaping the American drive
toward transformation of the body (Gardella 2005, 894).
9
Of course, the YMCA spread not just in Great Britain and the United States, but internationally
(see, e.g., Abe 2006 for Japan, and Morris 2000 on the YMCA in China).
c haracters more enduring than steel, it will deserve and receive a double commen-
dation (quoted in Ladd and Mathisen 1999, 2425). Once more, we have to note
striking similarities of argumentation compared to contemporary devotional fitness
where healthy religious principles are usually associated with healthy or sound
bodies.
Some years later, in 1876, Robert J.Roberts (18491920) coined the term body-
building at the YMCA in Boston (Putney 2003, 69). At that time, sports in the
YMCA became an explicitly spiritual exercise (Coleman 2007, 4243)this
foreshadowed developments that would occur about one hundred years later in
devotional fitness. In the meantime, however, bodybuilding was and is considered a
largely secular activity. Here it becomes obvious that the separation of secular
sports and religious realms is a simplified one, disregarding entangled historical
roots.
Exercising in YMCA gyms was not just a physical activity; neither did it serve
merely to attract people from the community, which had been the reason for their
establishment in the first place. A more important feature was its potential to build
character through physical exercise and to strengthen the body to enhance its
capacity for doing good (Putney 2003, 67). The notion that muscle strength indi-
cated deeper mental or spiritual vigor undergirded widespread interest in physical
culture (White 2009, 11920), something which is true for large parts of the
Western fitness culture today, too.
In the 1890s, Luther H.Gulick (18651918), another influential figure in form-
ing the YMCAs philosophy, and an exemplary representative of the progressive era,
had developed the expression of body, mind, spirit, following Deuteronomy 6:5,10
to describe the importance of symmetry to character (Putney 2003, 6970). The
same scripture passage occurs in contemporary devotional fitness programs like
First Place 4 Health. Based on the concept of symmetrical balance, the well-known
red triangle that Gulick designed in 1891 was meant to represent the three elements
of human experience (body, mind, and spirit) (Putney 2003, 6970).
Gulick was also responsible for the previously referenced shift from gymnastics
as outreach to gymnastics as spiritual practice. Before Gulick, the Y had kept
gymnastics subordinate to evangelism. After him, it held physical fitness, no less
than religious conviction, responsible for leading men to Glory (Putney 2003, 72;
see also White 2009, 118). Like muscular Christians, Gulick was concerned with
the feminization of churches. Although he attested that girls and women needed to
keep their bodies in shape, he did not recommend intense manly exercise but gen-
tle bicycling or folk dancingactivities which ought to be practiced in separate
spaces than male gymnasiums. With this in mind, Gulick and his wife founded the
Camp Fire Girls (White 2009, 12223).
The motif of the body as Gods temple, central for evangelical supporters of fit-
ness today, was popular among Gulick and his followers as well. They assumed a
close relationship between a well-trained body and physical health, and between
10
Deuteronomy 6:5: Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with
all your strength (New International Version 1984).
health and morality. The dogma good health equals good morals united
Muscular Christianity and the YMCA (Putney 2003, 149)although not all YMCA
officials shared this opinion. Only during the last decade of the nineteenth century
did the conflicting partiesone approaching sports from a missionary perspective,
the other from a holistic perspectiveconverged and unite under the holistic
approach (Putney 2003, 68).
From that time on, throughout the twentieth century, sports were an integral part
of the YMCAs work, often advancing new trends. In the 1960s and 1970s, for
example, YMCA clubs noted the yoga boom and began to offer yoga classes (Jain
2012, 9). Thus, the YMCA as a liberal, all-American Protestant organization became
a well-established part of local communities, providing a Christian setting for activ-
ities that comprised not only sports, but social and volunteering work too. The
Christian basis of the YMCA, however, tended to remain unnoticed or irrelevant for
many attendees at local clubs (White 2009, 11718), a problem contemporary clubs
are facing as well. Today, building Christian muscles seems to be on few peoples
minds when entering the local Y, Claudia Schippert writes in a study on the Lords
Gym which is underpinned by Putneys account (Schippert 2003, 3).
The Lords Gym is a Christian fitness chain not officially affiliated with the
YMCA.Schippert, however, links them in order to find out whether the Christian
denominator is merely a brandnaming or bears deeper connotations. The Lords
Gym, Schippert concludes, features a fairly normal gym setting and focuses on
individual bodies and their control (Schippert 2003, 3). In addition, however,
customers explicitly invoked sentiments of body as temple theology that are
quite familiar to students of the history of Muscular Christianity and the YMCA:
The Lord says your body is a temple, so you keep it fit and nice (Schippert 2003,
3). In this statement, she connects devotional fitness (represented by the Lords
Gym), Muscular Christianity, and the YMCA based on shared assumptions of the
body as Gods temple; thereby confirming my hypothesis that both Muscular
Christianity and YMCA can function as historical predecessors of contemporary
devotional fitness practice.
Muscular Christianity and Devotional Fitness Even if the phase of re-
engagement between evangelicalism and sports is over according to Ladd and
Mathisen (1999, 95 ff), they suggest that Muscular Christianity is far from extinct
though its historical focus on men has moved to the background of current ideology
and praxis. The question, however, remains whether recent interest of evangelicals
in physical discipline may at all be considered as a continuation of Muscular
Christianity.
In this section, I compare Muscular Christianity, especially its institutional mani-
festation in the YMCA, and contemporary devotional fitness. This comparison holds
water from an academic point of view because it draws our attention to the changing
societal environments that bring about movements such as Muscular Christianity
and devotional fitness. These feature both similarities and differences that speak
about how religion, bodies, and society were and are related, how they interact on
ideological and embodied levels, and how values change and are perpetuated in US
society.
Schippert indeed considers the above-referenced Lords Gym as a re-emergence
of Muscular Christianity and studies it to understand religion in post-9/11 American
culture (Schippert 2003, 1). In contrast to classic muscular Christians, the Lords
Gym does not evangelize overtly. Only their music, posters, prayer request boxes,
and modest dress code indicate that there is a Christian identity to the fitness
chain (Schippert 2003, 5). Given that I consider the Lords Gym as a manifestation
of devotional fitness, and following Schipperts argument, I would have to conclude
that the discourse of devotional fitness is indeed a form of neo-Muscular
Christianitybut I argue here that this is not the case. Opposing Ladds and
Mathisens understanding, I restrict the term Muscular Christianity to the histori-
cal movement from about 1880 to 1920.
The most obvious links between devotional fitness and the YMCA exist on the
level of organizational and personal ties. Laura Monica, founder of WholyFit, for
example, worked at the YMCA before she developed her program (WholyFit 2011).
Both First Place 4 Health and Body & Soul offer classes inlocal YMCAs nation-
wide and Church Fitness cooperates with the association as well (Bloom 2011).
Thus, the YMCA, having promoted ideas of Christian exercise and healthy reli-
gious principles throughout its history, still serves as a social setting that spawns and
nurtures concepts of devotional fitness. These connections also reveal the dis-
courses propensity to interact with liberal Protestant settings and not remain within
the confines of evangelical milieus, a feature that lends itself to a discursive research
approach as followed in this book.
This leads to the next level of connection between devotional fitness and Muscular
Christianitythe level of discursive similarities. Communicative elements now at
the core of devotional fitness have been used in the discourse of Muscular Christianity
and have thus been made available for reinterpretation and recontextualization.
Devotional fitness and Muscular Christianity belong to one family of Christian
North American discoursesyet they are not father and son, so to speak, but rather
uncle and niece (a metaphor that alludes to changes in gender aspects, too). More
plainly, the trajectory from Muscular Christianity to devotional fitness is not linear
but features dislocations, disruptions and considerable transformations as to the
hierarchies and relations of elements.
Coleman, in his analysis of contemporary Christian sporting facilities, argues
similarly and observes quite a transformation from the nineteenth-century empha-
sis on the disciplining and masculinisation of the urban businessman and indus-
trial worker (Coleman 2007, 44). Coleman specifies this transformation as follows:
Sports are no longer just productive recreation and means of outreach (as in
Muscular Christianity) but also a positive form of leisured consumption within the
family (Coleman 2007, 44). In the following paragraphs, I add more features that
distinguish contemporary devotional fitness from earlier Muscular Christianity.
While both movements resist the traditional Protestant rejection of sports, reduce
perceived mind-body dualisms, and work on the basis of a broad understanding of
mens sana in corpore sano, they are different with regard to other areas of p ractice:
The argument of reaching physical advantages through an athletic lifestyle occupies

a far more prominent place in devotional fitness; in Muscular Christianity it remains
fused with the value of manliness (Putney 2003, 11). Even so, Muscular
Christianity did incorporate the idea of holism. The Four-Fold Plan by Robert
McBurney of the NewYork YMCA, which catered to the physical, social, spiritual,
and intellectual/mental needs of young men, was one example of this (Putney 2003,
69; Ladd and Mathisen 1999, 36). Both Ladd/Mathisen and Putney, without further
ado, include the social dimension in their representation of Muscular Christianity.
This is significant, as devotional fitness also addresses the social dimension, yet on
a more implicit level; the healing of social relationships is considered as both a
result and precondition of healing the individuals relationships to God, the body,
and the self.
The assumed relationship between Muscular Christianity and devotional fitness
is also recognizable in the conspicuous similarity of those communicative elements
which suggest that civilization and technological advances effect physical degen-
eration and, more broadly, have negative effects on our health (Putney 2003,
3233). This idea occurs in devotional fitness, but holds a less prominent position.
Lerner, e.g., writes in Body by God, that modern society is a loud concrete jungle
that has pushed aside nature (Lerner 2003, 327). Another difference with regard to
this motif is that in devotional fitness today it refers to men, women, and children
alike, while around 1900, it referred specifically to men who had supposedly become
effete, in part due to technological advances.
The most important difference has already been mentioned several times: The
focus on men, manliness, and masculinity in Muscular Christianity. They sought a
masculine and well exercised body (Ladd and Mathisen 1999, 1415) and the Men
and Religion Forward Movement (19101912) exemplifies their focus on men in
their slogan More religion for men, and more men for religion (Putney 2003,
137). This element, at the core of muscular Christian thinking, is almost non-existent
in devotional fitness and thus represents the major transformation from Muscular
Christianity to devotional fitness.
The configuration of elements described above emerged from a different societal
context and a shift in hierarchies of value-ideas. The central value of manliness
affects the discursive system of Muscular Christianity as a whole and thus shapes it
quite differently from that of contemporary devotional fitness. Of course, there were
muscular Christian women, so to speak, coming together in female countermove-
ments like the Girl Scouts, the Camp Fire Girls, and the Young Womens Christian
Association (Putney 2003, 153). These movements, however, were a far cry from
programs like Diana Andersons Fit for Faith (Anderson 2011a), a guide for
Christian women to reach total fitness. To oversimplify it somewhat, muscular
Christian women claimed that manliness was a legitimate goal for girls and women
as well, and refuted that rugged outdoor experiences were meant for boys alone
(Putney 2003, 145). Their aim was not wellness, as in female devotional dieting
today, but they adopted the ideal of manliness for themselves.
Admittedly, there are some strands of devotional fitness, like Ben Lerners Body
by God, The Power Team,11 and Reynolds Get off the Couch (2012) that reproduce
much of the original rhetoric from Muscular Christianity, most apparently in their
focus on men. These incidents employ the notion of being a whole manaiming
at a well-muscled body, empowering the male Christian to take care of his family
and thus fulfill his God-given duty. More importantly, even these male-gendered
devotional fitness programs of our time do not explicitly intend to make up for a
lack of men in evangelical communities.
In sum, in comparison to Muscular Christianity, contemporary evangelical fit-
ness and dieting programs are differently gendered (focusing on women instead of
men), less patriotic, and more individualizedfocusing on personal wellness,
health, and the healing of relationships. While there are overlaps, such as the motifs
of body as temple and the holistic approach to spiritual and physical wellness,
there are enough differences to consider both movements as historically related but
not the same any more. The discourses, both in practice and in ideology, are dissimi-
lar due to the changed societal setting. While Protestant churches around 1900
struggled with a perceived decline of manliness, todays evangelical movements
face a need for diversification and specialization of their spiritual offers for both
men and women. Comparing devotional fitness and Muscular Christianity thus
reveals how Christians in the United States have met, at different times and in dif-
ferent ways, specific societal and Christian needs.
Summarizing these last chapters, I maintain that near the middle of the twentieth
century the cultural repertoire relating to fitness and dieting was primed for Christian
renderings. The body ideal of slenderness was well established, together with cor-
responding practices such as exercising, meeting in diet groups, counting calories,
and purchasing diet products. The moralization of thin and fat bodies was also
widely accepted, connecting overweight with flaws in character. The self-help genre
had contributed to the widespread, cross-country acceptance of addressing addic-
tion (both to alcohol and food) in small groups; it had also provided the first spiri-
tual renderings of treatment for these issues. Evangelicals began to interact and
engage with non-Christian society and thrived on a non-unified theology that was
able to speak the language of the culture (an expression I lend from Balmer,
quoted in Graff 2004, 12) yet remain highly conscious of its distinctness from the
secular world. Finally, Christians involved in the YMCA and Muscular Christianity
had already made the first attempts to spiritually refine body images and practices.
How exactly this cultural repertoire was taken up and reshaped in Christian fitness
and dieting plans of the second half of the twentieth century will be the topic of the
next chapter.
11
Sharon Mazer classifies The Power Team as Muscular Christianity (Mazer 1994, 169).
5.3 Devotional Fitness: Selected Programs Since the1950s
In this chapter, I illustrate what has happened since the 1950s when people employed
elements from the cultural repertoire hitherto described and reformulated them in an
evangelical setting. Using selected examples and episodes, I show the trajectories
that formed the shape and character of devotional fitness as of today.
Presenting eight programs from 1957 to 2011, this chapter seeks to cover the
variety of evangelical dieting and fitness programs. From the early period, I discuss
two programs, one authored by a man (Charlie Shedds Pray Your Weight Away,
1957), the other by a woman (Deborah Pierces I Prayed Myself Slim, 1960). From
the next period, the 1970s, I have selected two contrasting examples: The first
Christian group dieting organization (Carol Showalters Diet, Discipline and
Discipleship (3D)) and C. S. Lovetts Help Lord: The Devil Wants Me Fat!
(1977). In the 1980s, two of the most successful organizations were founded: One
focusing on small group dieting (First Place 4 Health, 1980), the other on exercise
classes (Body & Soul Fitness, 1981). Besides the Weigh Down Workshop (which is
not discussed here), these organizations have been dominating the scene until
todayprimarily attracting women. To present a program mostly directed at men, I
also attend to Ben Lerners Body by God (2003). Finally, as one of the most recent
programs, this chapter briefly depicts Rick Warrens Daniel Plan (2011).
I draw attention to specific communicative elements that have undergone trans-
formations and situate this trajectory within the context reconstructed above, regard-
ing the emergence and development of the secular slimness and health ideal and
the transformations of evangelicalism over the course of the last century. This chap-
ter is meant to create familiarity with the field and illustrate the diversity of concepts
and practices, at the same time pointing out major developments and
transformations.
Charlie Shedd Notions that conflated sin and overweight characterized the young
discourse of devotional fitness in the late 1950s. The language of wholeness or
holism was not yet employed and authors suggested homespun practices of fast-
ing and prayer. Charlie Shedds 1957 book Pray Your Weight Away usually passes
for the first of its kind. Shedd, a Presbyterian priest, unmistakably stated that the
reader could weigh his individual amount of sin when stepping on the scalesa
circumstance he considered as a clear advantage for the overweight Christian. We
fatties are the only people on earth who can weigh our sin. [] Stand on the scale.
How much more do you weigh than you should weigh? There it is: one hundred
pounds of sin, or fifty, or eleven (Shedd 1957, 1112).
Consequently, Shedd assumed one could be freed from sin by losing weight.
Shedd was inspired, Griffith writes, by the ideas of New Thought (Griffith 2004a,
167). For instance, he connects the practice of prayer to changing thought patterns.
The prayer approach, he writes, effects weight-loss and dismisses the thought
patterns which were producing those pounds. Youve opened your mind, removed
5.3 Devotional Fitness: Selected Programs Since the1950s 109
the blockages and let in the light of God on previous shaded thinking (Shedd 1957,
18).
A central feature of Shedds method is, as his title suggests, prayer. Prayer is
healing power, it removes the blockages which stand between things as they are
and things as they ought to be, it permits the free flow of Gods plan in you
(Shedd 1957, 16). Therefore, prayer is the ideal way to spiritually tackle overweight.
Knowing that his approach is new to most readers, he describes it as the untried
way, a way that is, to him, the only one that works (Shedd 1957, 17). Every chapter
closes with a prayer that summarizes the chapter. Before exercise, e.g., he suggests
the following prayer.
Lord, I am deeply grateful for my body. I humbly apologize for the shape I am in. You gave
me a strong frame and healthy system. I havent treated these things in keeping with your
laws. Now I want to do better. I long for physical strength and spiritual dynamic [sic]. I want
a spring in my step and a light in my eye. I want to glorify you in my body and enjoy you
in my soul. As I begin my exercises today, I thank you for a second chance and ask your
blessing inside and out help me that I may live to the fullest both here and hereafter.
Amen (Shedd 1957, 117).
Shedd conveys an image of the overweight person that has proved persistent into
contemporary evangelical and secular fitness discourse. Fat people, he says,
though being the jovial joke teller sometimes and being liked for pity, are unhappy
(Shedd 1957, 3031) and weak (Shedd 1957, 35). Moreover, Shedd cautions the
reader: You know youre dying a bit more every day and youve heard that outside
these walls there is life, green trees, and everything wonderful (Shedd 1957, 37).
The motif of fat as a social wall has been elaborated in later versions of devotional
body ideals too (see page 175 f). Also in agreement with contemporary devotional
fitness, Shedd bases his regimen on 1 Corinthians 6:1920 (Shedd 1957, 39).12
Like most programs today, Shedd urgently requests his followers to exercise
(Shedd 1957, 103) and incorporates scripture into his exercise regimen. He discov-
ered a majestic Scripture in rhythm pattern for each exercise (Shedd 1957, 109)
and presents ten exercises one should do every day (Shedd 1957, 11014). In the
appendix, Shedd provides an Appetite Alphabet summarizing practical instruc-
tions on eating as, e.g., eating a lot of fruits, abstaining from dessert and ice cream
(Shedd 1957, 14752).
Deborah Pierce Devotional fitness of the 1960s is still quite harsh in its condem-
nation of fat and does not bother with construing an intricate theology of the body.
At the time, traditional conservative Christian gender roles still play an important
role. Deborah Pierce, Episcopal Christian, authored the second influential book in
the genre of devotional fitness. In I Prayed Myself Slim (1960) she recounts her own
story, summarized on the front and back flap of the original edition. I am quoting
12
Shedd quotes 1 Corinthians 6:1920 from the King James Version: What? know ye not that your
body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your
own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which
are Gods.
this summary extensively here because it is a dense collection of central motifs and
tropes of the early discourse of devotional fitness.
Deborah Pierce weighed 208 pounds, had never had a date with a boy, and was utterly mis-
erable. Then she decided to do something about it. In this book she tells you exactly what
she did about it, and how you can do the same. Does Deborah Pierce really think a boy
would date her? Those cruel words, spoken by a University of Tennessee classmate and
overheard by Debbie, were the turning point. She fought off the temptation to go to the
snack barher usual refuge in times of stressand instead went to a nearby church and
prayed for strength. This was the beginning of a program of prayer and dieting that resulted
in a new Deborah Piercenew not only in face and figure, but new in outlook, too. In ten
months she lost 85 pounds. Her waist slimmed down from 34 inches to 23 1/2; her hips
from 45 to 37 inches; and her bust from 42 to a perfect 36 1/2 inches. The girl who had
never had a date became one of the most popular girls on campus. She appeared in theatri-
cals and on television. She won beauty contests and became a successful entertainer and
model. She fell in love and was married. It seemed miraculous, but it was no miracle. It was
the result of careful adherence to a diet and of the deeply-felt prayers that gave her the
strength to persevere. This book contains the actual diet Debbie usedcomplete menus for
thirty daysplus all the prayers she composed and found so helpful. It comes to you with
affection and understanding from someone who has suffered the agonies of being a fat girl
and now wants to share her new-found happiness with others. If Deborah Pierce could do
it, then, with Gods help, so can you (Pierce 1960, back/front flap).
Many of the discursive elements that would become central to later versions of
evangelical diet programs occur already. For instance, Pierce draws authority from
her own history of suffering and she quantifies her success in figures. She assumes
that life as a thick person is an unhappy one, as being fat affects health, appearance,
and relationships to others.
Other elements only exist by disposition and are not elaborated explicitly. When
Pierce dedicates her book to all those overweight girls and women who are living
as if in a masquerade, their real beauty and loveliness hidden from view (Pierce
1960, 5) she (like Shedd) anticipates the notion of the perfect self hidden inside an
imperfect body (see page 181). The element I have tried everything but nothing
worked so far exists too (Pierce 1960, 14). As to the causes of overweight, Pierce
refers to an early rendering of the concept of emotional eating. When her parents
divorced she withdrew from her peers, her heart felt empty, she ate to comfort
herself and turned to food [] for consolation (Pierce 1960, 14). Concerning the
question of sin, Pierce takes an unambiguous point of view, considering gluttony as
a heinous sin (Pierce 1960, 104) and food as your enemy (Pierce 1960, 19). Her
successors in the genre would elaborate more nuanced opinions on this question
(see page 188).
Pierce notes that reducing enhanced her social and love life, every step of this
improvement specified by a certain weight. My greatest thrill came about when I
was down to 140I had my first date! [] As my pounds dropped away, so did the
inferiority complex which is a part of an excessively overweight person and I really
discovered peoplea happy discovery (Pierce 1960, 2021).
Compared to todays programs of devotional fitness, her book does not contain
an elaborate theology of the body. Rather, it is a practical handbook on how to gain
social appreciation and become a good wife by praying and losing weight. To do so,
it is important to ask God for helpa motif that is repeated throughout the book
(see, e.g., Pierce 1960, 16, 17, 23).
Also very much in the style of the 1950s and 1960s, Pierces writings display a
strict subordination of women under men. In fact, becoming thin serves the purpose
of finding and pleasing a husband. Pierce suddenly realized that the reason God
had helped me lose weight was to be a wife a man could be proud of, and not to be
a perennial beauty contestant (Pierce 1960, 23). In a fashion that would not sell
well in todays devotional fitness culture (that is often dominated by women) she
reports how her husband admonishes her to stay slim. When she gained some
pounds during their honeymoon, her husband raised one eyebrow and said in a firm
voice, That line is slipping. You better be getting back on your diet (Pierce 1960,
23).
An additional difference to most contemporary devotional fitness practices and a
difference compared to Shedd is that Pierce advises not to do sports because it
quickens ones appetite and sweating alone would not lead to weight-lossa few
cigarettes, however, are recommendable (Pierce 1960, 3031). In another aspect,
her program anticipates a later movementthat of small group meetings. Pierce
suggests to her (female) readers that they read her book in small groups in order to
offer and receive support. These could be called Slim Girls Anonymous, Debbys
Diet Club or Prayer Diet Club (Pierce 1960, 127). Proposing Slim Girls
Anonymous suggests that Pierce saw the connection to and was inspired by
Alcoholics Anonymous (see Sect. 4.3).
Griffith assumes that Pierce embraced the body and beauty standards of
American white middle-class culture as Gods will for all, marking deviance from
that model as a sin (Griffith 2004, 162)something that, in a less radical manner,
is still true today. Both Shedd and Pierce, according to Griffith, imported ideas from
New Thought and contextualized them evangelically so that they were no longer
perceived as heretical. For example, when Pierce and Shedd claimed that losing
weight was rather a spiritual problem than a physical one, they repeated themes
already elaborated by representatives of the New Thought Movement (Griffith
2004, 163164). They also incorporated methods and notions from other relevant
discourses such as the by now well-established slimness ideal and trends of the
therapeutic culture.
Summarizing these early publications of the genre, Griffith concludes that,
Shedd, Pierce, and Kane13 aimed their messages at individuals who sought to be
healthy, happy, and attractive in order to be well liked; both readers and writers
presumed that a necessary (if not sufficient) condition of such an achievement was
Reverend H. victor Kane was another early spokesperson of the genre. He published his first
13
edition of Devotions for Dieters: A Spiritual Lift for Calorie Counters, with a Touch of Irony, by a
Fellow Sufferer in 1967. Just like contemporary program designers, Kane had been suffering from
overweight himself and organized a Workshop in Lenten Living in his congregation in 1966.
Uninformed of Shedds and Pierces books, Kane assumes that his book is the first of its kind
(Kane [1967] 1974, 78).
a slender and properly disciplined body (Griffith 2004, 170). The improvement of
social relationships is a crucial feature of these early publications, although the right
relationship to God and the fight against the deadly sin gluttony was no less impor-
tant and even more explicated than in todays devotional diet literature. These early
programs differ from todays regimens when they explicitly subscribe to profane
reasons, as does Pierce when she boasts of her improved social life. Such motiva-
tions are still accepted today but usually overlaid with more elaborate theologies of
the body.
The end of the 1960s marks the transformation of the devotional fitness market
from a trickle to a torrent, as Griffith deduces from the National Religious
Bestseller list (Griffith 2004, 172). In the 1970s, the genre accelerated (Griffith
2004, 17; Seid 1989, 168). This fits well into the context of the above-mentioned
upswing of evangelicals in the 1970s. Religious dieters had learned from secular
weight-loss groups that it might be easier to seek weight-loss with mutual support
in a group (Griffith 2004, 173). Devotional fitness of the 1970s engages more and
more with secular weight-loss methods in its techniques and group meetings, in
agreement with a general rapprochement of evangelical culture and society.
Carol Showalter In 1972, Carol Showalter founded 3D, short for Diet, Discipline,
Discipleship, supposedly the first Christian diet program, as Showalter reports in
her 2002 book Your Whole Life: The 3D Plan for Eating Right, Living Well, and
Loving God. This is her second book on the 3D program; already in 1977, she pub-
lished 3D: Diet, Discipline and Discipleship which sold more than 500,000 copies
according to Showalter ([2002] 2007, 1).
The 3D program came out of my own personal need. I was a young ministers wife, with
four children and many church responsibilities. I found that I could not cope with all the
demands on my life. So I called out to God to help me. He heard my cry, and 3D was
launched. This program was touched by the hand of God, and it continues to change lives
wherever and whenever someone picks up a copy of the book or the devotions. That is
because 3D is more than a diet program. It is a program about living a whole life. And I have
found wholeness as, to the best of my ability, I have lived the principles that were set forth
in that book (Showalter and Davis [2002] 2007, 1).
Here, we notice a first dependence on the anti-diet movement (see pages 77 and
143) when Showalter describes her program as more than a diet and as focusing
on the whole life. Showalter, wife of a pastor at Parkminster Presbyterian Church
in Rochester, NewYork, had herself attended Weight Watchers meetings (Showalter
and Davis [2002] 2007, 1923; Schwartz 1986, 309). Her experience at Weight
Watchers influenced the setup of 3D insofar as she sought to learn from the per-
ceived inefficiencies and weaknesses of this program. It would be a Christ-oriented
counterpart of Weight Watchers (Showalter and Davis [2002] 2007, 29). As I have
pointed out in Sect. 4.2, the Weight Watchers phenomenon has thus been an influ-
ential context of these early Christian programs.
The concept of 3D revolves around diet, discipline, and discipleship. In her
recent rendering of the program, Showalter changes her language a little, although
the concepts still exist. Eating well replaces diet, living well stands for
discipline, and loving God substitutes discipleship (Showalter and Davis

[2002] 2007, 1116). Diet refers to changing eating habits. Although they still use
the term, they emphasize, like many other programs, You dont go on a diet in the
3D plan (Showalter and Davis [2002] 2007, 12). Discipline is required to imple-
ment the necessary changes and to realize good decisions (Showalter and Davis
[2002] 2007, 15). Discipleship, finally, refers to the fact that the faithful dieter
should follow God, your true master above all, also in dieting, and that is what
the average diet plan misses (Showalter and Davis [2002] 2007, 15).
Showalter belongs to the rare cases of program leaders who, over the years, pub-
licly began to doubt their own conceptions on health, slimness, and faith. When,
after years of leading the program, Showalter and other long-term members of the
program did not achieve permanent weight-loss (Griffith 2004, 174), she redesigned
her program (Gerber 2012a, 216). Besides Showalter, Carole Lewis, leader of First
Place 4 Health (see page 115 ff) and Neva Coyle, co-author of Free to Be Thin
(Chapian and Coyle 1979) and founder of Overeaters Victorious, faced the limita-
tions of their programs when they did not reach permanent slimness. Contrary to
Showalter, however, Lewis did not blame the program but her own lack of discipline
and faith. Showalter and Coyle, on the other hand, looked for new ways to under-
stand how fat and body size fit into Christian theology, challenging the notion that
thinness is Gods intention for all people everywhere (Gerber 2012a, 224). In the
aftermath of her public weight gain and the discrimination she faced as a result,
Coyle came to realize that God loved her just like as she was. She expressed her new
opinions in Loved on a Grander Scale (Coyle 1998) that was in print only for one
year as it could not attract a noteworthy readership (Griffith 2004, 22324; see also
page 213 f). That is a fate she shares with the broader anti-diet movement.
C.S. Lovett C.S. Lovetts Help Lord: The Devil Wants Me Fat! A Scriptural
Approach to a Trim and Attractive Body, first published in 1977, may be read as a
sequel to his earlier book Jesus Wants You Well (1973). One year later, Lovett would
add another title to his program, also focusing on exercise (Jogging With Jesus,
1978), thus taking up the jogging trend of the 1970s.
The main difference between this and later works in the genre is that Help Lord:
The Devil Wants Me Fat! primarily addresses Christians (similar to Shedd, Pierce,
and Showalter) and concedes considerable space to the devil. At least since the
1990s, devotional fitness has explicitly addressed non-Christians as well as
Christians, and has generally minimized references to the devil.
Lovett assumes that the devil is the reason for the obesity epidemic in the
United States because he unleashed an army of glutton demons on American
Christians (Lovett [1977] 1982, 9). Just like todays fitness gurus, Lovett criticizes
what he sees as the all-American pastimefood and eating (Lovett [1977] 1982,
20). Also in parallel to contemporary actors in the field, Lovetts book was triggered
by his own need (Lovett [1977] 1982, 1011). Weighing in at 205 pounds, his
vitality for Christ was drained off and he tried various diet plans that resulted in
nothing but regaining (Lovett [1977] 1982, 1011). Eventually, however, the Lord
gave me the program set forth in this book (Lovett [1977] 1982, 1011). Divine
inspiration is still an important element of legitimacy of todays programs.
Lovett considers overeating identical with the sin of gluttony (Lovett [1977]
1982, 26). Based on 1 Corinthians 6:19, he argues that, next to drugs, alcohol, and
tobacco, food has the potential to harm the body, too. Since our bodies are temples
of the Holy Spirit, were obliged to keep them trim and attractive for His sake
(Lovett [1977] 1982, 165).
The suggested practice is fasting on water for ten days. Although fasting will
produce weight-loss, this is not the main intention, Lovett affirms. Rather, We want
to destroy Satans stronghold in your mind and gain control of your appetite
(Lovett [1977] 1982, 6869). Even for pregnant women, Lovett considers this kind
of fast appropriate (Lovett [1977] 1982, 222). The vast majority of todays propo-
nents of evangelical (and secular) weight-loss programs would sternly refuse this
kind of advice.
But just like later versions of devotional fitness, Lovett stresses that his program
is more about getting closer to God than about losing weight. He would be disap-
pointed if Christians used this book merely to lose weight and didnt care to draw
closer to the Lord (Lovett [1977] 1982, 107). Shedding pounds can, however, be an
effective supportive measure when finding that relationship to God. When the flesh
is out of the way, Lovett writes, God seems close enough to touch (Lovett [1977]
1982, 109).
New Thought elements still occur in Lovetts 1977 book (see Sect. 4.1). The
power of the mind is a frequent topic in his explanations. To support these mental
efforts, Lovett suggests a sort of progressive muscle relaxation, something very
uncommon in devotional fitness, especially in the 1970s. He does not refer to this
technique as progressive muscle relaxation but his depiction of the praxis is very
palpable (focusing on different body parts, engaging and relaxing specific muscles)
(Lovett [1977] 1982, 15859). Given the reluctance of his audience towards medita-
tion, Lovett stresses that he speaks of relaxation, NOT meditation (Lovett [1977]
1982, 15960). Later programs would be less apprehensive about the notion of
meditation but specify it as Christian or biblical meditation (e.g., PraiseMoves
and WholyFit) which is an indicator of their willingness to approach non-Christian
practices in a specifically evangelical manner.
Concerning the category of gender, Lovett is doubtlessly invoking traditional
role models for women and men, assuming that wives are responsible for preparing
meals and expected to be attractive for their husbands while, Any man in his right
mind wants a trim and attractive wife at his side (Lovett [1977] 1982, 22122).
In a later section of his book, Lovett reaches his actual concern: Witnessing for
Christ through the new and fit body acquired in his program (Lovett [1977] 1982,
200). The fit body of the believer, he writes, will become a provoker to talk about
Jesus. Whats the point of being trim and attractive unless youre going to use it for
Jesus? To have a nice looking body for the sake of appearance only is vanity (Lovett
[1977] 1982, 20405).
First Place 4 Health In the 1980s, devotional fitness expands to national and inter-
national organizations, large enough to compete seriously with secular fitness
chains and weight-loss companies. The largest organizations founded in this decade
are First Place 4 Health, Body & Soul, and Weigh Down Workshop. First Place 4
Health wants to provide a Biblical, health-oriented program that enables individu-
als to achieve wellness in mind, body, soul and spirit based on a relationship with
Jesus Christ (First Place 4 Health, 2011). This program owes its title to the claim
that it puts Christ first in every area of life, particularly in the area of losing weight
and becoming healthy (First Place 4 Health 2011).
The organization was founded in 1980in Houstons First Baptist Church. Since
1986, the program has been offered in other churches as well. In 1992, an official
partnership with the Southern Baptist Convention was established which lasted until
2000. Since then, they partner with Gospel Light, a Christian publishing house, that
is responsible for revising and designing the new program and publishing materials
(Christian Broadcasting Network [2008]).
First Place 4 Health is a non-profit organization with a governing board of direc-
tors and a small team of full-time employees. Group leaders are volunteers who
base their work on class books specifically designed for this purpose. They have a
comprehensive leaders guide and do not require special training as I learned in an
interview with Vicki Heath, one of the leaders of the organization.
As it is rooted in the Southern Baptist Convention, the organization still has
many classes in Southern Baptist congregations but is non-denominational. Apart
from Southern Baptist congregations, they cooperate with the YMCA, Catholic
churches, public schools and corporations. Internationally, Heath told me, groups
emerge in the vicinity of US military institutions, particularly in Australia and
Japan. They sometimes hold classes in Germany and Great Britainusually in the
vicinity of US military bases, too, but these are not continually active.
Vicki Heath had been involved in First Place 4 Health for almost two decades as
a group leader at her church when she joined the staff as associate director in 2006.
Heath is an instructor at Body & Soul, too, and teaches aerobics on two First Place
4 Health DVDs (First Place 4 Health, 2011; Body & Soul 2008) which demonstrates
connections within the field on personal levels.14
As the program intends to improve all areas of life, they claim, First Place is not
just about dropping pounds. Its about achieving balance. This balance is only
possible when we put our relationship with Christ first, Carole Lewis explains in an
interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network (Christian Broadcasting
Network [2008]). Although weight-loss is often played down in official communi-
cation, Lewis does not forget to emphasize: Whether you need to lose 100 pounds
or you just cant seem to get rid of those last ten, First Place 4 Health is for you
(Christian Broadcasting Network [2008]). Quite typical for contemporary
14
Another such example is Lindas First Place 4 Health small group on Long Island which invited
an instructor from PraiseMoves, an organization offering Christian alternatives to yoga, to one of
their meetings to introduce their program.
d evotional fitness, protagonists manage to talk around the fine lines of superficial
motivations like weight-loss (which are necessary to attract customers) and deeper
(i.e., accepted) motivations like growing in their faith. Lewis adds, However, if all
youre looking for is a diet or a quick fix to lose weight, then this program will dis-
appoint you (Christian Broadcasting Network [2008]).
As mentioned in Chap. 2, Lynne Gerber has researched this program extensively.
The central feature of First Place 4 Health, according to Gerber, is that it celebrates
thinness as Gods normative ideal (Gerber 2012b). Stepping on the scales becomes
an arbiter of fidelity to the virtues of weight-loss, an authority established by the
program and reinforced in American culture (Gerber 2012b). Consistent with my
observations, Gerber describes the weigh-in as the opening ritual of every
meeting. In this ritual, individual weight is recorded and the weeks scripture is
recited. The fusion between religiosity and weight-loss that marks First Place is
exemplified in that moment where the member is held accountable to two sacred
symbols of Gods power and will: scripture and the scale (Gerber 2012b).
Gerber researched First Place 4 Health at a time when the nine commitments
were still an operative part of the program, that is, before 2008. Gerbers analysis
remains instructive, however, especially her findings as to matters of success and
failure (see page 193 f). She concludes that there is a central ambiguity in the
program. First, it can be a weight-loss program whose value is enhanced by the
inclusion of spiritual practices, or a secular venture, luring believers into its pro-
grams by adding a spiritual varnish to a worldly practice (Gerber 2012b). Second,
it can also be a spiritual program whose value is enhanced by the inclusion of
weight-loss practices, a religious program incorporating non-religious ideals, here
slimness (Gerber 2012b). Gerber observes that First Place 4 Health positions itself
as the first: as a weight-loss program that is enhanced by spirituality (Gerber
2012b).
To my mind, the central ambiguity of the program (spiritually enhanced secu-
lar program vs. secularly influenced spiritual program) according to Gerbers study
is only one way of rendering the question of the programs identity. It mirrors emic
conceptualizations of secular vs. religious as two distinct fields. While that will
meet most of the participants view of the world they are living in, one can, from a
religious studies point of view, focus instead on the ways in which this distinction is
continually debated and (re-)produced. Therefore, I seek to leave behind notions of
secular vs. religious spheres of society and will re-entangle these categories on
the level of analysis.
Moreover, one should add to Gerbers account that in the programs I researched
people rarely understand thinness as Gods explicit desire. The narratives I encoun-
tered approach this issue rather diligently, carefully avoiding a conflation of what is
perceived to be a secular (and therefore despicable) quest for thinness and a
quest to follow Gods calling. The intricacies of this question are palpable in Carole
Lewis wording that God loves us just the way we are, but too much to let us stay
that way (Lewis 2001, 24). This statement gives a specific twist to the popular idea
that God loves you just the way you are. God loves you even if you are over-
weightthat is the clear message. However, if you truly follow God, you will have
to change according to his plan which, supposedly, involves slimming down and
getting healthy.
Finally, Gerbers account of First Place 4 Health is based on a version of the
program that is no longer distributed and officially taught. This is a welcome oppor-
tunity to shed some light on the restructuring which took place in 2008. In Lewis
2001 book (Lewis 2001), the nine commitments are listed right in the introduction.
Becoming involved with the program, one is asked to adopt these nine areas into
your life to develop a lifestyle of seeking Him first in all areas of your lifeemo-
tionally, spirituality, mentally and physically (First Place 4 Health [before 2008],
13). The nine commitments are:15
1. Attendance: Participants attend small group meetings for a session of thirteen
weeks and are encouraged not to miss a single meeting.
2. Encouragement: Participants encourage each other by staying in contact between
meetings.
3. Prayer: Everyone is expected to set aside prayer time each day and keep a prayer
journal daily.
4. Bible Reading: Regularly reading the Bible is an integral part of the life of an
obedient Christian and absolutely essential for spiritual growth.
5. Scripture Memory Verse: Every week, members memorize a verse which is con-
nected to the respective Bible lesson and will be recited at the next weigh-in.
6. Bible Study: A ten-week Bible study (beginning after the second meeting) is
meant to build your spiritual fitness as you build your physical fitness (Lewis
2001, 23).
7. Live-It Plan: First Place 4 Health does not offer a diet but a live-it plan
which helps members to learn balanced eating habits (Lewis 2001, 23).
8. Commitment Record: This record is meant to increase awareness of what you
eat each day (Lewis 2001, 23) and will be submitted each week.
9. Exercise: The program strongly recommends an exercise program like aerobics,
walking, jogging, or biking.
In 2008, the program was completely rewritten and intentionally simplified (First
Place 4 Health 2011). Instead of focusing on the nine commitments, the program
now focuses on four core areas of healthy living, (physical, mental, emotional,
spiritual) thus following a more holistic approach. The nine commitments are still a
part of the program but presented differently and less overwhelming, as Heath
suggested in an e-mail-conversation with me.
The program presents its core as remaining unquestioned, only the organization
and presentation of these principles is supposed to be different.16 They erased
15
Listed here according to First Place 4 Health [before 2008] and Lewis 2001b (2124).
16
In fact, the First Place 4 Health group I visited on Long Island, NewYork, also uses the nine
commitments even though the leader herself got involved with the program only in 2010. In an
e-mail, Linda explains, I encourage the ladies, and myself, to follow the nine commitments. []
I often use one or two as a weekly or whole session challenge for the participants. Anyway I feel it
is very wise advice!
commitment language from their profile because they wanted to clarify that First
Place 4 Health is not about rigid rules; its about helpful invitations (Christian
Broadcasting Network [2008]). They realized that people sometimes looked at
commitments as laws, and if laws were broken, then guilt and rigidity set in
(Christian Broadcasting Network [2008]). Now they are encouraging people to
make positive changes while allowing for imperfections and individual adjust-
mentswhich is more of a change than they officially admit. These tendencies
contrast with Griffiths observation that authors since the 1970s tend to speak in a
much stronger tone of condemnation and exigency compared to Shedd, Pierce, and
Kane (Griffith 2004, 18283).17
Body & Soul Fitness Body & Soul FitnessWhere Faith and Fitness Meetis
a program developed by Jeannie and Roy Blocher from Germantown, Maryland, in
1981. Jeannie Blocher, with whom I spoke extensively about her involvement in
Body & Soul, was already teaching fitness classes in Maryland. She was asked to
help at an event on the theme body and soul at their church and she did the physi-
cal part and organized an aerobics class, which was perfectly in line with the rising
aerobics movement. They wanted something unique and sought to intertwine spiri-
tual and physical things, because they knew that this was true as Jeannie Blocher
told me. Usually, people would use secular music to accompany sports but she
chose Christian musican uncommon choice in the 1980s. She created a choreog-
raphy and the women who participated in this workshop just loved it. So they
continued in their basement and more and more women came until they started
offering fitness classes all over the country. In the beginning, it was just for women,
but today it is open to men and women, although they still have more women than
men.
The organization mainly operates in the United States but they also have classes
in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa, Hungary, Great Britain, Belgium and
the Netherlands (Body & Soul 2008). Just like First Place 4 Health, Body & Soul
realized a new design in 2008, a new fitness program, logo, and web site, a fresh
vision to take Body & Soul to all the world (Blocher 2008, 2).
Body & Souls goal is to encourage you to pursue both physical and spiritual
fitness, wherever you are in the world (Body & Soul 2008). Their approach is
based on the assumption that fitness involves more than just your body and that
developing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle is part of being a good steward of
this physical body weve been given. Therefore, and in contrast to First Place 4
Health with its small group Bible studies, they place a major emphasis on exercise
classes that are designed to help you get (and stay) in shape. They assume that
there is more to fitness than a great workout and hence want to impact all other
areas of life by following a truly holistic approach to fitness because there is a
tangible connection between the physical and spiritual dimensions of our lives
Griffith, however, focuses more on Weigh Down Workshop and the demonstrably rigid teachings
17
of Gwen Shamblin (Griffith 2004a, 182).

(Body & Soul 2008). Here, we may note an explicit reference to holistic concepts
which is a communicative element that I explore in more detail below (page 195 ff).
Ben Lerner The first decade of the twenty-first century saw an unfettered continu-
ation of devotional fitness engaging with new forms of popular culture, especially
embracing notions of wellness, harmony, and holistic health. Body by God by Ben
Lerner (2003) is one such example. Similar to many Christians in the field, Ben
Lerner went through a period of struggle before he found his mission. A personal
tragedy occurred to him when his father died at age fifty-two and his mother had a
stroke (Carpenter [2003]). As a result of these traumatic events he realized that
his parents poor health was not the result of a single probleminstead they
needed to eat better, exercise more, be less stressed, and manage their time better
(Maximized Living 2011). Thus began his quest for a holistic approach to sustain-
able health, labeled Maximized Living.18 He studied nutrition and psychology,
became a chiropractor and discovered a proven pathway to build health instead of
merely treating disease (Maximized Living 2011). Lerner had always been inter-
ested in exercise and healthy eating, but the spiritual side of his personality had not
been nourished when growing up in a non-practicing Jewish family [in NewYork,
NY]. So, I didnt have Jesus Christ in my life (Carpenter [2003]). When his father
died, he started reading the Bible and found Christ (Carpenter [2003]).
Lerner labels his book the owners manual for maximized living in your Body
by God (Lerner 2003, 5). In his book, Body by God, Lerner proposes that prosper-
ity can only be found by finding success in many areas of your lifestyle and not just
one (Lerner 2003, 3). A necessary element to be taken care of in this enterprise is
the bodythe most awesome, divine, complex gift in the world (Lerner 2003, 5).
As the body is inherently perfect, every humanly devised attempt to change or
improve the body will ultimately fail. Therefore, Lerner intends to explain how to
stop interfering with Gods creation (Lerner 2003, 13). God does not need our help
to save the things He has so magnificently created, He just needs us to stop interfer-
ing (Lerner 2003, 14). The simple conclusion is: Your body is not your own! Your
body is not only by God, it is for God, and it is Gods (Lerner 2003, 12). To fulfill
their God-given mission, Lerner encourages his readers to take care of their body
in a way that allows it to thrive and live up to its potential (Lerner 2003, 12). The
idea that we need to trim our body to be prepared to do Gods work will come up
again in the analysis of the argumentative structure of devotional fitness below.
Lerner introduces his program as an owners manual, comparable to manuals
for cars, stereos, watches, and computers (Lerner 2003, 56), one that we should
read carefully to get the most benefit, enjoyment, and longest use out of your BBG
[Body by God] (Lerner 2003, 56). The language of the owners manual sug-
gests a mechanistic body image (see also page 182). The guidelines for fueling
your Body by God that you will read in this part are not about a diet, because it is
Maximized Living is a health and fitness program founded by Lerner and his wife Sheri, together
18
with Greg and Maryella Loman, in order to educate the world on health and wellness principles
(Maximized Living 2011).
clear that diets are too hard and painful and thus do not work. Instead, we will focus
on the Un-Diet (Lerner 2003, 36). Using a counter-mainstream approach (one
that is popular in devotional fitness), Lerner marks his program as unconventional
and highlights its supposedly unique features compared to other, competing
programs.
Lerners book does not only refer to weight-loss and fitness, but includes strate-
gies for handling stress too (Stress Management for Your Body by God). The
range of the program is thus extended beyond its primary area (physical fitness) and
becomes a general life management program in combination with the next part of
the book, which contains Lerners thoughts about time management. Thus, the
author expands the concept of Body by God to Life by God (Lerner 2003, 289).
The concept of a Life by God builds on a critique of modern society to some
extent. This modern und advanced living allows for no quiet, peaceful time in
nature. This makes it very difficult to really hear, see, and, especially, feel the pres-
ence of God (Lerner 2003, 327). Quiet time with God is a way to distance oneself
from this world. It should be spent in an area free from disturbance, focused on
ones breath (Lerner 2003, 32728). These notions illustrate how the identity of
Lerners program (its unique selling proposition, to borrow a term from market
economics) emerges from selectively criticizing and embracing elements of the
above-analyzed societal discourses and values, supported by values deduced from
evangelical discourses. Lerners stress on the importance of trying to feel Gods
presence substantiates the assumption that contemporary evangelicals focus on
bodily and emotionally perceptible connections to Godan argumentative compo-
nent that will resurface throughout this study, addressed from the perspective of
aesthetics of religion.
Rick Warren The 2010s saw further development of devotional fitness. As it
developed and adjusted to changing needs, it remained centered in the fundamental
principle that God has something to do with a Christians weight and fitness. Rick
Warrens Daniel Plan, officially introduced in 2011, may well be considered as one
of the most recent and most successful manifestations of the discourse of devotional
fitness.
The Daniel Plan, launched on January 15, 2011, is part of a campaign called
Decade of Destiny and aims to improve the physical and spiritual health of its
participants. As the name indicates, the program is inspired by the biblical character
Daniel (see footnote 15, page 141). It is meant to help you adapt a healthy life-
stylenot just another short-term diet (Eastman 2010). Instead of the terms related
to diet or overweight, the logo visually and verbally focuses on health, which
is a difference compared to older programs that often more openly discussed reduc-
ing and overweight. Still, the external marker of health is slimness.
On March 3, 2011, only a month and a half after the opening event, 8500 people
had joined the program according to Saddleback officials. By 2014, the number of
participants had risen to about 15,000, according to the programs website (Eastman
2010). It is unclear, however, how many of these actively and regularly follow the
program. Adaptive towards popular culture and popular music specifically, The
Daniel Plan has a theme song devised by worship leader Rick Muchow on the basis
of the song Set Free, which had been used by fitness coach Tom Wilson during the
second Health and Fitness Seminar on March 19th, 2011. Muchow revised the lyr-
ics to be Daniel Plan approved (Muchow 2011). They center on the motif of being
available to the Lords mercy and asking God to make the singer exactly what he
wants him to be; only then is he able to serve God well. A condition of that is that
one becomes free of fat. The lyrics later point out how this goal will be achieved by
repeating several times that one will not eat trans fats or fries any more (Muchow
2011). While the musicians performed the song, several participants and the leading
physicians of the program were on stage, doing aerobic moves. Pictures of athletic
people, fruits and vegetables, and families in outdoor settings appeared on a huge
silver screen over the stage.19
A concise aphorism at the heart of Warrens program is, The Father made your
body, Jesus paid for your body, and the Spirit lives in your body, so you better take
care of it as Warren pointed out during the first event of the program (Warren
etal. 2011). Warren himself joined the program in the very beginning, announcing
his goal to lose ninety pounds in the following year20 (Eastman 2010). In this regard,
The Daniel Plan is similar to earlier programs which usually emphasize their found-
ers experience with overweight and dieting.
Authority comes from God and physicians. They rely on the Heavenly Father to
guide us, support us, and encourage us every step of the way and have recruited
the best expertsnamely Mark Hyman, Dr. Daniel Amen, and Dr. Mehmet Oz
(Eastman 2010; see also footnote 38, page 167). The program differs from earlier
plans insofar as it explicitly invokes the power of medical authority (which was usu-
ally a secondary matter). Via online tracking and self-managed online profiles, par-
ticipants will be part of one of the largest clinical studies about changing lifestyle
habits (Eastman 2010).
So far, I have presented selected programs of devotional fitness since the 1950s
in order to create familiarity with the field, to outline important developments and
transformations and to underscore the diversity among the programs. The next
chapter elaborates more thoroughly on the various programs in the field in a more
comparative and analytical fashion.
19
To watch the performance visit http://saddleback.com/mc/m/957d8/, accessed 6 July 2013.
20
By January 2012, Warren had reportedly lost 60 pounds.
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Part III
Analysis of Empirical Data: Products,
Narratives, and Theologies
Chapter 6
Devotional Fitness asDiscourse andEmbodied
Practice
Abstract In what follows, I bring to life the elements which I have mentioned in
the condensed summary given in the introduction (Chap. 1). I elaborate on the con-
nection of God and the believers body, the central topic of devotional fitness,
because devotional fitness as a system of communications and embodiments
revolves around the motif of the body as Gods temple. I also explain how exercise
routines are perceived as enactments of Gods will, which is essential to devotional
fitness. The sections in this chapter shed light on devotional fitness from different
analytic angles, trying to understand its inner relations and implicit semiotic and
semantic structures.
Keywords Market of devotional fitness Target groups Body as temple theology

Embodying conversion narratives Healing and transformation
The goal of this books third main section is to give a systematic account of the
semiotic system here referred to as the discourse of devotional fitness. I have tried
to reconstruct general processes, structures, and relations in the field, which are
often disguised, seemingly chaotic, or simply not directly visible in their
entanglements.
The communications occurring within (and beyond) this discourse are connected
to each other, either directly or indirectly. It holds that they are not endemic to the
system of devotional fitnessthey are not genuinely and inherently of devotional
fitness. What makes the system genuine, however, are the relations, hierarchies
and mediatizations of these communicative elements, the ways they are used,
explained, valued, and embodied. The relationships among these can have different
qualities. They can be closely connected with regard to their content and usually
used in combination, they may never be used in close vicinity, or they can be openly
or implicitly hierarchized and prioritized. It is the specific combination of ideology,
practice, and organization that creates a field of devotional fitness.

128 6 Devotional Fitness asDiscourse andEmbodied Practice
6.1 D
evotional Fitness asEconomic Sector andPractical
Product
6.1.1 Operational andOrganizational Structures
This chapter examines the market of devotional fitness. As the language of the
market suggests, I deal with evangelical fitness programs as companies providing
products to (potential) customers. Though this perspective may be overly reductive
when trying to understand participants life worlds, it is well suited to sketch the
basic structures of the field concerning its institutional and practical characteristics.
Who offers what kind of programs, what exactly do they do and how do they sell
their program? Some useful concepts in this regard are competition (within and
outside of devotional fitness); distribution; organizational and operational struc-
tures; merchandising; product design, application range of the products, and
unique selling proposition.
Operational Processes and Organizational Structures I begin with a few words
on the operational processes and organizational structures of the companies in the
field. The term operational process refers to the process of production. The prod-
uct in a devotional fitness program is a promise that comes with a servicea service
offering weight-loss, physical healing, spiritual growth, and fitness within a
Christian framework. This service is usually produced in a small team around the
founder of a program or by a single author or trainer.
The term organizational structure refers to how the company or enterprise is
organizationally set up. Most programs have some sort of headquarters or executive
officeWeigh Down Ministries have theirs in Nashville, Tennessee (Weigh Down
Ministries 2010), others have their headquarters at the locality of their founders
original congregation or main abode. This is where central decisions are made
which are then communicated to the branch offices. Branch offices serve as inter-
mediary agents between headquarters and local groups. Weigh Down Workshop, as
a speaker told me in an interview, appoints representatives for regions in the United
States and for countries around the world. In smaller companies, there is no inter-
mediary element between headquarters and customers. The service is distributed via
distribution channels (often internet-based platforms) to the consumer.
The local businesses are led either by volunteers who are unaffiliated with the
company apart from their interest in supporting the program; or they are led by
franchiseesindividuals officially authorized by the company to spread their pro-
gram and operate a local business. The organizational structure therefore offers dif-
ferent options as to the degree of control over the implementation of a program by
a local representative.
A case with less control is First Place 4 Health, where anyone may set up a group
without any prior knowledge, using materials provided by the organization. These
groups will take place in church and non-church settings alike and there are no con-
tractual obligations. An example of a more controlled franchising model is Wholly
6.1Devotional Fitness asEconomic Sector andPractical Product 129
Fitness which is a licensing program. Those interested will purchase a license and
then start up a business as prescribed by Wholly Fitness (2010). Franchising gives
the founder more control over what happens in local groups and the franchisees
profit from the companys brand and resources. On the other hand, the franchisor
does not distribute the product directly to end-users but generates income by selling
licenses. Trainers often need certification which they can acquire in special classes.
In WholyFit, only those trainers who go through their training may open WholyFit
classes (WholyFit 2011). The franchising model fits many programs intention to
spread throughout the market while keeping a clear corporate identity. Often, there
is some mode between voluntarily led local groups and officially authorized fran-
chisees. Programs that rely solely on books, which are not few, do not require any
organizational structures of this kind.
On an organizational level, there are some joint ventures in devotional fitness.
Reynolds (Bod4God, 2009) cooperates with several related programs: Body & Soul
classes are meant to provide opportunities for exercise and workout accompanying
the program. Additionally, they cooperate with First Place 4 Health whose Bible
studies they use for advanced students in their program.
All this shows that evangelical fitness providers engage with the culture that sur-
rounds them. Just as there are now internationally successful evangelical musicians
(see, e.g., Cusic 2010), politicians (see, e.g., Wuthnow 2014), and even evangelical
tattoo artists (Jensen etal. 2000), evangelical fitness entrepreneurs make use of busi-
ness models available to them and set up their programs according to advanced
business strategies. Making money with their products is a part of that, too. Often,
peoples reactions when they hear of the groups analyzed in this study can be sum-
marized as: This has nothing to do with religion; it is just marketing and making
money out of peoples desperation. While this statement is too reductive and disre-
gards both historical contexts and participants own narratives of what they do, the
fitness and weight-loss market indeed is a multi-billion dollar business and evan-
gelical fitness programs without doubt seek a share of this. The price range of devo-
tional fitness programs, however, differs considerably, given the plurality of products
available. Joining Reynolds Losing to Live competition requires the purchase of a
participant kit (including his book and a T-shirt) at $29.99. Theresa Rowes Shaped
by Faith (2008) is available at $19.95, and joining the Body & Soul class at Capital
Baptist costs $5 to $6 per class ($70 to $80 per session). At the pricier end of prod-
ucts, we find WholyFit retreats which are offered at about $700 each for 34 days
of classes and meditation. Additional charges may occur in every program when the
enthusiastic participant purchases fitness equipment and weight-loss supplements.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are free programs, too. Participants of The
Daniel Plan, for example, join at no cost; they often purchase health care products
or books during the program but these are not obligatory.
In order to facilitate distribution, programs make use of advertising and mer-
chandising. Next to their main product (e.g., health, fitness, or slimness), pro-
grams often have online shops that offer products of merchandising. These items,
such as T-shirts featuring the programs logo, are part of what one could call the
marketing of devotional fitness programs. Another savvy marketing move (and
one well-known in the fitness and dieting industry) is to start their program in
January when it is easier to attract customers who have just made their New Years
resolution to lose weight (e.g., Reynolds 2011a).
Public media are appreciated as platforms of marketing and advertising too.
Theresa Rowe presented Shaped by Faith on 100 Huntley Street1 (Brown 2010),
Full Circle2 (Mainse etal. 2011g), The Harvest Show3 (Sumrall and Radelich 2009),
and The 700 Club4 (Watts 2010). Laura Monica appeared on five episodes of Full
Circle, joining them for a Health and Fitness Challenge in the spring of 2011 and
2013 (Mainse etal. 2011a); she also told her story on 100 Huntley Street (Brown
2011). Christian Fitness TV was featured on The Good Life5 (Christian Television
Network 2012). Several talk shows, including The View,6 discussed Bod4God
(Walters etal. 2012).
From all that, I conclude that devotional fitness programs are prepared to use
various distribution channels and means of sales promotion which are available in
order to attract members and followers. In this regard, they do not differ much from
non-Christian fitness and weight-loss programs. Still, they claim to be different.
How exactly they negotiate their identity under these circumstances will be the topic
of a later chapter.
Contemporary evangelicals have often been associated with (and accused of)
market conformity (see, e.g., Joas 2009, 34344). This is not a point I want to stress
here, however. Despite the obvious interest of evangelical fitness programs to adopt
promising organizational features from the economic sector, it seems improperly
reductive to focus on economic and market-oriented features alone. Nonetheless, I
have used terms from economics to examine what needs devotional fitness seeks to
fulfill, which target groups they address, and what the product design looks like.
1
100 Huntley Street is a Canadian talk show broadcasting daily from Crossroads Christian
Communications. David Mainse created the show over 40 years ago; Ron and Ann Mainse host it
today (Brown 2011).
2
Full Circle launched in January 2006 as a Friday edition of 100 Huntley Street and has run daily
since January 2011 (Mainse etal. 2011a). It is broadcast by the Crossroads Television System.
3
The Harvest Show is broadcast from Southbend, Indiana, and serves as outreach for the Lester
Sumrall Evangelistic Association (LeSEA Broadcasting 2012).
4
The 700 Club is a long-established talk show produced by the Christian Broadcasting Network
(Jorstad 1993, 37). They also featured La Vita M.Weavers Fit for God (Weaver 2011).
5
The Good Life is the flagship program for The Christian Television Network which produces
Christian Fitness TV. The networks president and his wife host the show (Christian Television
Network 2010).
6
The View, launched in 1997, broadcasts weekdays from NewYork City. In August 2009, the show
received a Daytime Emmy Award for outstanding talk show hosts. In May 2009, the hosts were
named among the 100 Most Influential People in the World by Time. In July 2009, Forbes ranked
the hosts number eleven among the 30 of the Most Influential Women in Media (ABC 2012).
6.1.2 Needs oftheMarket andTarget Groups
Which needs do programs of devotional fitness satisfy, or claim to satisfy? What are
the initial motivations for participants to join a program, or to purchase a book or
exercise tape for the first time? Participants interests are manifold and answering
these questions is not simple. We have to distinguish what program officials say
about participants initial motivations from what followers themselves say. Further,
we can never know if what either party tells us is the real motivation or merely a
socially approved motivation. Bearing this difficulty in mind, I nonetheless hold
that the universally accepted motivation is weight-loss. Participants, instructors, and
program designers admit that the primary goal of virtually all who join is to slim
down. Adjacent needs to be met are those for health and improved general fitness.
This need for weight-loss has been culturally accepted at least since the 1950s.
The market supplying solutions to these needs has been growing ever since the
beginning of the twentieth century and it is an industry amounting to $60.9 billion
in 2010 (LaRosa 2011). In January 2011, there were almost 30,000 health and fit-
ness clubs in the United States, having 50.2 million members (10.8% more than in
2009) (N.N. 2012, 82). These figures refer to the entire market, including secular,
Christian, and other programs, but they might offer a clue as to the economic dimen-
sions of the market sector in which devotional fitness programs seek a share.
Providers intend to fill a market niche for Christian consumers and thus take over
societal functions for special interest groups. Gregor Schrettle quotes from David
Meinz (Eating by the Book, 1999) who estimates that Christian dieting programs
alone make up about 5 % of the dieting industry (Schrettle 2006, 1819).7
Devotional diet literature has been successful since it arose. Charlie Shedds The
Fat is in Your Head (first published 1972), remained on the National Religious
Bestseller list for 23 months (Christian News Service 1975, 7980) and sold 120,000
copies by November 1975 (Christian News Service 1976, 127). C.S. Lovetts Help
Lord: The Devil Wants Me Fat! (first published 1977) sold almost 99,000 copies
between in November 1977 and October 1978, on par with Shirley Cooks Diary of
a FAT Housewife (1977) which sold 100,000 copies in the same period (Lambert
1979, 22). Therefore, in the first year after their publication, both titles were among
the top 20 % of all Christian books by sales.
Today, Amazon seller ranks and bestseller lists, though by no means absolute
scales, are illustrative in determining how successful a specific program has become.
Many publications may be found near the bottom of Amazons seller rankings, yet
a few manage to enter the top 100 within their category.8
7
Isherwood, not revealing her sources, estimates that, in 2000, the overall market of Christian diet
products amounted to 77 billion dollars (Isherwood 2008, 75)a figure that seems biased given
that the entire US weight-loss market was not as huge 10 years later.
8
As of September 2011, Walking the Walk: Getting Fit With Faith (Leslie Sansone and Rowan
Jacobsen 2007) was ranked as #41in Health, Mind & Body > Exercise & Fitness > Walking
(#204,172in books). Fasting for Spiritual Breakthrough: A Guide to Nine Biblical Fasts (Elmar
L.Towns 1996) made ranking #51in Religion & Spirituality > Spirituality > Prayer (#26,145in
Participants Initial Motivations Turning back to participants initial motiva-

tions, Candace Anger (Weigh Down Workshop) explained to me that members first
motivations are weight-loss and emotional healing. Nan (Body & Soul) put it sim-
ple: People want to look nice for the summer. Looking nice for the summer (or
for their husbands), though, is a motivation attributed to female participantsand
one that is well-known in non-religious dieting too. Men, on the other hand, are
expected to join to become effective leaders (Reynolds 2012), and to become the
man God created you to be, as Nelson Searcy puts it in his foreword to Reynolds
Get off the Couch (2012). He adds that making a decision to take control of my
health and getting the upper hand on my weight and health issues (Searcy 2012,
13) were crucial factors of his motivation. Accepted reasons to partake in a weight-
loss or fitness program are thus gendered in a way that mirrors normalized images
of femaleness and maleness.
Weight-loss being an accepted initial motivation, program officials and partici-
pants stress that there is more to their program than profane reasons such as
weight-loss. No doubt, there are people joining a Body & Soul class merely for the
physical exercise (as I was told in a class in Montvale, New Jersey), but most pro-
gram information and published materials emphasize the spiritual side of their pro-
gram. Melinda Estabrooks stresses in Full Circle, We need to start with the heart,
prayer, even meditation on scripture (Mainse etal. 2011f). Body & Soul instructor
Liz said that although the first motive is to lose weight and become slim and fit, that
over time peoples walk with God would get stronger. They would become health-
ier and more joyful and could dedicate their lives to God. If that self-representation
is in fact mirrored on the level of social reality on a broader scale is beyond my
judgment, but it is an important element of the construction of a self-image as dif-
ferent from the non-Christian fitness market.
Most programs are not overly concerned about people joining them for profane
weight-loss. First, this is a way to involve and potentially evangelize non-Christians.
Often, programs do not conceal their missionary intentionsthis is the case, e.g.,
with both Laura Monica and Robert Evans. Second, they point out that peoples
profane desire to lose weight is grounded in their unconscious search for God, as,
e.g., Jeannie Blocher (Body & Soul) told me. Providers of devotional fitness are not
bothered when participants join their programs for such profane reasons, because
these are understood and recontextualized as expressions of deeper spiritual
desiresand peoples excess flesh indicates that these desires have remained unmet.
This idea is tied to a particular concept of the human being and its religious disposi-
tion to which I return on page 183.
books). Made to Crave: Satisfying Your Deepest Desire With God, not Food (Lysa TerKeurst 2010)
even made it to #1in Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > Theology, and number #36in
Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Christian Living (#632in books). Made to Crave also
appeared on the New York Times bestseller list (Kennedy 2012). Body by God (Lerner 2003)
reached #13 on that list only a month after its release (Business Editors 2003).
Targeted Group of Customers Who are the people who have these initial motiva-
tions? Who participates in programs of devotional fitness? This section looks at the
targeted group of customers who may be characterized by gender, age, race, physi-
cal ability, and religious orientation. Apart from the shared motivation of seeking
the land of health and good fitness, as Ann Mainse (host of the TV show Full
Circle) humorously expressed it (Mainse etal. 2011d), the average participant of
devotional fitness programs is female, middle-aged, white, overall physically unim-
paired, and Christian (Griffith 2004a, 22526). This generalization, of course, must
be put into perspective given the diversity of the field. There are, for example, pro-
grams run and attended mainly by African Americans, and there are a rising number
of programs focusing on men.
Gender Some programs address women implicitly by using female pronouns, con-
forming to female stereotypes, and responding to female needs (belly, butt,
thighs). An example is Theresa Rowes Shaped by Faith, a program offering
whole-person wellness on the basis of Pilates. Others are explicitly directed at
women, like the PraiseMoves classes offered by Clare, or Diana Andersons Fit for
Faith (2011a), and Lindas First Place 4 Health group. The idea is that women and
men simply cannot lose weight together; that women need a safe space, as their
weight issues are understood to result from emotional issues that stem from experi-
ences with abusive fathers, husbands, or other male figures, as Linda told me.
Consequently, ninety percent of all Body & Soul classes are for women only.
Obviously, program designers assume that the needs I have outlined above are
mostly felt by women. This translates to a stereotypical image of women as being
incapable of eating healthily on their own, as needing help with their weight
issues, and as being required to meet certain body ideals more strictly (and more
often) than men.
Yet there is a growing market share of male programs, which has only been dis-
cussed superficially in previous studies. The Power Team, a group of bodybuilders,
tours the country with a performance of visually explosive feats of strength and
shares the Gospel (The Power Team 2007). This program does not actively recruit
members and, as such, is not a typical representative of devotional fitness.
Nonetheless, I include this group in my corpus of materials as their celebration of
the muscular male body in a decidedly evangelical context, and their way of wit-
nessing through their bodies makes them discursively and practically germane to
most programs in the genre (on The Power Team, see also pages 147 f and 174 f).
Lerners Body by God is directed at men as well, starting from the cover that fea-
tures Lerner himself as a muscular, successful, and confident achiever.
Men are also invited to join Emily Mayhews Exercise with Purpose (Mayhew
2011), as well as classes offered by PraiseMoves, Body & Soul, or First Place 4
Health. Services directed at men, however, look considerably different compared to
those designed for women, which is due to gendered underlying body ideals. Men
are required to shape their muscles in order to fulfill their duties both in church and
in the family, which agrees with the ideal of a Christian man who is a breadwinner
for his family, a caring husband, a devoted father, a model in his church community
(Bielo 2009, 63). Neither are they primarily expected to make attractive husbands,
nor are they assumed to work out in Pilates or aerobics classes which are perceived
to address female needs only.
Homosexuality is not an issue in official communications of the programs I
researched. Only in their language of being family-friendly, programs implicitly
exclude homosexual participants (see, e.g., Owensboro Christian Church 2008;
Richardson Joyner 2006). I did not encounter any explicit statement on the possibil-
ity of openly homosexual members but it is very likely that gay participants are
virtually non-existent due to evangelicals traditional apprehensiveness about and
condemnation of non-traditional genders.9
Gender is a popular and debated category in the academic study of evangeli-
calism and a field of potential conflict in insiders discussions. Pamela Cochran, in
her monograph Evangelical Feminism (2004), points out that evangelicals are usu-
ally associated with social conservatism, including support for traditional gender
roles (Cochran 2004, 12). Traditional gender roles prevail in devotional fitness,
too, and the construction of gender roles and norms is closely connected to body
ideals which, in turn, shapes the design of services offered in the market of devo-
tional fitness. Schwartz points out that when women try to lose weight, they are
suspected not to be able to deal with it on their own. Men, on the other hand, if they
feel they need to lose weight, are dealing with a problem they can and will take into
their own hands. Women, in brief, are passively suffering until they join a weight-
loss group; men are actively tackling their weight issues (Schwartz 1986, 1819).
Not always, but often, this image is mirrored in devotional fitness programs that
require men to get off the couch (Reynolds 2012) and women to seek the com-
munity and guidance of a small group (First Place 4 Health).
Age The target group of devotional fitness is not only specified by gender, but also
by age. Many programs develop classes or regimens for special age groups. Theresa
Rowe (Shaped by Faith) and Robert Evans (Christian Fitness TV) count seniors
among their followers. Donna Richardson Joyner (Sweating in the Spirit) wel-
comes, next to women and families, children to her workouts and Christian Fitness
TV produced a show specifically designed for children.
In the context of general developments in the evangelical field, the emergence of
specialized classes for children may be understood as a means to diversify programs
for economic reasons and to evangelize in every age group. The slimness imperative
no longer binds only people of young and middle age. In the 1950s, adolescents
9
Gerbers analysis of the former organization Exodus International in Seeking the Straight and
Narrow (Gerber 2012a) demonstrates their unwillingness to accept homosexuality. However,
according to recent research by Jeremy N.Thomas and Daniel V.A. Olson published in Sociology
of Religion, evangelical elites, while still showing opposition to homosexuality in their majority,
have changed their attitude slightly over the past decades. Based on their analysis of the magazine
Christianity Today, the authors observe that evangelical elites, mirroring laymens slowly liberal-
izing attitudes, have started to evoke new sources of moral authority and thus to take up alternate
positions on homosexuality (Thomas and Olson 2012).
were among the target group of the weight-loss and fitness industry. In the 1960s,
grade-schoolers were included, and since the 1970s, the full force of the culture of
slimming subdues even toddlers and infants (Schwartz 1986, 269). Parents have
projected onto the bodies of children their own fears of a lethal, permanent fat,
Schwartz diagnoses (Schwartz 1986, 269). The book Raising Fit Kids in a Fat World
(Halliday and Jack 2007) is only one of several illustrative examples10 that I have
dealt with more extensively on page 178 f. Even senior citizens feel compelled to
shape their bodies in order to stay young despite the inescapable fate of every
body to eventually mature, grow old, and decline. Here, we may observe a central
contradiction in (Christian and non-Christian) fitness programs: The fact that they
are not just about staying healthy, but also about staying youngeven to the point
of reversing the process of ageing (think of anti-aging products, e.g.).
Ethnicity Ethnic diversity is relatively scarce among participants and leaders in the
genre. Typically, actors are white and they seek after the idealized white body, a
racialized body norm that pervades much of US society. Griffith notes that both
evangelical and secular American fitness culture foster the reproduction and nat-
uralization of a racialized ideal of whiteness (Griffith 2004a, 225). In her critique
of evangelical dieting programs, Isherwood also notes the implicit tendencies of
racial discrimination (Isherwood 2008, 93). Non-white bodies prove almost non-
existent in the literature of devotional fitness (Griffith 2004a, 227), especially in that
of the first few decades after the 1950s. Hence, the Christian body image is implic-
itly a white body image. This, however, is not communicated openly and topics such
as race are not treated elaborately in these programs. Griffith did not come across
any program that claimed outright to be directed toward an all-white readership or
even deliberately treated race at all (Griffith 2004a, 229) and this is still true in the
2010s.
There are notable exceptions where programs are not run and/or mainly followed
by whites: e.g., Paul Eugenes Gospel Aerobics (Eugene 2012a), Diara R.Clarks
F.A.B.*n*F.I.T. Christian Fitness (Clark 2011), Faith Abrahams Jesus Body
(Abraham 2011), and Donna Richardson Joyners Sweating in the Spirit (Richardson
Joyner 2006). In their practice and ideology, these programs do not differ from
white programs. On the contrary, it seems that they merely adopt the dominant
(white) body ideal together with notions of health and fitness. This balances
Griffiths observation that non-white bodies are virtually non-existent, but it con-
firms her assumption that devotional fitness programs impose on African American
participants a racialized white body ideal, reinforced by biblical legitimation.
Physical Ability Programs designed for people with physical disabilities are rare in
devotional fitness where the (potentially) able body is a precondition of achieving
physical fitness through exercise and dieting. It is one of the major critiques towards
devotional fitness that it devalues the disabled body and considers it unworthy of
attention. Isherwood stresses these points as the theologically most unhealthy
10
See, e.g., on the same subject, Mintles Guide to Help Overweight Kids (2005).
aspects of the fundamentalist Protestant obsession with size, shape and fitness
(Isherwood 2008, 79). Indeed, the physically challenged are rarely mentioned by
representatives of devotional fitness neither in their publications nor in personal
communications. There are, however, rare incidents that slightly correct the image
of devotional fitness as ignorant towards disabled people. Christian Fitness TV pro-
duced an episode particularly for viewers with physical disabilities as I learned
when I talked to Evans. Laurette Willis DVD 20 Minute PraiseMoves includes
modifications for those with physical challenges (Willis 2011). Evangelicals atti-
tude towards and interpretation of physical and mental disability is a research field
that I cannot explore further in this study. Suffice it to say here that able bodies are
a necessary precondition to fulfill the expectations of Christian (and secular) fit-
ness programs. Therefore, the topic is not being discussed openly or deeply in the
field and the exclusion of disabled people may become a major point of concern
about these programs.
Religious Orientation Concerning participants religious orientation, most partici-

pants are Christian. Programs make an effort, however, to appeal to non-Christians.
Mostly Christians watch Christian Fitness TV but Robert Evans hopes to attract
Hindus and Muslims too as he said in an interview. Cara (Body & Soul) told me that
half of her participants are active Christians, while the other half is not. However,
despite the publicly declared intention to attract members from religiously diverse
backgrounds, in fact, most participants are, at least nominally, Christians. This is
due to the explicit Christian setting, Christian praise music, biblical scripture, and
the personal networks in Christian churches. The whole setting would be unfamiliar
for people from other backgrounds. During my fieldwork, I did not encounter non-
Christian participants.
The genre, in sum, is heterogeneous in that it addresses different target groups
with slightly different strategies. While the primary goal of weight-loss, fitness, and
health unites all participants, they are suspected to pursue it for different reasons
and in different ways that I shall attend to in the next chapter and that correspond
with underlying body and gender images. The diversification of target groups also
facilitates evangelicalization in different people groups.
6.1.3 Effects, Application Range, Strategies, andMeasures
Now that I have outlined the corporate and organizational structures, the primary
needs addressed by suppliers of devotional fitness programs, and the targeted cus-
tomer groups, I focus on the product itself. The goal of this chapter is to analyze
how programs try to meet the perceived needs of their target groups, in other words:
how providers try to fit the market niche they intend to supply with products and
services; and how these services are put into practice. I also attend to the major dif-
ferences and similarities in different programs responses to needs of specific groups
and demonstrate how notions and practices well-established in the dieting and fit-
ness industry are recontextualized to meet the specific requirements of a Christian
environment. My focus lies on how the concrete mundane practice of dieting and
fitness is rendered an integral part of evangelical everyday life.
Promised Effects A product built on a promise and corresponding services to live
up to that promise is primarily defined by its (alleged or real) effects. Aside from the
obvious, weight-loss and fitness, the promise of devotional fitness programs com-
prises a wide range of effects. These refer to the individuals relationship to God, to
the improvement of social relationships, to the self, and to the body.
Programs claim to enable their members to establish and nourish healthy rela-
tionships to God (e.g., Richardson Joyner 2006) by ensuring that they are able to
better fulfill Gods plan. Regarding social relationships, programs often promise
strengthened social relationships resulting in a harmonious life (e.g., Mainse etal.
2011c) and well-being of the whole family (e.g., Catherine 2008). The individuals
self-image will be renewed in happiness and joy (e.g., Shamblin 2002, 286). People
will be less stressed (e.g., ActivPrayer 2010), and generally more successful (e.g.,
Lerner 2003, 289). Their enhanced appearance will result in improved self-
confidence as, e.g., Heath explained in an interview.
Keeping in mind the gendered specifications of programs mentioned earlier,
weight-loss is still presented as the major effect regarding the male and female body
(e.g., Abraham 2011). This is usually associated with health and healing from ill-
ness (e.g., Lerner 2003, 289), and with being physically fitter, stronger, and more
agile (e.g., WholyFit 2011). Additionally, programs promise to provide more energy,
to make members feel younger, better and more alive (e.g., Rowe 2008, 12939;
Reynolds 2009, 117). In all these regards, devotional fitness programs mirror quite
openly the general fitness and weight-loss market. In contrast to their non-Christian
competition, however, they claim to address non-physical needs too.
This enables them to stress that the most important effects will be internal
changesa useful strategy when outer changes do not happen, such as weight-loss.
Internal effects are not measurable directly but they are supposed to affect external
characteristics. Vicki Heath (First Place 4 Health) told me that people will realize
that God loves and empowers them and so they will have greater self-confidence.
She adds that they will also be able to deal with fears and to express emotions better,
they will have strengthened relationships, and, eventually, they will lose weight and
profit from the psychological effects that accompany weight-loss. Strategically, this
shift from stressing external changes (weight-loss) to focusing on internal changes
comes in handy whenever effects relating to outward features of the human body do
not eventuate. Quantified results are scarce in devotional fitness just as in secular
dieting programs and, generally, there is no hard evidence of the long-term success
of any of these programs.
In sum, devotional fitness programs offer a complete transformation, a holistic
package, so to speak. Exercise with Purpose, for instance, will focus on renewing
your entire mind, body, and spirit! (Mayhew 2011). The concepts transformation
and change are constitutional tropes in evangelical culture and, therefore, a perfect
fit for devotional fitness programs as they are equally well-known in secular fit-
ness discourses too. Evangelicals often read Romans 12:211 as an encouragement to
strive for spiritual transformation and devotional fitness programs embody this
motif when they consider physical and spiritual transformation as mutually depen-
dent (e.g., Rowe 2008, 10506; Willis 2011). Throughout this book, I demonstrate
that devotional fitness programs refine many evangelical notions, such as that of
transformation, in a specifically embodied manner.
Application Range Many programs address the entire human life in all its areas,
and not just the physical sidenot surprisingly, as evangelical theology often
demands to dedicate ones entire life to Jesus and not just follow him in specific
areas. Designers of devotional fitness programs tend to expand the application range
of their programs from fitness and dieting to all kinds of addictions and areas such
as time management and stress management. In some cases, this leads to a complete
life management from a Christian, health-centered perspective. For instance, Ben
Lerner (Body by God) extends his principles so far that he suggests Life by God,
a life in which you have discovered your gifts, are satisfied in your work, take care
of your Body by God, enjoy loving relationships, and experience peacewhatever
your circumstance. Life by God is total prosperity; success in not just one, but in all
of the important areas of your life (Lerner 2003, 325). Responding to a much-
quoted stereotype of never-ending stress in contemporary US society, programs of
devotional fitness do not fail to emphasize their value in stress management.
WholyFit, e.g., uses the bible as the most beautiful source of stress management
(WholyFit 2011).
Thus, the fitness programs discussed here extend beyond their original raison
dtre and provide ways of self-management that extend to many, if not all, areas of
life. From my fieldwork, however, it becomes clear that these suggestions are not
implemented as often as the basic reducing strategies. The intention, though, is
clear: attract people interested in fitness and weight-loss, and then offer them an
evangelically informed perspective on life that goes far beyond the original trigger.
Here, the goal of evangelizing, which many programs openly communicate,
becomes obvious.
Strategies and Measures A product as service can provide strategies and mea-
sures to keep its promise. Sometimes facilities and equipment will be offered as
well, specifically in those plans that are based on small group meetings or fitness
classes. Several patterns emerged in the analysis and most programs, in one way or
the other, touch on strategies of (1) personalization, (2) success and progress con-
trol, (3) motivation, (4) dietary changes, (5) physical activity, and (6) practices
meant to affect participants spirituality. I have structured the following sections
accordingly. However, the field remains highly heterogeneous. Some of these
differences allow for drawing conclusions as to the underlying ideologies or goals
of the respective programs.
11
Romans 12:2: Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind (New International Version 1984).
Personalization Many programs do not work with rigid workout and food plans but
personalize their regimens instead. Bod4God (Steve Reynolds) builds on personal-
ization and teaches members to craft your own individual lifestyle plan (Reynolds
2009, 14). This is based on the assumption that traditional diet plans fail because
people are told to eat what other people chose for them to eat. This will not work
because we dont all have the same appetites, background, or circumstances
(Reynolds 2011b). Personalization is equally valued in The Daniel Plan (Eastman
2010) and Lerner provides various sheets to develop individual routines and record
progress (Lerner 2003, 11931). This is in contrast to the comprehensive, 30-day
diet plan Deborah Pierce developed in 1960, which includes recipes for every day
(Pierce 1960, 3699). In allowing for greater individualization, evangelical diet
plans mirror broader dieting and fitness trends which have, in the last decades,
focused on long-term healthy lifestyles, equipping people with the knowledge to
develop their own meal plansand thus transferring responsibility to them. This
emphasis also tentatively approximates the anti-diet discourse, dissociating from
the mainstream (and allegedly ineffective) fitness industry (page 143), and is in
line with a recent trend towards do-it-yourself diets and fitness programs (LaRosa
2011).
Success and Progress Control In virtually all programs, progress and success are
measured and monitored, especially when programs are organized in groups. These
strategies are supposed to improve motivation, strengthen the participants commit-
ment to the group, and create traceability regarding the individuals
transformation.
Whether someone is on the right path and reaching their goals is most often
measured in pounds.12 Participants progress and success are regularly controlled
and recorded: People weigh in before a First Place 4 Health meeting starts, they
record their food intake minutely, and they are always ready to give you the exact
figure that measures their progressweight-loss. The Daniel Plan not only records
weight-loss via individual online profiles (Eastman 2010), they also undertake
spiritual health assessments to measure spiritual progress. This is to check whether
the five purposes for our life according to Rick Warren (2002, 910) are in good
order. Participants are advised to set goals annually and regularly take some time
to evaluate [their] growth by taking the health assessment again (Eastman 2010).
All these ways of recording and controlling progress provide a way of quantify-
ing success; it offers objective proof of participants efforts and enables them to
summarize their individual attempts, also allowing for comparisons with fellow
dieters, which may spark motivation.
Motivation Strategies of motivation are essential to the success of devotional fit-
ness programs. It can be a hard task to sustain motivation during periods of frustra-
12
The recent version of 3D is an important exception. Due to the founders own troubles with
reaching long-term success (page 112 ff), she does not measure success in pounds anymore
(Showalter and Davis [2002] 2007, 279).
tion; lack of motivation is one of the main reasons to abandon a program. A popular
biblical reference in times of low motivation is Philippians 4:13: I can do all things
through Christ who strengthens me (King James 2000 Bible, 2003). Often, this
verse is quoted in moments of extreme physical or mental exhaustion, and more
generally, it refers to the dieters faith that, with Gods help, she will reach her goals.
Thus, the verse is read due to these programs particular intentions. In a less specific
interpretation of the verse, the Quest Study Bible13 explains, Everything [all things]
means all that God desires us to donot absurd, selfish, or evil things. [] Gods
grace will sustain us no matter where he leadseven when we lack material things
(Quest Study Bible 2003, 1687). Devotional fitness programs specify the interpreta-
tion of this verse, understanding the expression all things as mainly referring to
their weight issues.
Forms of contest can be a corresponding measure of motivation. Competing in
groups or individually is an explicit part of Steve Reynolds Losing to Live competi-
tion (Reynolds 2008a). Implicitly, however, there is often a contest going on when
people try to lose weight together. Sometimes, this feeling of competition is har-
nessed, for example when a First Place 4 Health group adds up miles members have
walked each week, or when the weighing in is semi-publicboth things I experi-
enced at participant observations (see also Gerber 2012b). On the other hand, these
practices hint to a central contradiction at the very basis of devotional fitness ideol-
ogy: the contradiction between the two goals of fostering Christian community and
reaching individual weight-loss. The central goal of all devotional fitness programs,
weight-loss and fitness, can only be reached and measured individually. And,
indeed, some programs do not require any sort of group commitment. Other pro-
grams try to cushion this tendency towards individualism (not to speak of narcis-
sism) by emphasizing the value of Christian fellowship: for example by adding up
individual pounds lost or focusing on communal bible study. Ideologically, they
bridge this basic contradiction by referring to a superordinated value: the need to
fulfill Gods commands regarding the body. According to this, it is necessary to
shape the body, because it is a temple, and because it is a precondition of a
healthy Christian community.
Dietary Changes For people to reach their goal (a healthy and slim body) they
are usually required to implement major dietary changes into their lifestyle. This
strategy connects to a large area of concrete measures meant to control and reduce
what, when, and how much people eatin short, to educate them on nutrition. In
providing a few examples on the concrete rules of devotional dieting regimens that
often mirror secular dieting and fitness discourses, I wish to outline their approach
and to stress the spiritualization and moralization of food intake. An oft-cited
scripture passage in this regard is 1 Corinthians 10:31: So whether you eat or drink
or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God (New International Version 1984).
13
The Quest Study Bible is a widespread annotated edition of the New International Version and,
for the purpose of this study, serves to compare interpretations in devotional fitness with more
commonly accepted readings of the respective passagesbearing in mind, of course, that there is
no generally accepted interpretation of the bible at all.
Protagonists then point out that there are specific ways of eating and drinking that
are more apt to be done for the glory of God than others.
Already in Frances Hunters early contribution to the genre, Gods Answer to
Fat,14 the reader learns to replace bad with good foods (Hunter [1976] 1979,
6768). About 30 years later, Kenneth E. Loy writes in his blog My Body, His
Temple, Eliminate or reduce meat, dairy, white sugar, white flour, white rice, and
caffeine. Use soy, rice, or nut substitutes for milk and soy substitutes for meat. []
Use natural sugar substitutes, such as raw honey, Secant, rice syrup, barley malt,
etc. (Loy 2005). The last and most difficult step of substitution is to let go of that
old way of having fun and replace it with something so much more filling (yet with
no calories!) as a representative of Weigh Down Workshop put it. She obviously
alludes to God. Here, the replacing leaves physical realms and extends into spiri-
tual spheres, and the idea of a relationship to God understood as spiritual food is
embodied.
Calorie-counting is as omnipresent in devotional fitness as it is in secular fit-
ness and dieting ever since it emerged in the 1920s. Frances Hunter advocated for
this in the 1970s (Hunter [1976] Hunter 1979, 53), and Laura Monica still practices
it (as she reports on Full Circle, Mainse etal. 2011f). In the First Place 4 Health
meetings I attended, the host did not neglect to tell everyone that the dishes she was
about to serve during the meeting had only 500 calories. In some cases, though,
designers of devotional fitness programs emphasize that there is no need to care
about calories and nutrients. In an interview, Isadora, Austrian representative of
Weigh Down Workshop, stressed the idea that God knows exactly what we need
therefore, if we completely trust in him, we will be nourished well regardless of
what we eat; God, respectively our body in which God resides, gives us what we
need and when we need it. This is not a widely shared opinion in the discourse and
it is due to Shamblins rather conservative and rigid theological positions that are
wary of anything that might appear idolatrous, like disproportionate attention to
food and nutrition.
When it comes to dietary regulations, the so-called Daniel fast is one of the
most common plans. Most simply, it suggests living on vegetables and water,
inspired by the example of Daniel.15 This kind of fasting has already been
recommended by Frances Hunter ([1976] 1979, 53); today, Ben Lerner (2003,
3940), Kenneth E.Loy (2005), Steve Reynolds (2009, 183) and numerous other
14
Hunters book is the only one I know of in this genre which has been translated to German. I
quote from Abnehmen einmal anders: Eine Schlankheitskur mit Gottes Hilfe (1979) which trans-
lates to Reducing Differently: A Slimming Regimen with Gods Help.
15
Daniel 1:1116: Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over
Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but
vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who
eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see. So he agreed to this
and tested them for ten days. At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished
than any of the young men who ate the royal food. So the guard took away their choice food and
the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead (New International Version, 1984).
evangelical diet books16 use the method. Most prominent in this regard is Rick
Warrens Daniel Plan (page 120 ff). Daniel fasting is so popular because it refers to
one of the very few biblical passages that explicitly link specific foods, vegetables
and water, with physical health.
In other cases, the question of what we should eat cannot rely on direct biblical
instruction and requires further conceptualizing. Most proponents of devotional fit-
ness agree that good food equals natural and unprocessed foods. Ben Lerner dis-
tinguishes Food by Man and Food by God, indicating that human interferences
makes food unhealthy (Lerner 2003, 47). Reynolds separates living food and
dead foodthe latter coming from men, the first coming from God (Reynolds
2009, 212). These distinctions moralize food and translate the dichotomy of
healthy vs. unhealthy to one of agreeable vs. not agreeable to God. Although
programs highlight personalization, general rules on specific food items still exist.
Ben Lerner makes use of Leviticus to argue against pork and shellfish (Lerner 2003,
5756). He also strongly advises against ingesting caffeine (Lerner 2003, 64). Sugar
and white flour belong to the rejected categories of food as well. Dont eat sugar,
dont eat white bread, Robert Evans (Christian Fitness TV) advised in an interview.
This idea is common in secular weight-loss discourse as well, and occurs in one of
the early publications of devotional fitness: C.S. Lovett drastically emphasizes his
warning in the slogan: White Flour, White sugar, White Death! (Lovett [1977]
1982, 181).
A different matter of concern for the devotional dieter is the question of timing
and quantity of food intake. Just as the body has God-given instincts about what to
eat, it is also capable of knowing when and how much to eat, instincts that need to
be relearned. Laura Monica explained on Full Circle, God has given us a regulator
for our appetite (Mainse etal. 2011c). Related to this idea of following God-given
instincts, others want to relearn eating like a child. Catherine told me that Weigh
Down Workshop taught her how to eat like a child and that there is only one right
way to eat, Gods way of eatingeat when youre hungry. This principle of com-
plete submission to God is characteristic of Weigh Down Workshop, a theologically
fundamental program. Other programs give more specific details on how and when
to eat. Some suggest to eat often (up to six small meals per day) to avoid cravings
(Lerner 2003, 10916; Reynolds 2011b). By contrast, some programs require par-
ticipants to eat rarely and little. Laurette Willis encourages beginners in fasting to
skip one meal and instead drink water and spend the time in prayer and Bible read-
ing (Willis 2011). This is reminiscent of older versions of devotional fitness
programs: C. S. Lovett suggested fasting 10 days on nothing but water (Lovett
[1977] 1982, 6668).
Another ubiquitous piece of advice both in secular and devotional weight-loss
discourse is to drink a lot of water (Rowe 2008, 171; Loy 2005). Rowe finds a bibli-
cal basis in Isaiah 58:11: The LORD will guide you always []. You will be like
Some are The Diet of Daniel (Edsel 2002), The Daniel Fast (Gregory 2010), The Daniel Fast For
16
Spiritual Breakthrough (Towns 2010), The Daniel Fast Made Delicious (Cavazos and Cavazos
2011).
a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail (New International
Version 1984). A well-watered garden is exactly what youll need to be as you
grow in endurance (Rowe 2008, 181). Thus, she recontextualizes commonplace
recommendations on drinking in an explicitly biblical frame and spiritualizes the
otherwise profane practice of drinking water. Framed theoretically, this is also an
incident of how a somatic practice is accompanied by a shift in semiotics.
An important way these programs distance themselves from stereotypical, regu-
lar weight-loss programs is through the leaders insistence that their program is
not a diet. In this way, they dismiss rigid food plans and exacting recipes. This
move is in accordance with evangelicals general disinclination for rigid rules and
authoritative regimens, and conforms to values of individuality (many secular pro-
grams have similar claims). Instead, they provide suggestions and a framework to
craft your own individual lifestyle plan (Reynolds 2009, 14). Apart from not
being strict regulatory plans, programs of devotional fitness claim to be more than a
diet in another aspect, too: They are not intended to be carried out for a while and
then be dropped again when a desired weight is reached. Instead, they are meant to
be a general life-style which conforms to the evangelical tendency to offer a com-
plete transformation of life.
All these practices related to implementing dietary changes reveal that devo-
tional fitness programs are eager to adopt forms of dieting that are common in non-
Christian discourses. These are then spiritualized in the specific evangelical style of
the program.
Physical Activity Participants pursue their overall goal of health and fitness
through strategies of physical activity. Here, I summarize the concrete measures that
realize and implement ideologies of the body (as elaborated in Sect. 6.4). Before
doing so, I need to introduce one biblical passage that many supporters of devo-
tional fitness address, as it may be read as refutation of their practice. 1 Timothy 4:8
says, Physical exercise is of limited value, but Godliness is very dear, a pledge of
life, both there and here (International Standard Version, 2008). The different inter-
pretations of this verse are examples of target-oriented reading of scripture. Reynolds
admits that his understanding of the verse changed significantly. [I]f anybody
talked about exercise, I would remind those people that it only profited a little
(Reynolds 2009, 152). Today, however, Reynolds reasons that this verse is a com-
parative statement. It is comparing physical exercise with spiritual exercise. When
we exercise physically, we are taking care of the temporal. When we exercise spiri-
tually, were taking care of the eternal (Reynolds 2009, 152).
Having established the necessity and usefulness of physical exercise, programs
need to provide localities such as gyms or similarly suitable locations which range
from private basements to church facilities. Sometimes, designers suggest making
your home your own private fitness center (Rowe 2008, 106; see also Anderson
2011c)a move well known in popular fitness discourse, too. The facilities of
devotional fitness spatially point to one of the constitutive features of devotional
fitness: Sometimes the classes take place in church rooms; sometimes in secular
gyms. In these rooms, it is what people do, their performative acts, that make these
places religious. These facilities are characterized by what is prevailing in the

popular fitness culture too. Mats, weights, bands, other training devices, a faint
smell of sweatthese elements are omnipresent in the non-religious fitness genre.
The entangled status of devotional fitness thus becomes spatially visible, when the
class takes place in a room whose primary purpose is non-religious and, for the
duration of the class, is transformed into a setting which is Christian to the partici-
pants (Radermacher forthcoming).
In general, what does devotional fitness say about bodily movement and work-
out? In the unusual case of Weigh Down Workshop, physical exercise is not required,
not even recommended, because it might turn into an idolatrous activity.17 Instead,
as Catherine told me, an active lifestyle will follow naturally from the principles of
the program. In most cases, though, proponents of devotional fitness consider physi-
cal exercise an important part of their program. According to Reynolds there simply
is no losing weight without working out (Reynolds 2009, 151). The imperative to
exercise is biblically based. Reynolds quotes Genesis 2:1518 to illustrate this point.
God made man to be physically active. When God created man, as recorded in Genesis 2,
He put him in a garden and said, Get to work. Tend the garden. If youve ever done exten-
sive gardening, you know that it exercises every muscle in your body. Im sure that there
were vines to be cut back, crops to be harvested and perhaps even seeds to be planted
(Reynolds 2009, 152).
Like most popular fitness regimens, designers of devotional fitness programs

suggest to work out regularly (three to five times a week) for twenty to thirty min-
utes (WholyFit 2011; Loy 2005). A workout session is often bookended by a warm-
up and cool-down (Rowe 2008, 4; Mayhew 2011). PraiseMoves, for example,
employs a walking wisdom warm-up (Willis 2011). Cool-down usually includes
stretching (e.g., Rowe 2008, 7182), often combined with scripture reading and
memorization (e.g., Willis 2011).
Working out is not considered an activity outside of spiritual realms. As Lerner
simply puts it: God Wants You to Move (Lerner 2003, 135). Followers find bibli-
cal legitimation for exercise, and sometimes even for concrete poses and move-
ments in the Book of Psalms and Genesis. Apart from Genesis 2:15 as a general
command to be physically active, there are more passages which are regularly cited.
Engaging the arms and upper body during workout sessions, for example, is often
substantiated with Book of Psalms 63:4 and 119:4819 (e.g., in WholyFit 2011).
Rowe encourages her readers to cultivate a prayerful attitude during their workouts
(Rowe 2010). Similarly, working out in the spirit is often described as a way to
17
Shamblin writes, The only exercise you require is getting down on your knees to pray and get-
ting the muscle of your will to surrender control of your natural, God-given hunter and fullness
guide to the Creator (quoted in Schrettle 2006, 132).
18
Genesis 2:15: The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and
take care of it (New International Version 1984).
19
Book of Psalms 63:4: I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my
hands (New International Version 1984). Book of Psalms 119:48: I lift up my hands to your com-
mands, which I love, and I meditate on your decrees (New International Version 1984).
spend time with and for God (Mainse etal. 2011c). The advice to pray continually
and therefore make your workout part of your prayer is deduced from 1 Thessalonians
5:1618: Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances,
for this is Gods will for you who belong to Christ Jesus (New Living Translation
2007; see, e.g., Rowe 2008, 3842). The much-employed analogies between spiri-
tual and physical affairs are substantiated with Hebrews 12:1: And let us run with
endurance the race God has set before us (New Living Translation, 2007). Rowe
explains: Whats good for your body is even better for your soul. [] Perhaps it is
no mistake that the Bible compares our spiritual life to an athletic contest (Rowe
2010). Another interpretation of Hebrews 12:1, not taken from the discourse of
devotional fitness, only reads the analogies to sports metaphorically: Using the
analogy of a race, the writer describes earlier heroes of the faith seated in the sta-
dium, as it were, cheering us on to the finish line. The testimony of their lives of
faith is their witness. The record they left behind, like cheers from a grandstand, can
encourage us to persevere in our faith (Quest Study Bible 2003, 1738). Here it
becomes visible once more how authors in devotional fitness recontextualize and
thus resemanticize biblical passages in a specifically embodied key.
The kind of fitness done in most cases may be subsumed under the category of
body forming. In this regard, devotional fitness programs differ from institutional-
ized, professional, competitive team sports. This point is important because it marks
a significant difference to other studies which consider the interconnectedness of
sports and evangelicalism. These studies have tended to look at institutionalized
professional team sports (e.g., Higgs 1992; Ladd and Mathisen 1999; Deardorff and
White 2008) and not at the body forming practices discussed in this book.
Competitive team sports have a body forming aspect too, yet their main goal is to
win a game or championship. This highlights the extent to which organizations like
The Goal and The Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which focus on team sports
such as baseball, basketball, and competitive professional athletics, are different
from the programs analyzed in this study. Both kinds of sports (body forming and
competitive institutionalized sports) overlap, of course, but their respective priori-
ties are clearly dissimilar: forming the body vs. winning the game.
Many of the gestures and postures in physical fitness, like lifting the arms or
bowing the upper body, are resemanticized in devotional fitness. When lifting the
arms in a non-spiritual context serves the purpose of strengthening specific muscles,
in devotional fitness it additionally becomes a gesture of praise and worship, consis-
tent with the Christian gestural repertoire of adoration. Bowing the upper body usu-
ally intends to strengthen the muscles of the back and to lengthen those of the legs.
In Christian fitness, the accompanying music and scripture often suggests a position
of submission to God (see, e.g., Monica 2011a). Therefore, devotional fitness
classes undertake a significant semiotic recontextualizing and, in the process, rese-
manticizing of somatic movement, incorporating it into their specific discursive and
corporeal repertoire.
The fitness genre of body forming sports ranges from aerobics and cardiovascu-
lar workout over strength training and bodybuilding to Pilates, yoga and dance as
well as a variety of related sports. Here, I examine some of the sports practiced in
devotional fitness, paying particular attention to the ways these are incorporated in
an evangelical framework, despite their lack of Christian origin in many cases.
Pilates Pilates is a part of Rowes Shaped by Faith, Mayhews Exercise with
Purpose, Monicas WholyFit, Body & Soul Fitness, and other programs. Generally
more popular among women, Pilates often occurs in programs that focus on women.
Rowe has a workout called Pilates for the Soul, a faith based Mat Workout
designed for every level of fitness (Rowe 2010). She highly appreciates Pilates in
combination with scripture. When a person combines Pilates and strength training
exercises along with healing Scriptures, there is a physical and spiritual healing that
takes place in the body that is extraordinary (Rowe 2008, 209).
In 1945, Joseph H.Pilates and William J.Miller published the first edition of
Return to Life through Contrology in which they presented a method of physical
exercises that had, according to them, already been practiced for about 40 years and
would later come to be popularized as Pilates (Ewers 2007, V; Pilates and Miller
2007, XXIII). This method, named Contrology, aimed at bringing body, soul, and
mind in complete agreement. The authors focused on subjecting the body to the
minds control and meant to renew their followers mental strength, promising to
make their bodies lithe, svelte, and powerful (Pilates and Miller 2007, XVIIIXIX).
Pilates assumed that weight-loss was useful to accomplish the goals of Contrology
too (Pilates and Miller 2007, XXVIII). Ever since the late 1940s, Contrology/Pilates
has gained in popularity, being adopted in manifold ways as countless contempo-
rary books and courses on the topic suggest. Devotional fitness programs receive
Pilates too, importing it into their biblical frames of reference. This is not surprising,
given that the basic principles of Pilates, aiming at the whole person and trying to
bring your body under control, lend themselves to an adaptation and recontextual-
ization in devotional fitness.
Aerobics Aerobics have been part of many fitness classes since the aerobics craze
of the 1980s and are practiced in many devotional fitness classes toooften, but not
exclusively, those developed for women. Here, evangelical fitness programs adopt
and partake in a successful movement that was conceived in non-religious dis-
courses; they then spiritualize it for their specific purposes, namely by identifying it
as, e.g., Gospel Aerobics (Paul Eugene). Theresa Rowe does step aerobics (Rowe
2008, 15061), and Ben Lerner promises that twelve minutes of aerobics per week
are enough to reach phenomenal results (Lerner 2003, 149). Aerobics and Pilates
are mostly designed to attract women; as such, an integral part of many programs is
an implicit or explicit focus on women. Lerner and Eugene, on the other hand, dem-
onstrate that aerobics may be for men or unisex too.
Strength Training Strength training and bodybuilding, en vogue since the late
1970s, on the other hand, are usually more or less explicitly directed at men, sup-
porting the ideal of the muscular male body. Lerner suggests strength training with
weights (Lerner 2003, 166). Push-ups are a widespread element of calisthenics;
they become spiritually relevant in the way ActivPrayer conceives of them. On the
front cover of ActivPrayer Journal, they write, It may look like youre just doing
ordinary push-ups. But inside, youre lifting up your entire soul to God (ActivPrayer
2010)one more incident of a practically embodied fusion of exercise and faith, of
a transformation of ordinary or profane practice into spiritual practice. Strength
training also occurs in some female programs, suggesting that womens bodies do
not just have to be slim but also taut and firm (e.g., Rowe 2010).
The Power Team is an illustrative example of bodybuilding in an evangelical set-
ting focusing on supposedly male body ideals and role models. The teams main
purpose is to reach people of all ages, who would typically not ever attend an event
in a church setting, with the gospel of Jesus Christ (The Power Team 2007). To do
so, they will present their physical strength and share their faith. They claim to have
prompted almost 100,000 people to accept Jesus as their savior (The Power Team
2007).
Notwithstanding the obvious focus on bodily appearance that might be suspi-
cious of idolatry in the eyes of conservative evangelicals, Robert Evans (Christian
Fitness TV) confirmed to me that theres nothing wrong with it, bodybuilders are
great, as long as theyre glorifying the Lord. The highest priority, glorifying the
Lord, is a legitimate reason to pursue the fleshly goals of bodybuilding.
Dance An even more problematic fitness genre that is almost exclusively aimed
at women is dance (I am aware of only one exception: Paul Eugenes Gospel Fitness
Workouts, Eugene 2011). Dancing is sometimes part of choreographies for aerobics
in evangelical fitness classesdespite the traditional Protestant rejection of dancing
as an unholy occupation (Geldbach 1975, 42, 46). WholyFit, Body & Soul Fitness,
and Shaped by Faith employ dance moves in their workouts. Rowe prays, that You
would use my / life as Im dancing, / moving and breathing, / to bring glory to Your
name (Rowe 2008, 43).
In the Body & Soul class I visited at Capital Baptist Church, the instructor incor-
porated elements of the Charleston dance in her choreography. The next day, when
I talked to her, she admitted that this is sometimes criticized by members of her
church. When asked about his, she usually responds that dancing is a valid form of
exercise and references the example of the prophet Daniel who, she explains, danced
to praise the Lord. Additionally, supporters of evangelical fitness often quote Psalms
149:3 (Let them praise his name with dancing [], New International Version,
1984) to legitimate their style of working out (e.g., Owensboro Christian Church
2008). Not only does dancing have biblical archetypes, it also positively affects
participants musculoskeletal system, protagonists argue. In short, even if it looks
like dancing and uses elements of dance it is still a legitimate part of a Christian
workout because it supports a healthy lifestyle and has biblical examples. Thus,
there are two reasons to integrate dance into these exercises: First, it is more sports
than dance; second, even if it is dance, it is biblically legitimate. In a comment on
Psalms 149:3in the Quest Study Bible, one reads, Dancing and making music was
one of many legitimate Biblical expression of worship [sic] []. Voices, hands,
body position and movement all can express feelings of joy, thankfulness and praise
to God (Quest Study Bible 2003, 895). Not explicitly rejecting dance as a form of
worship, the commentators here do not support it as being adequate today either
because it used to be only one among many forms of worship.20 Devotional fitness
programs which include dance, therefore, deviate from more conservative evangeli-
cal attitudes towards dance.
Yoga Even more controversial in evangelical discourse is yoga, a popular activity
in the United States and beyond since the 1960s. I discuss the various positions and
opinions on yoga in detail below (Sect. 7.5). Suffice it to say here that yoga has long
taken its place within the range of contemporary fitness genres. As such, it is prac-
ticed in devotional fitness as wellmost often by women, and with differing ratio-
nalizations. Some, like Laura Monica, admit that their postures and moves look like
yoga but are in no way similar to yoga (Monica 2011b). Others, like Emily Mayhew
(Exercise with Purpose) offer classes such as yoga, prenatal-yoga, and Mom and
Me Yoga without further ado (Mayhew 2011), perfectly mirroring secular yoga
studios.
Individual Endurance Training Apart from these kinds of fitness, usually done in
groups and classes, and requiring regular meetings in fitness facilities, there are
other options to work out individually. Quasi-individual training lies at the ground
of a concept such as Christian Fitness TV where viewers form an imagined com-
munity, getting together individually and collectively to work out from the couch,
as Evans put it in an interview.
Closely connected to aerobics but usually done individually are cardiovascular
workouts and endurance training. These are meant to burn fat (i.e., use carbohy-
drates) and strengthen the cardiovascular system. Rowe recommends endurance
training in the early morning. For beginners and seniors, she and others (e.g.,
Reynolds, Linda at First Place 4 Health) strongly recommend walking, a common
practice in the secular fitness world which is, in programs of devotional fitness,
spiritualized and recontextualized as part of Christian life. In this context, Rowe
draws the connection from physical endurance to spiritual endurance:
Just as cardiovascular exercise is the foundation for physical endurance, spiritual endurance
requires a strong foundation. [] Without spiritual endurance, our souls weaken and life
becomes too hard to handle. [] Suffering is a key element for gaining spiritual endurance.
As we suffer, we are strengthened because our relationship with Christ gains intensity. And
suffering not only builds our spiritual endurance, it becomes the true test of it (Rowe 2008,
187).
Spiritual endurance may also be sought in reading the Bible. Parallel to having
an exercise plan, one should have a reading plan for the Bible. Even the advantage
20
On the subject, and at the margins of the field of devotional fitness, there are, of course, evangeli-
cal dance schools, as, e.g., Wendy Heagys Raise Him Up Praise Dance School & Ministry in
NewYork, established in 1997. They seek to dance the word effectively and therefore consider
it necessary to study and rightly divide the word of God (Heagy 2011).
of having a partner applies equally to spiritual and physical endurance training

(Rowe 2008, 18789).
Once again, leaders resort to a biblical passage to underscore the rightfulness of
walking as a Christian sport. Rowe quotes Genesis 3:8: Then the man and his wife
heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the
day [] (New International Version 1984). She explains, Doctors did not origi-
nate the idea that walking is beneficial. In Genesis 3, God is walking in the garden
in the cool of the evening. As He walks, God wants Adam to commune with Him.
So it is that when we walk, we can enjoy the beauty of Gods creation and look for
Him to commune (Rowe 2008, 18182). Her understanding differs from other
interpretations, obviously. The Quest Study Bible states that the expression in this
verse is a way of describing the infinite God in finite human terms. So real was the
presence of God that it was as if they heard Gods footsteps (Quest Study Bible
2003, 6). This is another incident of how biblical passages are resemanticized for
the purpose of an embodied kind of evangelical practice and of how somatic and
semiotic levels of analysis converge.
The individual cardiovascular training per se is jogging which is frequently part
of devotional fitness and en vogue in the fitness world since the late 1960s and early
1970s. Rowe suggests going running with a prayerful elementin her case, she
repeats the word Jesus while doing her regular rounds (Rowe 2008, 2737). We
may add this to the examples of how prayer and training merge.
Dress A further aspect linked to the physical practice of devotional fitness is how
people dress. Especially in sports which resemble or incorporate elements from
dancing, modest clothing is recommended not to distract from the actual goal.
Clothing, in fact, seems to be one of the few visible markers of a Christian workout
as compared to a non-Christian workout. Robert Evans, for instance, highlighted the
fact that he and his wife always dress modestly when they host their show. The idea
of modest clothing prevails in evangelical culture (see, e.g., Schippert 2003, 6) and
especially in an area where tight dresses and visible skin seem omnipresent, and
fitness is sexualized to some extent, this is an appreciated means to differ from
secular fitness. In the fitness classes I joined at Body & Soul, participants were
quite modestly dressed, often in long sweat pants and long sleeves. The covers of
First Place 4 Health publications, on the other hand, sometimes feature attractive, fit
women whose attire is somewhat less modest.
Resting Even though working out is presented by most designers as pivotal to the
programs success, resting, when done in the Spirit, is an intentional feature of
many fitness plans, too. In Rowes regimen, resting is one of the ten secrets (Rowe
2008, 19297) and a welcome opportunity to spend time with God (Rowe 2008,
213). Rich Kay, speaker at Steve Reynolds Losing to Live, emphasized that sleep-
ing seven to nine hours is crucial to rest and re-energize the body.
Excursus: Contemporary Christian Music in Devotional Fitness Contemporary

Christian music is an object of research in its own right and has been subject to
extensive scholarly investigation.21 Evangelical commitment to music has been

famously epitomized in musician Larry Normans pithy statement: Why should the
devil have all the good music? (quoted in Hendershot 2004, 55)one could easily
rewrite this as: Why should the devil have all the good fitness? Both expressions
emphasize an evangelical appropriation of specific areas of popular culture.
Heather Hendershot explores the Christian music industry in order to understand
how evangelicals have used their music to simultaneously struggle against, negoti-
ate with, and acquiesce to the secular world (Hendershot 2004, 52). Her findings
on music are, from this general perspective, transferable to devotional fitness, as I
demonstrate throughout this book.
Evangelical popular music emerged in the 1960s (Hendershot 2004, 5253) and,
by the 1980s, had gained a degree of popularity that made it possible to ignore tra-
ditionalists objections in many evangelical groups (Jorstad 1993, 157). Body &
Soul, which builds heavily on Christian praise music in fitness classes, especially
aerobics, was founded in these years. In the 1990s, more and more evangelical radio
stations and publishing houses emerged (Hendershot 2004, 5253). In 1998,
Christian music accounted for 6 % of all sales in the music industry of the United
Statesmore than jazz and classical music together at the time. In 2001, the figure
rose to 7 % (Hendershot 2004, 56).22
The ideas conveyed in Christian music, Hendershot sums up, mostly range
around God loves you, be nice to people, and stand up for your beliefs (Hendershot
2004, 75). It is down-to-earth theology, usually not politically fundamentalist, and
easily connectable to a conservative evangelical worldview (Hendershot 2004, 75).
Comparable to devotional fitness (and fitting the evangelical understanding of life)
actors in Christian music are convinced they are doing the Lords work by pursu-
ing the career they consider themselves most skilful in (Hendershot 2004, 82).
In devotional fitness, music is not just passively absorbed and textually refer-
enced; it is embodied in that it is closely tied to singing along, moving, dancing, and
exercising. We may thus speak of musically embodied Bible interpretation. The
goal of this excursus is to demonstrate how music and movement fuse in devotional
fitness and how these conglomerates become multi-sensory communicative
elements in multi-modal systems of communication. The role of music has thus far
not been discussed in academic literature on devotional fitness.
Programs which hint at this aspect in their self-descriptions are, to mention only
a few, the Owensboro Christian Church, PraiseMoves, BodyGospel, and Sweating
in the Spirit. Debbie at Houstons First Baptist Church Fitness & Recreation
Program also stressed the importance of Christian music when she told me that
among the main reasons for people to join their classes is uplifting music. Hence,
it is illuminating to have a closer look at this practical and sensory aspect of Body
& Soul classes.
21
See, e.g., Cusics Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music (2010), Howard and Streck
(1999), and Gersztyn (2012).
22
Hendershot quotes these figures from Fierman and Flynn (1999) and Ali (2001).
Aneta, one of the instructors at the cardio/strength class of Body & Soul I joined
at McLean Bible Church in Vienna, Virginia, told me that it is singing along to
Christian praise music which makes exercise become prayer. Here we have another
instance that demonstrates how the analysis of semiotic structures (the musical lyr-
ics) would be incomplete without scrutinizing the somatic processes. These are two
sides of the same coin and inseparably connected in the empirical reality of devo-
tional fitness. The words get to me, Aneta said: The lyrics often touch her and get
back to her during the daythis is the essentially spiritual part of the workout for
Aneta. In this way, non-religious movements are resemanticized and recontextual-
ized by the lyrics of the music. The music is a means to make seemingly non-
Christian sports embodied prayer, i.e., a devotional fitness class.
The designers of the program intend for this happen. Jeannie Blocher, co-founder
of Body & Soul, still selects the music for each of the three sessions (spring, fall,
winter) and distributes booklets called Encouragement and Wisdom for the
Journey: A Devotional. In the editorial for the 2011 fall session (WAY Beyond
Myself23) she explains that they provide a spiritual focus through the message of
carefully chosen music (Blocher 2011a, 1).
Liz told me that the lyrics sink in even if people do not intentionally learn them
by heart and that listening to the music while exercising is something that fills the
heart. Every week, one of the members in Lizs group will chose a song and talk
about how it speaks to her or him. This happens at the end of class, right before
prayer. Liz herself has had important experiences with the music in the fall 2008
session when the songs of that session encouraged her to step out for the Lord
(2008). Other representatives of Body & Soul, like Aneta and Nan, report that the
music helps them in suffering and worries.
Two examples of how meaning (the semiotic level) is enacted through physical
motion (the somatic level), assisted by Christian music, deserve mentioning here.
The first one occurred in Montvale, New Jersey, where I attended a cardio/strength
class in November 2011. The song So Good, interpreted by Lincoln Lee Brewster,
features a chorus that repeats several times that God is good all the time and that his
love never changes (Baloche etal. 2010a). The trainer divided the class into two
competing groups; the goal was to outshine the other when the chorus resounded
and sing along as loud as possible. In a playful manner, physical activity, acoustic
perception and production, both physically perceptible, and theological paradigms
23
The 25 songs of this session were: (1) Way Beyond Myself (Newsboys), (2) I Will Praise You
(Rebecca St. James), (3) Shout For Joy (Lincoln Lee Brewster), (4) All Over The World (The
Sonflowerz), (5) So Good (Lincoln Lee Brewster), (6) Go (Hillsong United), (7) Gave It All
(Parachute Band), (8) Break Free (Hillsong United), (9) My Destiny (Press Play), (10) Up (Joy
Williams), (11) Worth Waiting For (Beckah Shae), (12) This Is The Stuff (Francesca Battistelli),
(13) These Days (Mandisa), (14) Strong Enough To Save (Tenth Avenue North), (15) NY2LA
(Press Play), (16) Everlasting God (Jeremy Camp), (17) I Refuse (Josh Wilson), (18) Boomin
(TobyMac), (19) Stronger (Mandisa), (20) My Own Little World (Matthew West), (21) Constant
(Francesca Battistelli), (22) Say Goodbye (Mandisa), (23) Surrender (Beckah Shae), (24) Our God
(Chris Tomlin), (25) Whom Shall I Fear (Lincoln Lee Brewster).
combined to a multi-sensory setting that catalyzed the enactment, production, and

consolidation of meaning.
A participant of a Body & Soul class in Annandale, Virginia, explained to me
how music, lyrics, and movement connect: During the song Shout for Joy
(Baloche etal. 2010b), the chorus is choreographed with an exercise that consists of
a movement of reaching both arms up and in front of the body while stepping for-
ward. Many participants closed their eyes during this exercise and sang along.
Afterwards, a woman told me that she literally feels her connection to God in that
moment. Once more, the conglomerate of verbal and acoustic elements, conjured
with choreographed movement, becomes a form of practiced communication about
the basic features of devotional fitness and evangelical faith.
Music is well known for having effects on emotion and it is also suspected to
affect health (Juslin and Sloboda 2010, 3). The comprehensive Handbook of Music
and Emotion, edited by Patrik N.Juslin and John A.Sloboda, provides contributions
on emotion24 and health in relation to music which I consult here to consider the
connections between music, emotion, and health in devotional fitness. Juslin and
Sloboda argue from a psychological and individual perspective that is, at its basis,
quite different from my perspective. Nonetheless, their insights are useful to better
understand the effects of music on individual participants, which, in turn, translates
to discursive levels of analysis when individuals talk about and relate their experi-
ences to those of others and to theological assumptions on body, soul, and mind.
Emotional reactions to music are significantly stable and predictable (Sloboda
and Juslin 2010, 8182). Thus, music is a reliable means to produce a specific atmo-
sphere and affective disposition which are important in devotional fitness classes:
people meet regularly but may be in different moods when they get together from
week to week. Therefore, their affective states have to be synchronized in order to
create the aspired atmosphere and a feeling of community. For both tasks, synchro-
nization of moods and creating a feeling of community, music is an apt means
(Gabrielsson 2010, 565). In the secular fitness genre, too, background music is an
integral part of the fitness centre, Suzanne B.Hanser writes (following Gfeller
1988). Music in gyms motivates people to remain on exercise equipment longer,
step up their pace, or move in synchronization with the rhythm of the music
(Hanser 2010, 850). These effects are rendered useful in devotional fitness classes,
too, when the notion of community is embodied in terms of musically induced syn-
chronicity of individual movements.
Participants of a fitness class are not only synchronized by music but also by the
instructors directions. When there is an instructor telling participants exactly what
to do, how to move, even when to breathe and what to think about, they may feel
24
According to Patrik N.Juslin and John A.Sloboda, the term emotion is used to refer to a quite
brief but intense affective reaction that usually involves a number of sub-componentssubjective
feeling, physiological arousal, expression, action tendency, and regulationthat are more or less
synchronized. Emotions focus on specific objects and last minutes to a few hours (e.g. happi-
ness, sadness) (Juslin and Sloboda 2010, 10).
psychologically disburdened.25 This embodied synchronization is one of the reasons

why people report they feel community, harmony, and relaxation in devotional fit-
ness classes.
Connected to the finding that music is often used to stimulate moods and emo-
tions and that these are usually positively connoted (Sloboda and Juslin 2010,
8789), researchers have begun to study the effects of music on physical health and
subjective well-being (Juslin etal. 2010, 633). In devotional fitness, where health
is of eminent importance, the connection between music and health is a subject that
designers, to my best knowledge, do not discuss. But they would probably be very
interested in these suggestions. For them, health stems from physical movement,
eating healthily, and, most importantly, ones relationship to Jesus. Music, though
considered an important part of their workouts (because it stimulates movement and
prayer at the same time), is not deemed to have a direct positive influence on health.
Patrik N.Juslin, Simon Liljestrm, Daniel Vstfjll, and Lars-Olov Lundqvist sug-
gest that the positive effects of music on health are mediated by the emotions that
the music evokeswhich in turn influence biochemical substances like cortisol,
oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin (Juslin etal. 2010, 633).
Spirituality The last strategy introduced above was physical activity. After an
excursus on the role of music in devotional fitness, I am now getting back to another
strategy meant to reach the ultimate goal: total health and fitness. This strategy con-
cerns participants spirituality; the measures associated with it comprise practices
such as Bible study, prayer and meditation. As we have seen in the preceding sec-
tion, physical and spiritual practices are tightly connected. In this section, I focus on
the spiritual elements of group meetings and individual training, not forgetting,
however, that these are often directly linked to physical workouts.
Bible Study Many programs explicitly describe themselves as Bible studies. One
of these cases is WholyFit, an exercise program as well as a bible study (WholyFit
2011). Calling it a bible study reveals that it is a way for participants to acquire
knowledge: about the body, its role in the individuals spiritual path, proper nutri-
tion, exercise and strategies of motivation, and the like, but also knowledge about a
Christian life and Gods will for his people.
In practice, this close connection between Bible study and exercising manifests
when participants exercise to recitations of psalms and meditate upon scripture
while holding a posture: Each movement of the warm up is paired with Scripture
Scripts for a mind-body experience like none [sic] other (WholyFit 2011).
Particularly the aspect of memorizing scripture is a concern in Monicas program.
In a promotional video clip, she explains her approach:
I found a breakthrough, in a way, that makes prayer and exercise easier for me. Its a way to
get me to stay at Jesus feet longer because Im a kinesthetic-auditory learner. I have a hard
time just sitting still and reading the Bible, and sitting still and memorizing. And what I
Inken Prohl has demonstrated this in the context of Zazen where participants are, for the duration
25
of the class, released from the need to make decisions (Prohl 2004, 296).
found is that Jesus actually doesnt care whether were sitting, standing, kneeling, standing
on our head, running, jogging, swimming. It doesnt matter. We can pray to him doing any
type of activity and, actually, he enjoys that with us, thats what I have found. He actually
dances with us, he actually runs with us, he walks with us. And because our spirits, in a way,
are independent from our physical bodies, because we dont need to be doing anything
particular for God to hear us, but, actually, because our spirits are housed in these physical
bodies, it actually helps to use our bodies to spur on our spirit. So, I have found that express-
ing worship through movement, and expressing prayer through movement is helpful for me
and that Jesus enjoys it. And so Im able to spend a lot longer praying, a lot longer memoriz-
ing scripture. On top of that, because Im kinesthetic-auditory, the scripture seems to go
into my brain and heart much better and deeper when Im acting them out, because this is
the way I learn (Monica 2011a).
Quite explicitly, Monica focuses on the enactment of scripture and on the com-
bination of prayer and movement. Bodies become tools of deepening spiritual expe-
rience when they spur on our spirit. Spiritual and physical areas are thus tightly
connected in her account, in accordance with Monicas hopes that God, by means of
their program, will make you holy and whole (WholyFit 2011). While being
holistic in the sense that it focuses on merging the spiritual and the physical, her
concept is still dualistic in the sense that our spirits [] are independent from our
physical bodies [] because our spirits are housed in these physical bodies
(Monica 2011a). Here appears an underlying conflict: The body is a fleshly and thus
ephemeral container for an immortal soul and as such not central to the believers
salvationyet, the body, its activity, and shape, are necessary requisites and pre-
conditions of spiritual experience and should be appreciated accordingly. In other
programs, this dualistic aspect is underlined more explicitly. Jimmy Pea (PrayFit),
e.g., writes:
I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this life is not about the body (and arent we glad
for that?). As C.S. Lewis said, You dont have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body. Im
so thankful that someday Ill turn this body in for a brand-new one. But in the short term
during my time in this temporary homeIve been called to a lifetime commitment of
greater health and wellness. Not just so I can feel great and have more energy, which are all
benefits from exercise, but even more because I believe weve been called to a higher stan-
dard in the area of physical health (Pea 2010, 13).
In the instructional video cited above, Monica then demonstrates the cruciform
position (just lying on your face before God, face down) and the position Nakar
(translated by Monica as declaration). This series of postures, beginning in stand-
ing position (a variation of the yogic Tadasana or Mountain Pose) and ending in
prostration (a variation of Balasana or Childs Pose), is meant to be accompanied by
rhythmic speech, like: Jesus is the way the truth and the life no one
comes to the father but by you (based on John 14:6; Monica 2011a). The incor-
poration of yogic postures framed by the recitation of biblical scripture is meant to
embody and internalize this passage.
PraiseMoves features similar exercises: PraiseMoves postures are integrated
with corresponding Bible scriptures. For example, during the PraiseMoves posture
The Altar, we consider the scripture from Romans 12:12, Present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service (Willis
2011).
Quite elaborately their workout includes the PraiseMoves Alphabetics.
These postures correspond to the 22 letters of the Hebrew Alphabet, Aleph through Tav.
Toward the end of class, we perform one posture, or letter. Our text comes from Psalm
119: Meditations on the Excellencies of the Word of God. Psalm 119 is an acrostic poem;
there are 22 stanzas, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The 8 verses within each
stanza begin with the Hebrew letter of its section. While performing the letter for that
class, we hear the 8 verses of Psalm 119 which correspond to that letter. Its a unique way
to consider the beauty and spiritual wisdom of the Bibles longest psalm (Willis 2011).
Similar to WholyFit, one may consider these exercises as embodied Bible study
and scripture memorization.
Other examples that are distinctly seen and described as Bible studies are First
Place 4 Health and Weigh Down Workshop. Here, however, people deal with more
traditional forms of Bible studies, i.e., reading and discussing passages from the
Bible. First Place 4 Health members will work on a Bible study every week. The
study is supposed to impart Gods strength, empowering members to overcome
temptation and make long-lasting lifestyle changes (First Place 4 Health 2011).
Prayer Prayer is a central feature of devotional fitness too. One of the classics in
the field is Frances Hunters Gods Answer to Fat which is based on prayers and is
comprised of a prayer for every day and every situation the dieter might find herself
in (Hunter [1976] 1979).
In other cases, prayer is not the main foundation of the program but still an inte-
gral part of everyday practice. Prayer during group meetings and workout classes
occurs both metaphorically and literally. When participants are asked to work out in
an attitude of prayer (Rowe 2010), and when exercising becomes prayer through
joining in praise music, workout is transformed into an act of prayer. Quite literally,
people pray together in the beginning or at the end of their meetings, and they har-
ness every break in between two sets of exercise for prayer (Bloom 2010). In
WholyFit, participants employ symbolic prayer gestures when they do SlowFlow,
a fitness system described as a Christian Alternative to Tai Chi employing
movements taken from American Sign Language. Statements expressed include:
Savior, He can move mountains, Mighty to save, and Shine your light and let
the whole world see (WholyFit 2011).
Prayer is meant to establish the relationship to God, to contextualize the workout
or small group meeting, and, last but not least, to motivate people when they feel
their energy drooping. Monica explained on Full Circle, if you just pray, God help
me be motivated, He will (Mainse etal. 2011d). Another typical prayer sounds
like this: God, I give myself to You. I give my body to You for Your purposes. I
cant do this on my own. I need the help of Your Holy Spirit to remind me of my
calling, to encourage me when I think I cant go on and when I think things will
never change (Reynolds 2011b).
Just as food fills our physical stomach, the relationship to God fills our inner
man, Reynolds writes. I had (and continue to have) a special time with God every
day to fill up the inner man. He truly is my portion (see Ps. 119:5726). When my
inner man has been stuffed full, my physical man wont be so hungry, and I will
have better control over what I eat (Reynolds 2009, 2425). I get back to the idea
of filling an inner void with God instead of food in more detail on page 183. Suffice
it to say here that reading the Bible every day and meditating upon scripture is often
perceived as feeding your mind or soul with healthy thoughts just as you feed
your body with healthy food (Reynolds 2009, 115). In this regard, devotional fit-
ness programs adopt a generally accepted custom in evangelicalism (quiet time,
praying), at the same time tailoring it specifically to their needs.
Meditation A measure belonging to the category of spiritual activity is meditation.
Evangelicals often associate the term meditation with Eastern religious practice
and designers of devotional fitness are aware of that. They do, however, reshape
meditation in the light of their theology and consider it spending time in Gods
word (Bloom 2011). The Zondervan Quest Study Bible explains, with regard to
Psalms 119, Meditation is a combination of reviewing, repeating, reflecting, think-
ing, analyzing, feeling and even enjoying. It is a physical, intellectual, and emo-
tional activityit involves our whole being (Quest Study Bible 2003, 870). While
noting that meditation doesnt easily fit into Western culture they suggest that the
reader tries to overcome some cultural obstacles to learn to meditate. Ways of
doing so include reading single passages over and over, memorizing scripture, wait-
ing for inspiration in attentive silence, becoming emotionally involved, or trying to
apply biblical verses on behavior (Quest Study Bible 2003, 870). In many ways,
therefore, devotional fitness takes up ideas that already exist in Christian culture and
adapt them to their specific field of interest, here connecting meditation to workouts
and Bible reading.
Ben Lerner suggests that breathing consciously is an easy way to meditate and
spend time with God (Lerner 2003, 32728). Paying attention to ones breath in
order to seek spiritual insight relates to concepts of attentiveness which are often
associated with Eastern or New Age style spirituality (on the connections between
devotional fitness and Eastern spirituality, see also Sect. 4.1), yet frequently har-
nessed in devotional fitness. In paying close attention to our bodies, Theresa Rowe
writes, and listening to our bodies, we must be attentive to its every move and
pang (Rowe 2008, 910). She also recommends conscious breathing as a way to
emotionally cleanse the body. Prayerfully revisit a time when you bottled up your
emotions. Take special care to breathe deeply all the while, releasing the tension of
that memory, making your body feel safe, and inviting healing into your heart. []
Breathe your prayers to God. Exhale your confessions, and inhale His love and
forgiveness (Rowe 2008, 27). Breathing is not only a technique to cleanse oneself
and to pray to God, it also helps in providing enough oxygen for the muscles to burn
fat, Rowe adds; it is healthy to body and soul. Conscious breathing detoxifies our
bodies and renews our minds and spirits (Rowe 2008, 29). Here we have another
26
Book of Psalms 119:57: You are my portion, O LORD; I have promised to obey your words
(New International Version 1984).
illuminative example how deeply the spiritual and physical side merge in Rowes
program. In short: I breathe to live, I breathe to maximize exercise, and I breathe
to take in the breath of the Almighty (Rowe 2008, 23). In yoga, one of the fields
many evangelical fitness and weight-loss programs seek to distance themselves
from, breathing and attentiveness to the body are equally important (see Sect. 7.5).
Summary All these strategies and corresponding measurese.g., praying for moti-
vation, counting calories, working out in the gym, and meditating on scripture
comprise participants various ways of practicing their evangelically recontextualized
understanding of fitness. Classes or individually designed workout sessions and
weight-loss groups will feature practices from many of these areas, intricately
blending what I have categorized above. As I have noted where due, there are cru-
cial differences according to varying theological positions or target groups.
Generally, programs addressing women focus on body forming sports like aerobics
and Pilates, and perpetuate an image of the female body as strong and lean but not
overly muscular. Programs based on Bible studies will understate the necessity of
exercise and focus on praying and reading the Bible together. Other plans might
focus on activities appropriate for children, while yet others provide only little
information on eating while focusing on sports and exercise.
In a few concluding paragraphs, I would like to summarizeand draw attention
tothe ways in which the perspectives of semiotics and somatics (as outlined in
Sect. 3.2) suggest answers to the question how meaning is produced in this evan-
gelical practice. Discourse and bodily practice bring about shifting meanings, e.g.,
when the overweight body is read by participants and actors in an evangelical
frame of interpretation. Being overweight is not a profane problemit is under-
stood as the expression of deep spiritual desires which have remained unmet. The
ideal male and female body is not one conforming to generalized worldly body
images, but one enabling the individual to fulfill their duties in Gods plan and in
their church. Physical movement no longer serves the mere purpose of building
muscles or slimming down. It is resemanticized in terms of Christian gestures which
express participants devotion. Observing the physical practice of devotional fit-
ness, the ways their bodies move and are moved, thus reveals that there is more to
devotional fitness than a savvy marketing strategy: To participants, their bodies
become central media to live and express their faith, they are instruments to spur on
their spirit.
And even the unsuccessfully dieting body has informed a discursive shift of
meaning. It is no longer simply attributed to lack of discipline or flawed technique.
These factors may be involved but, more importantly, the unsuccessful dieter has
started her path of transformation beginning with internal changes. These occur,
according to authors, when people begin to read the bible, work out in a prayerful
attitude, and dedicate their weight-loss goals to God. In harsher readings, the still
overweight body may also be a sign that there has been some sinful behavior or a
disturbed relationship on spiritual or social levels that first needs to be healed.
Practicing devotional fitness is a highly sensual experience. The multisensory
setting of an evangelical fitness class should not be underestimated. This is where
aesthetics of religion come into play, focusing on, e.g., musical experience. Music
plays an important role in devotional fitness but is often neglected when focusing on
the ideological side alone. Participants embody Christian music and use it as both
motivation and down-to-earth theology which is memorized alongside physical
training.
Shifting meanings on the basis of semiotic and somatic processes involves new
hierarchies of value-ideas. Evangelicals in general tend to subordinate scientific and
other knowledge to biblical sources. This happens in devotional fitness, too, when
commonplace recommendations about drinking enough water are reinterpreted in
the frame of biblical scripture, or when physical fitness is subordinated to evangeli-
zation: It becomes a necessary precondition of effective evangelization. The value
of having an attractive and slender body is subordinated to glorifying Godbut in
order to do so, working for a slim and healthy body is considered as a useful start.
6.2 Transformation: Embodied Conversion Narratives
Although biographies appear highly individualistic, the narratives encountered in

the field feature crucial similarities. One of the most common motifs in this regard
is that of conversionnot surprising, given the evangelical background of devo-
tional fitness programs. The identity of those committed to an evangelical faith fun-
damentally relies on the story of their conversion. Furthermore, the topic of
conversion is particularly apt to connect to the fitness and weight-loss discourse:
Dieters and fitness devotees alike recount their stories in terms of before and
after. For instance, before they became fit, they would lead an unhealthy, sedentary
lifestyle and would not succeed in their career and family life. After they adopted a
fitness plan, they would be fit, attractive, happy, and successful. Exemplary evi-
dence of this motif in non-religious discourse may be found in hundreds of reports
on the topic How Beachbody27 changed my life. It is the central theme of conver-
sion that I want to address on the following pages.
The concept of conversion usually refers to a radical personal transformation
that becomes an object of research only when it is narrated (Stromberg 2008, 15).28
Therefore, the conversion narrative takes a prominent position in research on con-
version (Knoblauch 1999, 19495). The personal story of converts is an autobio-
graphical reconstruction that selects and emphasizes episodes in their lives in order
to build a sequence of events that eventually led to their conversion. This story is
27
Beachbody is a corporation offering weight-loss and fitness products in the United States and
internationally. Their products address a secular market but they also distribute Donna Richardson
Joyners Body Gospel workout DVD.
28
Peter G.Stromberg goes even farther than this, suggesting that, on the basis of a constitutive (i.e.,
non-referential) understanding of language, it is the telling of a conversion experience that makes
the conversion (Stromberg 2008, 3). He thus provides further evidence of the importance of study-
ing narratives of conversion simultaneously bemoaning that there are only very little detailed
studies of the conversion narrative as a genre (Stromberg 2008, 5).
6.2Transformation: Embodied Conversion Narratives 159
shaped by the tellers new-found identity and told from this perspective (Ulmer
1988, 19). Bernd Ulmer therefore understands the conversion narrative as belonging
to a reconstructive genre, i.e., a genre of narratives which reconstructs past events
and episodes in accordance with existing guidelines and regulations on how to con-
nect, interpret, and tell these events in the light of a specific perspective, here the
perspective of the convert. As such, most conversion narratives, however varied they
may be, are based on a consistent pattern.
This pattern may be roughly divided into three phases: (1) the converts life
before conversion, (2) the experience of conversion itself, and (3) the converts life
after conversion. The individuals life before conversion is depicted in the light of
his new beliefs and attitudes. It serves as a counterfoil to his new life and prepares
for the transformation, highlighting negative experiences and the individuals lim-
ited understanding at that time (Ulmer 1988, 2223). Donald E.Miller characterizes
the era before conversion as one of perceived incompleteness, accompanied by the
desire for a new life (Miller [1997] 1999, 7172).
The actual trigger for conversion is often a crisis that seems unsolvable under the
status quo and requires a radical change. This crisis is often accompanied by physi-
cal or psychological indisposition (Ulmer 1988, 2425). In this crisis, it is crucial
that the convert has contact to another person which provides him with a coping
strategy, in this case the promise of forgiveness, healing, and new life in Christ.
These triggers, however, will only work if the individual is already, at least superfi-
cially, familiar with a Christian worldview. Then, it is often just a minor incident or
a casual social encounter that triggers the experience of transformation (Miller
[1997] 1999, 7273).
Typically, the moment of transformation itself cannot be properly verbalized in
the conversion narrative (Knoblauch 1999, 196). Converts can only speak in meta-
phors and thus stress the other-worldliness of their experience. They also report the
conversion as something they passively experienced rather than actively did (Ulmer
1988, 29). In conversions to evangelical Christianity, the moment of conversion is
often induced or accompanied by a prayerful outcry for help which transforms the
individual from sinner to saved. Converts report emotional outbreaks and feel-
ings of catharsis and abolition (Miller [1997] 1999, 7475).
After this moment, recently converted individuals eagerly immerse themselves
in the Bible, join Bible studies, and find a church community to deepen their newly
found faith (Miller [1997] 1999, 7475). In this phase of the narrative, individuals
often draw direct comparisons with their old life (Ulmer 1988, 3031). Now the
Bible becomes their main orientation and normative standard for life. The peer
group changes to a group of dedicated born-again Christians (Miller [1997] 1999,
7576).
Being able to tell this sort of conversion narrative is not just an autobiographical
act. It also has a legitimizing function in the converts social relationships.29 Telling
their conversion, and telling it right, is a means to authentically secure and justify
The importance of consistently recounting this event is evidenced even for the colonial period
29
when someone wanting to join a Puritan congregation had to tell their conversion story in front of
ones new status (Ulmer 1988, 32). Having, and being able to tell, a story of conver-
sion is considered essential in evangelicals lives.
Autobiographical narratives dealing with conversion appear in the field, e.g.
when founders and program designers recount their life stories. These stories stress
and offer evidence to show how they have not always led the lives they are living
now, thus mirroring the well-known before/after dichotomies of conversion narra-
tives. Narratives of sickness and healing, sin, forgiveness, and conversion are woven
into their biographies. Virtually all leaders of evangelical fitness programs are
already born-again when they design their program. For many of them, their con-
version to Christ occurred some time before their conversion to a healthy lifestyle
(e.g., Reynolds, Monica). In other cases, the conversion to fitness predates the
conversion to God (e.g., Rowe).
As part of their narrative, founders in devotional fitness specifically focus on
issues of health and fitness: Once badly broken and bruised, now healed and
renewed (Weaver 2011), as La Vita M.Weaver (Fit for God) puts it. She knows
first-hand how being overweight can affect every area of ones life. Once a petite
size 5, her weight had skyrocketed to an unhealthy 200 pounds. After suffering with
bingeing, depression, and anxiety attacks, La Vita discovered hope, health and heal-
ing through prayer and the powerful word of God (Weaver 2011). Here, Weaver
deeply entangles notions of fitness and of faith, both merged in the motif of trans-
formation. In devotional fitness the bodys physical appearance and health
becomes more central than in non-fitness narratives.
In January 2001, Laura Monica appeared on 100 Huntley Street, a popular
Canadian Christian talk show (produced by Crossroads Christian Communications)
hosted by Moira Brown. Monica recounted her conversion, which was catalyzed by
a new pastor in her church. Later, in her thirties, Monica got seriously sick; she
could not work out anymore although she had been a fitness trainer for long. She
was healed once but experienced a new wave of depression that required spiritual
surgery during a charismatic healing service (Brown 2011). In sum, Monica writes
on her home page, My relationship with Jesus helped me to slowly but surely
recover from asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, Epstein-Barr virus infection, clinical
depression, fear, and debilitating anxiety (WholyFit 2011). In this account, the
relationship to Jesus is immediately connected to the healing of the body, which is
not unusual in charismatic and Pentecostal conversion narratives.
Theresa Rowes narrative is particularly instructive in this regard, as it inextrica-
bly blends fitness, healing, and spiritual transformation, too. She had been athletic
her entire life and, at one point, led several fitness studios. At that time, she was
physically whole and productive but spiritually her life remained chaotic and unre-
fined (Rowe 2010). Then she got sick and the doctors discovered a hole in her heart
that needed to be fixed. Shortly after the surgery, one of her fitness students
approached her to pray for her (Brown 2010). [Rowe] was reluctant at first but the
student persisted and later that day, Theresa, came to know the Lord. Once again,
the community (Hochgeschwender 2007, 37). For a comprehensive account on the evangelical
conversion narrative in early modern England, see Hindmarsh (2007).
6.2Transformation: Embodied Conversion Narratives 161
through exercise, the Lord saved her life. [] Theresa credits God for filling the
holes in her heart (Rowe 2010; italics added).
Not only does Rowe connect physical fitness and exercise to her conversion, she
also experienced healing through her conversion. She was cured from endometriosis
which she had been suffering from since her last childbirth (Rowe 2008, 110). Rowe
describes her conversion as follows:
The day I turned my life over to Christ was like awakening to a surprise snow fall. The old
world now blanketed with snow appears fresh and new. The once bare brown branches now
seem to be wearing an angelic silver glow. [] Allowing God to take control of my life has
been my best decision. It has transformed me from the inside out (Rowe 2010).
It conforms to previous findings on the conversion narrative that the moment of

conversion itself cannot be grasped entirely and is verbalized only in metaphors
(Ulmer 1988, 26; Knoblauch 1999, 196). In one way or the otherand this is not
uncommon for born again Christians narrativesthe conversion experience of
many founders and authors in devotional fitness is connected to their health and fit-
ness. In the two biographies analyzed above (Monica and Rowe), however, this
connection becomes more crucial in the individuals self-description. In the fitness
genre, protagonists tell their biographies with a specific perspective on health and
fitness that makes these narratives a new case of transformation stories.
Looking at the narratives on the next level of social hierarchy in the organiza-
tions of devotional fitnessthat of the group leaders or fitness instructors, it is
apparent that these mirror those of the founders, yet on a smaller scale. In the dis-
cursive production of authority, this is a way of investing group leaders with the
authority originally attributed to the program founder, which, in turn, stabilizes hier-
archies and social structures. Usually, group leaders and instructors suffered from
overweight and sickness themselves at some point. Theresa and Peter, e.g., lost
twenty and seventy pounds before they became group leaders in Reynolds Losing
to Live program as they proudly told me in an interview.
Group leaders and fitness instructors, just like founders, are of the opinion that
God led them to the place they hold now and that they fulfill their duty to evangelize
best in this position. Liz, fitness instructor in Body & Soul and affiliated to Reynolds
Losing to Live, feels that God was leading her to the program.
Why do group leaders role narratives reproduce so many elements from found-
ers narratives? On the one hand, and especially when there are strong contractual
ties between the organization and its instructors, this is due to the franchised prod-
uct. Wherever people participate in WholyFit, the organization makes sure that they
encounter the same basic narratives and beliefs. On the other hand, when there are
no obligatory bonds between the official program and its small groups, as in First
Place 4 Health, group leaders still reproduce many of the communicative elements
they read about in the organizations publications and hear about in meetings and
retreats. First, this is due to a charismatic kind of personality the founders have
which enables them to bestow upon their narrative an attractive and compelling
nature that leads people to adopting it for themselves. A second reason is that these
narratives are so well known and have assumingly been effective in the past that it
suggests itself for class instructors to employ the same motifs they encountered
when they read about the program and its founders. Over the course of getting
acquainted with their program, group leaders take in the discursive and embodied
forms of communication provided and get used to reproduce them in their own
ways.
The conversion narrative is so central to evangelical culture that it also appears
in the communications surrounding the role of participant. Some participants are
already born-again when they join devotional fitness. Others, however, are not
Christian when they join and participate in the program, or they reportedly found
God through and because of the program. This is an important aspect of the pro-
grams self-description (although I have not met people who converted because of
and in these programs). Linda told me that one of the most impressive effects she
observed in her groups was that someone told me that shes found Christ. Nelson
Searcy, who arranged a Losing to Live competition in The Journey Church in
NewYork City, says that there were Sundays when we would see twenty, thirty, or
even fifty people make first-time-decisions to follow Christ. They came because
they wanted to lose weight; they stayed because they found the bread of life, Jesus
Christ (Reynolds 2011a).
Having discussed the conversion narratives circulating in the discourse, we now
have a clear picture of how deeply entangled the spiritual and the physical aspects
of transformation are in the field. What I have tried to demonstrate is that the notion
of transformation takes on a strong somatic quality, one that is well suited to merge
with a non-religious before/after rhetoric widespread in the fitness and dieting sec-
tor. The fact that there is a noticeable stability of these discursive elements allows
for the conclusion that speakers avail themselves of these narratives and use them
according to the logics of the discourse. This, in turn, stabilizes social relationships
and creates a feeling of sharing a common understanding of peoples life worlds
and experiences with regard to belief, body, and relationships. These relationships
are also structured by social hierarchies which allow individuals to execute their
leadership in a program. Elaborating a little more on the narratives of founders and
program leaders, the next chapter will pay attention to their ways of legitimizing
their practices and of creating an image of authority and qualification.
6.3 Authority, Qualification, andLegitimacy
How do program designers legitimate their enterprises? Those leading a program or

group must have authority, legitimacy, and professional qualifications in order to
convey their ideas and realize their routines. If people trust leaders because they are
religious authorities, they will probably trust them in other regards, too (see, e.g.,
Gwen Shamblin, Steve Reynolds, and Rick Warren who are pastors and program
leaders). In these cases, founders transfer their legitimacy from the religious to the
fitness area. Apart from that, legitimationhere understood as a process of embed-
ding practices and value-ideas in a normative and explanatory framestems from
6.3Authority, Qualification, andLegitimacy 163
at least five realms (God, Bible, Jesus, medical expertise, personal experience). All
these areas support each otherwith God being the unchallenged authority, at least
for Christians. Depending on the context, though, different sources of legitimation
will be differently stressed. Some program designers may emphasize their personal
experience while others will emphasize scripture, depending on what they consider
most convincing given their respective target group, or their own personal back-
ground, or both.
God The ultimate legitimacy and authority comes from God, who is believed to
have inspired many programs directly. Frances Hunter (Gods Answer to Fat), in
one of the first publications of the genre, writes she had direct communication with
God, who told her that she should not be a fat Christian (Hunter [1976] 1979, 22).
Judy Halliday and Joani Jack present their approach as a God-intended path to
health (Halliday and Jack 2007, 16; see also Lerner 2003, 144; Reynolds 2009,
152). In this way, devotional fitness communicates that direct divine intervention
influenced its design, and thus seamlessly connects to its evangelical environment
with its emphasis on a direct communication with God and the relevance of God in
every aspect of life (Bielo 2009, 50).
Bible All programs employ another source of legitimation that is typical of evan-
gelicalism: the Bible. Based on 2 Timothy 3:16,30 evangelicals consider the Bible as
God-breathed (see, e.g., Anderson 2011b; Rowe 2010). As such, they tend to
consider it inerrant (truth, without any mixture of error, First Place 4 Health 2011;
see also Body & Souls statements of faith, which were adopted from Rick Warrens
Saddleback church, Body and Soul 2008).
Therefore, the Bible is another authoritative source of legitimation for devotional
fitness. A widespread form of evangelical Bible interpretation, James S. Bielo
argues, is the ongoing attempt to apply biblical texts to [believers] everyday lives
(Bielo 2009, 50). This is especially true in devotional fitness, which affects so many
areas of participants everyday lives. Diana Anderson (Fit for Faith) exemplifies this
argument when she notes that God has taught her so much about His will for our
daily liveswhat we drink, what we eat, what we do for exercise, etc.and how
were to honor these fearfully made bodies Hes given us and use them to bring
Him glory (Anderson 2011a).31 The general authority of the Bible is also illus-
trated using Proverbs 3:5 (Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on
your own understanding, see, e.g., Lerner 2003, 258) and Proverbs 3:6 (In all your
ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight, see, e.g., Mainse
etal. 2011e).
More specifically, The Daniel Plan uses the Book of Daniel as inspiration. This
is one of the most frequently cited passages in devotional fitness (for examples, see
page 141 f), and the only one that explicitly mentions specific foods (vegetables and
30
2 Timothy 3:16: All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting
and training in righteousness (New International Version 1984).
31
Andersons websites were not available in November 2015; I quote from the 2011 version.
water) in connection with physical strength. Often, devotional fitness makes use of
a vast number of scripture references,32 although the use of scriptural references
varies from program to program. Sometimes, programs will not give exact quota-
tions; sometimes they will provide biblical sources for almost everything they say
or do. This depends on their theological and denominational background and educa-
tion, and their targeted audience. Trained theologians will generally quote more
biblical sources (e.g., Steve Reynolds, Gwen Shamblin, and Rick Warren) than
authors of homespun fitness programs (e.g., Denise Zakiya 2010, Richard
A.Kent2009, and Diana Anderson). Steve Reynolds, pastor of Capital Baptist, for
instance, searched the Bible for the term body and found that it appears 179
times.33 While about one third of these cases deal with the body in its non-physical
form, the other incidents provided sources to develop his fitness plan (Reynolds
2009, 2223). When I talked to Reynolds, he referenced Matthew 28:1920,34 a
verse which is usually quoted to substantiate missionary efforts. Reynolds however,
focused on the expression all things or everything. As he found that the Bible
speaks about the body, he is convinced that teaching about the body from a biblical
perspective is his duty. He concludes, The Bible clearly commands Christians to
have a Bod4God, and local churches must help people in this area (Reynolds 2009,
197).
Agreeing with evangelical custom, designers or representatives of evangelical
fitness and weight-loss programs employ different translations of the Bible.
Although they assume that the Bible is the unchanged word of God, they acknowl-
edge the different tones of translations. This is not often discussed explicitly, but
Warren explains that, in the process of translation, nuances and shades of meaning
can be missed, so it is always helpful to compare translations (Warren 2002, 325).
Moreover, he thinks it is necessary to intentionally use uncommon translations
because verses have become so familiar (Warren 2002, 325). In the early days of
evangelical fitness plans, Charlie W.Shedd employed a similar reasoning when he
compared two different translations of 1 Timothy 4:8. Instead of the King James
version (bodily exercise profiteth little), he prefers the Goodspeed translation,
according to which physical training is of some service (Shedd 1957, 104; see
also Shedd [1972] 1984, 107) and may thus argue on a scriptural basis when he
brings forward his plan (on 1 Timothy 4:8 see also page 143). This is an incident of
how evangelicals use the Bible as an instrument for legitimizing a specific interest,
as Brian Malley has demonstrated (Malley 2004, 82).
32
I have mentioned the most important biblical references in those sections where I analyzed the
context of their use. Verses associated with eating, e.g., will be found in the section on strategies of
dietary change (page 140 ff), etc.
33
In the 1970s, Shedd employed a similar method. As I studied the Bible for help in my struggle,
I focused on words like body, appetite, eating, food, physical. Along with these, I turned to such
terms as habit, self-control, dedication, desire (Shedd [1972] 1984, 114).
34
Matthew 28:1920: Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have
commanded you. [] (New International Version 1984).
The Bible is the undoubted textual fundament of evangelical faith and every cur-
rent within evangelicalism claims to read the Bible in the right way. Despite the
oft-evoked literalism and inerrancy of the Bible, there are multiple literal read-
ings (Bartkowski 1996, 269), which agrees with Bielos finding that literalism
does not constitute a hermeneutic method (Bielo 2009, 49; see also Malley 2004,
92103).
Devotional fitness is yet another example of how dynamic, innovative, and
target-oriented evangelicals read the Bible. Biblical texts are not static reference
points. They are reactualized and rematerialized in every small group meeting and
in every fitness class that takes place in evangelical settings all over North America.
This is a good example of what Bielo, working with Malleys analysis, refers to as
the social life of scriptures (Bielo 2009, 14) which is not simply a matter of read-
ing and exegesis, but translates to various forms of action in the world (Bielo 2009,
50).
Annette Wilke has highlighted this trait of religious texts in her introduction to
cultural hermeneutics in the study of religions (Wilke 2012). Texts provide seem-
ingly endless possibilities of interpretation and actualization. Every reading pro-
duces new meaning and new ways of materializing and concretizing this meaning.
Wilke notes that even Protestant religions, traditionally considered as focusing on
semantics and reason, begin to provide examples of this adoptive and dynamic char-
acter of texts. Texts, therefore, remain crucial to the study of religions, yet scholars
should not focus on their meaning alone but examine their performative and dynamic
implementations and manifestations (Wilke 2012, 419).
For example, when protagonists of devotional fitness support walking as exercise
based on Genesis 3:835 (Rowe 2008, 18182) they use scripture as a script and
performatively re-enact biblical events. When they emulate Jesus ability to walk
40 miles (Reynolds 2009, 22), and when they eat what Jesus would eat (Colbert
2002) they bring into being, i.e., they practically embody, his corporeal presence.
They make scripture personally relevant on a concrete, everyday basis, and in so
doing feel they are strengthening their personal relationship to Jesus.36
As one would expect, the interpretation of the Bible in devotional fitness does not
remain unchallenged. Isherwood argues that devotional dieters have indeed misun-
derstood the entire concept of the Gospel in that they have reduced it to scripture
beauty tips and biblical eating habits (Isherwood 2008, 81). Isherwood, offended
by such suggestions, argues that they do not even begin to grasp the purpose of the
Christian faith, and are sacrificing the radical potential of the gospel they claim to
know so well (Isherwood 2008, 81; for more on criticizing devotional fitness, see
page Sect. 7.1).
Jesus Next to scripture, Jesus is a source of legitimacy for devotional fitness.
Exercising devotees want to follow his example and become like Jesus. I strive to
35
Genesis 3:8: Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking
in the garden in the cool of the day [] (New International Version 1984).
36
In this sense, what we observe here may be considered as a specifically corporeal realization of
myth (see, e.g., Hdl 2003, 58284, and, from a phenomenological perspective, Eliade [1961]
1990, 63).
be more like you each day, Rowe prays (Rowe 2008, 43). This pertains not only to
spiritual but also to physical things. Devotional fitness assumes that Jesus, believed
to be a carpenter by trade, was physically fit (Lewis 2001a, 20; see also Reynolds
2009, 21). From all they know about Jesus, designers and participants of devotional
fitness programs assume that he was in such great physical condition that He could
walk 40 miles (Reynolds 2009, 22). This is a widespread and, for believers, practi-
cally irrefutable way of legitimizing Christian fitness programs.
Fitness and Medicine Another mode of legitimation stems from the field of fitness
and medicine. Here continues the analysis of founders narratives that often employ
motifs from fields of medicine and fitness to substantiate their claims. Designers of
devotional fitness supposedly have the knowledge and skills necessary to excel in
their fields: fitness, nutrition, health, and spiritual growth. Often, they document
their qualification with certificates. In this way, devotional fitness couples both spir-
itual and scientific (especially medical) qualification. The recourse to Bible, medi-
cine and personal experience is supposed to reveal the authority of instructors and
founders while medicine is assumed to merely confirm biblical sources.
Almost every program of devotional fitness underlines its medical authority right
next to its biblical authority. Medical authority refers to the founders, who hold
multiple degrees and certificates, and to the program itself, whose principles, strate-
gies, and measures are scientifically informed. Sometimes, programs do this rather
casually. Kenneth E.Loy writes, The simple guidelines for the Daniel Diet, with
some additional nutritional science thrown in, are as follows [] (Loy 2005).
In other cases, however, the medical background of programs is thoroughly
stressed. As a general trend since the 1990s, Griffith found that authors and leaders
tend to stress their qualifications to distinguish themselves from other experts and
support their pioneer status in the field (Griffith 2004a, 185). In many recent cases,
program officials indeed highlight their medical expertise right next to their spiri-
tual and experiential legitimation. Gwen Shamblin (Weigh Down Workshop)
received degrees in Dietetics and Nutrition from the University of Tennessee, and
was an instructor of foods and nutrition at the University of Memphis for 5 years
(Weigh Down Ministries 2010). Emily Mayhew (Exercise With Purpose) holds
multiple degrees and certifications (B.S. Education, M.Ed., YogaFit Level 1,
YogaFit Pre-Natal/Post-Partum, PiYo Gold, American Red Cross CP, Mayhew
2011).37 Laura Monica (WholyFit) has a similarly long list of certifications and
degrees. She is a Health Fitness Specialist certified by the American College of
Sports Medicine (ACSM) and stresses her scientific and spiritual qualification as
follows: Along with being a multiply certified fitness professional with 25 years of
experience, Laura is a born-again committed Christian (WholyFit 2011). Obviously,
spiritual and scientific qualifications are both appreciated; both are required to con-
vey the qualification of leaders and founders, which is characteristic of this intersec-
tional discourse. As part of their medical qualification, authors like Theresa Rowe
(Shaped by Faith) reference studies published in the Journal of Holistic Nursing
37
Mayhews website was no longer available in November 2015; I quote from the 2011 version.
(Rowe 2008, 139). Rick Warren (The Daniel Plan) engaged medical authorities to
develop his regimen: these included Daniel Amen, Mark Hyman, and Mehmet Oz38
(Eastman 2010). Their medical authority and qualification, combined with their
popularity, lends authority and the aura of medical expertise to the program.
Experience An additional factor that lends legitimacy to founders and group lead-
ers is their own experience. They often have their own stories of sickness, over-
weight, healing, and conversion. As they claim to know firsthand what it is like to
struggle with overweight, they are more relatable and their programs are more plau-
sible to potential followers. An early incidence of this motif is Charlie W.Shedd,
assuring the fellow fatty, that he understands him because he has been there with
you (Shedd [1972] 1984, 5, cf. 14).
Summary In conclusion, there is a toolkit of tropes that appears with different

emphases and applications. Founders will typically emphasize scriptural, profes-
sional, and experiential legitimation (e.g., Steve Reynolds, Gwen Shamblin, and
Rick Warren). Group leaders and instructors often highlight their qualification in the
fitness world and their personal experience with overweight and sickness but will
not need to elaborate biblical legitimation as this has already been covered by pro-
gram founders (e.g., Liz at Body & Soul; Linda at First Place 4 Health; Theresa and
Peter at Losing to Live). In this and the previous chapter I have analyzed the central
narrative of transformation in the discourse of devotional fitness and the mecha-
nisms of legitimizing evangelical dieting and fitness plans. Not surprisingly, God
plays a central role in both regards. As a motif of role narratives, I have shown that
the idea of being called by God to lead or otherwise engage with a program is
essential. As part of the legitimizing structures of devotional fitness, God is evoked
as a powerful authority to claim and substantiate the overarching truth of pro-
grams. Aside from resting on divine inspiration and biblical wisdom, I have shown
that programs feature varied emphases in their legitimacy. These variations are due
to different factors such as theological and educational background of program
designers, different target groups, and different marketing strategies.
38
Amen, physician and psychiatrist, has authored, e.g., Change Your Brain, Change Your Body
(2010) and The Amen Solution: The Brain Healthy Way to Get Thinner, Smarter, Happier (Amen
2011). Hyman is a physician and brings forward functional medicine. He has published The Blood
Sugar Solution: The Ultrahealthy Program for Losing Weight, Preventing Disease, and Feeling
Great Now! (Hyman 2012) and Ultrametabolism: The Simple Plan for Automatic Weight Loss
(Hyman 2008). Oz is a cardiothoracic surgeon and hosts a popular TV show (The Dr. Oz Show)
currently broadcasted on ABC. He co-authored You: Losing Weight: The Owners Manual to
Simple and Healthy Weight Loss (Roizen and Oz 2011).
6.4 Body asTemple: Theologies oftheBody
Now we move from the practicing to the thinking of devotional fitnessfrom

practice to ideology,39 in other wordsand examine the underlying assumptions
circulating in the discourse of devotional fitness. Practice and ideology are not eas-
ily separable, even analytically, and throughout the previous chapter I had no choice
but to hint at ideological and theological presumptions corresponding with certain
practices. Therefore it should already be obvious that devotional fitnessboth on
the level of somatics and that of semioticsis characterized by the overlapping of
spiritual and profane realms, and by the mirroring of popular cultural dieting and
fitness discourses.
Let me examine these theological and ideological presumptions in greater depth.
Beginning with the concept of the body in devotional fitness and connecting it to
ideas of health, relationships, and holism, I examine how exactly health is under-
stood (a term I have often put into single quotation marks to indicate its contested
status). The use of concepts like health, harmony, and fitness is far from
coherent or consistent. Not least among the reasons for this is the lack of an over-
arching institutional structure or integrative voice of devotional fitness. Nonetheless,
closer analysis reveals certain premises which underpin many empirical manifesta-
tions of the discourse.
6.4.1 Body asInstrument andIndex ofRelationships
Devotional fitness may be understood as embodied evangelicalismeven though it

is not limited to evangelical communities, as when the discourse appears in trans-
formed ways in non-evangelical settings. The discourse feeds off evangelical tropes
and recontextualizes them in its distinct frame. For example, in the discourse of
devotional fitness, the concept body experiences recontextualization distinct from
other versions of the concept in Protestant Christianity (page 18 f). The new seman-
tics associated with the body, understood both as physical organism and concept,
will be dealt with here.
Drawing together the main argument that will be unfolded in this and the follow-
ing chapter, I state that, from an analytic point of view, the body in devotional fitness
is a divine site, a social site, a site of the self, and a biological site. It is the medium40
and instrument through which the individual (more precisely: the ego) establishes
relationships to God/Jesus, human beings, the self, and its own body. Both the phys-
ical body and the relationships embodied in it have different and opposite statuses:
39
As mentioned in footnote 2 (page 8), I use the concept ideology in a non-normative way to
refer to the ideas and values existing in a society or group.
40
Following Birgit Meyer, I use a broad concept of medium, extending to language, the body,
books, sculptures, images, etc. The use of something as a medium in religious discourse is subject
to processes of authorization and authentication (Meyer 2012, 26).
6.4Body asTemple: Theologies oftheBody 169
Fig. 6.1 The ideology of

devotional fitness is based
on assumed relationships
between the ego and God,
self, body, and fellow
human beings with the
body being the instrument
and index of these
relationships. The
simplified figure shall be
unfolded in this chapter
( 2016M.Radermacher)
a positive condition (fitness, health) and a negative condition (overweight, illness).

The different relationships are mutually dependent; if one relationship tends to the
negative this affects the other relationships and vice versa. The overall goal, fitness
or health, relates to the self (consisting of body, soul, and mind) and its relation-
ships. This very compressed argument, illustrated in Fig. 6.1, shall be elaborated in
what follows.
The divine, social, self-related, and biological dimensions of the body affect the
way individuals may, by means of their bodies, establish and sustain relationships.
The most important and existential relationship evangelicals have is the relationship
to God and Jesus. Further relationships of relevance exist with regard to other peo-
ple (family, friends, co-workers, etc.), to the self, and to the body.41
On the one hand, the body serves as a tool of the ego to heal and establish rela-
tionships; on the other hand, the quality of these relationships influences the state of
the body and is mirrored in the bodys physical features. The body thus becomes
both instrument and index of the relationship to God, fellow human beings, the self,
and the body itself.
41
My classification of these relationships is confirmed in a theological article by Valerie J.Gin in
the volume The Image of God in the Human Body. Gin describes how, in the world of professional
competitive team sports, the relationship to God, others, self, and creation, should be restored. The
curse of sin, she writes, destroyed [] our relationship to God, our relationship to ourselves,
our relationship to others and our relationship to Creation []. Christians, however, are supposed
to redeem the world by using prophetic imagination in each of our four restored relationships
(Gin 2008, 261). Theologically arguing, Gin explains how faithful Christians should, through the
practice of and presence in sports, restore these relationships. Except for the aspect of creation and
the fact that she is dealing with professional competitive team sports rather than body forming fit-
ness, Gins structure explicates what I have found to be the implicit basis of many devotional fit-
ness programs.
R. Marie Griffith has also noted the importance of relationships. She remarks
that participants in evangelical diet programs pursue bodily fitness as a vehicle for
developing close, satisfying relationships with a beloved whom they aim to please
through obedient self-discipline (Griffith 2004a, 5). This may refer, Griffith con-
tinues, to family members, prospective partners, or others in the social environment.
As Griffith rightly points out, these needs matter in secular fitness culture, too.
What marks devotional fitness culture, however, is that God occupies the most
prominent position. Participants and leaders alike assume that the
human bodys fitness affects such relationships in direct and indirect ways. [] Devotional
dieters [] deeply care about food intake and physical health because they sense that the
able-bodiedthose who restrain their bodily desires and seek some degree of healthmay
more easily establish familiar, loving relations with the divine powers controlling the world
(Griffith 2004a, 5; cf. 161).
More detailed and systematically, I analyze in the next section how the body
becomes a site of different aspects and how the relationships mentioned before are
established and healed in many devotional fitness programs with the body being
the primary tool of healing.
Body as Divine Site and Medium to Relate to God From an anthropological and
religious studies perspective, it is a widely observable belief that the physical body
receives life from an agent transcending its corporeal materiality. In the Christian
context, God bestows upon the body a soul which inhabits and animates it. Healing
the body requires paying attention to this non-material entity associated with the
body. In devotional fitness, this notion is specified as follows.
Body as a Miracle of Gods Creation The body is perceived as a miracle of Gods

creation. Devotional fitness usually refers to Psalms 139:14in order to document
this claim: I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works
are wonderful, I know that full well (New International Version 1984; see, e.g.,
Maddox 2010). As such, the body is inherently perfect and does not require human
interference (see, e.g., Lerner 2003, 13). Arguing that the human body is Gods
perfect creation is only the first step in making the body a divine site. One could
assume thatwhile the body is a miracle of Gods creationit is at its stewards
disposal and that God no longer dwells in the body once he has created it. In devo-
tional fitness, however, the body is perceived as a permanent abode (a temple) of
the divine spark.
Body as a Temple One of the most common elements in devotional fitness, the
motif of the body as a temple, is based on 1 Corinthians 6:1920: Do you not know
that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received
from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God
with your body (New International Version, 1984). On the basis of this verse, pro-
ponents legitimize their concerns with fitness, health, and slimness. Comparing this
interpretation with another reading of the verse in Zondervans Quest Study Bible, it
becomes clear that devotional fitness programs read this biblical verse with a differ-
ent focus. The Quest Study Bible answers the question How can we honor God
with our bodies? as follows: By avoiding inappropriate sexual behavior which
violates Gods plan in two ways: (1) It exposes us to a risk of disease or other bodily
harm. (2) It threatens a healthy marital relationship (Quest Study Bible 2003,
1638). Although the aspect of relationships appears here too, this interpretation
refers to the direct biblical context, which deals with sexual relationships with pros-
titutesand not with issues of eating or gluttony. Both readings focus on bodily
purity yet the interpretation in devotional fitness gives the notion of purity a twist
towards fitness, slimness, and health. This is one case of recontextualizing older
Christian notions in the context of fitness and health both on a somatic and a semi-
otic level.
1 Corinthians 3:1617 also is a scriptural reference often employed to conceptu-
alize the body as Gods temple: Dont you know that you yourselves are Gods
temple and that Gods Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys Gods temple, God will
destroy him; for Gods temple is sacred, and you are that temple (New International
Version, 1984; see, e.g., Lerner 2003, 55). A more general reading of this verse
understands body as the people of Godnot the physical body. In the Quest
Study Bible, 1 Corinthians 3:1617 is accompanied by the following explanation:
The temple here means the people of Godthose in whom he lives. Paul was
speaking about the disputes and divisions among the Corinthians that threatened to
destroy the church, Gods dwelling (Quest Study Bible 2003, 1635). Once more, it
is noticeable how the discourse of devotional fitness resemanticizes the motif of the
body as Gods temple by clearly embodying itnot in a metaphorical sense, refer-
ring to the community of believers, but in a literal sense, referring to the material
body.
In other cases, proponents of devotional fitness speak of the body as their tem-
ple. Theresa Rowe speaks of the temple that God gave us (Rowe 2008, 910), and
Sarah, participant in First Place 4 Health, told me that part of honoring [God] is
taking care of our temple. This does not make the body, now perceived as the indi-
viduals temple, profane, though. The concept temple is connoted with sufficient
spiritual potential to consider the body a sacred site, even if it is the individuals own
sacred site. Additionally, calling the body my temple does not necessarily imply
that it is the ego that is being venerated in the bodyit rather is the place people
go to in order to worship God. However, these ideas blur, and some of the activities
in devotional fitness suggest, to the outsider at least, that people make their bodies
temples of their own, worshipping themselves and their physical appearance
herein. This is discussed in devotional fitness as idolatry (see page 221 f).
Summary In summary, there are variations in the understandings of the body as a
divine site. What these variations have in common is the idea of the body not just as
some body but a divine site that houses a spiritual entity. Even when it might seem
to outsiders that the body itself becomes the object of veneration, evangelicals
would always stress that their bodies are not sacred in and by themselves but only
because they house the Holy Spirit and are entrusted to them by God, and because
they need to take care of them after Gods commands. What it means on a practical
level to take care of the body, or to live healthily, has been analyzed above (page
138 ff). How can the ego, via its body, establish and uphold a relationship to God?
Despite the nuances and differences in interpretations of the body as a divine site,
devotional fitness programs include a number of consequences, both practical and
theological, that affect how the relationship between the individual and God is
maintained.
Body = Instrument, Ego = Steward of the Instrument The body is the temple of
a transcendent entity, whether it is the Holy Spirit, God, or the soul, and it is a gift
to the individual received from its creator. Though a gift, it is not entirely devolved
to the individuals disposal; it comes with an obligation. Paul Eugene, founder of
Gospel Fitness Workouts, explains that Christians have this earthly body as a gift
to be honored and respected. We are to maintain the body as an act of worship for
the limited time and purpose we have on the earth (Eugene 2011). The individual
thus becomes the steward of Gods instrument, the body. As such, it is expected
to take care of his or her body. The obligation attached to the body is that Since
your body and your very existence were freely given gifts from God, it is your duty
to care for your body (ActivPrayer 2010; italics added). In practice, this means that
followers of evangelical fitness programs feel obligated to eat well, work out regu-
larly, and live healthily. Doing so will prove to God and to fellow believers that
someone is truly thankful for the gift he received.
Body = Place of Purity, Ego = Guardian of Purity The second inference from the
conception of the body as a divine site is that this site must not be polluted. In Body
by God, we read, Your temple, your Body by God, was created to be kept as sacred
(Lerner 2003, 55). This is reminiscent of the classical distinction between the sacred
as the pure and the profane as the impure.42 Something that is divine must not be
befouled. This motif is implicit to Diana Andersons metaphor of the temple
where several courts and chambers exist to protect the innermost chamber from
contamination and impurity. In her Fit for Faith blog, Anderson writes that,
based on 1 Corinthians 6:1920, under- and overeating, or just plain eating junk,
will desecrate the body/temple just like drugs, alcohol, and promiscuous sex
(Anderson 2011b).
The consequence of this idea is directly related to assumptions about how we
should eat. With regard to Corinthians 3:1617, Ben Lerner illustrates the motif of
contamination at its best, writing,
your Body by God is Gods temple, and you should not poison, defile, or destroy it. Your
temple, your Body by God, was created to be kept as sacred and pure as possible. Food by
Man is food that is toxic, full of chemicals, or does not belong in the system. That is why in
the Old Testament many types of these foods are called unclean. Eating Food by Man on
a regular basis is like going to your place of worship every day and tossing garbage and
chemicals all over the altar of Gods house (Lerner 2003, 55).
42
From a sociological perspective, Emile Durkheim has prominently established the notion of the
sacred and the profane (Durkheim 1994, 62). On the construction of categories of clean and
unclean, and matters of body pollution and purification see also the groundbreaking work by
Mary Douglas (1966).
In consequence, unhealthy eating becomes an act of blasphemy. The motif that

certain foods are toxic or plain junk, the notion that we harm our bodies by pol-
luting them with junk food, is common in secular diet discourse and popular culture,
too, and points to often overlooked connections between Christian and non-Christian
dieting practices (see Sect. 7.4).
Body = Sacrifice, Ego = Donator of Sacrificial Offering The sacrifice is an age-
old means of upholding relationships with transcendent entities, and the idea of
sacrifice persists in devotional fitness. Those who assume they are merely stewards
of Gods instrument on earth will present their body as a sacrifice to God. The
physical body becomes a spiritual entity through the transformation into a sacrifice.
Devotional fitness programs usually refer to Romans 12:1 to legitimate this kind of
reasoning: Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of Gods mercy, to offer your
bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to Godthis is your spiritual act of
worship (New International Version, 1984; see, e.g., Reynolds 2009, 56).43 This
reading of Romans 12:1 broadly agrees with other interpretations. The Zondervan
Quest Study Bible stresses the positive aspects of sacrifice, though not directly refer-
ring to the body: Becoming living sacrifices (that is, giving our lives totally to God)
does not mean endless martyrdom []. We can find fulfillment and satisfaction in
becoming what God created us to be, no matter what the cost (Quest Study Bible
2003, 1625).
Bodily Functions = Acts of Prayer It is a common idea in evangelicalism that
everything should be done for the glory of God and in a prayerful attitude. Linked
to the motif of praying continually, this becomes translated to the body. Even the
bodys most basic functionsbreathing, eating, and movingare considered acts
of relating to God. Theresa Rowe has learned that God moves in and out of us with
each breath we take (Rowe 2008, 41). Rowe explains how to establish a relation-
ship to God via breathing: Recognize that God is in the air that you breathe as you
prepare your lungs. Close your eyes and take a deep inhale through your nose, and
imagine God filling your lungs with His breath. Exhale and reflect on any uncon-
fessed sin in your life (Rowe 2008, 39).
By extension, this refers to eating and drinking as well. Quoting 1 Corinthians
10:31,44 Reynolds and others45 literally make every bite an act of worship. Reynolds
told me in an interview that he helps people putting this into practice: Look at your
grocery basket and say, okay, does this glorify God, what Im about to eat and drink
here? Thus, the body and the concrete bodily function of food intake are rendered
43
Further examples are Willis (2011), Mayhew (2011), Monica (2008, 2), WholyFit (2011), Rowe
(2008), and, for the early years of devotional fitness, Lovett ([1977] 1982, 60).
44
1 Corinthians 10:31: So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of
God (New Living Translation 2007).
45
The same scripture is taken to explain the basic idea of Warrens Daniel Plan (Eastman 2010) and
to illustrate the thoughts in Andersons Fit for Faith blog (Anderson 2011b).
means to either improve or harm ones relationship to God. The relationship to God
becomes a function of the individuals relationship to food and food intake.46
Witness Through the Body When the body is conceived as a tool, an instrument
of Gods will on earth, it is here to do the work it was created for. In evangelical
theology this work predominantly means spreading the faith: evangelizing.
Contextualized through the specific questions of devotional fitness, evangelizing
can occur by means of the body itself, by letting the body witness, so to speak. Of
course, the body has always been part of missionary activities, if only as it allows
for physical presence. Here, however, its role becomes much more prominent.
One case of such embodied evangelizing is The Power Team, a group of body-
builders who tour the country and the world with the mission
To reach people of all ages, who would typically not ever attend an event in a church setting,
with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Drawing people from all walks of life together into one
setting, through the use of performing visually explosive feats of strength, by incredible
athletes, who share the life-changing message of the cross (The Power Team 2007).
Their crusades follow a regular pattern combining illustrative sermon,

Christian drama, and revival accompanied by explosive and stunning feats of
strength like: breaking baseball bats like twigs, bending horseshoes & steel bars,
crushing concrete walls, rip [sic] phone books like pieces of paper and many other
incredible power demonstrations (The Power Team 2007). Sharon Mazer, scholar
of theatre, film and performance studies, concludes that the bodybuilders strength
is both a sign of his faith in Christ and a demonstration of the power of God
(Mazer 1994, 162). Mazer interprets the performers reasoning: That my body is
powerful [] that I can perform as other men cannot is due to Gods grace, which I
have earned by dedicating myselfsoul and bodyto Christ (Mazer 1994, 169).
The Power Team purports an ideal image of the male body and as such addresses
mostly men. A muscular male body, it seems to claim, is Gods will for his followers
and represents best the superiority of the evangelical belief. Women, on the other
hand, when turning their body into a provoker for Christ (Lovett [1977] 1982,
205; see page 114), are supposed to do so with a slim body. Both incidents match
popular gendered notions of femaleness and maleness and underline the role of
evangelical fitness programs in perpetuating these notions.
What the Power Team represents, though particularly striking, is not uncommon
in the wider field of devotional fitness. Robert Evans, producer of Christian Fitness
TV, for instance, explained in an interview that those who want to witness have to
get healthy first. This is something Gerber concludes from her studies, too. Being
a testimony to God, in this case by submitting to the imperatives of weight-loss that
dominate almost all of American culture, not only displays the power of God but
also allows Gods believers to attempt to exercise that power in the larger cultural
landscape (Gerber 2009, 415).
46
This is not an entirely novel notion in Protestant America. In the middle of the nineteenth cen-
tury, Mary Mann, wife of Horace Mann and author of Christianity in the Kitchen: A Physiological
Cookbook (1857) promoted eating as a spiritual act, not just a physical one (Sack 2001, 192).
Summary In summary, several interrelated factors linked to the body are required
to render the individuals relationship to God a good one: People should be good
stewards of their body. The body has to be kept pure. The body and exercising the
body should be considered as a sacrifice to God. Every bodily action has to be per-
formed in the spirit of God. The body should be used as an instrument of Gods will
on earth. All of these factors translate to the overarching goal of becoming or stay-
ing healthy (the outward signs of which are slimness and trained muscles), which
is usually pursued by eating healthily and working out.
Body as Social Site and Medium to Relate to Other Human Beings When I
refer to the body as a social site, I intend to highlight that the body is a site of
social interaction that is shaped by social norms. Bodies become social sites when
their outward appearance, their visible matter, is linked to inter-subjective apprecia-
tion and social acknowledgement. Shedd explains that the shape we are in talks
(Shedd [1972] 1984, 92). Bodies are also social sites when their physical condition
results in social barriers and depreciation. Fat people, for instance, often live fac-
ing the prejudice that considers them lazy, unhappy, and out of control.47 Fat is a
social wall, separating the overweight and supposedly unhappy from the slim and
allegedly happy (Williamson 2010, 178). Lynne Gerber heard similar statements in
her fieldwork on First Place 4 Health (Gerber 2009, 414) and Lovett simply assumed
that overweight peoples romantic life is one big fantasy (Lovett [1977] 1982, 24).
On the other hand, lean bodies supposedly signify better character; slimness is
perceived as an indicator of discipline and self-control. Especially for women, this
close connection of physical appearance and individual character has been critically
observed, as by Fraser:
Being thin sends a visual message to the world that a woman is competent at her other two
jobs. She works hard at being attractive, and is therefore good at her traditional job of being
a desirable sexual object, romantic partner, and consumer. By being lean, she also conveys
the idea that shes disciplined, efficient, and in control of herself, which makes her an ideal
employee in todays competitive work world (Fraser 1997, 7; cf. 51).
Beautiful and slim people are expected to have many friends, to be loved and
to be happy; fat people are supposed to be unhappy and unpopular. The socially
constructed moralization of fat vs. thin directly translates to social and economic
realities in the United States. According to Larry A.Samovar etal., there is evidence
that being overweight reduces ones income, lowers ones chances of getting mar-
ried, and helps decrease the amount of education one receives (Samovar et al.
2013, 263).
Additionally, fat people are supposed to be personally responsible for their
unhappiness. On their web page, Weigh Down Workshop explains: It is time to
take personal accountability and responsibility for your condition. How? Stop pro-
jecting or blaming others or blaming circumstances for your overeating, grazing,
Already in the 1960s, scientific social research confirmed that overweight is often perceived as
47
social deviance; see, e.g., Maddox etal. (1968).

binging, and late-night rendezvous with food. You have the choice to stop overeat-
ing right now (Weigh Down Ministries 2010).
While in their direct communication towards outsiders, representatives of devo-
tional fitness often make an effort not to reproduce those assumptions explicitly, one
cannot help but notice that the motifs enumerated above are the fundamental prem-
ises of the whole enterprise of the Christian (and non-Christian) fitness industry. In
devotional fitness, the topic of social acceptance and fat is received ambivalently.
Lerner and others stress that appearance is not important: Our infatuation with
appearance will never lead us down a smooth and peaceful path while, at the same
time, he reassures that it is not a bad thing to always try to look your best (Lerner
2003, 241). Anderson notes that secular entertainment and mass media promote
false portrayals and misleading definitions of health and beauty (Anderson
2011a). To her mind, working out and eating healthily are not just about physical
appearance and social acceptance (Anderson 2011a). Yet again, she advertises her
book Fit for Faith promising new workouts that rejuvenate and refresh (Anderson
2011a). In the end, this underlying contradiction remains fundamentally unsolved.
Family, Friends, and The Secular World It is a common element of Christian and
Protestant discourse that one should entertain good relationships with fellow human
beings in general, and fellow Christians in particular. The church family often
plays a crucial role in the daily lives of committed church members, as I learned in
my observations. As expected, the material on devotional fitness reveals that these
values frequently arise, and are reshaped with regard to the body in its divine, bio-
logical, social, and self-related dimensions. Here, I discuss the relationships to fam-
ily and friends, and the non-Christian social environment and how these are mediated
by the body.
Both the relationships to family and friends and those to co-workers and secu-
lar friends should arise from Jesus command to love your neighbor as yourself,48
as Lerner points out (2003, 267). Closely connected to this imperative is the idea
that one should forgive others to be forgiven (Lerner 2003, 265).
An important part of conservative Christian life is the marriage of husband and
wife, and their subsequent rearing of children. This traditional view undergirds
many communications in evangelical culture, including appearances of conserva-
tive gender roles and the ambivalent ideas of equality and female submission. At
First Place 4 Health the statements of faith include the following passage that
assures that husband and wife are equal, yet the wife should submit herself to the
leadership of her husband, manage the household, and raise children:
The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in Gods image.
The marriage relationship models the way God relates to His people. A husband is to love
his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to
48
Matthew 22:3740: [Jesus replied:] Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all
your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is
like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two com-
mandments (New International Version 1984).
protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leader-
ship of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She,
being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given
responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household
and nurturing the next generation (First Place 4 Health 2011).
On the traditional role of the father and husband, Bielo has demonstrated that the
ideal evangelical man is a breadwinner for his family, a caring husband, a devoted
father, a model in his church community, and keenly aware of his reliance on divine
help for avoiding sexual and selfish temptations (Bielo 2009, 63). In devotional
fitness, being a reliable breadwinner and caring husband requires being healthy
and physically fit. Similarly, being able to nurture the next generation requires
women to keep in shape. So, both husband and wife, for different reasons, are
expected to exercise and eat healthily and general Christian concepts of what
makes a good husband and wife are translated directly to corporeal behavior and
appearance.
Devotional fitness programs connect issues of Christian family life with those of
sports and fitness. In a general way, most programs understand themselves as a ser-
vice for the whole family. The Owensboro Christian Recreation Ministry in
Owensboro, Kentucky, for instance, offers activities for all members of the family,
from children to senior adults (Owensboro Christian Church 2008) and Donna
Richardson Joyner, founder of Sweating in the Spirit, calls children, women, and
families to join her program (Richardson Joyner 2006).
More specifically, there is a close connection between health and a harmonious
family life. This link is evident in the argument that people seek to be fit so as to be
able to take care of family and friends. This was mentioned in several conversations,
for instance when instructors at Reynolds Losing to Live event said that they can
only meet their responsibilities towards partners and children when they are fit and
healthy.
The relationship between husband and wife is a classic subject of evangelical
discourse. In devotional fitness, there is a specific embodied dimension to this rela-
tionship when, for instance, Robert Evans emphasizes in an interview that he and
his wife utilize their show Christian Fitness TV to convey the necessity of treating
your spouse with respect. Isadora, representative of Weigh Down Workshop in
Austria, came across Shamblins program when she was facing a crisis in her mar-
riage. The program not only helped her to save her marriage and learn how to respect
her husband, but also to lose weight and get healthy, as she told me in an interview.
There is an implicit connection between a wife saving her marriage by respecting
her husband and slimming down. Issues of partnership and general health and fit-
ness thus become tightly connected.
Children are a topic in devotional fitness programs because they are considered
victims of a bad diet just as much, or even more (because of their naivety), than their
parents. Robert Evans, e.g., said that the obesity epidemic also pertains to children.
This prompted them to produce an episode for children (show #27).
Raising Fit Kids in a Fat World (Halliday and Jack 2007) is a book entirely dedi-
cated to helping Christian parents who are concerned about their childrens health.49
It merits a brief overview, as it highlights matters relating to childrens health and
fitness. A swift look at the back cover tells us that one out of five American chil-
dren is overweight and that parents are looking for ways to educate their children
on leading a healthy life. The book therefore intends to provide information on
preventing and treating childhood obesity. The authors propose to combine the best
of science and faith-based approaches in their quest to make healthy living possi-
ble for children. Their program is holistic, offering to help parents teach their
children how to deal with the stress of life by means of healthy, nonfood-related
[sic] coping strategies. Thus, parents will effect changes based on facts and
faithchanges that will result in a child that is not only fit on the outside but also
joyful on the inside (Halliday and Jack 2007, inside flap).
In the introductory story, the authors give a short, almost prosaic report of a
14-year-old girl who died from obesity-induced illness (Halliday and Jack 2007,
12). This is an extreme case, the authors admit, but they caution that children will
often reduce their life span if they are overweight. In the midst of this harsh reality,
we want to give you an infusion of hope (Halliday and Jack 2007, 12). To do so,
they do not suggest a diet, they do not advise counting calories and setting up nutri-
tional regimens (Halliday and Jack 2007, 1213). Instead, their program intends to
provide a biblically based health plan for children whose argumentation does not
differ much from Reynolds or Lerners approaches. First, like all humans, children
are created with an inherently perfect body: Your child is well made (Halliday and
Jack 2007, 13). The notion of a perfect body and/or self is popular throughout
devotional fitness. What is wrong is not the body, it is its fuelgood fuel and
skillful maintenance will easily support the body (Halliday and Jack 2007, 13). The
authors build not only on the Bible but on scientific sources and common sense, too
(Halliday and Jack 2007, 16), thus mirroring the strategies of legitimation carved
out earlier. Their most authoritative assumption, however, is that God created your
child. Lets turn to Him for help in understanding how your childs body was
designed to work (Halliday and Jack 2007, 15).
In sum, when parents take care of the physical well-being of their children, they
establish a relationship with their offspring that bears divine legitimation and
becomes manifest in their childrens physical shape. An implicit inference of this
approach is that childrens overweight reveals their parents inability to fulfill their
God-given duty; in short: fat children suggest bad parenting.
With regard to co-workers, acquaintances, and secular friends, the necessity to
witness plays an important role; here: witnessing through the body (see page 174).
Robert Evans encourages people to witness in their workplace or at the gym and
Theresa Rowe prays that God would use her as Your instrument / in my home,
workplace, and when / I exercise [] (Rowe 2008, 63). In this way, the body
49
Neva Coyle and Marie Chapian argue along the same lines in Slimming Down & Growing Up
(1985).
becomes a tool of establishing relationships to non-Christians and, in consequence,

to God, as witnessing is supposed to please God.
Programs obviously cherish social relationships; so do they appreciate the com-
munity of like-minded people. Their goals of weight-loss and fitness, however, can
only be achieved by the individual. From this constellation arises a central ambigu-
ity between individuality and collectivity. Especially those programs that focus on
competition have to conciliate between individualism and collectivism. There can
only be one winner, and there can only be one body that has achieved the most fit-
ness and weight-loss in the end. On the other hand, participants supposedly appreci-
ate the communal spirit in these programs. Programs often deal with this conflict by
making the team experience a crucial precondition of successful weight-loss and
pointing out the harmony and friendships nourished in their groups and classes.50
Summary In summary, devotional fitness programs attend to all social relationships
while focusing on bodily concerns. The body becomes a means and index of social
(as of spiritual) relationships in more or less direct ways. Witnessing through the
body, i.e., establishing social relationships with the intent of evangelizing, renders
the body a tool of mission. A healthy body is required to meet the requirements
and responsibilities of taking care of family and friends, thus fulfilling an important
aspect of a Christians great commandment. Most programs explicitly extend the
range of their application to social and family problems even if, at their basis, they
focus on losing weight and shaping the body. The very fact, however, that they apply
their principles of physical discipline to familial and social matters reveals their
assumption that all these issues coincide in the body.
Catherine, representative of the Weigh Down Workshop, says that after a period
of struggle in all areas of life she found peace: I love my husband, dearly, I love my
children, who are teenagers and theyre wonderful, theyre beautiful, they love God
(Catherine 2008). When I talked to her on the phone and asked how her life had
changed through Weigh Down Workshop, she mentioned bodily changes and her
new attitude towards food first, but immediately turned to how happy and harmoni-
ous her marriage is now. The program not only helped her lose weight, it also
brought peace into all her relationships: And as a result, Ive lost 80 pounds, no
drugs or alcohol, my marriage is peaceful, peace in my home with my children, my
job, my friends, my relationships (Catherine 2008). Healing the body, therefore,
became the initial trigger for all other areas of life to be healed, too.
Body as Site of the Self and Medium to Relate to the Self The body is a site of
self in that it reveals the selfs innermost qualities. This aspect of the body is closely
tied to the social and spiritual dimensions of the body, which I have already dis-
cussed. A few aspects may be added here: For instance, the selfs responsibility for
bodily flaws needs to be addressed. Lerner is of the opinion that we may not blame
poor genetics but have to realize that we invented our lack of fitness ourselves
(Lerner 2003, 106). The individual, therefore, should blame neither biology, nor
50
I have presented some reflections on this issue in Radermacher (2013c).
others, nor simply circumstances, but get active. The body, especially, the fat body
often seems to hide the true self. Williamson, for example, points out, Spiritually,
your wanting to lose weight is not a desire to become less of yourself, but rather a
desire to become more of your true self (Williamson 2010, 49; italics added). I deal
with this notion of the perfect self in more detail in the following paragraphs.
This section will show how the individuals relationship to the self is sustained
by means of the body. The ego relates to its self, it is the subject that establishes
the relationship (for more on how the self is perceived in devotional fitness, see page
196). To speak of a relationship between ego and self seems a bit of a paradox.51 It
is a common figure, however, in everyday speech to say that someone has found
himself, or, that someone has come to terms with herself. This parlance implies
that the self and the ego are sometimes considered separate. This is not a desirable
state, though. The goal of establishing a relationship to the self is to dissolve this
very difference between the ego and his or her self and to become ones true self.
An essential way of doing so is, just as in social relationships, to seek for love.
Loving oneself is not always easy. It is an oft-employed notion that people do not
love themselves because of their fat bodies (see also page 175). For example,
Frances Hunter writes in her 1976 book that we should follow the biblical command
to love the next as ourselves. But, she asks her readers, how could we love ourselves
if we are fat (Hunter [1976] 1979, 88)? In this way, the body becomes an index of
how the ego and the self fall in one, of how true the ego mirrors the self, in short: of
the quality of the relationship to the self.
In less radical words, this idea may also be found in recent devotional fitness. On
their web site, ActivPrayer holds the view that we need to love ourselves in order to
love others.
[I]n order to maximize our potential to live our best life and serve others, we must take care
of our health. We will never be able to accomplish as much to serve God and care for our
families and friends if we die of a preventable chronic illness at a young age. If we are seri-
ous about how much we love our family and friends, the most important thing that we could
do for them is to first love ourselves. And that includes respecting your own body enough
to take proper care for it and get in a minimum amount of exercise (at least 20 minutes, 4
times per week) (ActivPrayer 2010).
Here, the concept of loving oneself is immediately put into practical advice:
Loving oneself does not require enjoying a piece of cake (as one could doubtlessly
assume)it manifests as twenty minutes of exercise, four times a week. So, loving
oneself finds expression in the way we treat our bodies. Feeding it well (see page
140 ff) and keeping it in shape (see page 143 ff) are acts of self-love that are not
perceived as narcissistic but rather as necessary consequences of biblical com-
mands. The relationship between ego and self manifests visibly in the body, and, in
51
To consider the self as being apart from the I is not a novel notion, of course. From a philo-
sophical point of view, Paul Ricur explores the nature of the self as another in Das Selbst als
ein Anderer (Ricur 1996) drawing on Ren Descartes, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Georg
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Edmund Husserl, and others.
the ideal case where the I represents the true self, the body will mirror the true
self as wellin a slim and trim appearance.
The longed-for relationship to the self is achieved when the true self and the
ego merge into one. In this state, one is truly oneself and has realized ones full
potential. The notion of the perfect self hidden inside an imperfect body regularly
appears in devotional fitness.52 Cheryl Weber, one of the four soul sisters hosting
the Canadian TV show Full Circle,53 phrased her experience as follows: This isnt
who I really am; and I felt like a skinny person, still not quite there yet. Somewhere
inside of me, theres this skinny person who wants to come out; trapped inside a
body that wasnt mine (Mainse etal. 2011c). More than 50 years earlier, Charlie
Shedd had phrased quite a similar idea: Peel off the layers, watch it emerge, and
know the thrill which comes when you meet the real you (Shedd 1957, 40). In this
instance, the relationship to the self is embodied insofar as the body is an obstacle
in the process of allowing the individual to become its real selfwhich would
supposedly manifest in a slim body.
The real self is what some authors describe as the individuals spiritual and
physical potential. Body & Soul Fitness, for example, wants to help participants
reach their personal best, both physically and spiritually (2008). This implies that
individuals potential abilities are not yet realized entirely, both in terms of their
body and in terms of their spirituality. There is the idea of some version of the self
which is better than its current manifestation and yet to be achieved through the
body. These notions of bodily and personal perfection are reminiscent of notions of
perfectionism that Griffith observes both in New Thought and subsequent Protestant
fasting and dieting (Griffith 2004a, 110111). They also appear in contemporary
non-religious fitness discourse which suggests that both fat and not yet ill people
are dislocated from their true thin and healthy inner selves or potential and which
provides techniques for the individual to transform himself or herself into this sup-
posedly universally available inner thin person (Hoverd 2005, 102; italics added).
Finally, the relationship to the self is also troubled by unprocessed emotions.
These manifest in overweight, which makes the body a public marker of emotional
problems. Already in Hunters Gods Answer to Fat, overeating results from emo-
tional or spiritual deficits (Hunter [1976] 1979, 9192). This idea is frequently
52
There is a vast amount of research on the self from different academic perspectives. From the
perspective of social psychology, Baron and Byrne point out that the self-concept consists of all
the knowledge we possess about ourselves (Baron and Byrne [1974] 1991, 131)it is not an
object but constituted in discursive knowledge. Baumeister assumes three dimensions of the self-
concept: reflexive consciousness, interpersonal aspects of selfhood, and executive function
(Baumeister 1998, 680). With regard to the popular belief in an inner self, he points out the con-
nections to Christian understandings of the self. People believe that their inner selves contain
undiscovered treasures waiting for self-actualization, contain the solutions to their problems and
decisions, and so forth. [] It seems likely that our belief in an inner self can be traced to the
medieval Christian concept of soul (Baumeister 1986, 257). In many of the programs researched
here, this notion appears too.
53
Theresa Rowe (Shaped by Faith) and Laura Monica (WholyFit) were guests in this show (see
also footnote 2, page 130).
referred to by the figure of emotional eating, a concept that understands eating

(too much, too unhealthy, etc.) as an act of unintentionally numbing emotional pains
(see, e.g., Shedd [1972] 1984, 22).54
Emotions, eating, overweight, and the self are assumed to be intricately linked.
This is why many programs in devotional fitness make emotional healing or emo-
tional cleansing an explicit prerequisite of physical healing (i.e., weight-loss).
Candace Anger, with whom I corresponded about Weigh Down Workshop, explained
that one of the programs goals is emotional healing, which will eventually facilitate
physical healing.
Summary In the last section, I have tried to explain how the egos relationship to
the self is sustained through and by means of the body in its four dimensions. To
sum up, a good relationship to the self requires loving oneself and ones body. For
that to happen, people need to lose weight (because, supposedly, you can only love
your body when it is thin). Additionally, acts of eating healthily and working out
are acts of self-love. This, in turn, follows from Jesus mandate to love yourself as
your next. The perfect self, which is how God made the human being, manifests in
a healthy (i.e., slender) body. For this perfect self to emerge, people need to deal
with their emotional issues; they also need to free it by getting rid of the physical
barriers imprisoning it and separating them from fellow human beings.
Body as Biological Site and Medium to Relate to the Body The body is not only
perceived as a vessel wherein transcendent entities reside; it is also understood as a
biological organism and, as such, it has physical functions that are subject to scien-
tific and medical research and intervention. In this context, the mechanistic model
of the body55 prevails and is continued in the input/output model of weight-loss, a
common principle in the weight-loss business, according to which weight-loss is
achieved by reducing input (food/calories) and raising output (through exercise).
While leaders and participants acknowledge that the body needs food and nutrients,
they usually argue that we simply eat too much. Lynne Gerber, in her explanation of
First Place 4 Health, confirms that this organization relies on the mechanistic model
and the associated input/output model, too. Fatness is said to be the result of an
imbalance between calories consumed and calories expended (Gerber 2012a, 97).
The concession that the body also is a biological organism is the premise for medi-
cally based advice. For instance, Rowe suggests to increase your metabolism and
54
The physician Charles Freed coined the concept emotional eating in the Journal of the
American Medical Association in 1947. The assumption had already spurred the success of TOPS
and spread into the wider diet discourse (Fraser 1997, 151; see also page 76).
55
The notion of the body as a machine was shaped by Ren Descartes (who is also credited with
establishing modern Western mind-body dualism; see, e.g., Vsquez 2011, 3641). The mechanis-
tic model of the body was taken up in Protestantism and conventional biomedical medicine and
considers the body exclusively as a biological organism, not attending to social and emotional
spheres of existence. Mirroring technical machines, bodies are understood as automats functioning
on the basis of scientific laws (Hlsken-Giesler, 67).
energy levels (Rowe 2008, 139) by means of Pilates. On the other hand, there is
also evidence of more holistic understandings of the body (see page 195 ff).
The assumption that the body is both spiritual and biological matter leads to a
theory of the body in which the material body is inherently sacred or possesses a
sacred element. Devotional fitness thus continues the idea of the homo religiosus
(the idea that men is inherently and by nature religious) in an explicitly embodied
key. Often, supporters assume that the body has two holes or voidsone is the
stomach and the other the soul respectively the heart. The last one is a God-shaped
hole, as Sarah phrased it in our interview. The stomach longs for food, the soul/
heart yearns for God. If people mistake the longings of their soul/heart for physical
hunger, they will gain weight because they unnecessarily increase their caloric
input. This motif is popular in Gwen Shamblins Weigh Down Workshop. An
Austrian representative of the program said that their goal is to fulfill the longings
of the heart and try to distinguish the two holes in the body, the stomach and the
heart. Shamblin herself explains:
We have been created with two empty, needing-to-be-fed holes in our body. One is the
stomach, and the other is the heart. The stomach is a literal hole in our body which is to be
fed with the proper amount of food. As for the heart, I am speaking figuratively of our deep-
down feelings. To satisfy these deep-down feelings, needs, or desires of the heart, we may
often turn to food and overload our stomach with more than it needs (Shamblin 2002, 12).
While there are important differences between Weigh Down Workshop and First
Place 4 Health,56 they share the two voids theory. The idea occurs in other pro-
grams, too (see, e.g., Mainse etal. 2011c; Shedd 1957, 48; Rowe 2010).
The idea of the two voids opens the door for two variants of foodspiritual
and physical food. Spiritual food is Bible study, prayer, quiet time with God, etc.;
material food is what we are supposed to eat. Authors of Christian dieting programs
argue that we will only be able to see our cravings in a new light when we realize
our need for these distinct kinds of food and adapt our behavior accordingly. The
second category often consists of two kinds of physical food: food the way God
meant it to be and man-made food. Reynolds speaks of Living Food and Dead
Food (Reynolds 2009, 212)probably inspired by Lerner, whose book he read.
Lerner writes:
Food by Man is created by man and so does not contain any of Gods intelligence. Therefore,
it does not know what to do in the BBG [Body by God], and the BBG has no idea what to
do with it. Food by Man is dumb. It is not smart to eat anything God did not make. []
Unfortunately, Food by Man will not allow you to function well or long (Lerner 2003,
5253).
56
Weigh Down Workshop is based on the principle: eat only when your stomach growls, and does
not encourage working out; its leader Gwen Shamblin has an important function as a charismatic
figure in the movement. First Place 4 Health, on the contrary, does not lay so much emphasis on
their leaders but rather on the content, and typically disseminates advice on eating and nutrition
that conforms mostly with scientific results (contrary to Shamblins controversial principle to eat
everything but only as long as you can hear hunger pangs). On the differences between the organi-
zations, see also Gerber (2012a, 23132).
Food by God, in contrast, is specifically designed for the body. These are the
foods that grow and exist in nature. [] God has built into His foods everything that
is necessary, in just the right amounts and in the perfect balance needed, for proper
digestion, distribution, and elimination of nutrients (Lerner 2003, 47).
It is usual in secular dieting discourse, too, to classify foods morally. A major-
ity of Americans consider certain foods as essentially good or bad (Fraser 1997,
120). Sack similarly observes, Food carries a moral value in America and this
food moralism drives millions of Americans to diet and some to starve themselves
(Sack 2001, 18586). In this way, a common differentiation of foods is recontextu-
alized and thus evangelicalized when it is linked to notions of righteousness and
sinfulness.
Body as Medium to Relate to the Body How does the individual, by means of the
body, establish and sustain a relationship to this body? Posing this question may
seem initially paradoxical, but makes sense when one considers that, in devotional
fitness programs, individuals work on the relationship to their bodies by engaging in
physical activity and practices affecting the body. The ego will have a good relation-
ship to its body when it nourishes the body well and exercises it on a regular basis.
A fit and healthy body signals to oneself and to others that the ego has a healthy
relationship to its body. Conversely, the fat body indicates that the relationship
between the ego and its body is damaged.
The individual, in this framework, has no tool but the body to heal the relation-
ship to this same body. Programs add secondary tools such as prayer, small group
meetings, and quiet time with God, but there is no escaping the fact that the body
itself is the instrument of re-establishing and mending the relationship between ego
and body.
The relationship between ego and body is significantly affected by individuals
attitude towards food. Many programs caution their followers against having too
strong emotional affections towards food. Doing so would entail the danger of idol-
atry (e.g., Hunter [1976] 1979, 30). Reynolds explains, If your belly is in control
of your eating and your life, you are engaging in a form of idolatry (Reynolds
2009, 58). The relationship to food and eating, therefore, should be restricted to
what is healthy and glorifies God.
Summary To summarize the previous chapter on the body and the relationships
embodied by it: The body in its four dimensions (divine, biological, social, and self-
related) mediates and manifests relationships crucial to the believer. The body, both
physically and conceptually, becomes something that makes and makes visible rela-
tionships. These relationships maintained between the individual and God, fellow
human beings, the self, and its body are interlinked and interdependent. For instance,
the relationship to fellow human beings is based on love thy neighbor as yourself:
this immediately refers to the relationship to the self, to God (as the believer follows
Gods commandment) and to the body (as eating healthily is a way to love your-
self). The relationship to God heavily builds on evangelizing in his name. This
translates to social relationships, as it requires social interaction and it affects the
believers attitude about his body because he may witness through this very body.
Of course, the ideas elaborated above prove unequally manifest in the programs
we are considering. While relationships to God and fellow human beings are
stressed in most programs, ideas and practices referring to relationships to body and
self are not evidenced quite as often. This might be due to their more complex
nature and less connectivity to the wider Christian discourse, which is often con-
cerned with relationships to God and fellow human beingseven if that does not
happen from the same body-focused perspective as in evangelical dieting and fitness
programs. Moreover, authors do not explicitly unfold a classification as outlined
above, which is the result of a discourse analytic procedure and not an attempt to
compile a unified theology of the body. Nonetheless, the material may be usefully
structured this way to get a better hold of the underlying principles of participants
efforts to establish and heal relationships vital to them. Understanding this complex
web of embodied relationships is also a starting point for the analysis of programs
goals. Due to the intricacies of mutual connections and dependencies, the system of
relationships is vulnerable to disturbance and dysfunction. Participants in devo-
tional fitness nonetheless hope for their relationships to be in good shape, or
healthy. In the next chapter, I examine what exactly this ideal state and its opposite
(sickness) look like.
6.4.2 H
ealing Relationships forPhysical andSpiritual
Transformation
The relationships described above are interdependent but hierarchizednot in

binary relations of subordination and domination but in complex relational ways.
The most important relationship in devotional fitness is the connection to God. The
other relationships are crucial, too, but in the end they serve the purpose of effecting
a true, personal relationship to God.
The conditions of both the body and the relationships it embodies are situated
somewhere between two poles: a negative condition (overweight, illness) and a
positive condition (fitness, health). The negative condition includes a lack of spiri-
tual and physical fitness; the positive one features fitness in both areas. The potential
trajectory that spans these two poles is structurally similar (but not necessarily
temporarily analog) to the evangelical master narrative: conversion.57 Griffith has
noted that one of the most frequent critiques of devotional fitness is based on the
assumed equation of fat with sin (Griffith 1997, 452). While I do not claim that
overweight is generally and explicitly equated with sin in devotional fitness, I argue
in this chapter that the dichotomies of unsaved vs. saved and fat vs. fit are at
least connected and, though rarely collapsing, often interlace to some extent. The
goal of this chapter, then, is to analyze concepts of sickness and health/fitness, their
57
Some stories of conversion have been presented in Sect. 6.2.
spiritual connotations, and how these relate to ways of understanding success and
failure in the programs under regard.
Sickness What is sickness in devotional fitness? Many authors tend to equal
overweight with sickness, or at least to portray overweight as the major cause of
ailments, including potentially fatal illnesses (see, e.g., Reynolds 2009, 96; Halliday
and Jack 2007, 12). This assumption is reinforced by a communicative figure Gerber
refers to as the litany of fat diseases, a ritualized repetition of a long list of medi-
cal issues said to be associated with obesity that tries to generate fear in relation to
body size and eating (Gerber 2012a, 59; this litany also exists in secular dis-
course, see Sect. 7.4). What Gerber observed in First Place 4 Health applies to other
programs in the genre, too. Steve Reynolds, e.g., uses every opportunity to tell peo-
ple that, before he developed Bod4God, he suffered from these conditions: 324
pounds, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes; digging my grave with a
knife and fork and an ice cream spoon, as he said in our interview. The notion that
overweight is a direct cause of illness is omnipresent and virtually unchallenged.
Overweight, in turn, is directly traced back to a bad lifestyle and lack of exer-
cise: Many of the common symptoms and diseases people suffer from every day
are due to bad lifestyles. This includes a lack of exercise (Lerner 2003, 152).
Robert Evans assumes that 3540 % of Americans are obese today58 and that the
percentage has doubled in the last twenty to forty years. Obesity, he says, is a
huge health issue which is killing them. Overweight is generally considered an
epidemic as many of my informants explained to me.
This negative state does not only pertain to the physical realm. Illness is an
overarching quality infecting all areas of life: emotions, mind, body, and the social
and spiritual realm. On the one hand, illness of the body (caused by overweight)
impairs the relationship to ourselves, to our friends and family, to the body, and,
most importantly, to God. On the other hand, without God on their side, proponents
of evangelical fitness programs assume they do not stand a chance in the fight
against the obesity epidemic and accompanying ailments. While you may feel
good now, without God, sickness and despair are just waiting to rear their ugly
heads, Ben Lerner illustrates (Lerner 2003, 6). Illness, then, is a state of disorder in
body, mind, emotions, spirit, and relationships. The outward symptom of this is
overweight. This is one of the central findings of this study: a generally familiar
anthropological concept, illness as disorder, is embodied, recontextualized, and thus
resemanticized within the discursive frame of evangelicalism.
Sarah, participant of the First Place 4 Health group I studied on Long Island,
experienced this state of despair and disorder before she got into her first self-help
group. In our extensive interview, she described this as follows:
Among U.S. adults, the National Center for Health Statistics reports, 35.7 % were obese (BMI
58
> 30) in 20092010 (Ogden etal. 2012). In North America, 73.9 % of the adult population are
overweight (BMI > 25), according to a study by Walpole etal. (2012).
I was very much into my eating disorder, I couldnt go any further down far as my emotions
if you know anything about addiction at all, its obsessive thoughts; and [it] just affects
your whole mind, body, and soul, and youre just consumed by that one thought. [] I just
felt like prayer and going to God was the only thing that was really getting me out of it. So
it just evolved from there; I just went on my journey.
The sick and/or overweight body cannot be the tool it is supposed to be and,
therefore, it cannot sustain the relationships it is supposed to embody. Its divine,
social, biological, and self-related functions are impaired. Therefore, believers can-
not be the stewards they are supposed to be. They cannot evangelize and fulfill their
God-given purpose. Robert Evans from Christian Fitness TV told me that they were
worried about pastors and Christians health when they first designed their pro-
gram: They werent really fulfilling the call of God on their life, because of the
issues with health. In sum, when people are overweight (i.e., sick), all their rela-
tionships are in disorder. The sick body is an obstacle; it hinders the establishment
of relationships.
What is the reason for this undesirable condition and its symptom, overweight?
Besides the general accusation of society with its unhealthy eating habits and
sedentary lifestyles, programs of devotional fitness also reckon that there are psy-
chological causes. These explanations focus on concepts of addiction and emotional
eating. Obsessive eating is understood as addictive behavior or as unconsciously
seeking to sooth emotional pains (on emotional eating, see page 181 f). For instance,
Daniel Amen illustrated this point at the kick-off event of Rick Warrens Daniel
Plan, held in January 2011, by directly equating drug addiction with food addiction.
The addiction concept of eating is related to the wider therapeutic culture (on
Alcoholics Anonymous, see Sect. 6.3). Identifying overeating as caused by addic-
tion legitimizes and provides treatment and thus facilitates programs concerns
with overeating.
These behavioral patterns, however, are not understood as the principal causes of
overeating. The devil is always around as a latent threat, as Laura Monica empha-
sized when she was invited to talk about WholyFit on Full Circle (Mainse et al.
2011b). Only rarely does the devil play such an explicit role in the communications
of devotional fitness, but according to the logics of evangelicalism the devil is
responsible for all evil in the worldhe came to steal, kill, and destroy (Reynolds
paraphrased John 10:1059 in our interview)and that includes overweight and
illness.
Rick Warren recited a short poem during the opening event of The Daniel Plan in
January 2011:
Lord, grant me the strength that I may not fall / into the clutches of cholesterol. / At poly-
unsaturates Ill never mutter / for the road to hell is paved with butter. / Whip cream is
cursed and jelly is awful / yes, Satan is hiding in every waffle. / He appears to me as a cin-
namon roll / eager to fatten and clog my soul. / So teach me the evils of hollandaise / of ribs
and pasta and mayonnaise. / May I have the presence to realize / that evil lurks in IN-N-
59
John 10:10: [Jesus said:] The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that
they may have life, and have it to the full (New International Version 2011).
OUT fries. / And crispy fried chicken from the south, / Lord if you love me, shut my mouth
(Warren etal. 2011; italics added).
Those who watched Warren recite this poem could not miss some irony and
rhetoric exaggeration. Nonetheless, he makes a point not unknown in other pro-
grams too. The author of Bod4God, Steve Reynolds, assumes that there is a univer-
sal fight going on about our bodies, a battle between God and the enemy (Reynolds
2009, 95). There is a spiritual warfare component to the issue of overweight and
weight-loss. In our interview, he phrased this as follows:
We got God and we got the enemy. And the Bible says that Gods plan, Jesus came to give
us life and the enemys plan is to steal, kill, and destroy. [] And he will use whatever will
work. So, if he can get you with alcohol, or tobacco, or bitterness, or porn, or [] whatever
will work, thats what hell use. And what people never understood, till, I think, recently, is
the fact that, okay, he doesnt have to use those things [] And when we just give ourselves
to our flesh and eating all we want to eat and not exercise, were just going to corrupt
ourselves.
Is it disobedience then, or sin, if people indulge in sweets, chocolate, or ice

cream? Is overweight a sign of sin and is sin the sole cause for overweight? This is
a much-discussed question in devotional fitness and in critical accounts of evangeli-
cal fitness programs. Lynne Gerber has paid considerable attention to this question
in her study on First Place 4 Health. Members of this group, she notes, are careful
with the notion of sin when it comes to eating disorders; they rather speak of dis-
obedience. Fatness is more of a weakness than a sin in part because the people who
struggle with it are often recognized as good, solid, albeit humanly flawed,
Christians (Gerber 2012a, 28). In other programs, as I can show here, the motif of
sin comes up a little more explicitly.
While the cause of illness is overweight, and while the cause of overweight is the
Devils impact on human beings, it is not entirely clear how to categorize the act of
overeating and its result, overweight. Steve Reynolds writes, I had to recognize
my abusive eating for what is [sic] wassin (Reynolds 2009, 56). And later in his
book he writes, I think the Bible bears out Gods perspective that overeating is a
sin (Reynolds 2009, 223). Similarly, Shedd had, in The Fat is in Your Head, sug-
gested that overeating is sin (Shedd [1972] 1984, 20). While gluttony, in traditional
Christianity, is one of the seven cardinal sins, its result, overweight, has not always
been considered sinful. Overweight is not outspokenly identified as sin in all devo-
tional fitness programs either, but there tends to be a conflation of overeating and
overweight that considers fat persons as gluttons and vice versa.
The general assumption that gluttony is a sin is based on Proverbs 23:2, and put
a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony (New International Version 1984;
see, e.g., Reynolds 2009, 128). Weigh Down Workshop uses this verse too, when
elaborating their view on gluttony. They add,
Greed with our food intake is the single most-related factor to bad healthcancer, diabetes,
heart disease, back and joint problems, etc. []. Gluttony is defined by Websters
Dictionary as the excessive indulgence in food and drink. This is a subject rarely talked
about in the 21st century, but the evidence of gluttony is seen in the increasing size of the
population in the U.S., as well as in the worldwide epidemic of obesity (Weigh Down
Ministries 2010).
Contrary to this reading of Proverbs 23:2, other interpretations do not focus so

much on issues of eating in this scripture but on the ruler appearing in the context
of this verse.60 The Quest Study Bible explains: A ruler is anyone in a higher posi-
tion, especially one inclined to use or manipulate others. The point is, dont overin-
dulge yourself on the privileges or delicacies such individuals offer. Youll make an
unfavorable impression and may play into their plans to manipulate you (Quest
Study Bible 2003, 932). Another biblical reference often referred to in this context
is Galatians 5:16. Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh
(King James 2000 Bible 2003). This verse is not directly related to eating, but is
often interpreted this way when meditating upon scripture (walking in the Spirit)
is meant to soothe intractable appetites, as I could observe during several site
visits.
In 2011, a survey by ChristiaNet.com, a Christian online forum, asked its readers
Is it a sin for Christians to be overweight? Thirty-nine percent of 4,000 respon-
dents did not say that being overweight was a sin. Instead, they answered, We are
made after Gods image, it doesnt matter how fat we are, He still loves us or God
didnt make everyone thin, and some people are just bigger than others. These
respondents often referenced medical and congenital reasons for overweight and
did not assume individual responsibility. About 35 % felt that being overweight
was a sin. They answered, Gluttony is a sin and God does not like it, often citing
the motif of the body as Gods temple. Twenty-six percent of respondents were
undecided because they distinguished different causes of overweight and would not
blame someone for being fat for medical problems. They also assumed that over-
weight itself was not sinful, but the underlying cause of overweight (e.g., stress)
could be traced back to sinful behavior (ChristiaNet 2011). Variations of the concept
of overweight as sin, therefore, do occur in wider Christian circles and are shared by
about one third of the readers of ChristiaNet.com. Here is where devotional fitness
programs adapt an already recurring motif and implement it into their framework.
There are also concepts in devotional fitness that attenuate stricter interpreta-
tions. Body & Soul, in one of their devotional brochures, takes the following views
on illness, which is a result of, but not necessarily equated with overweight:
1. Illness cannot separate you from Gods love. []. 2. Illness cannot minimize your hope.
[]. 3. Illness cannot destroy your faith. [] 4. Illness cannot rob you of your peace. []
5. Illness cannot prevent you from reaching your eternal destination. [] 6. Illness cannot
remove you from Gods presence (Walchshauser and Walchshauser 2011a, 78).
This less rigid view on illness and sin might be understood as a way Body & Soul
strives to not alienate (potential) participants, and to assure everyone, sick and
healthy alike, of Gods love.
60
Proverbs 23:13: When you sit to dine with a ruler, note well what is before you, and put a knife
to your throat if you are given to gluttony. Do not crave his delicacies, for that food is deceptive
(New International Version 1984).
Fitness In devotional fitness, the sought after condition of body, soul, and mind is
a state of spiritual and physical fitness. Programs speak of this state in terms of
several concepts, the most important of which are health, harmony/wellness, fitness,
and wholeness. Successfully completing a program implies reaching these goals.
The following section will further analyze each of these terms.
Health In Bod4God, Reynolds quotes a former participant of his Losing to Live

competition, Diane Cornell. I have learned from my journey that God loves us and
created us to have a body that is pleasing to Him, a body that is healthy and physi-
cally able to carry out the work that He has called us to do (Reynolds 2009, 63).
Health, in this conception, is a God-desired state of affairs with regard to the body.
What exactly is health? A definition by the World Health Organization (1999)
describes health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and
not merely the absence of disease, or infirmity (quoted in Hanser 2010, 84950).
Suzanne B. Hanser, in her contribution to the Handbook of Music and Emotion,
concludes that the concept health denotes the comprehensive nature of ones
physical and emotional status as it develops throughout a persons life and could
encompass anything that an individual strives for in the process of becoming more
whole, balanced, and positive in mind, body, and spirit (Hanser 2010, 84950). On
a general level, most supporters of devotional fitness agree with these consider-
ations. Nonetheless, they focus more on slimness and weight-reduction as indis-
pensable prerequisites and external markers of health (see, e.g., Lerner 2003,
14547). Thinness is the chief indicator of health. Gerber noticed this in her field-
work on First Place 4 Health too, where, in most cases, health is largely conflated
with thinness while fatness is associated with illness (Gerber 2012a, 60).
Health, rather than merely outward appearance, is an eternal motivator because
it is directly related to following Gods call, Laura Monica (WholyFit) said on Full
Circle TV (Mainse etal. 2011c). In a later broadcast of their show, Cheryl Weber
stated, the more healthy you are, the longer you live, the more fit you are, the more
that you can do for God; you can work longer, you can live longer. I mean, its all
giving our best to God (Mainse etal. 2011d). In short, physical health is a condi-
tion of and precondition for complete harmony in the relationship to God, which
implies that the body in all its dimensions and the different relationships it embodies
are in harmony and order.
Harmony and Wellness These are important concepts relating to fitness and health,
too. The condition when the body is healthy (which is visible in its shape)when
the individual can fulfill her destiny and her responsibilities towards family and
friends, and when there is peace in body, mind, soul, and spiritautomatically
leads to joy and happiness in this life. The concept harmony, in this context,
implies that the different priorities in life are in the right order. Laura Monica
(WholyFit) holds the view that
its not just about fitness, its about priorities. We want to be healthy so we can serve the
Lord and serve each other. And we cant do that if were rushing around and neglecting the
things that God wants us to do. And he will always give us time to do the things that are in
his will. And He has given us exercise, actually, as a gift. Not something to weigh us down
or to add extra stress. But its what will make our lives work better. Itll make our lives
harmonious, you know. It will make our lives full and abundant, like he has promised
(Mainse etal. 2011c).
The notion of wellness connects to these ideas of harmoniously prioritizing dif-

ferent tasks and areas in life. First, the concept wellness often occurs in combina-
tion with health or healingthe Riverside Church in New York City, for
instance, an example of a non-evangelical setting that realizes parts of the discourse,
runs a Health, Healing & Wellness Ministry (The Riverside Church NewYork City
2011). Second, wellness also refers to the different realms of the individual. First
Place 4 Health seeks wellness in mind, body, soul, and spirit based on a relation-
ship with Jesus Christ (First Place 4 Health 2011).
Coined in the 1950s by medical practitioner and author Halbert L.Dunn (1896
1975), the concept wellness combines well-being and fitness in a holistic
lifestyle, focusing on wholesome health, and maximizing the individuals potential.
Prevention and taking over responsibility for oneself in terms of physical, mental,
and emotional health, were core elements of Halberts concept (Graf 2008, 12).
The emergence of the wellness movement in the United States was also shaped by
New Age currents and the Holistic Health Movement (Graf 2008, 5). The label
turned into a marker of products, programs, and lifestyles that became popular
throughout Western societies, often lacking a coherent concept or unified move-
ment. With its focus on holistic health and self-perfection, the idea easily connects
to the discourse of devotional fitness and has been adapted to and implemented in
various programs.
The concepts wellness and harmony dominate the discourse in female pro-
grams while health seems to be a unisex concept. This links devotional fitness
programs to the wider fitness discourse, which expects women to be more interested
in gentle and wholesome health care while men are expected to pursue fitness as
something to make their bodies strong and endurable.
Fitness Devotional fitness is not just about fitness, as Laura Monica puts it
(Mainse etal. 2011c), but there is no doubt that it is about fitness too. The way this
concept is recontextualized in the face of evangelical priorities and rationalizations
is one of the distinct features of this discourse. The evangelicalization of fitness
lying at the core of this concept is one of the central findings of this study.
As in the concept devotional fitness, the terms fitness or fit appear in many
of the programs names.61 The term, however, does not only refer to physical fitness,
but to growing in a closer relationship with Jesus. Under the heading Proper Order
of Well-Being in Relation to God, ActivPrayer explains,
61
Body & Soul Fitness, Christian Fitness TV, ChurchFitness, Devoted Fitness, Faithfully Fit, Fit
for Faith, Fit for God, Gospel Fitness Workouts, PrayFit, Spirit and Muscle Fitness, Wholly
Fitness, and WholyFit are just some examples.
Fitness was made for man; man was not made for fitness. Fitness can never be viewed as an
end in itself, but rather a means to live a healthier, happier life, to spend more time loving
and serving others, and to love God more. In the end, our goal is to grow closer to God. If
we order our fitness to serve our own sense of well-being, we could be motivated by a high
degree of selfishness, and we will never be able to experience the true joy of properly
ordered fitness. [] So pleaseput fitness in its proper place. Use it as a means to end. If
you are not growing mentally and spiritually from your training, then you are in danger of
putting all of your worth in a clay pot that can be easily shattered at any moment (ActivPrayer
2010).
Rowe has a different understanding. To her mind, form, balance, flexibility, and
breathing are not just physical things you try to get your body to do properly but
also spiritual disciplines you need to grow as a whole person (Rowe 2010). Whats
good for your body is even better for your soul (Rowe 2010). Insofar, Rowes
understanding differs from the one brought forward in ActivPrayer. While Rowe
extends the concept fitness to spiritual things, ActivPrayer makes an effort to
restrict it to bodily things and to value it accordingly as a means to a spiritual end.
In both conceptions, however, fitness becomes tightly connected to the relation-
ship to God. In the first (Rowe), the spiritual relationship to God itself can be quali-
fied as fit; in the second (ActivPrayer), being fit is a prerequisite to establish and
maintain this relationship. These two understandings of the concept illustrate the
degrees to which physical and spiritual fitness are merged in different programs.
Agreeing with Rowe, Laura Monica (WholyFit) explains:
Fitness is not about what you can do. Its about what God can do in you. And God cares
about your exercise, your health, and about every detail of your life. Wellness is not just
about the physical body anyway, its also about the soul and the spirit. And thats why its
important to including God in your exercise within a biblical framework [] make your
exercise program a faith adventure (Mainse etal. 2011e).
In her account, the entanglement of exercise, physical fitness, spirituality, and

spiritual growth is even more visible. Fitness, as goal and process, is something that
is always inherently tied to God and to the believers relationship with him.
Summary In the preceding paragraphs, I have dealt with the understanding of con-
cepts such as sickness and health or fitness. Doing so, I tried to show that
these concepts, in devotional fitness, do not just refer to physical things but also to
spiritual realms, more specifically, to the relationship to God. Therefore, I argue, we
witness an evangelicalization of fitness in these programs. In general, the notion
of being spiritually in touch with God is often tied to being physically healthy and
fit. Vice versa, not being fit, which manifests in an overweight body, is often
associated with insufficient spiritual connection to God or Jesus. In this aspect, the
underlying structure of devotional fitness mirrors the evangelical conversion narra-
tive that is build around the dichotomy of being unsaved (without a relationship to
God) versus being saved (in a relationship to God). It would be oversimplified to
understand devotional fitness programs as paralleling unsaved with overweight
and saved with fit. Overweight is not generally conflated with sin, and slimness
is not always understood as righteousness. It still suggests itself, however, to con-
sider these programs practices of spiritual and physical fitness as embodiments of
evangelicals longing for a deep and satisfying relationship with God which is
grounded in, but not necessarily equated with, the evangelical master narrative.
Success and Failure Evangelical fitness and dieting programs intend to provide
ways for their members to leave sickness and disobedience to biblical principles
behind. Though promising success for everyone who decides to join them, pro-
grams must make provisions for cases of failure. Not losing weight or getting fit
poses a serious threat to the credibility of devotional fitness programs.
The goal of this section is to discuss how leaders and participants rationalize
failure. The first common strategy is to assume that transformation occurs more on
the inside than on the outside. Therefore, if change does not manifest in a slender
body, people are still likely to have grown spiritually during the course of the pro-
gram. Failure, according to this view, is almost impossible because success begins
with the simple step of joining a program and being affected by its regimens and
thoughts. In an extensive interview with one of the participants of Lindas group, the
woman told me that essential transformations do not occur externally but internally.
Therefore, she finds it hardly possible at all to fail or to get worse physically. Internal
changes, however small, will occur to anyone willing to work with the program.
Whether and when there will be weight-loss is not central, she saysit will happen
naturally as an outcome and side effect of internal transformations. I suggest the
conceptualization of change as internal vs. external in addition to Gerbers ter-
minology of change as process vs. change as choice (Gerber 2012a, 82).
Setting priorities of such kind is an apt way of avoiding long-term frustrations
with the program. Gerber confirms: Spiritual commitments have the advantages of
being the clear priority in a faith-based program that, after all, puts God first and of
being more easily attainable than weight-loss (Gerber 2012b). Looking at the
explications of aims and priorities, it is crucial to note that physical and spiritual
aspirations are clearly hierarchized, though tightly connectedsomething I found
in most programs. Again, Gerbers analysis concludes accordingly: [D]ifferentiat-
ing between the physical and spiritual aims of the program, and prioritizing the
latter, is useful in deflecting attention from the limitations of weight-loss by devalu-
ing it as a goal in comparison to spiritual development (Gerber 2012b).
Related to the argument that internal changes are more important than external
ones is the notion that programs are not so much about results (despite their market-
ing mostly results) but about the process. Carole Lewis, leader of First Place 4
Health, states, according to Gerber, You cannot fail First Place. You can quit. You
can stop doing it. But you cannot fail, because the success is in the process of First
Place (Lewis quoted in Gerber 2012a, 192). This is one of the aspects that are quite
similar to notions occurring in yoga (Sect. 7.5).
A second strategy, one hinted at in the quotation by Lewis, is to blame not the
program, but the participant. In brief, you cannot fail, you can only give up (Lerner
2003, 211), or you will succeed if you just believe (Richardson Joyner 2011). In this
case, if you do not succeed, it is not the programs fault; your faith is just not strong
enough. This, however, is an understanding that I did not come across quite as often
as the one described earlier because it sounds stricter and thus less appealing to
potential participants.
Making success measurable is important for having evidence convincing enough
to attract potential participants and reassure those who are still waiting for their
excess pounds to melt away. Therefore, many programs minutely record data such as
weight, body fat percentage, blood pressure, and waist size (e.g., know your num-
bers, Eastman 2010). The quantification of success is also featured on the cover of
Bod4God (Fig. 6.2). The cover illustration connects the open Bible and the measur-
ing tape, thus visualizing the programs core principle: tighten your belt on a biblical
basis. Additionally, the programs understanding of success might shine through
here: Your spiritual success is measurable in your physical features. The quantifica-
tion of physical and spiritual success is one of the central features of the genre.
Fig. 6.2 Cover of Steve Reynolds Bod4God (2009) (Revell, a division of Baker Publishing
Group, copyright granted June 5, 2015, reprinted by permission of the publisher)
We encounter these quantitative measures of success in nearly every testimonial

when participants state, right after their name, their weight-loss and the amount of
time they have kept it off. Heather Sanchez, for example, posted on Weigh Down
Ministries Message Boards (August 1, 2011, 5:14 a.m.), Hello, my name is
Heather Sanchez. I have been doing Weigh Down since 1996. I have lost 80 pounds
and kept it off since then (Weigh Down Ministries 2010).
This stands in stark contrast to Carol Showalters (3D) concept. Contrary to
Reynolds and others, she writes, Success in 3D is NOT measured in pounds
(Showalter and Davis [2002] 2007, 279). Showalters point of view is based on her
own disappointments with regard to weight-loss and her changed attitude towards
overweight, health, and spirituality (page 112).
Wholeness and Holism In addition to the above-described terms (health, har-
mony, wellness, and fitness), the goal of devotional fitness programs is also phrased
in terms of wholeness. This concept emphasizes that fitness and health do not just
refer to the physical, but to all areas of life. Based on the general notion that body,
soul, and mind connect to each other and to the social (an ideology I refer to as
holism, see page 197 ff), followers of evangelical fitness programs seek health
in all these areas. They share this idea with much of the broader alternative and
complementary medicine discourse (Barcan 2011, 24).
WholyFit exemplifies the emphasis on wholeness with their oft-recurring slogan:
May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy
and whole, put you togetherspirit, soul, and bodyand keep you fit for the com-
ing of our Master, Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:23, The Message). Accordingly,
their program focuses on wholeness, holiness, and fitness through Christ Jesus
alone (WholyFit 2011).
First Place 4 Health addresses the whole personphysical, mental, emotional,
and spiritual (First Place 4 Health 2011). Their biblical foundation is Mark 12:30,
in which Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 6:5: Love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength
(Mark 12:30, New International Version, 1984). Here, the whole person is
addressed: emotions (heart), soul, mind, and body (strength). The leader of the First
Place 4 Health group I visited illustrated this by introducing the domino effect. If
one of the four elements (body, spirit, heart, and mind) requires mending, the others
will be affected too. The scriptural context of Mark 12:30 is Jesus explanation of
the greatest commandments in Mark 12:2834. Loving God with all your heart,
soul, mind, and strength is the first of these great commandments. Jesus command-
ment thus becomes the direct source of legitimation for devotional fitness programs.
In their reading of the verse, however, they shift the focus to heart, soul, mind, and
strength (body) and less often emphasize the context of the greatest command-
ment. This is a further incident of how evangelicals in these programs tend to read
and interpret biblical texts in target-oriented ways (see page 165).
If one area of life is not in shape, the others cannot work at their best either.
Devotional fitness communicates this premise in terms of wholeness (see, e.g.,
Lerner 2003, 17; WholyFit 2011; Showalter and Davis [2002] 2007, 1) and, some-
times, holism/holistic (see, e.g., 2008; First Place 4 Health [before 2008], 1). Both
concepts imply a putting together of complementary parts (contrary to a separation
of elements) on different levels of experience. The underlying idea is that human
beings and their lives, as well as human societies, consist of several zones or com-
partments. When devotional fitness programs describe themselves as holistic pro-
grams or such that seek wholeness, they stress that these areas are thought of as a
unity. They are so tightly connected that it is not possible to deal with them one by
one.
The concept whole usually connotes intact in the sense of not broken or work-
ing properly. The term, therefore, refers both to the quality of an element within a
system (it should be working properly) and to the quality of the system itself: there
will be wholeness when the elements are equally appreciated and harmoniously bal-
anced. In brief, devotional fitness employs a reasoning such as follows: Something
is or should be whole. The question then suggests itself: What is it that should be
whole and what are its parts? The subject being whole may be the individual, or the
life of the individual, and the totality of relationships sustained. Its parts are either
the components that make up the self, or the areas that make up our lives.
Nolens volens, I have returned to the question of how the self is perceived in
evangelical fitness programs. Digging a little deeper reveals insights into the under-
lying conceptualizations of the human being in the programs researched here. Then
it also becomes clear that devotional fitness as a contemporary formation of
Protestant religion is only thinkable as part of a modern or post-modern concept of
individuality (Taylor [1989] 1994, 89).
The parts of which the self consists are less clearly defined than one might
assume. While most programs agree that there are physical and non-physical realms,
there are varying conceptions about what these areas are. The simplest way of fram-
ing this idea is that human beings consist of physical and spiritual realms, of
body and soul. Accordingly, we are to appreciate both physical and spiritual
fitness (2008). Usually, programs say that the individual comprises three to four
areas: Apart from the basic version just mentioned, Body & Soul shares with Shaped
by Faith (Rowe 2010) the idea that we are made of body, mind, and soul as I dis-
cussed with Nan in an interview. First Place 4 Health adds to these three elements
the emotions (the heart) (First Place 4 Health 2011). WholyFit speaks of body,
spirit, soul and emotions (WholyFit 2011) and Fit for God agrees with that, emo-
tions excluded (Weaver 2011). At the margins of the discourse of devotional fitness,
Upward Unlimited seeks to help children grow not only as an athlete but emotion-
ally, mentally, socially, physically and spiritually (Upward Unlimited 2011).
Introducing the social, they arrive at five elements that make up the individual (in
this case the child).
One may conclude that the human consists of multiple faculties, incorporating
the most immanent (the physical body, the biological organism) and the most tran-
scendent (the spiritual, the soul, the spirit). Devotional fitness usually adds one or
two faculties (emotional and mental/intellectual) to this frame. Apparently, these
conceptions have outgrown body/soul dichotomies where the body is often seen as
a counterpart of the soul and replaced them with more complex understandings of
interdependent and complementary parts that stand in mutual relationships and need
to be considered together. In this respect, what we are facing in devotional fitness
constitutes a decisive transformation of evangelical Christianity in the United States.
Additionally, the whole refers to the sum of relationships in which the indi-
vidual participates. This is rarely made explicit but it undergirds almost the entire
discourse of devotional fitness. The idea is exemplified in ActivPrayer, which
engages the body, mind and soul in unison during every workout. The benefits spill
over into every area of lifeschool, work life, family life, sports, social life, and
more (ActivPrayer 2010). Here, the concept of the whole explicitly exceeds the
individual and extends to social realms as wella notion that is closer to some
ethnological renderings of the concept, as I point out in the next paragraphs.
Devotional Fitness as Holistic Programs? The goal of devotional fitness programs,
I conclude, is holistic or total fitness, health, harmony, or wellness. Judging from
the importance of wholeness in the discourse of devotional fitness, I make
holism a central analytic category in this study. I refer to the conceptual approach
underlying the above-described understandings as holistic. Although this term
occurs in emic language too, it is more apt to serve as an analytic concept than
wholeness. In devotional fitness, wholeness refers to the body, to health, and
to the relations of body, mind, and soul. In analytic speech, holism also extends
to the fact that an ideology de-compartmentalizes different areas of life (social,
individual, familial, spiritual, etc.).
I would like to introduce holism to tackle a central principle of devotional fit-
ness: the intention to incorporate all areas of the individuals life. Holism in this
respect is supposed to denote the programs intention to target human beings in all
their faculties (body, soul, mind, etc.), individuals relationships (social, spiritual,
etc.), and all areas of life (professional, private, social, religious, medical, etc.). The
concept of holism exceeds the emic concept wholeness when it refers not only
to the tendency of looking at the whole person but also, and more importantly, to the
(implicit) tendency to dedifferentiate societal spheres, especially religious and
secular realms of society, and also religious and medical areas. In this respect,
devotional fitness programs fulfill a constitutive function of religions in general:
Providing a total perspective on believers lives and framing every aspect of these
from this distinctive perspective.
Screening the discourse for elements that allow for this analysis, one may first
note that many programs highlight their combination of the spiritual and the physi-
cal. Donna Richardson Joyner (Sweating in the Spirit and Body Gospel), for
instance, feels she is called to combine the strength of my faith with my message
of health and wholeness (Richardson Joyner 2006). She encourages followers to
combine the power of your faith with a strong desire to lose weight and get super
fit (Richardson Joyner 2011). Both examples reveal the tendency to bridge realms
traditionally perceived as religious and secular.
Robert Evans (Christian Fitness TV) and Jeannie Blocher (Body & Soul) also
told me they seek to intertwine physical and spiritual things. Theresa Rowe par-
ticularly focuses on this point. [B]y allowing our spiritual walk to support our
physical walk, and by realizing how profoundly our physical growth affects our
spiritual growth, we embrace a merging of entities that will lead us closer to whole-
person wellness (Rowe 2008, 2; italics added).
This aspect of dedifferentiation, of explicitly and implicitly attempting to merge
the religious and the secular, is one of the reasons why I think devotional fitness
may be classified as popular religion in the sense of Hubert Knoblauch. In his
understanding, popular religion is a contemporary form of religion that is based on
dedifferentiation, which manifests in communicative exchange and crossovers
between seemingly separate areas, most prominently between religious areas and
popular culture (Knoblauch 2009, 197). This dedifferentiation, however, does not
imply a disintegration or dissolution of religion. On the contrary: While religious
institutions willingly implement communications from non-religious discourses,
they invest in the upkeep of their distinct identities (Knoblauch 2009, 267). These
features apply to devotional fitness, as I show throughout the next chapters. I also
provide more arguments as to why devotional fitness should be considered as popu-
lar religion in Knoblauchs terminology in Chap. 8.
In the study of cultures, the term holism has been used influentially by Louis
Dumont (Essays on Individualism: Modern Ideology in Anthropological Perspective,
first published 198662). Dumont explicates holism in opposition to individual-
ism. Holism here denotes ideologies that focus on collectivity instead of individu-
ality (Dumont 1991, 35). The social whole is the central value of holistic ideologies
(Dumont 1991, 287). It is difficult, though, to classify devotional fitness as such an
ideology becausealthough community and relationships, especially familial ones,
are highly appreciatedevangelical fitness and weight-loss programs are, at their
very core, focused on individual achievements. The whole, therefore, is almost
entirely de-socialized in devotional fitness when it refers to the whole of the single
person that requires physical and spiritual healing.
Adding another scholarly concept of holism to the discussion could facilitate
the categorization of devotional fitness as holistic. Paul Heelas and Linda
Woodhead explore the holistic milieu as a discourse that centers on the unique-
ness of subjective lives contrary to the congregational milieu that adheres to
traditional values that subject the individual to external authorities and expects it to
conform to pre-configured roles (Heelas and Woodhead 2005, 2331). Holistic
milieus, according to Heelas and Woodhead, embrace subjective-life spirituality,
congregational milieus feature life-as religion (Heelas and Woodhead 2005, 4).
Holistic milieus encourage people to seek personal experiences with the divine and
to cultivate the uniqueness of their selves (Heelas and Woodhead 2005, 83).
Although evangelicalism is generally classified as a form of life-as religion due to
its rules and the value to conform to biblically and/or traditionally prescribed roles,
Steven Sutcliffe, in a review article on Woodheads and Heelas book, suggests that
evangelical Christianity features characteristics that suggest to consider it as a spe-
cific form of subjective-life spirituality (Sutcliffe 2006, 306) and, therefore, an
evangelically rendered holistic milieu. Here, holism as a concept does not so
62
I have used the German translation Individualismus: Zur Ideologie der Moderne (Dumont 1991).
much refer to the social whole but to the individual whole. And as such, it is apt to
grasp notions of wholeness and holism in the field of devotional fitness. Devotional
fitness may therefore be described as holistic in the sense of Woodhead and Heelas.
Concepts of holism and wholeness often attempt to overcome supposedly older
understandings of body/soul dualismas when devotional fitness speaks of total
fitness (Anderson 2011a). However, body and soul/spirit do not completely merge
in any of these conceptions; they cannot become a non-dual entity. No matter how
highly people value the body and its role in establishing relationships to God, they
still consider it a temporary vessel, an instrument that they have been given for the
duration of their lives (see, e.g., Lerner 2003, 12; Eugene 2011), and something that
will decay while the soul will live infinitely.
Given the fact that Christians traditionally believe that they will one day resurrect
with an imperishable, immortal and new physical body, one might wonder why they
spend so much energy on making their this-worldly body healthy and fit. Indeed, the
idea of physical resurrection is referenced only rarely in the discourse, e.g., in
Whole Fit: The same resurrection power that raised Christ from the dead will also
resurrect our own mortal bodies (WholyFit 2011). If discussed at all, the nature
and significance of the resurrection body remains contested. Jimmy Pea, e.g.,
knows that someday Ill turn this body in for a brand-new one (Pea 2010, 13).
Nonetheless, during my time in this temporary home [] Ive been called to a
lifetime commitment of greater health and wellness (Pea 2010, 13). The slogan of
WholyFit, on the other hand, calls believers to stay fit for the coming of our Master,
Jesus Christ, i.e., for the afterworld. The programs focus, however, is clearly on
the human body in this world. This is confirmed in the overwhelming majority of
programs which do not discuss the nature of the body in the next world but focus on
the carnal and immanent fitness of the body. Optimizing and shaping this body,
then, serves the goal to do Gods will in this life and on this earthit is not about
perfecting the body in preparation of the afterlife. So, in some sense, programs do
not entirely overcome the body/soul distinction when they acknowledge the tran-
scendent qualities of the soul and emphasize the earthly tasks of the body as a tem-
porary vessel. But their framework does considerably elevate the importance of the
body for spiritual dimensions of life and highlight the interconnectedness of physi-
cal and spiritual things.
Having discussed different concepts of holism both in the field and in analytic
language (Dumont vs. Heelas/Woodhead), and the intricacies of practically embody-
ing holism in the field, I may now point out a central issue in the discourse which is
reflected in the different understandings of holism by Dumont and Heelas/
Woodhead. Is it a discourse stressing the social whole at the expense of individu-
ality, or does it feature a high appreciation of subjective lives and personal experi-
ences? In a way, both possibilities deserve consideration: The social whole is
certainly stressed when actors appreciate their Christian fellowship or the need to
establish positive relationships within and without their communities. On the other
hand, the distinct focus on individual physical and spiritual perfection is an all-
encompassing value which points to the importance of subjective lives. In this
regard, devotional fitness fits broader cultural efforts of catering for the individual
self in contemporary Western societies (Taylor [1989] 1994, 687). In conclusion,

one could introduce the somewhat paradoxical term individualistic holism, thus
referring to both the efforts to relate the individual to its immanent and transcendent
environment (its relationships) and the tendency to focus on individual improve-
ment alone.63
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Chapter 7
Between Inclusion andExclusion: Devotional
Fitness inIts Environments
Abstract This chapter demonstrates how programs of devotional fitness construct

their identities by inclusion and exclusion of communicative elements, ideas, and
practices from their various environments. Based on Cohens notion of commu-
nity as grounded in similarity and difference, I suggest approaching the discursive
negotiations of devotional fitness programs in a similar way. I assume that there are
several counterparts to devotional fitness, discourses that interact in one way or the
other, and that are represented here as the environments of devotional fitness: (evan-
gelical) Christianity, secular society, medicine, the non-Christian dieting and fit-
ness world, and yoga.
Keywords Discursive contact zone Negotiation of identity Medicine and devo-

tional fitness Yoga and devotional fitness Christian context of devotional fitness
Referring to the sociological category community, Cohen has demonstrated that

this category is fundamentally based on similarity and difference. The word thus
expresses a relational idea: the opposition of one community to others or to other
social entities (Cohen 1985, 12). Community produces both similarity and differ-
ence when it constitutes a border protecting its identity. [The] consciousness of
community is, then, encapsulated in perception of its boundaries, boundaries which
are themselves largely constituted by people in interaction (Cohen 1985, 1314).
This idea, I argue, is also fruitful on the level of discourses and discursive con-
structions of identity as these are tied to notions of community. As illustrated in Fig.
7.1, I assume that there are several environments to devotional fitness from the
perspective of an insider in the field: (evangelical) Christianity, secular society,
medicine, the non-Christian dieting and fitness world, and yoga. The discursive
spaces where their respective differences and similarities are negotiated shall here
be identified as discursive contact zones. A discursive contact zone,1 for the
1
The concept of the discursive contact zone was inspired by the cultural contact zones as
introduced by Wilke and Moebus (2011, 1017, 1024; see also Wilke 2013) who, in turn, work with
Pratt (1991, 34; see also Pratt [1992] 2008). As Nehring (2012, 11617) points out, the concept is
related to Homi Bhabhas third space and refers to places of (post-)colonial encounter which are
characterized by processes of acculturation, imitation, adaptation, and conflict. While Pratt and
Wilke refer to localized spaces of encounter, I de-spatialize the concept, referring to non-local
discursive contact zones.

208 7 Between Inclusion andExclusion: Devotional Fitness inIts Environments
secular society
medicine
Non-Christian
(evangelical) fitness and
devotional
Christianity dieting
fitness
yoga
Fig. 7.1 Simplified illustration of devotional fitness as a discourse forming discursive contact
zones (here visible as areas of intersection) with neighboring discourses ( 2016M.Radermacher)
p urpose of this study, refers to the discursive area where discourses adjacent to
devotional fitness overlap with it because they either share central elements or con-
cern the same issues, and thus provide competing explanations and corresponding
practices with regard to similar subjects.
I need to emphasize that what I have presented as devotional fitness is not clearly
discernable as a distinct institutionally or congregationally defined group in the
field. Its communications are always connected to other communications which
represent important and often foundational notions that shape and determine the
discourse of devotional fitness. We may therefore speak of discursive entanglements
that, however paradoxical it might seem, still allow for the emergence of (negotia-
ble) identitiesin this case the identity of devotional fitness.
The idea of discursive contact zones is based on real communicative interaction,
i.e., it is not meant to convey the idea of discourses interacting in some abstract
manner. People need to communicate in one way or the other, be it with real or
imaginative counterparts, for discourses to become real and available to research.
Often, discursive practice is mediated when actors respond to what they have read,
heard or seen in public media (books, newspapers, TV shows, etc.). Sometimes
there will also be direct face-to-face communications between, e.g., an evangelical
fitness devotee and a yoga practitioner. These are often too elusive for empirical
research. Therefore, the following analysis is based on materials that reveal how
individuals and organizations talk to and represent the respective other on the
basis of interactions that found expression in textual forms.
In the following chapters, I discuss these contact zones one by one, starting with
the most nearby environment, Protestant Christian culture in the United States, and
ending with yoga, a topic that seems far from evangelicals fitness practices but
nonetheless shapes devotional fitness considerably. For each of the following chap-
ters, I have attended to mechanisms of distancing and merging that occur in these
discursive contact zones and thus bring about the (ever-transforming) identity of
devotional fitness programs.
7.1Devotional Fitness inIts Christian Environment 209
7.1 Devotional Fitness inIts Christian Environment
This chapter will embed devotional fitness in its immediate context: Protestant
Christian culture in the United States. The Protestant Christian context, especially
its evangelical variant, provides elements that are taken up, redefined, or rejected in
devotional fitness. Its Christian environment communicatively and institutionally
frames devotional fitness. It will become apparent in this chapter that many of the
value-ideas and practices already existing in North American Protestantism are spe-
cifically adapted to the particular needs and theologies of devotional fitness pro-
grams. On the other hand, Christians not affiliated with dieting and fitness programs
sometimes criticize these, just as protagonists of devotional fitness sometimes dis-
tance themselves from their Christian context. First, I analyze these incidents of
distancing and then turn to examples of how the discourses merge.
Distancing Although a general counter-movement to devotional fitness has not
appeared, some Protestant Christian opponents of devotional fitness criticize the
body images and gender roles brought forth by Christian fitness and weight-loss
programs. Here, I summarize some of these critical accounts of devotional fitness
with regard to specific subjects.
First, devotional fitness programs find themselves critiqued by Christians because
they allegedly economically exploit peoples desire for slimness and attractiveness
in a physically unhealthy way. The feminist liberation and body theologian Lisa
Isherwood published The Fat Jesus: Christianity and Body Image in 2008. Isherwood
is concerned with a very lucrative but worrying development in the area of conser-
vative theologyevangelical fitness and dieting programs. These regimens, she
continues, are a billion-dollar industry which extols the religious virtue of being
slim and frames fat as sin (Isherwood 2008, 3).
Second, devotional dieters and their Christian observers quarrel about theologi-
cal issues. Surprisingly, controversy on Gwen Shamblin, Weigh Down Workshop,
and her church Remnant Fellowship did not result from her ideas on eating, weight-
loss, and the sinfulness of overweight. Instead, theological disagreements on the
concept of trinity spawned an outbreak of critical reviews in newspapers and online
blogs. In the summer of 2000, Shamblin stated in one of her weekly newsletters that
the Bible does not use the word trinity and our feeling is that the word trinity implies
equality in leadership, or shared Lordship. It is clear that the scriptures teach that Jesus is
the Son of God and that God sends the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not send God
anywhere. God is clearly the Head (Shamblin quoted in Kennedy 2000).
Shamblin also drew attention when one of her former employees filed a religious
discrimination lawsuit against her after supposedly having been fired for not attend-
ing her church (Starnes 2000). In consequence, her publishers withdrew their sup-
port (Kennedy 2000) and Shamblin was widely criticized as a cult leader (Anna
2002) and heretic (Kennedy 2000) in the Christian and non-religious
blogosphere.
With Weigh Down Workshop now in the focus of critique, commentators began
to note their controversial health practices (Kennedy 2000) and accused Shamblin
of promoting a Christian health movement that has little to do with health at all
(Anna 2002). Similarly, though not aimed at Weigh Down Workshop but at the
genre in general, Isherwood is worried about the ever increasing number of deaths
from anorexia (Isherwood 2008, 3).
It is significant that many Christian observers do not primarily take up the value-
ideas of Weigh Down Workshop relating to the body, but Shamblins debatable
theological doctrines and her controversial personnel management. Shamblin her-
self considered the theological controversies irrelevant. Christianity Today quoted
Shamblin: People dont care about this []. They dont care about the Trinity. This
is going to pass. What the women want is weight-loss. They care about their bodies
being a temple and their lives turned over to the Lord. Thats what my ministry is
about (quote reproduced from Kennedy 2000).
These critical remarks on Weigh Down Workshop lead to the third and main
subject of controversy between devotional dieters and their Christian environment:
the ideal of a slim body and its theological basis. The few critiques that have emerged
so far agree that assumptions equating slimness with sacredness lack their alleged
biblical basis.
Mary L.Bringle Bringle is a Presbyterian, feminist theologian and has experience
with being a compulsive eater herself (Bringle 1992, 912). She embraces, to
some extent, the idea of the body as temple and of making her whole life a prayer,
but implements these ideas in an entirely different fashion than devotional fitness
programs.
If I had the spiritual maturity to live my whole life as a prayer I doubt I would find myself
seeking to fill the empty spaces inside me with morsels of Butter Pecan Fudge ice cream.
Insofar as the ingestion of such morsels clogs my bloodstream with sugar and butterfat, it
does threaten my health and defile the temple of the Holy Spirit which is my body. On the
other hand, however, the voices from the right sound a bit simplistic in their suggestion that
overweight itself is the problem, and that dieting (even biblically-based dieting) is the
solution. Numbers of binge eaters are not, in fact, overweight []. To understand the
dynamics of destructive eating, we must look not only at the sinfulness of the individual
eater, prey to self-will and the wiles of Satan; we must also examine the social, political,
and economic realities of a society which places such premiums on consumption and on the
cosmetics of body image (Bringle 1992, 14).
In this quote, Bringle clearly marks herself as an insider and reproduces many
of the elements analyzed earlier as part of evangelical theologies of the body, nota-
bly the idea of the empty spaces inside the body, which is reminiscent of the two
voids theory (see page 183 f), and that of defiling the temple/body (see page
172f). She adds other dimensions, such economic and social ones, and thus arrives
at different conclusions. Christians, Bringle demands, should be the first to agitate
against discrimination of overweight people. Bringle phrases her disagreement with
devotional fitness programs within an acknowledgement of their emphasis on pay-
ing attention to the body from a Christian point of view.
Bodies do matter. Health and wholeness and stewardship matter. Feeling gracefully attuned
to the flesh, because it is the generous gift of our Creator, matters. But physical appearance
does notparticularly not when it is made to conform to some culturally defined and dis-
torted equation of beauty = thinness (= virtue, = a mini-god) (Bringle 1992, 116).
Motifs such as health, wholeness, and stewardship are popular in devo-

tional fitness programs too. Bringle, however, contextualizes them in a different
way. Her understanding of health essentially differs from that in many programs of
evangelical dieting: Health is important but it is not manifested in thinness. Bringle
refuses the focus on appearance and strictly opposes the idea that beauty might
signify righteousness. Instead, she pleads for the dissolution of body weight and
sacredness of the individual. She supports the size acceptance movement which
takes into account social factors effecting weight issues. Being fat, to their mind,
is neither sick nor sinful. The movement suggests that bodies should not change, but
societys attitude towards bodies until each body size and shape receives equal
appreciation (Bringle 1992, 14).
Michelle M. Lelwica Lelwica, whom I have introduced earlier (page 19 f), dis-
cusses and criticizes the secular quest for slimness among women and how it has
been turned into a spiritual goal. In several publications, including Starving for
Salvation (1999) and The Religion of Thinness (2010), she opposes this so-called
culture lite in general and is particularly concerned with the role of Christian
traditions in shaping contemporary (female) body ideals (Lelwica 2010, 16979).
She briefly discusses evangelical fitness programs too (Lelwica 2010, 17981) and
accuses these approaches of failing to see the idolatry of female thinness and how
closely this mirrors, and even supports, worldly concerns (Lelwica 1999, 76).
Instead, she calls for a new interpretation of the Christian sources, one that helps
women find spiritual fulfillment without subjecting them to patriarchal interpreta-
tions and unachievable slimness goals (Lelwica 1999, 140).
In her most recent publication, The Religion of Thinness (2010), a self-help
book designed to foster readers cultural critique and spiritual growth (Lelwica
2010, xxivxxv), she intends to provide tools for awakening from the toxic cultural
messages around us and becoming more deeply aware of the experience of our bod-
ies and minds (Lelwica 2010, xxivxxv). Deliberately engaging with the therapeu-
tic genre, she develops the tools practice of mindfulness and cultural criticism.
She intends to awaken readers from their brainwashed delusion that their bodies
are flawed and their appetites sinful (Lelwica 2010, xxiv). Admitting that there
are spiritual needs behind our desire to be thinner, she urges her readers to find
more nourishing ways to address these needs (Lelwica 2010, xxiv).
Lelwica had an eating disorder herself (Lelwica 2010, xxii) and therefore speaks
from personal experience. She writes from a Christian theological perspective too,
and claims that the thriving religion of thinness fills the gap that the spiritual
vacuum in our culture leaves (Lelwica 2010, xxiixxiii). Initially, some of her
arguments are similar to those employed in devotional fitness. When she writes,
We crave much more than food, she suggests that our obsession with food and
weight is essentially an expression of unmet spiritual needs (Lelwica 2010, xxiii
xxiv). She thus starts from similar assumptions as many protagonists in devotional
fitness, namely that unfulfilled spiritual needs lead people to desperately trying to
fill this gap with food. For when our spiritual hungers are well-fed, our bodies can
become a source of joy rather than danger (Lelwica 2010, xxvi). In contrast to
devotional fitness, however, Lelwica understands joy not as having a perfect
(here: slim/fit) body but as coming to peace with ones bodymore precisely, real-
izing that our bodies are already perfect the way they are, even if they are fat.
Danger, on the other hand, for Lelwica, is not associated with overweight and
failing to meet ideal body standards but with the obsession with slimness and
health.
Similar as evangelical dieting programs, Lelwica urges her readers to discover
our true purpose in life and to experience ourselves as fully alive (Lelwica 2010,
3132). She is also concerned that traditional religion no longer plays a central role
in the lives of increasing numbers of women (Lelwica 2010, 3132)most pro-
tagonists in devotional fitness would agree, so far. But when it comes to realizing
these ideas and implementing them into daily lives, her approach profoundly differs
from devotional fitness. Lelwica tries to dismantle the thinness = health & happi-
ness equation as untrue (Lelwica 2010, 66). She is especially critical of evangelical
renderings of this equation that are based, with a few exceptions, on the core
assumption that health manifests in a slim body, and that thinness is associated
with righteousness (Lelwica 2010, 181).
Economical exploitation, theological differences, the slimness and fitness ideals,
and their potential health hazardsthese are subjects in the discursive contact zone
of devotional fitness and its Christian environment. There are other topics equally
characterized by disagreement that focus instead on issues of practice. Dancing as a
legitimate practice is the foremost subject in this area. Many devotional fitness pro-
grams, especially those emphasizing aerobics, regularly encounter criticism from
more traditional evangelicals who are apprehensive about dancing as a form of wor-
ship. Paul Eugene (Gospel Fitness Workouts) is such an example. I can remember
the attacks I got from other Christians when I was dancing in the theater and they
would say I was in the devils workshop, he reports on his web site (Eugene 2012).
Dancing has traditionally been rejected in Puritan and Protestant circles because of
the supposed risk of moral breaches (Geldbach 1975, 4245). Devotional fitness
challenges this view, often citing Book of Psalms 149:32 as justification. Liz (Body
& Soul) recognizes that there is a fine line between dance and aerobics. In one of her
classes, I could observe how she integrates movements with a limited physical
effect into her workouts that are obviously taken from dancing, movements called
picking grapes or waving your skirt for example. Here, devotional fitness finds
a new contextualization for traditionally rejected practices that legitimizes them due
to their biblical background and due to their usefulness in designing attractive
choreographies.
2
Book of Psalms 149:3: Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with
timbrel and harp (New International Version, 2011).
Insiders Critiques Having discussed contested themes and practices in the discur-
sive contact zone of devotional fitness and its wider Christian environment, I now
turn to debates that emerge inside the evangelical fitness and diet movement.
Critique from (former) insiders is hard to findand even harder to be widely
received in the field. Carole Lewis, though publicly failing in her own program, did
not change her attitude but wrote yet another book (Back on Track, 2003) in which
she describes herself as a fellow struggler (Lewis 2003, 7). She admits that she
failed, but does not discard her enterprise as a whole. Rather, she is looking for new
ways to get back on track even after serious disappointments. The mistake she
supposedly made was to rely on self-control, which has failed so many people,
including myself (Lewis 2003, 11). She realized, and urges her readers to under-
stand the same, that losing weight is a battle [] that only God can fight and win
(Lewis 2003, 11). Therefore, unconditional submission to Jesus Christ is required,
even though The spirit is willing, but the body is weak (Lewis quotes Matthew
26:41, New International Version, 1984).
Carol Showalter, according to Griffith (2004a, 174) and Gerber (2012a, 216,
224) also faced the weaknesses of her approach and, after 30 years of leading her
program, devised a new approach, less explicitly focusing on weight-loss. The new
program, now available as a book (Your Whole Life: The 3D Plan for Eating Right,
Living Well, and Loving God) and online, stresses that success is not measured in
pounds anymore (Showalter and Davis [2002] 2007, 279). Nonetheless, the pro-
gram still incorporates the three pillars of the 1977 edition (diet, discipline, disciple-
ship) albeit in a less rigid language (as mentioned on page 112 f). Carol Showalter
is friends with Neva Coyle and quoted as praising Coyles Loved on a Grander
Scale (Coyle 1998).
Neva Coyle, former leader of Overeaters Victorious, is perhaps the most rigorous
opponent of the evangelical slimness imperative. Her book, invoking the idea that
weight-loss is not essential to a fulfilled Christian life, and that being fat is unjustly
stigmatized, was soon taken off the market by its publisher (Griffith 2004a, 223
24). Although she emphasizes that she does not promote the size acceptance move-
ment (Coyle 1998, 16), her work has been read as an adoption of this movement,
rephrased in her evangelical worldview (Gerber 2012a, 212, 217). In Loved on a
Grander Scale, Coyle recounts how her book Free to Be Thin (Chapian and Coyle
1979) set off her career as a weight-loss author. Only later she realized that her
writing career was formed and shapednot around my talent but around my size
(Coyle 1998, 7). This could only go well as long as she did not regain her weight.
Eventually, this happened. Painfully and even publicly, I got fat again (Coyle
1998, 7).
She went through a difficult process of transforming her attitude and personal
faith, finally chose to embrace the idea of Gods love and a continuing plan for my
life regardless of my size, and devised a way to live at peace with my body as a
large person (Coyle 1998, 9). Coyle, more explicitly and forcefully than every
other author in the field, stresses that the personal relationship to God is not size
dependent (Coyle 1998, 14). While other authors often admit that, in the end, God
does not love someone more or less because they are fat (see, e.g., Lerner 2003, 45),
they still embrace the ideal of fitness and slimness as external markers of health.
Coyle, on the contrary, supports the view that there is health at any size (Coyle
1998, 145). Notably, she draws on the exact same scripture to substantiate her
approach: 1 Corinthians 6:1920. Honoring God with her body, for Coyle, does not
mean losing weight and getting fit/healthy; rather it means honoring God regardless
of her weight or the appearance of her body, and appreciating her body even when
it does not conform to the slimness ideal (Coyle 1998, 13638). Much like her for-
mer colleagues, Coyle stresses the importance of health and deduces from 1
Corinthians 6:1920 that we have a biblical responsibility to maintain our health at
any size (Coyle 1998, 145). Adding at any size is the crucial difference. Health
is not equated with slimness and fitness here, but with other ways of treating the
temple well. The ability to arrive at completely different conclusions on the basis
of the same verse is another incident of how the Bible is read in target-oriented
ways.
Returning to topics in the discursive contact zone between Protestant Christians
and devotional fitness one arrives at the attitude towards food. In this regard, it is the
protagonists of devotional fitness programs that take the critical point of view
towards their environment. They criticize Christian congregations throughout the
country for centering their community life on food, particularly so-called potlucks.3
Churches even use this aspect to advertise themselves, e.g. when the Vineyard
Christian Fellowship puts up posters in Boston, Massachusetts, including the teaser
Practical spirituality served up with complimentary culinary treats. Mainse
remarks, A new study shows that church attendees are more prone to weight issues
and I have a feeling it has to do with those potlucks (Mainse etal. 2011d).
The topics analyzed in this section are of central importance to the identity of the
discourse devotional fitness as they offer the opportunity to create a distinct
identity through opposition. In the next section, I turn to instances of merging
between the discourses of devotional fitness and its Christian environment.
Merging Many of the discursive elements I have analyzed as features of devotional
fitness also exist in the wider Christian and evangelical spheres of US society. These
are incidents where the discursive contact zone constitutes an area of merger instead
of demarcation. I discuss a few of these discursive elements here in order to show
how devotional fitness and its environment are discursively interwoven and how
elements are exchanged and recontextualized.
Proponents of devotional fitness usually look at their Christian environment from
an inter- or non-denominational perspective (see, e.g., Monica 2011c). This agrees
with a general tendency of a decline of denominationalism that Alan Wolfe has
3
This observation is confirmed in the influential study by Ferraro and Cline: From Sunday School
donuts to church pot-luck dinners, food, especially high-fat foods, are key to the social organiza-
tion of many U.S. religions (Cline and Ferraro 2006, 271). It triggered Daniel Sacks study on
Whitebread Protestants (2001) that starts from the assumption that food is a central part of
Protestant church life (Sack 2001, 7).
pointed out (2005, 39).4 Denominational divides, therefore, tend to be less impor-
tant. Instead, many evangelicals share a broad, and rather general set of beliefs
including, e.g., the idea that human beings may only receive forgiveness for their
sins if they establish a loving and intimate relationship with Jesus. That means sur-
rendering to his will and putting Christ first in their lives (First Place 4 Health
2011). One should rely on Jesus in everythingincluding issues of overeating and
weight-loss.
The realm of contemporary Christian religious practice also contains elements
that are most common in evangelicalism, and that are refined and reshaped for the
purposes of devotional fitness. Prayer, and living in an attitude of continuous prayer,
are pivotal in large parts of Christian culture. The insight that people prefer to pray
in their own, self-chosen way (Wolfe 2005, 910) is easily transferable to devo-
tional fitness, where prayer will often become literally embodied.
Prayer is not just speaking in a ritualized manner. On the contrary, as Rick
Warren, here quoted again as an example of the Christian environment of devotional
fitness, points out, Anything you do that brings pleasure to God is an act of wor-
ship (Warren 2002, 64) and Worship is a lifestyle (Warren 2002, 65, cf. 67).
These quotes perfectly fit the arguments employed in the discourse of devotional
fitness where working out in the spirit (e.g., Sweating in the Spirit, Richardson
Joyner) is a means of combining prayer and fitness.
Opportunities to pray together and for each other occur in small group meetings
(Wuthnow 1994b, 354). Small groups are a phenomenon of particular importance in
American Protestant religion (Wuthnow 1994a). Yet the small group movement
does not only fit Protestant tradition, it also suits the growing importance of indi-
viduality in religious realms, particularly in megachurches, in order to counter the
anonymity of the masses.
In the tradition of Luthers sola scriptura, studying the Bible individually and
in groups, memorizing and meditating upon scripture, has enjoyed popularity in
Protestantism and its evangelical branches. There is evidence of this tendency
continuing in countless evangelical how-tos and other materials. In devotional fit-
ness, many programs are explicitly designed as Bible studies with a special focus on
health and fitness, like in First Place 4 Health and WholyFit, where Bible study
becomes bible study in motion (WholyFit 2011).
Bible studies are a prominent feature of US evangelicalism. James S.Bielo, in
Words Upon the Word (2009), argues, Bible study contends strongly for being the
most consequential form of religious practice to the ever-evolving contours of
American evangelicalism (Bielo 2009, 3, cf. 168). With more than thirty million
Protestants taking part in Bible studies every week (Bielo 2009, 3), Bielo under-
stands this phenomenon as a vital social institution that reveals the continuities
and tensions of American evangelicalism in action (Bielo 2009, 10).5 Therefore,
4
Wolfe follows Robert Wuthnows argument in The Restructuring of American Religion (1989,
97). Thomas Luckmann observed an alignment of denominations already in the 1960s (Luckmann
[1967] 1991, 69).
5
Another noteworthy study on Bible studies comes from Malley (2004).
it does not come as a surprise that devotional fitness engages just as often and as
intensively in Bible studiesin this case, focused on issues of weight-loss and
fitness.
Devotional fitness also reveals its embedding within evangelicalism through its
attitude towards popular and consumer culture. In many incidents, they draw a com-
mon border by including and excluding specific elements of popular culture. As the
habitus and atmosphere of evangelical services shows, it is usual in evangelicalism
to mimic standards of popular culture. Evangelical worship often uses elements of
popular shows and music; sermons appropriate the style of popular lectures, often
illustrated by slides and short clips. In terms of technical equipment, many evangeli-
cal churches are innovative. Musicians, bands, sound systems, projectors, and huge
screens displaying the lyrics of the songs greet the visitor in many churches.
Specifically in their way of evangelizing, evangelicals are prone to use the most
recent and popular forms of media in order to reach the masses. In this area of con-
tact with society, evangelicalism opens up considerably. At the same time, they
import these popular forms into their reference system and make them evangelical.
Alan Wolfe remarks this underlying contradiction when he writes, the conservative
Christians decision to make peace with popular culture in order to avoid ghettoiza-
tion produced a certain amount of ghettoization. Just as evangelicals have their own
colleges and publishing houses, they now have their own favorite travel destinations
and pop-music stars (Wolfe 2005, 211)and fitness classes or weight-loss groups,
one would have to add.
From a more critical perspective, Wolfe notes that the narcissism of American
culture is a perfect fit for an emerging Protestant individualism (Wolfe 2005, 24).
Evangelicals have long found ways to reconcile their version of Christianity with
the materialistic, consumption-driven American culture, whether reflected in the
ostentatious lifestyles of the televangelists [or] the success-oriented preaching of a
Robert Schuller (Wolfe 2005, 32)and, looking at devotional fitness, also reflected
in evangelical versions of slimness and fitness ideal. According to Gerber, the very
existence of devotional fitness is, at least in part, due to this attempt of evangelicals
to get in touch with their cultural environment while still upholding a recognizable
identity (Gerber 2009, 406).
Summary Analyzing the direct discursive context of devotional fitness, I intended
to demonstrate how specific communicative elements, practices, and topics exist
within a discursive contact zone where the discourses of devotional fitness and that
of Protestant Christianity meet and negotiate their respective positions and identi-
ties. I introduced examples that include elements of disagreement and demarcation
(distancing). I also showed how elements that are prevalent and commonly used by
US Protestants (especially evangelicals) also occur in devotional fitness and vice
versa (merging). It comes as no surprise that devotional fitness takes up elements
from its Christian environment, merely resemanticizing them according to specific
goals. Christian dieting and fitness programs usually blossom in distinctly evangeli-
cal settings. By mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, the discourse of devotional
7.2Devotional Fitness andSociety 217
fitness manages to entertain close relationships to its Christian context while still
upholding a distinct identity.
The central idea of this chapter was to demonstrate how devotional fitness
upholds common borders with its Christian environment, demarcating both dis-
courses from their secular neighbors, and additionally establishes borders towards
their direct Christian context (e.g., with regard to issues such as dancing and the role
of food in church communities).
While devotional fitness in many aspects deliberately differs from its evangelical
context, both discourses form a more or less common border when it comes to
defending and upholding identity in the face of societythe so-called secular
world. Looking at these contact zones, the observer may find mechanisms of
demarcation and rapprochement at work that allow for the construction and negotia-
tion of a distinct identity. This is what Gerber refers to as the evangelical dance of
engagement and distinction (Gerber 2009, 407) and I demonstrate this in detail in
the next chapters.
7.2 Devotional Fitness andSociety
Society, as a stereotyped vis--vis of evangelical dieting and fitness groups, con-

stitutes a broad discursive contact zone. From the perspective of devotional fitness
programs, society is the secular world, and has to be conveniently stereotyped and
simplified for protagonists to oppose it consistently. This chapter will delineate how
contemporary North American society serves as a communicative frame for devo-
tional fitness and provides elements that are either rejected or imported, often
becoming resignified in the process.
How Society Looks at Devotional FitnessSelected Views Societal discourses
pay attention to devotional fitness particularly because they generally have no use
for the combination of the secular with the religiousand not because they do
not support the ideals of slimness and fitness. Secular media often belittle or criti-
cize programs of devotional fitness. Rebecca Mead, for instance, is outspokenly
skeptical about Shamblins organization and her report on controversies around
Weigh Down Workshop in The New Yorker maintains a clearly polemical tone
(Mead 2001, 48).
Whether owing to Reynolds savvy public relations skills or to the attractiveness
of his program, Losing to Live competitions have frequently been covered in the
press and on television. The hosts of The View (see footnote 6, page 130) high-
lighted Reynolds program both supportively and critically. I have chosen this par-
ticular episode because three opinions phrased by the hostesses of The View reflect
quite well the spectrum of possible opinions on devotional fitness that circulate in
societal discourses: Whoopi Goldberg, for example, was rather skeptical:
[Reynolds] has started a new program called Bod4God [laughs] which asks parish-
ioners to get fit for Jesus by choosing faith over food [laughs, audience laughs]. I
would go straight to hell (Walters etal.). Sherri Shepherd, on the contrary, seemed
sympathetic, arguing from a Christian point of view, employing notions well-known
from the analysis of devotional fitness:
Im glad that Christians are addressing the issue gluttony because there are a lot of over-
weight Christians here. And, you know, we look at all these other sins, but gluttony is a sin.
God has a destiny for you and a purpose for you. If you are eating all kinds of unhealthy
food and youre not able to walk up a flight of stairs without breathing hard youre not ful-
filling your purpose or your destiny (Walters etal.).
Her co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck eventually took a rather diplomatic view. I

think you put God or take God out of any area of your life that you chose, you know.
So, I think if this helps somebody fill their spirit and fill their belly [] I mean, go
for it (Walters etal.).
Criticizing the Contemporary Body Ideal There are sub-discourses in society
that criticize the contemporary body ideal even if they do not necessarily think of
evangelical weight-loss and fitness programs. Nonetheless, they deserve mention-
ing because they constitute a critical discourse that also challenges devotional fit-
ness when participants and outsiders question the prevailing slimness and beauty
ideals.
Laura Fraser, in her critique of Americas obsession with weight and the indus-
try that feeds on it, supports the anti-diet movement (Fraser 1997, 14) and seeks to
debunk the diet industry. Additionally, she wants to offer possibilities for people
to leave the vicious cycle of dieting and feeling bad about yourself, so they may
eventually feel healthier and better about [their] body (Fraser 1997, 1415). The
anti-diet movement advances the view that weight is not an accurate measurement
of human healthor character and that diets often fail to make people healthier or
slimmer (Fraser 1997, 233).
Roberta P.Seid, here studied as a representative of the critical societal discourse,
undertakes a somewhat different and more general criticism of the dieting and fit-
ness culture in Never Too Thin: Why Women Are at War With Their Bodies (1989).
She is not primarily concerned with evangelical fitness culture but with the general
secular slimness imperative in North American society, an idea which is com-
plexly integrated into the theology of the body in devotional fitness. Yet, she ascribes
religious features to this slimness ideal and intends to unmask slenderness as the
newand wrongreligion of our times: We have, in effect, an Eleventh
Commandment. We have come to believe thinner is healthier, happier, and more
beautiful as though it were handed down on Mount Sinai. But these are not divine
truths. They are prejudices with a complex history. They have led to a false religion
that does not deliver what it promises (Seid 1989, 19). She asserts that different
developments converged and turned a preference for slenderness into a new reli-
gion and wants to discover why the creed has so much power over us (Seid 1989,
33). From the outset, her study is critical: Most importantly, we will discover how
distorted our values and our beliefs about the body and food have become (Seid
1989, 33).
Although I do not embrace her assumption of the secular slimness imperative
as being functionally equivalent to religion (see page 16 f), I draw on her insights
into todays perspectives on body ideals. Deconstructing the slimness ideal from a
scientific perspective, based on nutritional sciences and medical findings, Seid
shapes a central critique: being fit does not necessarily imply being healthy (Seid
1989, 29394). This is of fundamental importance in the context of this study, as
most devotional fitness programs are based on the core premise that fitness (mani-
festing in slimness) equals health, or at the very least has a positive impact on health.
As a possible solution, Seid suggests
that we revise our standards and re-cultivate our tastes, that we find a happier middle ground
where our bodies can round out with more life and flesh, where we can relish the fruits of
our prosperity without self-punishment, and where we understand that the nourishment that
is one of lifes greatest pleasures is also one of its most basic necessities. There is a golden
mean. We need to find it again (Seid 1989, 304).
In addition to Fraser and Seid, Susan Bordo deserves mentioning here. She has
examined the normalizing role of diet and exercise by analyzing popular represen-
tations through which their cultural meaning is crystallized, metaphorically encoded,
and transmitted (Bordo [1993] 2003, 18687). In a decoding of the contemporary
slenderness ideal, she intends to reveal the psychic anxieties and moral valuations
contained within it (Bordo [1993] 2003, 18687). Doing so, she arrives at several
critical issues.
The first concerns the ideal of bodily perfection itself. Perfection implies infinite
beauty, yet the body is by nature unable to sustain its beauty infinitely. Striving for
eternal youth and beauty defies corporeal realities. Diets, working out, and even
plastic surgery are all doomed to eventually fail (Bordo [1993] 2003, xvii).6
The second criticism concerns body images as disseminated in the media. These
are unreal in the literal sense, as most of them are photoshopped, yet they remain
guiding principles for women and men seeking the perfect bodyeven for those
who are aware of their artificiality (Bordo [1993] 2003, xviii). This is particularly
striking when one thinks of Marianne Williamsons suggestion to cut out a picture
from a magazine showing a model with the body one would like to have. She even
suggests attaching ones own head on the photo to visualize and thus make true the
ideal picture of oneself (Williamson 2010, 65).
Bordos third criticism concerns a central paradox in contemporary consumer
culture. We are requested to consume as much and as often as possible (to show our
affluence), yet we are expected to cultivate abstinence (to show our self-control).
Consumer culture continually excites and encourages us to let go, indulge in our desires
for sugar, fat, sex, mindless entertainment. But at the same time, burgeoning industries
centered on diet, exercise, and body enhancement glamorize self-discipline and code fat as
a symbol of laziness and lack of will-power (Bordo [1993] 2003, xxi).
6
Seid makes a similar point, stressing that the all-encompassing goal of fitness and dieting culture
is an unattainable one, though for different reasons. We are never thin enough to believe we are
not fat. We are never taut enough to believe we are not flabby. We can never diet and exercise
enough to believe we do not have to diet and exercise more (Seid 1989, 257).
Bulimia, Bordo suggests, is the epitome and disease pattern per se that emerges
from this paradox:
[T]he central contradiction of the system inscribes itself on our bodies, and bulimia emerges
as a characteristic modern personality construction. For bulimia precisely and explicitly
expresses the extreme development of the hunger for unrestrained consumption (exhibited
in the bulimics uncontrollable food binges) existing in unstable tension alongside the
requirement that we sober up, clean up our act, get back in firm control on Monday morn-
ing [] (Bordo [1993] 2003, 201).
A final issue brought to devotional fitness through external commentary is that of

sensitivity to global hunger problems. Some wonder how they can justify voluntary
restraint and demonize food when in many countries people still suffer from lack
of access to sufficient food.7 Isherwood is particularly concerned with the ignorance
of world hunger evidenced by, e.g., Gwen Shamblin (Isherwood 2008, 8384).
Indeed, critical members of evangelical fitness programs ask this question, too. At
Losing to Live, one participant asked how they may be encouraged not to finish
their meal when children in Africa are dying from hunger. Reynolds responded
that they do not help these children by finishing off their meals, and that it is also a
waste of food to waist food, i.e., to gain weight (Reynolds 2011a, disc 3, 15:50).
Often, programs of devotional fitness remain largely ignorant to the problem of
world hunger.
How Devotional Fitness Programs Deal with These Critics With regard to criti-
cism of the general slimness craze, programs sometimes take a stand when they
broach the potential dangers of their programs. Proponents of devotional fitness
admit that there is indeed some danger in emphasizing only the fitness aspect.
Focusing on the physical effects of working out and dieting may result in making
the fit body itself into an idol and object of reverence, which would contradict the
underlying motivation of devotional fitnessglorifying God alone and no idols
whether it be money, fame, or the body. Anorexia as an extreme case of dieting is
rarely mentioned by program officials but often brought up by critics of the popular
fitness craze such as Lelwica and others.
In the rare cases when anorexia comes up within the communications of devo-
tional fitness it is usually in the context of healing. Anorexia is the supposed oppo-
site end of a scale that ranges from excessive overeating to excessive undereating. A
participant of First Place 4 Health told me that she met people who were anorexic
and in and out of hospital and ready to die and theyve given their addiction up to
the Lord, and, they were saved. Weigh Down Workshop, which drew much criti-
cism related to anorexia, reports that even people with bulimia and anorexia were
7
The world hunger problem was an issue in Protestant churches in America in the 1970s, too. Ron
Sider, in his 1977 Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, pleads for a moderate and responsible
lifestyle and suggests, among other things, to eat more healthily and hold regular fasts (Sider
[1977] 1980, 159172, esp. 168; here quoted from the German edition). Although the 1970s were
a first heyday of evangelical dieting programs (page 112 ff), these discourses do not seem to
overlap.
breaking free from eating disorders (Weigh Down Ministries 2010). The 1984
revised edition of Charlie W.Shedds The Fat is in Your Head (first published 1972)
announces a discussion of Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia on its cover which,
however, remains rather slim. Having been asked by his publisher to discuss these
issues, Shedd admonishes his readers to be aware of the potential dangers of
anorexia and bulimia and to reflect upon their emotional and psychological stability
before starting a diet (Shedd [1972] 1984, 12529).
In these examples, authors and participants alike do not seem to realize that the
ideals promoted in their programs might cause incidents of anorexia or bulimia.
This is due to the implicit conflation of health with slenderness. The category of
health, in turn, cannot logically contain such kinds of eating disorders and as these
programs claim to effect health they will only deal with diseases like anorexia in
terms of healing, not causing them.
Devotional fitness deals with the potential danger of fitness becoming an idol
more explicitly and more elaborately. Robert Evans (Christian Fitness TV) pointed
out in our interview: People absolutely can become obsessed with [working out].
[] You can become obsessed with anything, and that can become your idol, your
God, so be careful in every aspect. And working out, its no different. He therefore
strongly advises, do not make it, working out, an idol, or exercise, or nutrition, this
should not be your idol.
The way to alleviate the potential dangers of devotional fitness is to set clear
priorities. The relations of beauty, health, and God are clearly prioritized. Proponents
of devotional fitness are certain that God is most important, followed by health.
Beauty and appearance are not important, though admittedly affected by a healthy
lifestyle. Weight reduction is still about beauty, Griffith phrases this point of view,
but with stakes much higher than earthly attention and praise (Griffith 2004a,
205). More important than beauty is the certainty of a familiar, influential relation-
ship with God (Griffith 2004a, 205). This is another incident demonstrating how
the discourse of devotional fitness imports elements from its environment, relates
them differently, and reorders priorities in order to integrate them into the evangeli-
cal framework.
The connection between these three goals (God, health, beauty/slimness) is
framed by concepts of instrumentalizing and effecting. Pleasing God and befriend-
ing him is easier when you are healthy. Health is effected by losing weight.
Losing weight effects slimness and beauty. Moreover, if believers do what God
wants them to doand that includes their actions in the area of eating and exercis-
ing, all other desires will be fulfilled automatically.
How Devotional Fitness Programs Create Borders to the Secular World After
the analysis of critiques from outsiders in US society and the reactions from within
devotional fitness, I turn to how the discourse of devotional fitness forms borders
towards society. Distancing happens through stereotyping society as both an
object of concernit suffers from the widespread illness overweight and needs
helpand the cause of the problemwith its bad eating habits and lifestyle, its
anti-Christian attitudes, and its idolatrous adoration of the slim and beautiful
body. In this last point, programs have taken up popular criticism of the slimness
ideal while also building on this same ideal in much of their practice.
In the first regard, in which society is an object of concern, it is seen as in desper-

ate need of help. It suffers from overweight and it lacks spirituality. Looking at
society from this angle, devotional fitness intends to help people in two issues. First,
society is physically ill: Program designers are concerned about what they consider
unhealthy lifestyle and eating habits. Christian Fitness was birthed from a burden
[sic] concerning the sedentary lifestyle that many have adopted not fully realizing
the negative affect it is having on their physical health, with Christians being no
exception (Christian Fitness TV 2010). Overweight is considered a general and
serious problem of US society and Bod4God, like most other programs in the field,
is supposed to help society in this regard (Reynolds 2011b).
Second, society is considered spiritually ill: Proponents of devotional fitness feel
that people around them are in need of spiritual fulfillment and lack guidelines.
Society has lost its health and moral compass. The people of this world are lost
and, instead of walking down Gods road of success, they are sprinting down the
road of destruction, Ben Lerner summarizes (2003, 343). Both spiritually and
physically, these programs want to heal society, primarily by subjecting peoples
health and fitness to the Bible.
The flipside of this stereotyped representation of society is that of society as a
threat for evangelical values and, in many ways, cause of the problems devotional
fitness wants to address. Therefore, evangelicals need to clearly distance themselves
from secular society in order to preserve their values. Its easy to fall into sin if
youre constantly around in the secular world, Evans explained in our interview.
Society promotes consumerism and thus contributes to widespread health issues.
In this regard, devotional fitness reproduces stereotypes about US culture and for-
mulates a certain kind of social criticism. Part of that criticism is that modern civi-
lization and technology, granted their advantages, make us sick, as Evans told me.
They also deprive us of feeling Gods presence.
Modern society is a loud concrete jungle. Most worlds are now filled with TV, radios, and
masses of people driving and walking down paved roads and sidewalks in commercial and
housing developments that used to be fields and forests. This modern and advanced liv-
ing allows for no quit, peaceful time in nature. This makes it very difficult to really hear,
see, and, especially, feel the presence of God (Lerner 2003, 327).
More specifically, what most proponents of devotional fitness complain about is

that contemporary North American culture has developed unhealthy and bad eating
habits. In short, We dont do anything for our bodies, we eat the bad, the wrong
stuff, and too much of it. We sit and watch TV, a lot of television, as I was told in a
different interview. Society, stereotyped as the bad environment, causes physical
and spiritual damage to its members (see also Lerner 2003, 14041; Maximized
Living 2011).
Finally, society promotes unrealistic body images and pays too much attention to
slimness, attractiveness, and beauty. Reynolds, e.g., cautions against unrealistic
expectations regarding the effects of his program: The body image conveyed by the
media, he says, is not realistic and should not be chased after (Reynolds 2009, 111).
With regard to the body that God gave you, the important thing to remember is that he gave
it to you. And no matter how much you try to change it through weight-loss or surgery or
exercise, you are still stuck with the basic framework you got when you were born. The best
thing you can do is to learn to love your body, treat it well and realize that while its not
perfect, it is the temple of God. The key here is balance. We are to love and care for our
body, but not make it an idol that consumes our thinking and our time. Remember, God says
that we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps. 139:14 [New King James Version])
(Reynolds 2009, 115).
To sum up, society, from the perspective of many of the researched programs,
is stereotyped as the cause of the problema secular world, full of temptation to
the willful dieter and Christian, and offering too many unhealthy food choices and
practices of daily living. But it also is the object of concern, in that programs intend
to provide a better way of living, eating, and believing to individuals caught up in
modern, industrialized and non-spiritual society.
As evangelicals both seek and cannot escape various forms of interaction with
society, it is natural that there will be practices and value-ideas that occur in both
society and in devotional fitness programs. In order to reach society, despite the
afore-examined differences in the discursive contact zone, devotional fitness is
forced to enter the conversation thats already going on in peoples minds as
Nelson Searcy, pastor of The Journey Church, said on a video advertising Reynolds
Losing to Live program (Reynolds 2011b). Programs do so by taking up many
motifs and elements that are well-established in societal discourses and that I turn
to in the next section.
How Devotional Fitness Programs Approach the Secular World Looking at
these incidents, I now focus on how the discourses of devotional fitness and non-
Christian society merge. The central motif they integrate from wider societal dis-
courses is the personal pursuit of wellness (Body & Soul 2008)an
all-encompassing value of contemporary North American society. But there are
more ideas and practices that reappear in evangelicalized forms.
Self-Help Genre Devotional fitness bears a conspicuous connection with the self-
help genre, a central feature of American ideology and popular culture (Samovar
etal. 2013, 174), as I have pointed out in the historical section of this book (Sect.
4.3). In the 1960s, the various self-help, twelve-step, and recovery groups have even
been suggested as candidates to replace traditional Christian culture by Philip
Rieff (The Triumph of the Therapeutic, 1966). Obviously, as we can state now,
Christian culture has not been replaced but has spawned a variety of Christian, spe-
cifically evangelical, programs that take up the impetus of the self-help genre,
claiming, however, that they offer much more than self-help.
Time Efficiency Being time-efficient and productive is a generally accepted imper-

ative in corporate America (Samovar etal. 2013, 171, 176) that has spilled over into
many areas of life. Even recreation and spare time are expected to be structured in
an effective manner. In the best case, one should try to kill two birds with one
stone in order to make the best possible use of time.8 This imperative is among the
arguments devotional fitness programs use to convince outsiders of the rationality of
their programs, often mentioned when people say that the combination of Bible
study and dieting or exercising works time-wise, or when they employ the motive
of catching two birds with one stone, as I was told a couple of times in my field
studies. So again, there is a good evidence of rapprochement between values circu-
lating in society and in devotional fitness.
Self-Reliance and Individualism Self-reliance and individualism are important val-

ues in US society, as Samovar etal. (2013, 173) point out with reference to Florence
R.Kluckhohns and Fred L.Strodtbecks Variations in Value Orientations (1961).
These values underpin many communications in devotional fitness, too. Participants
are requested to Get off the Couch as Reynolds book (2012) is entitled. Take your
spiritual and physical health into your own handsthat is an imperative echoing
throughout the discourse. In Kluckhohns and Strodtbecks value orientations, this
feature falls under the category of the doing orientation which describes activity
in which accomplishments are measurable by standards external to the individual.
The key to this orientation is a value system that stresses activity and action. It is the
doing orientation that most characterizes the dominant American culture (Samovar
etal. 2013, 193). In this light, devotional fitness mirrors secular American culture.
Slimness Ideal The contemporary body ideal of slimness is deeply rooted in most
discursive areas of Western societies (Sect. 4.2). In North America, muscular bod-
ies are the valued appearance for men while women long for tall, slender, and
young bodies (Gardiner and Kosmitzki [1998] 2002, 14546). A specifically illus-
trative way of adopting this male body ideal for men comes from C. S. Lovetts
1982 book. The illustrator depicts Adam as the prototype of contemporary maleness
with well-defined muscles and clearly Caucasian traits. This drawing entitled
Creation of Adam by C.S. Lovetts daughter, Linda Lovett, features a sculpted
muscular male body, thus illustrating how cultural icons are used to visualize bibli-
cal scripture.
Slenderness, on the other hand, has become a primary cue for identifying the
truth, goodness, and beauty of womanhood today (Lelwica 1999, 50). Slimness
has become the marker and producer of happiness, success, and popularity. People
seek after slimness as if it were the beginning of a new life (Lelwica 1999, 54) and
they consider fat as the materialization of all bad traits of character. Secular cul-
ture, to some degree, mirrors evangelical narratives of rebirth when people associate
fatness with a moral flaw and a chaos-driven lack of self-control (Lelwica 1999,
56). Life is divided into the unhappy, fat present (or past) and the happy, slim future
(or present). Certainly we are convinced that thinner plus fitter equals happier
8
From the myriad examples I could quote in this context, a trend referred to as sweatworking
deserves mentioning here. In NewYork City, Courtney Rubin reports for The NewYork Times, it is
becoming increasingly popular for business partners to schedule their meetings not in restaurants
but in gyms, networking and sweating at the same time (Rubin 2011, ST 8).
(Seid 1989, 17). This is well established in the non-religious fitness sector and con-
nects well to the evangelical conversion narrative. Hoverd argues,
The gym advertises the promise that membership and adherence to its regimen will abet
positive bodily transformation, supposedly making you a better member of society. []
Both the gym and consumer culture adhere to the evangelical Protestant idea of the person
being highly convertible. The gym advertises demonstrated proof of its successful conver-
sions through its exemplars who have all managed some miraculous body change such as
losing weight, gaining muscle, recovering from horrific injuries or gaining the competitive
ability to participate in physical events that would have been formerly impossible for that
particular individual (Hoverd 2005, 82).9
Susan Bordo agrees that the fit body is an outward marker of the good and suc-
cessful life:
Today [], the well-muscled body has become a cultural icon; working out is a glamor-
ized and sexualized yuppie activity. No longer signifying inferior status [], the firm,
developed body has become a symbol of correct attitude; it means that one cares about
oneself and how one appears to others, suggesting willpower, energy, control over infantile
impulses, the ability to shape your life (Bordo [1993] 2003, 195).
Obviously, the slimness ideal is one of the central elements negotiated across the
borders of devotional fitness and society. It is so prevalent that it is rarely ques-
tioned, although some supporters of devotional fitness are cautious about unrealistic
expectations shaped by media and television (e.g., Anderson 2011). The slimness
ideal is, in the context of this study, a communicative element used in different dis-
courses and reshaped in the processes of exchange and integration. Therefore, it is
necessary to illustrate how this element is resignified.
Protestant Christians in the United States are well suited to adapt the secular
slimness ideal not just because of historical connections of the slimness ideal and
evangelical faith as pointed out by Griffith and Schrettle. The discourse of devo-
tional fitness is the most visible outcome of this propensity. Additionally, Gerber
points out that slimness itself is a goal which is akin to evangelical religion
(Gerber 2012b) as both the slimness ideal and evangelicalism are
based on a simple philosophy based on perceived common sense and easy-to-apply salvific
formulas. Both value and cultivate a perception of the transparency and accessibility of its
central authority, scripture or the scale, for those who seek answers there. Both present
themselves as straightforward in theory yet are complicated in practice, continually threat-
ened by lived experience which often seems to trump its claims (Gerber 2012b).
In practice, devotional fitness often merely reproduces secular slimness ideals.

In their legitimation and rationalization, however, slimness and beauty, though
appreciated, become subsidiary values compared to taking care of Gods temple
and preparing ones body to spread Gods word. This incidence demonstrates the
way a somatic practice is being recontextualized by semiotic shifts. Leaders of such
programs recognize that many of their members join because of worldly and pro-
9
On the similarity between fitness conversions and religious conversions, see also Lelwica (2000,
187).
fane motivations (losing weight, becoming fit, etc.). They claim, though, that there
is so much more to the program and that God makes the difference (Reynolds
2009, 63). In this way, the ideals of slimness and beauty are resemanticized when
they enter the discourse of devotional fitness, but only to a degree that it is still con-
nective and understandable to non-evangelical discourses.
The flipside of the slimness ideal, the notion that being overweight is harmful not
only to the body and social relationships, but also to society, is equally well estab-
lished in societal discourses (see, e.g., Hoverd 2005, 58). Indulging in unhealthy
foods and the visible sign thereof (overweight) is often communicated and under-
stood as a secular sin as William J.Hoverd and Chris G.Sibley could show in New
Zealand where excess body fat is interpreted as being sinful and Obesity
becomes not just an illness but a societal sin (Hoverd and Sibley 2007, 392). The
notion of sinning when eating sweets or desserts is widespread (see also Lelwica
2000, 187), and, in Christian contexts, this concept is often used half jokingly, half
seriously. Connecting to this well-established notion, devotional fitness recontextu-
alizes the concept of sin in its original context, the Christian idea of gluttony,
while acknowledging that overweight has negative effects on individuals and soci-
etys health, too.
To this point, I have analyzed the discursive contact zone between devotional
fitness and its societal environment. I have shown that both discourses refuse certain
elements appreciated in the other, and that both discourses connect and merge with
regard to specific elements. In the words of Henry G. Brinton, pastor of Fairfax
Presbyterian Church in Fairfax, Virginia, this constant game of distance and close-
ness boils down to the question whether working out and dieting is a desire to
honor God, or a hunger to look hot (Brinton 2004, B01). Approaching socially
accepted values, Brinton continues, implies the risk of becoming corrupted by the
narcissism prevalent in our culture (Brinton 2004, B01). It is exactly this fine tun-
ing of communicative nuances that enables evangelical fitness devotees to speak
the language of the culture, as Randall H.Balmer phrased it in an interview for
Chimes (Graff 2004, 12), and still uphold a distinctly evangelical identity.
Communication in Order to Reach the Broader Society Apart from the above
mentioned elements (self-reliance, time efficiency, slenderness ideal, etc., page 223
ff) which are integrated in devotional fitness more or less naturally, without much
explicit debate, there are other topics which need to be discussed and explained
when devotional fitness engages with potential participants. The goal of the follow-
ing section is to attend to these issues, namely to how program designers and authors
explain their approach to skeptical outsiders.
The first issue most programs of devotional fitness have to broach is: Why would
anyone combine faith and fitness? In a seemingly compartmentalized secular soci-
ety, sports, working out, and dieting are often seen as entirely unrelated to religion
and spirituality. Devotional fitness sets out to challenge this view.
For many believing evangelicals there are convincing and sufficient arguments in
biblically authorized ideas about the body and the task of humans in their relation-
ship to God and fellow humans. Although I have mentioned some of those arguments
already, I would like to re-examine them, drawing special attention to the arguments
devotional fitness uses to answer the most pressing question: What does God have
to do with this [weight-loss], anyway? (Shamblin 2002, 1).
Protagonists of devotional fitness are aware of the fact that they are doing some-
thing which does not come naturally to most people in contemporary North America.
Its a new concept to many people that God cares about our health, Reynolds
writes (2009, 94). Carol Showalter (3D), who has been involved with devotional
fitness for 30 years, reports on her web site, I often hear this question: Why a
faith-based diet program? Or even, what does faith have to do with dieting?
(Showalter and Davis 2012; see also Body & Soul 2008). Therefore, programs in
devotional fitness develop arguments for their evangelically refined fitness and diet-
ing. They are aware of the fact that they blur the boundaries of territories often
perceived as separate.
There are three points of departure for such reasoning: (1) the perceived problem
(overweight), (2) the general Christian guideline for life (the Bible) and Gods
commandment to honor the body. These first two lines of argumentation end, for
evangelicals, in an understanding of the Bible that supports exercising, dieting, and
striving for a healthy body (which is usually equaled with a fit/slim body). (3) A
third line of reasoning, and one that does not exclusively appeal to Bible believers,
intends to show that spirituality and fitness belong together. The holism argument
says that the individual is a whole of body, mind, soul, and spiritareas which
should be treated together.
1. Are you struggling?God cares! The argument starting from the perceived
problem goes as follows: People are overweight and need to do something about
it. As they are Christians, they are called to follow the Bible and Jesus example.
Therefore, there is no other way to work out and get in shape than a Christian
way. There is a problem first, and then the revelation: God will help through his
advice recorded in the Bible. You may ask, Is God really concerned about my
body? Well, Hes concerned enough that He mentions the word body 179
times in the Bible. When He deals with something that many times, its impor-
tant! (Reynolds 2009, 35).
2. God calls you to be fit and healthy! The argument starting from the Bible and
Gods commands goes as follows: The Bible is Gods word and as such the most
authoritative guideline for a Christians life and, in extension, for all people (due
to the universal claim of Christianity). The Bible, according to programs, tells
Christiansbesides many other thingsto be fit and healthy and it gives us the
rules by which we are to seek this ideal. In short, it is your duty to care for your
body (ActivPrayer 2010).
These arguments are based on the assumed existence of God as Christian faith
postulates him and thus appeal to skeptical outsiders only if they are Christian. For
non-Christian outsiders, program designers have another argument, the holism
argument as I call it.
3. The holism argument supports the idea that spirituality and fitness naturally
belong together, if one accepts a specific holistic understanding of the human
being (see page 195 ff). From this point of view, Christian spirituality and fitness
claim to nourish mind, soul, spirit, and body. The evangelical reading of the
Bible provides a supposedly wholesome approach to holistic health. This argu-
ment is important as it is not necessarily based on belief in the Bible and may
also appeal to people outside of Christian circles. Therefore, many programs
stress their holistic approach in external communication, right next to the argu-
ment of time efficiency (page 223f).
Usually, devotional fitness uses these different categories of arguments in con-
cert. Monica, for instance, combined them in a short promotional video that was
broadcasted during her appearance on Full Circle in May 2011: Whether your
exercise regimen consists of a two hour high intensity workout or a 15min gentle
walk, make it a faith adventure. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will
make your paths straight!10 (Mainse etal. 2011e). This statement may be subsumed
as a version of the idea to praise God in everything. Monica continues, God cares
about your exercise, your health, and about every detail of your life (Mainse etal.
2011e). Here, she employs the idea Are you struggling?God cares! Finally,
Monica explains, Wellness is not just about the physical body anyway, its also
about the soul and the spirit, thus using the holism argument (Mainse et al.
2011e).
In this chapter, I have dealt with several issues that concern the discursive contact
zone of devotional fitness and society. I have demonstrated how societal discourses
address (if they do at all) and criticize both the non-religious and the evangelical
slimness craze and I have also shown how and where devotional fitness programs
find reasons to criticize society, or, more precisely, to criticize a stereotyped image
of society. Afterwards, I drew attention to the manifold ways in which society and
devotional fitness merge when communicative elements and practices in their dis-
cursive contact zone are taken up, recontextualized, and refined in the process.
Finally, I have demonstrated how devotional fitness programs argue in favor of their
approaches to spirituality, fitness, and health. With this in mind, I now turn to modes
of interaction between medical discourses and devotional fitness programs.
7.3 Devotional Fitness andMedicine
Devotional fitness touches the field of medicine as another stereotyped counterpart

next to society as a whole. Many of its programs draw from medical authority, yet
they refuse allegedly secular and dualistic presuppositions of medicine. Instead,
they support Christian and holistic approaches to health and wellness, which
they miss in contemporary medicine. This discursive contact zone features both
10
Proverbs 3:6: In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight (New
International Version, 1984).
7.3Devotional Fitness andMedicine 229
elements of distancing and merging. Devotional fitness programs stereotype medi-

cine as conventional biomedical Western medicine, exclusively focusing on bio-
logical and chemical processes in the human body, and thus excluding emotional,
spiritual, and social aspects of illness and health.
Merging Despite this critical stance towards conventional medicine, authors
throughout the genre reference medical sources to substantiate their claim that there
is a widespread obesity epidemic. One of the most-quoted sources in this regard is
a long-term socio-medical study by Krista M.Cline and Kenneth F.Ferraro (Ferraro
1998; Cline and Ferraro 2006). They observed that high levels of religious media
practice11 are associated with higher BMI in women and that high levels of reli-
gious media practice and affiliation with a Baptist denomination increased the risk
of obesity for women (Cline and Ferraro 2006, 269). Ferraro indeed suggested that
churches should encourage physical activity and healthy eating and provide facil-
ities for fitness classes (Neubert 2006).
As they seek to demonstrate that Christians are the most overweight Americans,
authors of devotional fitness often studiously ignore that Ferraro and Cline also
found that a high level of religious consolation reduced the risk of obesity inci-
dence for men and that Attendance at religious services was associated with a
lower risk of the incidence of obesity for women (Cline and Ferraro 2006, 269;
italics added).12 Instead of using these findings for their cause, protagonists of devo-
tional fitness rather tend to employ this study to substantiate their claim that
Christians are in need of dieting. Moreover, Cline and Ferraro stress that there is no
evidence of direct causality between body weight and religion. Religion may have
an effect on body weight, but body weight may also influence religion (Cline and
Ferraro 2006, 271).
The mere fact that evangelical fitness programs reference this study13 to provide
evidence for their claims illustrates how they engage with and build on medical and
scientific discoursesexactly those discourses they criticize in other contexts.
Although religion and science are often perceived as opposing fields of knowledge
in non-academic and academic discoursee.g., when Fuller states that conven-
tional religion and conventional medicine uphold a wall of separation (Fuller
2001, 103)they have many connections that become particularly apparent in
devotional fitness.14 Gwen Shamblin, for instance, writes that her program intends
11
The authors define religious media practice as practicing religion from home using religious
television or radio programs or reading religious books or magazines (Cline and Ferraro 2006,
271).
12
Another study emphasizing the positive effects of religious participation and faith on health
comes from Luhrmann (2012, esp. xvi).
13
The study is referenced, e.g., by Bloom (2011), and Mainse on Full Circle (Mainse etal. 2011d).
Reynolds mentioned it in an interview, too.
14
Christopher G.White (Unsettled Minds, 2009) has recently argued for an analysis of science and
religion not as antagonists but as complementary discourses. His book introduces a countersecu-
larization narrative that especially attends to the ways religion and psychology flourished
together (White 2009, 7).
to bridge the gap between faith and medicine (Weigh Down Ministries 2010).
This bridging of medicine and faith takes different forms in her program and related
plans.
As hinted at, evangelical dieting and fitness programs approach medical and sci-
entific discourses through the motif of the obesity epidemic. An exemplary scien-
tific study with the symptomatic title Obesity in the United States: A Worrisome
Epidemic comes from Carlos Crespo and Joshua Arbesman (2003). This motif is
virtually omnipresent in societal and medical discourses, not to mention the dis-
course of devotional fitness. The New York Times quotes Michael Bloomberg, mayor
of New York City, stating that obesity has become a nationwide problem which
officials can hardly deal with (Grynbaum 2012). Programs of devotional fitness use
such medical studies and findings to show that they are addressing one of the most
urgent needs of contemporary US society.
Medical discourse, on the other hand, approaches religion, too. Even if they usu-
ally would not go so far as to suggest biblically based workouts and diets, physi-
cians have studied the effects of faith on health. In 1991, a study by C.G. Ellison
found that there is a direct and substantial effect of religious certainty on well-
being, resulting in higher levels of life satisfaction, greater personal happiness,
and fewer negative psychosocial consequences of traumatic life events (Ellison
1991, 80). Jeffrey S. Levin, in God, Faith, and Health (2001), notes a rise to
respectability for the religion-health connection (Levin 2001, 4). It is not within
the scope of this book to explore the burgeoning field of medicine and spirituality in
depth. But it is worth noting that medicine, as a stereotyped counterpart of devo-
tional fitness, is not as depreciative towards the effects of religion and spirituality on
health as one would assume from its representation within the field of devotional
fitness.
Many programs of devotional fitness communicate their supposed medical
authority (e.g., Gwen Shamblin, Theresa Rowe, Ben Lerner). The Daniel Plan (Rick
Warren) is among the programs that lay high emphasis on their medical authority.
In fact, the section How it Differs from Other Plans pays more attention to medi-
cal expertise than to spiritual aspects. They trust in expert guidance through three
best-selling authorsbrain-scan expert Dr. Daniel Amen, functional medicine
pioneer Dr. Mark Hyman, and heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz from The Dr. Oz
Show (Eastman 2010) (see footnote 38, page 167).
Spiritual and scientific qualifications combine in the person of leaders. Laura
Monica, for instance, is portrayed as a multiply certified fitness professional with
25 years of experience and born-again committed Christian (WholyFit 2011).
Lerner appears as an example of intersectionality when he relies on biblical and
scientific sources at the same time (Lerner 2003, 7). His profession as a chiroprac-
tor and his evangelical faith make for an interesting conglomerate of religious and
scientific elements. Chiropractic, a mostly accepted medical field today, was
developed by Daniel D.Palmer (18451913) who was highly influenced by mes-
merists and developed a metaphysical worldview (Fuller 2001, 10405). In Lerners
practice, chiropractic is evangelicalized, so to speak. Although there is this kind
of overlapping and merging of different fields and traditions, there is also a clear
7.3Devotional Fitness andMedicine 231
hierarchy, according to Lerner. He incorporates knowledge from medical dis-

courses, common sense, and the Bible, emphasizing that wisdom for taking care
of your BBG [Body by God] and your life can come only from God. Following and
worshipping Plato, Socrates, teachers, doctors, psychiatrists, and fitness and
weight-loss authors will never truly work out (Lerner 2003, 15). Although medical
and scientific data is used and appreciated in its own right, there is a clear hierarchy
of sources of knowledge that becomes a central feature of this programs identity.
Hardly any program will begin without asking the participant or reader to con-
sult a medical or health professional before beginning this or any other weight-loss
or physical fitness program (Pea 2010, 4).15 It appears that, eventually, medical
authority decides whether someone joins a program. At first sight, this might be read
as a concession of devotional fitness to medicine, admitting that there are times
when medical knowledge in fact beats biblical knowledge. More likely, however, is
the reading of it as legal protection that program designers have to accept within the
secular frame of US society.
Distancing Quite contrary to this bridging of medicine and faith, and despite the
inclusion of medical relevance structures and strategies of legitimation, devotional
fitness strongly distances itself from medicine. Already in the 1970s, C.S. Lovett
was of the opinion that medicine cannot see the full picture of the human body
because the body is SMARTER THAN THE DOCTORS.God made it that way.
There is much our physicians still do not know about the body (Lovett [1977]
1982, 89).
Medicine does not meet the needs of the human being, proponents of evangelical
dieting programs assume. It is one-sided and lacks spiritual components. I was
saddened, Shamblin remembers, because I saw a growing movement that was
leaving the much-needed religious and spiritual element out of medicine (Weigh
Down Ministries 2010). Physical healing relies on emotional and spiritual healing,
as Anger told me in our e-mail correspondence. Moreover, medicine mostly treats
symptoms and does not pay attention to the deeper cause of illness and ailments
(Maximized Living 2011). Representatives of devotional fitness, by the way, shares
this point of view with the proponents of alternative and complementary medicine
which arises, in part, from a dissatisfaction with orthodox biomedicine (Barcan
2011, 32).
Some founders have a background in medicine. Gwen Shamblin, for example,
was an academic dietician before she turned her back on that career. Others claim to
be medical authorities still (Ben Lerner and the Maximized Living team) but subor-
dinate their medical rationales to Christian ideologies. They feel it is not easy in the
field of medicine to establish new ways of thinking about illness and health, yet are
convinced that they are on the right path.
15
This kind of medical disclaimer has a long tradition in the genre; see, e.g., the Medical
Warning in C.S. Lovetts 1977 Help Lord: The Devil Wants Me Fat! (Lovett [1977] 1982, 90).
Charlie Shedd also counts on the physician. Healing by this program is accomplished through
faith and the physicians help (Shedd 1957, 22).
Our chosen path is not as easy as the medical community and pharmaceutical industry. And
practitioners within our own profession are engaged in treating symptoms or, at best,
focused on an isolated modality that largely ignores root causes. However, armed with
facts, the clinical success of literally hundreds of thousands of extremely satisfied patients
around the world, and more than a million readers and viewers, we will not be deterred by
those who continue to support the failing, conventional Western Medical Model (Maximized
Living 2011).
Maximized Living here presents a stereotyped image of failing conventional

Western medicine that is trapped in treating symptoms while ignoring root causes.
Compared to this kind of conventional biomedical Western medicine, Maximized
Living, like many programs of devotional fitness, frequently employs the notion of
health care instead of disease care (Maximized Living 2011).
To sum up, I have illustrated how devotional fitness programs create and then
interact with a stereotype of medicine. This interaction takes place directly and
indirectly: in face-to-face communication when medical doctors appear in evangeli-
cal seminars on health and fitness, in mediated communication when authors dis-
cuss and reject conventional biomedical medicine in their books, or even within
individual biographies when leaders of devotional fitness programs have a back-
ground in medicine and turned their back on their academic education. Programs
interaction includes ways of engaging and distancing, e.g., when they underline
their medical qualifications and criticize the one-sidedness of conventional medi-
cine. This contributes to the establishment of a distinct identity of devotional fitness,
arising through selective adaptation and recontextualization of value-ideas and
practices in a Christian frame.
7.4 Devotional Fitness andNon-Christian Fitness
The secular fitness and dieting industry also is a part of society that becomes a
stereotyped counterpart of devotional fitness. Devotional fitness distinguishes itself
from secular programs by means of its values (and their biblical foundation),
which are supposedly nonexistent in the secular world: modesty and the focus on
relationships are the most important ones. At the same time, they borrow a consider-
able amount in terms of appearance and habitus from these non-Christian programs.
This chapter asks how devotional fitness programs construct their identity in the
face of, and in competition with, secular fitness and diet plans.
The discourses of devotional fitness and the non-Christian fitness world merge
considerably. Many of the communications in secular and evangelical discourse
are naturally similar because both deal with the same issue, address the same needs,
and build on shared values concerning the body. A few examples are due: If some-
one does the seemingly impossible and succeeds at weight-loss, people will ask,
7.4Devotional Fitness andNon-Christian Fitness 233
How did you do it? Whats your secret?16 Every weight-loss program needs to
promise new knowledgeknowledge that was hidden beforeotherwise people
would not believe in its effectiveness, as previous regimens did not work. This rhe-
torical figure occurs in both non-Christian and Christian fitness programs, though
explanations for why their program works differ. Related to this trope is the rhetori-
cal figure I tried everything but nothing worked until I found this program. It
applies to both evangelical and secular fitness and dieting discourses (see, e.g.,
Pierce 1960, 14, for an early incident of this motif in the Christian context, and
Reynolds 2008). Secular and Christian weight-loss discourses also overlap when
people assume that some foods are toxic and that they are harming their bodies by
eating junk food (see, e.g., Schlosser 2001 for the non-Christian context and
Lerner 2003, 55, for the Christian context). In the secular context, this refers to the
physical body; in the Christian context, it refers to the temple of God.
Merging In the following paragraphs, I consider a few examples from the secular
discourse on overweight, eating, dieting, and working out and I point out how these
practices are taken up in devotional fitness programs. The topoi of eating healthily,
working out regularly, fighting overweight, and staying on track are universal in
virtually all of contemporary Western society. Examples of this discourse in the
general secular US society abound. I briefly refer to some prominent manifesta-
tions of this discourse to show its prevalence and all-encompassing presence.
The trope of the obesity epidemic, frequently referred to in devotional fitness,
appeared on a popular level in Eric Schlossers Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of
the All-American Meal (2001). In this book, Schlosser criticizes the ubiquitous fast
food meal and advances the claim that the fast food industry has helped to trans-
form not only the American diet, but also our landscape, economy, workforce, and
popular culture (Schlosser 2001, 3). The demonization of fast food that we observe
in devotional fitness programs is a common element of popular diet discourse as
well. In the well-received movie Supersize Me (2004), Morgan Spurlock wants to
prove that eating at McDonalds on a regular basis is not just unhealthy but danger-
ous. In an unscientific experiment he eats exclusively at McDonalds for a month,
three times a day, never refusing the clerks offer to opt for the super sized dish.
Medical doctors accompany the experiment (Spurlock 2004). This theme reappears
in devotional fitness when French fries are demonized and fast food chains shunned
as much as possible.
Further similarities between devotional fitness and secular fitness discourse can
be seen in The Biggest Loser,17 a TV show which originated in the USA in 2004 and
has, as of 2012, been adapted in more than twenty countries in Europe, Asia, and the
Middle East. Except for slight variations, these shows arrange for individuals to
16
See, e.g., the story of First Place 4 Health participant Amy Gray who reports, People always ask
me how did you do it? (First Place 4 Health 2011).
17
The Biggest Loser is a joint venture production of Reveille, 25/7 Productions and 3 Ball
Productions; the executive producers are Ben Silverman, Dave Broome, JD Roth, Todd A.Nelson,
and Todd Lubin (Sweeney, Harper, and Quince 2012).
compete against each other to lose the most weight in a given amount of time. This
format may resonate so strongly with US society because it cherishes competition
and individualism, central values of US culture according to the oft-quoted study by
Kohls (1984; see also Samovar etal. 2013, 174). Both the competitive element and
the motifs of individualism and control are core values that permeate US society
(Kohls 1984; see also Samovar etal. 2013, 17076) that permeate the discourse of
devotional fitness, too.
The Biggest Loser is an extreme example of pushing the element of competition
to the limits. Yet competitions about weight-loss are common in the field of interest,
too. Reynolds Losing to Live competition in fact has personal ties to The Biggest
Loser, aside from similar formats. On one of the DVDs accompanying Bod4God,
Reynolds interviews experts Phil and Amy Parham, former participants of The
Biggest Loser (Reynolds 2011a). Despite this connection, institutionally and regard-
ing trademark rights, both programs stress their distinct identities.
A further trope employed by The Biggest Loser is the language of getting
healthynotwithstanding the apparent contradiction of losing weight as quickly
as possible and reaching sustainable health. The element of conceptualizing weight-
loss as inherently connected to health has been described as a central feature of
devotional fitness, as well. Moreover, reasons given for not losing weight are sur-
prisingly similar to those given in devotional fitness: being too busy, not knowing
how to eat well, being emotional eaters, knowing they could always start a weight-
loss program tomorrow (Sweeney, Harper, and Quince 2012). According to
Kluckhohns and Strodtbecks value orientations, it is a common belief in US cul-
ture that with constant hard work, control, education, and self-discipline, people
can achieve goodness (Samovar et al. 2013, 189).18 The price, however, in the
secular world of TV is money ($250,000 for the winner of The Biggest Loser)
while, for evangelicals it is a state of healthy relationships to self, others, body and
Godand, ultimately, a place in heaven. This is another incident that reveals how
elements are taken up and recontextualized within quite different world views.
There are other aspects of merging between the discourses of the non-Christian
fitness industry and devotional fitness. Weight Watchers, e.g., was an influential
example for 3D (Diet, Discipline, Discipleship) which set out as the Christ-oriented
counterpart of Weight Watchers (Showalter and Davis [2002] 2007, 29). Some
participants in First Place 4 Health and Losing to Live have tried to lose weight with
Weight Watchers and they go on to import Weight Watchers method of counting
points (a unit designed to summarize the caloric and nutritional content of food)
into their Christian fitness practice as Linda told me in an interview. Steve Reynolds
is not against Weight Watchers either, but when I talked to him, he expressed the
view that he does not really see the reason for them in that the Bible tells us what
to do. Still, the popularity of Weight Watchers is acknowledged, and a participant
of First Place 4 Health expressed her hope that this program would become just as
widespread and popular as Weight Watchers.
The authors work with Florence R.Kluckhohns and Fred L.Strodtbecks seminal Variations in
18
Value Orientations (1961).

7.4Devotional Fitness andNon-Christian Fitness 235
Merging also happens with regard to the fitness genres that devotional fitness
integrates in their plans. Yoga, Pilates, aerobics occur in Christian and non-Christian
fitness alike. Yoga is often seen as just fitness, but is usually associated with spiri-
tual practice. I discuss this topic exhaustively in the next chapter. Pilates was devel-
oped and is still practiced without explicit religious connotationsdepending on
the instructors personal preferences, too, of course.
Distancing Having demonstrated how devotional fitness takes up communicative
elements from its non-Christian counterpart, I now turn to how it distances from this
discourse, thus constructing a distinguishably Christian identity. The basic goals of
both Christian and non-Christian programs, officials of devotional fitness admit, are
the sameweight-loss, fitness, and health. And, theoretically, people can lose
weight without God. People do it all the time with secular programs, Reynolds
writes (2009, 55). These secular programs, however, did not feel right to Reynolds:
I had to bring Gods Holy Spirit into my life when it came to eating and exercise.
I had to depend on the Holy Spirit to guide me in my choices of food. I had to ask
Him to strengthen me when it came to exercise (Reynolds 2009, 55).
Also, Reynolds observes a certain imbalance in secular fitness. People may be
physically fit but they lack spiritual fitness. Some of you are physically active and
in perfect shape, but you never read your Bible, pray, or go to church as you should.
You have abs and biceps to prove that you are strong physically, but you dont have
the spiritual muscles you need to survive in this world. You need to exercise spiritu-
ally (Reynolds 2009, 153). Thus, attending to physical and spiritual fitness is the
most obvious marker of difference.
The marker Christian spirituality becomes manifest on different levels. Their
dress code, for instance, is one means of distancing from secular fitness classes.
Devotional fitness programs often urge participants, especially women, to dress
modestly19although it remains unclear what a modest dress looks like, other
than that it should not reveal too much skin. Supposedly, members also get an
additional benefit from the atmosphere at these classes, which is different to other
classes in that they take care of the emotional needs of participants. People pray for
each other and care about their fellows problems, as Jeannie Blocher emphasized
when I talked to her.
Apart from being Christian, evangelical dieting programs seek to differ from
secular competitors as far as they are not a diet (see page 143). Instead, they
argue that they propose a lifestyle and stress their holistic approach.
In the face of their non-Christian competition, devotional fitness explicitly and
implicitly formulates a unique selling proposition based on its secret of success.
What, from the outside, is often perceived as an anomaly, something odd that needs
an explanation, is rendered the special feature, the key and secret of success: the
decidedly Christian reference structure of devotional fitness. Gwen Shamblin writes,
19
See, e.g., Losing to Live (Reynolds 2009, 79), the Lords Gym (Schippert 2003, 5).
Weigh Down actually started without a faith component in the 1980s as my training had led
me; I had shared all that I had done to lose my weight except my faith. [] I boldly
reintroduced the long-needed religious component in my Nutrition lectures at the University
and in my Weigh Down classes. Once I rewrote the materials and included the aspect of
turning to God, it made all the difference (Weigh Down Ministries 2010).
In short, they began as a normal (yet unsuccessful) program, and reintroduced

God only to discover that this is the distinct and crucial feature of their program.
The secret, then, is to surrender to Gods will by believing in him. Donna
Richardson Joyner (Sweating in the Spirit) leaves no doubt: if you believe you will
succeed! (Richardson Joyner 2011). God himself joins the team and provides eter-
nal motivation. Rick Warren, quoted on the homepage of The Daniel Plan, says,
God has given us a purpose and offers the power to make healthy changes! This is
the key difference between The Daniel Plan and other plans (Eastman 2010).
More generally, many programs stress their ability to include Christian spiritual-
ity into their weight-loss and exercise programs, with this in itself being a major
factor of their success. Meditating upon the word of God is an expression of this.
Because Weigh Down Workshop does not lack the spiritual component, Catherine
told me, it is more successful than other programs.
People often mention another point, when asked about the keys to the success of
their program: the small group structure and the support it offers (in those cases
where a program is based on groups). This is a very common feature and most
secular weight-loss and fitness programs offer group meetings as well. However,
the groups in devotional fitness are supposedly special in the ways they nourish
social relationships. The group is not just a regular group of people; it is supported
by divine power. Moreover, there is a loving environment in these groups, as
Debbie reported in one of her messages about her First Place 4 Health classas
opposed to secular programs where groups are thought to be anonymous and
distanced.
In this chapter, I have offered evidence of how programs of devotional fitness
both draw from and reject their non-Christian dieting and fitness competitors. They
do so by picking up a variety of practices and value-ideas and by recontextualizing
these in a biblical frame. Thus, they explicitly and implicitly mirror popular cultural
forms such as Weight Watchers or The Biggest Loser but claim to do so in a better
way, being grounded in Christian values and biblical examples.
7.5 Devotional Fitness andYoga
Yoga is another important stereotyped counterpart of devotional fitness and part of

the historical currents that prepared the cultural repertoire from which evangelical
fitness programs draw (see page 79 ff). An integral part of contemporary popular
and fitness culture, yoga receives more and more attention in both academic and
non-academic settings. The goal of this chapter is to find out how devotional fitness
programs position themselves in relation to yoga. Their embracing and rejecting of
7.5Devotional Fitness andYoga 237
yoga, or certain elements of yoga, is one way of constructing and maintaining iden-
tity. Before elaborating on what the discursive contact zone between devotional fit-
ness and yoga looks like, I clarify the term yoga in the context of devotional
fitness.
What Is Yoga? The kind of yoga practiced in the United States today is simulta-
neously foreign and quite homegrown, a hybrid, transnational tradition that has
been constantly renewed and reinvented in interchanges between various groups
and nations (Bender 2010, 107). Although Western yoga is related to and often
perceived as rooted in the ancient Indian philosophy is does not have much in com-
mon with traditional Yoga (capitalized to denote the Indian tradition and philoso-
phy). Vivekananda is often assumed to have brought yoga to the States. Already
familiar with US culture, he presented yoga as an ancient wisdom tradition, while
merging heterogeneous Indian traditions in order to adapt Yoga to the Western envi-
ronment (Bender 2010, 107). Referencing Michelis ([2004] 2008), Bender con-
cludes that contemporary Western yoga
can be viewed as a hybrid form of American desires for (and expressions of the power of)
relaxation in an agitated world, translated through images of a mystical East and its ancient
wisdom, reorganized and reshaped by Indian teachers with their own scholarly, religious,
and political interests in establishing certain Indian religious forms as authoritative (Bender
2010, 109).
In fact, there is so much variety in contemporary yoga that experienced yoga

practitioners and scholars alike have difficulties giving a clear definition and typol-
ogy (Syman 2010, 67; Michelis [2004] 2008, 18789). From the perspective of
devotional fitness, however, things become much easier because yoga is represented
as a stereotyped other. Yoga usually serves as a general category summarizing sup-
posedly Eastern or New Age-inspired body practices that arise from non-Christian
backgrounds. Devotional fitness programs, though, take a variety of views in this
regard, as I point out later, that arise from the unclear status of yoga as fitness, spiri-
tuality, or both.
Focusing on Ashtanga yoga, Lars J.Langien argues that yoga as a seemingly
non-religious fitness genre still evidences embodiment of a religio-spiritual prac-
tice (Langien 2012, 27). Similar to devotional fitness programs, the healthy, fit
and youthful body becomes a symbol of the practitioners dedication to the practice
and the disciplined mind and the yoga body as such tells the story of a personal
transformation of bodies and minds (Langien 2012, 27). In these regards and
from a comparative perspective, the disparate fitness genres feature some similari-
ties, e.g., regarding the idea of personal transformation. Underlying motivations are
also similar, as when Langien points out that in Ashtanga yoga it is not enough to
simply strive for a firm and healthy body; the motivation should be a higher one
(Langien 2012, 27). A crucial difference, however, is that yoga has been inter-
preted as focusing on the god within (Langien 2012, 32, arguing on the basis of
Heelas 2008) while authors of Christian fitness plans stress their submission to the
Christian God as a being transcending this world. Then again, the idea that the body
may become both tool and external marker of practitioners internal transformations
(Langien 2012, 33) occurs both in yoga and in devotional fitness. Even in Muscular
Christianity (Sect. 5.2) comparable notions existed when protagonists linked reli-
gious states to physiological ones (White 2009, 123) and cherished the possibilities
of making visible inner states in and through their bodies.
Establishing a relationship to ones body is, according to Langiens informants,
an important goal in Ashtanga yoga (Langien 2012, 33) and exemplary illustrated
in a cover story of the June 2006 issue of the Yoga Journal, entitled Love Your
Body. As I demonstrated in Sect. 6.4.1, one of the relationships at the core of many
evangelical dieting and fitness programs is that of the self to the body.
Much in line with statements I encountered in the field of devotional fitness,
Langien argues that in yoga, Health and fitness arent sought for their own sakes
[] but as part of an enlightenment and salvation (of self) project, and that
Looking good is just an unfortunate by-product of spiritual discipline (Langien
2012, 35). In addition, yoga and devotional fitness are quite similar when consid-
ered in terms of gender. Both genres are still dominated by women (although male
participants are not as uncommon in yoga any more) and their popular imagery
heavily relies on female, slender bodies. Therefore, from a comparative and analyti-
cal point of view, yoga and devotional fitness might be fruitfully considereda
comparison that must remain a desideratum for now. Here, I focus on how devo-
tional fitness programs interact with yoga as a discursive other and draw their iden-
tity from including and excluding value-ideas and practices of contemporary
Western yoga.
Yoga is one of the strongest competitors of devotional fitness because it works
with related conceptions of body and mind, especially focusing on their connected-
ness, and answers to similar needs in the market for physical regimens (Jain 2012,
6). A commonly supported view of yoga in devotional fitness is that people do not
have to necessarily go to a yoga class to find spiritual nourishment or peace in a
fitness setting (ActivPrayer 2010). In other words, devotional fitness programs set
out to provide alternatives to yoga.
Similar to the contact zones analyzed above, devotional fitness construes and
upholds its identity by both advancing and refusing yoga and aspects of yoga. This
activity requires, foremost, an identification of yoga. Often, programs of devo-
tional fitness do not explicitly reflect on what yoga is. Laura Monica, however, has
to do so because her program is one of the few that are fundamentally based on
opposition to yoga. In a simple and practical way, she explains that yoga is every-
thing that is called yoga. Looking like yoga is not a sufficient marker of identity.
It is a speech act that makes fitness into yoga. Calling your class yoga condones
everything yoga promotes, including all its innate anti-biblical philosophies [] if
you call it yoga then you are promoting yoga (Monica 2011c).
Distancing Irrespective of whether yoga is explicitly defined or not, many evan-
gelical fitness plans distance themselves from yoga. They do so, first, by rejecting
the religions and religious views associated with yoga, mainly Hinduism and New
Age. This is part of the evangelical agenda; their missionary intentions do not agree
Fig. 7.2The Christian Research Journal (Vol. 31, Nr. 4, 2008) recommends PraiseMoves
(Christian Research Institute, reprinted by permission of the publisher)
with an acceptance of non-Christian religions. Some Christians not associated with

devotional fitness also directly discuss and often reject yoga (e.g., the Christian
Research Journal, Fig. 7.2) and Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary, answers to the question, Should Christians Practice Yoga?,
after some consideration, with a clear No (Mohler 2010).
Some designers of devotional fitness programs highlight the connections between
yoga and the Hindu traditions (usually referred to as Hinduism). They see yoga
as part of the missionary activities of Hinduism and depict it as a significant threat
to Christianity. Laurette Willis (PraiseMoves) calls yoga the missionary arm of
Hinduism (Willis 2011). Willis bolsters her argumentation by quoting George
P. Alexander, a friend of her family and scholar from Biola University, a private
Christian university in Southern California. According to Alexander, Many
Westerners who practice yoga today are unaware that the physical positions assumed
in yoga symbolize a spiritual act: worshiping one of the many Hindu gods (Willis
2011). From this perspective, yoga is insolubly tied to Hinduism and the philoso-
phy behind the poses is inseparable from the workout (Willis 2011).
In conclusion, Willis thinks of yoga as religion. Yoga IS Religion, and there is
abundant proof (Willis 2011). Characterizing yoga as religion enables Willis to
completely reject it, as it would be unthinkable for a faithful Christian to engage
with a non-Christian religion.
Yoga, according to some representatives of devotional fitness, should also be
avoided because of its ties to New Age. This becomes obvious when Laurette Willis
portrays yoga as the missionary arm not just of Hinduism, but also of the New
Age movement (Willis 2011). Willis draws these ideas from her experience.
As a child growing up on Long Island, I became involved with yoga at the age of seven
when my mother and I began watching a daily yoga exercise program on television. For the
next 22 years I was heavily involved with yoga, metaphysics and the New Age movement
until I came to the end of myself and surrendered my life to Jesus Christ in 1987 (Willis
2011).
Here, yoga, closely connected to metaphysics and the New Age movement, is
considered as completely contradicting evangelical faith. Similarly, Laura Monica
introduces WholyFit as a Christian fitness program that provides all of the benefits
of Yoga, Tai Chi, Pilates, Martial Arts and more with none of the New Age compo-
nents (WholyFit 2011).
Additionally, practitioners of devotional fitness classes avoid yoga because of its
assumed anti-biblical and demonic tendencies. On the grounds of these argumenta-
tions, particularly brought forward in the more fundamental branches of devo-
tional fitness, leaders urge their followers to avoid yoga at all cost (Monica
2011c). This view is so central to some programs that the opposition to yoga emerges
as a crucial feature of their identity. This concerns two programs that I have quoted
throughout this section. The first, WholyFit, adds the claim Better than Yoga to
their brand and explains, We have the real thing! Yoga is the counterfeit (WholyFit
2011). Laura Monica says, Yoga promotes the worship of idols and opens practi-
tioners up to demonic spirits (Monica 2011c). The second, PraiseMoves, is simi-
larly explicit, offering a Christian alternative to yoga (Willis 2011). In one of her
promotional video clips, Willis explains that Yoga leads people away from Christ
instead of to him (Willis 2011). Monica is of the same opinion: Yoga works against
the message of Jesus. No matter how popular or culturally acceptable Yoga may be,
on the whole, Yoga promotes teachings that are contrary to the Bible (Monica
2008, 1). They advance these views although and because Willis and Monica both
have experience with yoga. Monica remembers, I used to take yoga classes and
teach yoga until I realized that yoga promotes the worship of idols and opens prac-
titioners up to demonic spirits. At yoga certification, we were directed to give our
souls completely to Shiva. I renounced yoga and repented (Monica 2011c). Willis
went through a similar experience (see above).
Approaching Yoga The attitude towards yoga depicted so far is not universally
agreed upon in devotional fitness. Rather, it is the fundamentally shaped branch of
the discourse that shares these assumptions. In connection and opposition to these
argumentations, other branches of the discourse advance yoga differently. Moreover,

Christians not associated with devotional fitness find ways to learn from or engage
with yoga. They argue for a dialogue between yoga and Christianity. Sheveland,
writing for the Christian Century, hopes that real encounter and reciprocity will
inform the dialogue (Sheveland 2011). Tami, a liberal Christian in NewYork City,
told me that she does not consider yoga the missionary arm of Hinduism as, to her
mind, it has not been developed as an integral part of Hinduism but stems from
Vedic culture. Yoga, in her view, is not a religion and therefore a legitimate occupa-
tion for Christians.
Some authors admit that the unity of body and mind, a central feature of yoga, is
a worthwhile goal even if yoga is the wrong way to pursue this goal. Robert Evans
(Christian Fitness TV), asked about the reasons for the emergence of Christian fit-
ness programs, explains, I would attribute a lot of that, at least as far as the United
States goes, to the Eastern culture, Asian, everything that came over, from yoga to,
you know, the martial arts. Since the 1960s and 1970s, he says, yoga brought over
the whole mind, body, spirit, this oneness. Therefore, Christian Fitness TV takes
exercises from martial arts but they adapt them and change them so theres a great
benefit to the body, but none of the spiritual side, as Evans put it in our interview.
What is happening here is that a somatic practice is understood and legitimized dif-
ferently by framing it within different semiotics: They adopt both the idea of whole-
ness and its practical implementations but underpin these with a new legitimation.
A way to do so without embracing yoga is to rename postures that they have bor-
rowed from yoga. Evans clarifies that he does not agree with the philosophical basis
of yoga. It might be a little bit out there on the whole [laughs] tree and earth thing,
but as far as the body and the spirit that might have been a catalyst for the emer-
gence of new perspectives on body and soul in evangelical circles.
The method of renaming postures and exercises is also used by Laura Monica.
She calls a series of postures reminiscent of the yogic Sun Salutation (Surya
Namaskar) the Nakar position (Monica 2011a). Laurette Willis incorporates
many asanas too, naming variations of Mountain Pose (Tadasana) as The Reed,
Triangle Pose (Trikonasana) as The Star, and Warrior II (Virabhadrasana II) as
The Prayer Warrior. These poses are concrete embodiments of biblical scripture
despite their doubtlessly yogic origin, and thus demonstrate the adaptive faculties of
devotional fitness programs.
Not only are these yogic poses renamed, they are also associated with specific
scriptural references that strip them from any association with an Indic origin. The
Reed will be exercised with Isaiah 42:3,20 The Star is accompanied by Daniel
12:3,21 and The Prayer Warrior enacts James 5:1622 (Willis 2011). Thus, these
20
Isaiah 42:3: A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In
faithfulness he will bring forth justice (New International Version, 2011).
21
Daniel 12:3: Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who
lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever (New International Version, 2011).
22
James 5:16: Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may
be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective (New International Version,
2011).
exercises are, at least cognitively, completely removed from their origin. The hope
is that practitioners will, over time, associate these poses exclusively with biblical
ideas.
Some programs admit that aspects and practices of their programs look similar,
but in fact are not similar to yoga. Therefore, devotional fitness programs often look
like yoga, while emphasizing that they have nothing in common with yoga. Laura
Monica (WholyFit) does not deny that her program looks like yoga to attract partici-
pants: WholyFit intentionally includes exercises that look like yoga because our
goal is to offer an alternative to yoga that draws people to Jesus. Otherwise, how can
we draw people away from yoga? An alternative to yoga must give the same benefits
as yoga and be enough like yoga to be aptly offered as an alternative (Monica
2011c). So, indirectly, she concedes some advantages to yoga. These advantages,
however, are secondary considering the assumed negative spiritual effects.
Moreover, she argues, there is practically no way to exercise without performing
movements that have some resemblance to asanas. Monica ironically challenges the
readers of her newsletter to work out 3 days a week for a year without doing any
exercise that looks like yoga (Monica 2011c).
In certain practices, apart from poses, many evangelical fitness classes are remi-
niscent of yoga classes even if they do not make explicit reference to yoga. The
focus on breathing is such an example. Conscious and attentive breathing is part of
most yoga classes, and Theresa Rowe (Shaped by Faith) stresses the role of breath-
ing too. She renders breathing a practice that enables her followers to confess their
sins. [C]ombine the deep breathing exercises from this chapter with a prayerful,
repentant heart. Allow your mind to ask for forgiveness as you exhale the sins from
your soul (Rowe 2008, 3839). From a different perspective, Sheveland muses
over the usefulness of yogic breathing too:
How does yogic breath control and regulation (Prana Yama) influence my ability to pray, to
contemplate God or to receive the Eucharist? Many Christians have found that breathing
exercises quiet the mind and allow one to focus more pointedly on the experience of prayer
or worship, opening them to perceive the presence of God more fully. So too, breath control
and regulation can render me more mindful, more responsible at the Lords Table, more
present to the body of Christ in our midst, of which we all are part (Sheveland 2011).
That shows that yogic elements have arrived in the midst of Christian culture in
the States and, in liberal Christian circles, are embraced as part of everyday-life.
Supporting Yoga Eventually, there are also evangelical fitness plans which sup-
port yoga to differing degrees. In contrast to currents of devotional fitness that draw
their identity from distinct opposition to yoga, others embrace it in different ways.
Paul Eugene (Gospel Fitness Workouts) implements yoga in his program (Eugene
2011). Responding to criticism, he explains, I follow what the scriptures says,
whatever I do I do as unto the Lord. [] I love dance and fitness. I know that I am
not calling on demons when doing African dances or yoga moves (Eugene 2012).
Emily Mayhew (Exercise with Purpose) does Christian yoga as well (Mayhew
2011) and references Susan Bordenkirchers Yoga for Christians (2006). Her logo
features a woman in a stretching pose that is reminiscent of a variation of the asana

Warrior (Virabhadrasana), flooded in rays of light emitted by the cross. This illus-
trates how the Christian worldview is able to frame and reshape genuinely non-
Christian practices.
At the end of this scale, we find a complete merger of Christian thinking and
yogic movement, Christoga, developed by Janine Turner and Mary Cunningham
(Turner and Cunningham 2006). Describing the program, the DVD back cover
reads, Christoga is a non-traditional Hatha yoga practice at beginning and interme-
diate levels using scriptures from the Bible as the meditation focus. Turner, an
American actress, claims to be so effective both in front of and behind the camera
because she incorporates physical fitness and spiritual growth through Christoga,
as part of her life style (Turner and Cunningham 2006, cover). In this instance, the
asanas are completely integrated and substantiated by scripture verses. The design-
ers stress the complementary nature of yoga and Christian faith when they summa-
rize their approach: Yoga filled body, Christ filled soul (Turner and Cunningham
2006, cover). In a way, this statement reintroduces a separation of the physical and
the spiritual, using yoga for the physical side and the bible for spiritual purposes. On
the other hand, though, it is palpable that this program does not draw its identity
from an opposition towards yoga but from the deliberate combination of yogic and
Christian praxis. Rather unsuccessful, this program has been widely criticized for
being nonprofessional, technically incorrect, and superficial.
Yoga is one case in point that demonstrates how much evangelical fitness is influ-
enced, at least indirectly, by Indian concepts. I have touched upon this argument
already at the end of Sect. 4.1 but let me come back to this thought once more.
A new kind of spirituality (with roots already in the nineteenth century) emerged
in Europe and the USA in the 1960s and 70s that was largely shaped by the encoun-
ter with India (Wilke and Moebus 2011, 928). As a product of interaction and
exchange, this kind of transreligious spirituality sought to overcome traditional
religion and find a more holistic approach to spirituality (Wilke and Moebus 2011,
1019, 1028). The influence of India on contemporary spirituality has, according to
Wilke, been largely underestimated in recent literature (Wilke and Moebus 2011,
10181019). What characterized this new kind of spirituality was its claim to be
holistic. Taking this into account in the analysis of devotional fitness, one may
conclude that these evangelical programs seek to give an answer to the popular
alternative spiritualities by providing a distinct kind of Christian holistic spiritual-
ityholistic here referring to body and soul. Speaking with Wilke of triggers and
expanding horizons (Wilke and Moebus 2011, 939), we might consider the new
kinds of spirituality, expressed here in the popular practices of yoga and meditation,
as an important counter foil and trigger for devotional fitness programs to emerge.
In other words: Would Indian spirituality not have been so popular in the West by
the end of the nineteenth century and then again in the 1960s and 70s, evangelical
fitness programs such as WholyFit and PraiseMoves might not have emerged the
way they did.
Similar to the other discursive contact zones, the discursive area of devotional
fitness and yoga features both elements of rapprochement and of demarcation. This
particular contact zone, however, is notable insofar as actors in the field debate
about the acceptance or rejection of yoga in a particularly trenchant and emotional
way. There is heterogeneity in other contact zones, too, but nowhere are the differ-
ences as obvious and striking as here, ranging from complete acceptance (Christoga)
to complete rejection of yoga (PraiseMoves, WholyFit). This is due to the uncertain
and contested status of yoga as philosophy, religion, or simple fitness technique, and
different strategies of dealing with competition. As I have demonstrated here, differ-
ent positions with regard to yoga are connected to different stereotyped images of
yoga and, in consequence, to diverse strategies of establishing identity in the face of
yoga.
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Part IV
Theoretical ReflectionsReflecting Theory
Chapter 8
Somatics, Semiotics, andtheStudy
ofReligions: Concepts andApproaches
Reconsidered
Abstract In this chapter, I draw on Sect. 3.1 and try to answer once more to one of
the central questions of this study: How and why does devotional fitness work? This
question aims at understanding how the identity of devotional fitness programs is
created and also at conceptualizing devotional fitness programs in a theoretically
fruitful manner. As I have tried to show in the previous chapters, the identity of
programs stems from the way they relate to their environment. From that, I turn to
more general considerations about how the study of devotional fitness may tell us
something about how discursive identity is construed, about the dichotomy of the
religious and the secular, and issues of practice and practicing. Finally, I also recon-
sider the approach of combining semiotics and somatics.
Keywords Identity construction Dichotomy religious vs. secular Practicing reli-

gion Theorizing devotional fitness Semiotics and somatics
How do the findings of this study affect the conceptual instruments employed in the
analysis? What are the implications of these findings for the study of religions and
for future research in this and related areas? I make a few modest, and not altogether
novel, suggestions regarding these questions. My proposals circulate around four
areas: ways of constructing identity through inclusion and exclusion, engagement
and distancing; the re-entanglement of the secular and the religious on a level of
analysis; the practicing of religion; and ways of combining semiotic and somatic
approaches.
Constructing Identity from Difference It is crucial to this study that there is a
difference between institutionalized, congregationally implemented evangelical fit-
ness programs (exercise programs in churches, groups, and organizations) and the
discourse devotional fitness. These are two interdependent levels that shape each
other. The advantage of speaking of devotional fitness as a discourse is that I can
include communications from sources that institutionally would not be regarded as
evangelical or even Christian. I have shown in the chapters above that the discourse
devotional fitness extends into wider Christian and secular discourses.
Institutional settings (churches, congregations, and ministries) are connected to the
discourse insofar as they realize many of its suppositions and provide the necessary
organizational frame and means to practice devotional fitness. I have also not

252 8 Somatics, Semiotics, andtheStudy ofReligions: Concepts andApproaches
focused on individual motivations and inter-subjective perceptions in my analysis

but used these the reconstruct the broader communicative system.
Often based on motifs emerging in the Christian and evangelical context, this
discourse transforms continually and appears in settings that are not necessarily
Christian. I have nonetheless characterized devotional fitness as embodied evan-
gelicalism in order to highlight the fact that the discourse mainly feeds on evan-
gelical tropes and is in many cases manifested in evangelical contexts. This does not
exclude appearances of the discourse in different, non-evangelical settings as it
transforms and adapts to other contexts (think, e.g., of Williamsons Course in
Weight Loss and fitness classes in mainline Protestant and Catholic1
denominations).
Devotional fitness as a terminus technicus is a communicative reduction and
condensation, a concept and perspective summarizing certain observable phenom-
ena. These phenomena are (semiotic and somatic) communications in the widest
sense, and they have specific characteristics that allow for summarizing them under
the umbrella term devotional fitness. These specific characteristics are not abso-
lute, but relative. In other words, I cannot say of a certain communication or practice
that it belongs in the field of devotional fitness at all times for this and that reason.
What I can say, on the contrary, is that a certain element I recorded belongs in the
field of devotional fitness because it has been communicated in relation to other
communications and that this interrelation and the way the elements refer to each
other and are hierarchized and semanticized, is of devotional fitness. The element
body as temple, e.g., has been used in the temperance movement in the beginning
of the twentieth century. It was not connected to reducing and working out, and,
therefore, cannot be regarded as part of an early discourse of devotional fitness.
Today, however, it is often used as a basic premise of evangelical fitness programs
as it is connected to different practices and issues which are at stake in contempo-
1
Evangelicalisms traditional opponent, Catholicism, has largely abstained from adopting evan-
gelical concepts of faith and fitness. Griffith, writing in the early 2000s, notes that not a single
book of this type [Christian fitness culture] seems to have yet surfaced from the pen of an American
Catholic writer (Griffith 2004, 197). The situation has changed a little in the beginning of the
2010s. Janice Taylors Our Lady of Weight Loss: Miraculous and Motivational Musings from the
Patron Saint of Permanent Fat Removal (Taylor 2006), encourages the reader to Rid yourself of
the devil food (Taylor 2006, 21). Kate Wicker, in Weightless: Making Peace with Your Body
(Wicker 2011), stresses that her book is not about a diet, but about finding a true purpose in God
and filling the God-shaped holes with him instead of food (Wicker 2011, xxxxi). Suggesting a
non-denominational position, she recommends organizations like First Place 4 Health and 3D in
the appendix (Wicker 2011, 89). Mary DeTurris Pousts Cravings: A Catholic Wrestles with Food,
Self-Image, and God focuses on the believers relationship with God, and her ability to become
the person you were created to be, unfettered by food-related problems (Poust 2012, 1). These
Catholic programs largely mirror evangelical devotional fitness but do not focus as much on physi-
cal exercise and body forming sports. Further anecdotal evidence suggesting that Catholics com-
bine their spiritual and fitness life comes from an interview with Michael at St. Patricks Old
Cathedral in NewYork City, who told me, I regulate a lot of my workout and prayer time together;
I ride my bike a lot, and as Im riding, Ill pray. [] or, when I do my intervals at the gym, Ill
count them by certain prayers. However, there does not seem to be a broader movement within
contemporary American Catholicism dealing with body image, weight issues, diets, and exercise.
8 Somatics, Semiotics, andtheStudy ofReligions: Concepts andApproaches 253
rary US society. Certain fitness practices and poses, as I have shown in Sect. 7.5, are
equally present in yoga and devotional fitness. In the one case, yoga, they are not at
all embedded in a Christian context while, in the other, they are unquestionably of
devotional fitness.
In short, the context determines whether any given communication belongs to
the field of devotional fitness. From that, I conclude that specific communicative
elements may sometimes belong to devotional fitness, while at other times, in dif-
ferent contexts, they do not belong to devotional fitness.
Communications of any kind (verbal, acoustic, practical) are considered to
belong to devotional fitness if they are related to the notion of the body being the
temple of (the Christian) God in combination with the idea that the body as Gods
temple has to be kept in shape in order to do Gods work on earth. Keeping it in
shape practically refers to physically strengthening the body and forming its shape
according to the slimness and fitness ideal. Apparently used in non-Christian con-
texts too, this ideal at the core of devotional fitness highlights the deeply entangled
character of devotional fitness. Thus, we have the three basic elements which make
up a discursive context that allows for using the term devotional fitness: The body/
temple-motif, a specific notion of health, and the ideal of physical perfection of
the body.
Devotional fitness is a discourse that takes up communications from other dis-
courses (evangelical Christianity, secular society, medicine, non-Christian dieting
and fitness, and yoga; see Chap. 7). These elements are recontextualized and rese-
manticized in the process of import. Having a slender body, for example, is no lon-
ger a merely individual goal, influenced by fashion ideals and a body-focused
cultureit is meant to glorify God. Walking as an athletic practice is no longer
merely healthy but an occasion for enjoying Gods creation. In the face of these
contexts, programs often draw their identity from what they are not. They claim to
be, e.g., not a diet but a lifestyle, not one-sided but holistic, not idolizing the body
and appearance but continually worshipping to God, not yoga but Christian fitness.
The identity of devotional fitness is fluid yet distinct, dynamic but clearly recog-
nizable. In this regard, the discourse struggles with the same problem so many
participants deal with: the search for identity and the need to find their true self. To
make no mistake, the discourse as a completely abstract realm cannot struggle nor
find a true self. Structurally, however, on both the discursive and the personal level,
identity appears, from a researchers perspective, dynamic and relational.
Protagonists in the field, on the contrary, more often embrace the idea that there is
something like an absolute or stable identity that one has not yet found personally,
or that one has to defend communicatively.
The distancing and clear positioning as a Christian program are formulated in
implicit and explicit theologies of the body (Sect. 6.4), including a distinct set of
values, such as modesty and relationships, and proper practices (Sect. 6.1). The
identityconsisting of theology, value-ideas, practices, and the like, and emerging
from negotiations at different discursive contact zonesis visualized in logos, i.e.,
visual symbolism, which show Christian icons such as the fish or the cross as well
as profane items from the fitness world. These visual symbols (intentionally) illus-
trate how elements from different contexts are drawn together. In this way, the
iconic level parallels ideological and practical levels that are also shaped by combi-
nations, mergers, and overlappings. These logos mirror the entangled reality of
practicing devotional fitness and are visual markers of dedifferentiation.
In much of this study, especially in Chap. 7, I have argued that programs of devo-
tional fitness approach and, at the same time, reject practices and value-ideas circu-
lating in their cultural environment, in this way constructing a distinct identity by
resemanticizing and re-relating these elements within their specific conceptual
frame. We observe this not just in dieting in fitness, but in entirely every societal and
cultural area (books, movies, magazines, fashion etc.). Evangelicals are able to
Christianize almost everything. I hypothesize, on the grounds of cultural semiot-
ics, that religious semiotic systems produce a dynamic stock of communicative ele-
ments when protagonists recontextualize and thus semanticize elements they draw
from their cultural environment. One can shed light on processes of identity con-
struction by examining how discourses adapt and reshape existing communicative
motifs and practices. I have developed this hypothesis with regard to the evangelical
fitness and dieting scene in the United States, but it may well serve as a general tool
to consider evangelicals construction of identities in related contexts too.
In this study, I tried to demonstrate how and in relation to which areas of society
the evangelical dance of engagement and distinction, as Gerber calls it on the
basis of Christian Smiths work (Gerber 2009, 407), takes place. While Gerber has
primarily focused on how American fat phobia and associated value-ideas have
been taken up and reshaped in First Place 4 Health, I attempted to integrate a larger
set of practices and notions that exist in different societal areas and that are, in dif-
ferent ways and with different intentions, recontextualized and reshaped in devo-
tional fitness culture. Christian Smith and Michael Emerson (1998) have, on a
broader scale, argued that evangelicals in the United States draw much of their
cultural impact from the ways in which they face societal plurality and are able to
engage and interact with their non-Christian environment, a thesis that I could
amplify and confirm with specific regard to devotional fitness.
These studies in mind, I have focused on the particular aspect of constructing
identity. The identity of devotional fitness programs is created and produced in the
ways protagonists and authors recontextualize and resemanticize elements of the
cultural repertoire they have at their disposal. This identity does not emerge from
within the discourse but from the way these programs differ from what they con-
sider the secular world, conventional biomedical Western medicine, non-Christian
dieting programs, yoga, and their Christian environment. We see, then, that identity
as a coherent meaning and symbolic system, linked to corresponding practices and
forms of social organization, does not so much emerge from within devotional fit-
ness but from the way protagonists relate to societal discourses.
These observations allow for an introduction of theoretical approaches that focus
on the idea of difference as the core principle of creating social reality. In linguistics,
for example, this idea has been famously proposed by Saussure, who assumed that
linguistic signs are made from what distinguishes them from neighboring signs
(Saussure [1916] de Saussure 1967, 145). Based on Saussure and others (e.g.,
Spencer-Brown 1999), Niklas Luhmann, in his systems theory, attributes a central

role to difference as a basic theoretical concept. The system, in Luhmanns terms, is
the difference between system and environment. The difference between system
and environment is the main feature of the system and it is produced and reproduced
by the system itself in its operationsin social systems these operations are com-
munications (Luhmann and Baecker 2006, 7980). Identity, too, in Luhmanns con-
ception, is only possible through and by difference. The system needs to differ from
its environment in order not to vanish (Luhmann 1985, 243). This is not the place to
discuss Luhmanns systems theory; my intention is merely to demonstrate that the
notion of identity from difference is relatively well-established in the study of
cultures and societies.
Like identities, differences are not just there. They are made. For Luhmann,
social systems operate on the basis of communications that are, at least analytically,
independent of intentional subjects. Nonetheless, the necessity of continuously
operatingor rather: communicating and practicingis transferable to the dis-
course of devotional fitness.
Therefore, I argue that it is fruitful to focus on two aspects, not just in the study
of Christian fitness programs but also in the broader study of religions and cultures:
First, the ways in which discourses are what they are not, i.e., how they relate to,
differ from, and interact (directly and indirectly) with their environment, and sec-
ond, the concrete, practical communications and communicative practices in the
course of which this happens. In the tradition of the cultural turn, both these aspects
suggest that con-text (i.e., the environment of the phenomenon being researched)
is at least equally important as text (i.e., the phenomenon itself) and that focusing
on the doing, communicating, embodying, and practicing of religion is a way of
fruitfully engaging with the ever-transforming realities of peoples life worlds.
Dichotomy of Secular Versus Religious Throughout this book I have indi-

cated that I do not fully agree with the dichotomy of secular versus religious on
an analytical level. While this difference is realand an integral part of their iden-
tityfrom the perspective of participants in evangelical fitness culture, and for
many religious actors all over the world, it seems far too simplified to take over
this distinction on a level of analysis. I have partially reproduced the distinction of
religious versus secular when analyzing the interconnections of secular soci-
etal discourse and that of devotional fitness only to question this same distinction by
pointing out its constructive and entangled character (the secular as a stereotyped
other).
Within a materialist approach to religion, but on the basis of spatiality and reli-
gion, Marian Burchardt and Irene Becci make similar suggestions. Although the
difference of secularism and religion belongs to the most effective mechanisms of
social othering, they argue that concepts of the secular and the religious should
always be researched as complementary terms (Burchardt and Becci 2013, 12).
Speaking of the religious always involves the secular, and vice versa. Religions can-
not exist without reference to the non-religious. However, the classification of
empirical reality in religious and non-religious realms has increasingly been chal-
lenged by scholars of religion. Re-entangling the secular and the religious on a

level of analysis is also in agreement with Csordas demand for a collapse of duali-
ties (Csordas 1990, 8), not just of body and soul, or subject and object, but also of
secular and religious. It is, however, hardly possible to completely collapse this
duality into a non-dual concept, because this would completely neglect peoples
understandings of their life worlds. But, from an observers perspective, it is neces-
sary to pay attention to the complementary and interdependent nature of this con-
ceptual pair.
In this regard, previous studies of religion and dieting/sports in the United States
have sometimes merely reproduced secularization narratives and considered dieting
and sports as a means to fill the vacuum left by the vanishing of religion (see page
16 f). Other approaches, particularly Griffiths, have instead tried to get hold of the
complex relationships of religious and non-religious discourses in the shaping of
contemporary body practices. Gerber, on the other hand, partially reproduces emic
concepts of the secular and the religious when she points out that the central ambi-
guity of First Place 4 Health is that it can either be a spiritually enhanced secular
program or a secularly influenced spiritual program (Gerber 2012). While this is in
agreement with actors in the field, one may, from a researchers perspective, try to
go beyond these categories and focus instead on how this difference is continually
contested in religious practice.
Recently, Hubert Knoblauch has been among the prominent scholars in the
German-speaking study of religions to argue for an understanding of contemporary
religion that pays attention to the entanglements and overlappings of supposedly
religious and secular spheres. Devotional fitness, I argue, may be analyzed from
the perspective of popular religion in the sense of Knoblauch.2 It is an example of
contemporary religion that both confirms and amplifies Knoblauchs diagnosis.
Examining devotional fitness programs thus helps to understand the basic features
of contemporary popular religion in that it illustrates some of its characteristic
features.
The term popular religion, according to Peter W.Williams (1980, 19), was first
used in Louis Schneiders and Sanford M. Dornbuschs Popular Religion:
Inspirational Books in America (Schneider and Dornbusch [1958] 1973). The term
has since been employed in a plethora of ways.3 Here, I am deliberately referring to
the way sociologist of religion Hubert Knoblauch understands the concept. The
term popular religion, in his rendering, does not refer to folk religion, i.e., the
religious expressions of laymen (the distinction of laymen and clergy is practically
irrelevant in the study of evangelicalism anyway), or simply to the way popular
culture establishes relations with religions, but to a conceptual perspective that pays
2
Recently, Knoblauch reconceptualized the term, replacing religion with spirituality, and now
speaks of popular spirituality instead of popular religion because the concept spirituality is
more inclusive and less fraught with associations referring to institutions and traditional world
religions (Knoblauch 2010).
3
Exemplary for hundreds of publications, see the early and influential studies by Williams (1980),
Jorstad (1993), and Lippy (1994).
attention to the intersections of religious and non-religious popular culture

(Knoblauch 2009, 198). Knoblauch suggests for religious and popular discourses to
overlap. The concept popular religion, in this case, focuses on contemporary reli-
gious phenomena specifically highlighting incidents of delimitation or dedifferen-
tiation. That is, religious discourses cross and intersect with non-religious
discourses on many levels and through different media. The concept popular reli-
gion, as I use it here, does not merely highlight the fact that devotional fitness takes
up elements of non-religious popular culture. It rather should provide an under-
standing of devotional fitness beyond the religious/secular divide.
Besides this first trait of the concept (dedifferentiation), popular religion as a
concept also highlights the popularization of the religious, religious aspects of pop-
ular culture, and the fact that what used to be religious meshes with popular cul-
ture (Knoblauch 2009, 193, 255). Traditional churches, for instance, take up means
and media of popular culture when they begin to advertise themselves in ways simi-
lar to market-oriented companies (Knoblauch 2009, 194)this is a specific marker
of devotional fitness programs too. In fact, evangelical Christians have, consciously
and unconsciously, adopted some of the basic ideas developed about the body in
New Age and other self-directed spiritualities, taking up concepts like holism
and healing. Holism, e.g., is used in complementary and alternative medicine to
express the idea that both illness and healing need to be understood as encompass-
ing physical, mental, emtional, spiritual and social factors (Barcan 2011, 24). The
same counts for the idea of the body as an individual project (Barcan 2011, 41).
On a different level of analysis, the religious dedifferentiates from the secular
when formerly religious communications, once clear markers of religious institu-
tions, reappear in popular culture and, vice versa, when elements formerly bound to
popular culture, re-emerge in communications tied to religious institutions. This
exchange of communications does not only refer to metaphorical symbols but also
to deeper topics and subjects originally monopolized by churches (Knoblauch
2009, 197). In short, the boundaries between the religious and the secular or popular
become increasingly obsolete and blurry (Knoblauch 2009, 227).
It is important to note, however, that this kind of dedifferentiation does not, for
believers, result in the dissolution of borders between the sacred and the profane.
Churches and spiritual movements alike are eager to separate sacred realms from
non-spiritual areas. In order to do so, while continuously integrating non-religious
media and practices, they have to rely on processes of thorough modification and
resemanticization (Knoblauch 2009, 197). This is exactly what happens in devo-
tional fitness programs when protagonists, despite their most visible endorsement of
popular cultural value-ideas and practices, still consider their programs distinctly
Christian. The re-entanglement of the religious and the secular on a level of analy-
sis, therefore, needs to bear in mind that, for those being studied, this distinction is
very real and relevant. As scholars of religion, however, we need to acknowledge the
constructive character of this distinction and trace the processes whereby this border
is contested and made meaningful. The scholars perspective, in conclusion, should
not take religious and secular as given categories and, in this way, use emic concepts
as analytical concepts.
Knoblauchs concept intends to encompass many of todays developments and

currents in the religious scenery and is not restricted to certain religious traditions.
Popular religion may refer to fundamentalist, Pentecostal, charismatic, evangelical,
esoteric, and occult movements (Knoblauch 2009, 81).4 Although this approach
widens the concept to a degree that has drawn some criticism, Knoblauch argues
that all these discourses have basic similarities: they grow (sometimes rapidly); they
often spread internationally; they embrace scientific knowledge to some extent
(e.g., medical argumentations); they feature democratic forms of community (one
might think of small groups and lean hierarchies in devotional fitness); they bring
forward anti-institutionalism; and they seek meaning individually, based on per-
sonal experience (Knoblauch 2009, 8182).
The concept popular religion (the same applies to popular spirituality), in
this specific definition, is not bound to specific religious traditions and focuses on
systematic featuresnot so much on content, tradition, and liturgical forms.
Popular religion is a systematic category applying to certain discourses. It focuses
not on their inherent identity but on the intersections of different discourses. That
makes it useful for the intentions of this study which primarily focuses on dis-
courses and not on institutions or congregational and denominational groups, and
thus harvests the potential of discursive approaches.
Many of the characteristics associated with the concept popular religion or
popular spirituality apply to the discourse of devotional fitness.5 With its focus on
the individual body and the goal of internal and external transformation, devotional
fitness clearly caters to individualism and emphasizes personal experience. Personal
experience as a source of (spiritual) authority is particularly obvious in founders
life stories, a general feature of evangelicalism which has always emphasized that
conversion can only happen individually and that the individual must face God
unmediated.
It is obvious by now that devotional fitness without doubt blurs the boundaries of
supposedly religious and non-religious realms. Seemingly secular activities like
aerobics and jogging are embedded in biblical legitimation and diet regimens sup-
posedly revive biblical knowledge about the body and its needs. Fitness and dieting,
crucial elements of contemporary popular culture, are resemanticized and sacral-
ized, so to speak. On the other hand, the religious itself becomes popularized
when biblical verses accompany seemingly secular workout routines. On a super-
ficial level, secular and religious discourses merely exchange motifs and slo-
gans, for example when especially challenging workouts are accompanied by
Philippians 4:13 (I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, King
James Bible, 2003). On a deeper level, however, body images are theologically
4
Steven J.Sutcliffe similarly argues that traditional divides between certain religious formations,
especially between new age and evangelical Christianities may be dissolved due to their sub-
stantial historical interconnections and their mutual embracement of individuality and subjectiv-
ity (Sutcliffe 2006, 306).
5
I have scantly outlined this idea in a preliminary way in a conference paper (Radermacher 2012).
elaborated; attending to the body, keeping or making it fit, healthy, and slim
becomes an effort most agreeable to God.
It seems, therefore, that when we let go of the analytical categories of religious
and secular, the object of research, religion, disappears as a self-evident cate-
gory. Religion, then, is no longer a class of objects or empirical phenomena that is
more or less definable and recognizable. Instead of identifying a typological class,
religion becomes a perspective of research. It is not something scholars of reli-
gion simply find, it is a concept they deliberately employ to describe and, poten-
tially, understand certain aspects of peoples life worlds, bearing in mind the
contested character of the religious and the secular.
Practice and Practicing I have already noted that I consider practice and practic-
ing of utmost importance in the making of religion, and I wish to reapproach these
ideas from another angle, starting with Clifford Geertzs oft-quoted, now classical
definition of religion6 in which he speaks of a system of symbols with several
features, one of which is that the symbols in this system formulate conceptions of
a general order of existence (Geertz [1966] 2009, 90). I do not intend to discuss
Geertzs definition at length (see, e.g., Talal Asads (1993) and Manuel A.Vsquezs
(2011, 21221) critical assessments)yet one of the examples he employs to illus-
trate his point provides a useful re-entrance into the questions at stake here.
Geertz writes that a particular case of asceticism may be an example of a
religious motivation when it is directed toward the achievement of an uncondi-
tioned end like nirvana and, on the other hand, an example of secular motivation
when it is directed toward a conditioned [end] like weight-reduction (Geertz
[1966] 2009, 98). Apart from the fact Geertz is also, at least implicitly, building on
the religious/secular dichotomy, we are, when looking at devotional fitness, con-
fronted with a similar, yet more intricate case: The end of weight-reduction itself is
connected to unconditioned endsultimately living in Gods grace by fulfilling
his purpose. Weight-reduction does not become an unconditioned end in itself, but
the conditioned end of weight-loss and the unconditioned end of fulfilling Gods
plan merge in devotional fitness. While Geertzs distinction was probably meant to
contrast ideal types, this example demonstrates the limitations of this approach and
illustrates the re-entanglements of the religious and the secular.
It also draws attention to the question: What is it that makes weight-reduction (or
sports, or any other practice) religious? It is not the practice in itself that is reli-
gious. The context, I argue, determines whether a practice is religious to those
involved. Context, in turn, is not a static entityit is also practiced and performed,
and thus in continuous transformation. Courtney Bender suggests thinking of reli-
gion as practicestressing the performative and process-related aspect of doing
religion she uses the gerund (practicing)and turning away from the idea that there
just are groups or institutions that are self-evidently religious and others which
6
I was inspired to use Geertzs definition as a starting point by Lelwica who, on the same basis,
argues that religious and secular aspects of fasting may blur for women seeking ultimate salva-
tion in dieting (Lelwica 2000, 181).
are not (Bender 2003, ixx). Turning away from religious institutions and towards
processes that make religion, Bender brings forward a view on religion in its discur-
sive, embodied, and practiced entanglements. Religion does not end when the
researcher leaves the field and it does not end when we enter supposedly secular
realms. On the contrary, the secular contains the religious and vice versa. What
is religious and what is not religious is constantly negotiated and renegotiated in
both academic and non-academic discourses (Bender 2012b, 46). This negotiation
does not have to be explicit. Rather, it may be understood as a continuous commu-
nicative practice that serves to contextualize and make sense of peoples needs,
activities, rationales, and beliefs.
Vsquez supports similar practice-centered approaches which explore religion
in all its historicity, as a holistic process, not simply a product, of either symbolic
systems or economic structures (Vsquez 2011, 257). These approaches focus on
embodied and emplaced religion that is negotiated in networks and interaction
among society, culture, psychology, and biology and highlight religious experi-
ences as they shape and take shape in everyday life (Vsquez 2011, 257).
The focus on doing religion is almost necessarily linked to various forms of
embodiment. Instead of overusing this somewhat fuzzy concept, it is more useful to
develop specific concepts that still highlight the valid claim of somatic approaches
that the body and its role in making meaning should be a focus of research on reli-
gion. Based on research on Pentecostals in Ghana, Birgit Meyer has developed two
such concepts that fit the somatic and material approaches to religion supported in
this study and deserve a brief introduction as examples of useful concepts: aes-
thetic formation and sensational form. These terms have been development in
the context of media usage but are, I argue, applicable to devotional fitness in the
frame of the approach hitherto outlined. I introduce these concepts here as examples
of instruments that fruitfully interlock with perspectives of practicing religion and
embodying religion.
The concept aesthetic formation, derived from a critique of the imagined
community (Anderson 2006), highlights processes of making community based on
shared aesthetics that include members by way of their senses, experiences, and
bodies (Meyer 2010, 7). Communities are not just imagined, they become real and
experienceable in their sensory potential; they are not static, but always in pro-
cesstherefore the term formation instead of community (Meyer 2010, 67).
Similar to Cohen (1985; see page 41), Meyer turns away from the idea of sharing
meaning and considers shared aesthetic experiences as the formative features of
community. The communities in devotional fitness may well be analyzed from such
a perspective. The physical perceptivity of the overweight or slim body, struggling
with food-intake, convincing oneself of doing sports, shared images of the perfect
body, and experiencing weight-loss and weight-gainthese are the elements that
make up devotional fitness groups as aesthetic formations. In the sense of aesthetics
as a theoretical current outlined in Sect. 3.2, these practices are the material basis
for making sense. Meaning production is not disembodied and abstract, but deeply
sensorial and material (Meyer 2012, 28). Entering a Christian fitness group, people
soon become acquainted with an imagery and sensory equipment that revolves
around the young and slender body, movement, activity, health, and the gustatory
and olfactory markers of eating healthily. These aesthetic formations, together
with the underlying theologies of the body, make and consolidate meaning.
In connection to the idea of aesthetic formations, Meyer also developed the con-
cept of sensational forms. These can best be understood as a condensation of
practices, attitudes, and ideas that structure religious experiences (Meyer 2010,
13). They are relatively fixed, authorized modes of invoking and organizing access
to the transcendental (Meyer 2010, 13). In other words, sensational forms mediate
the relationship to the transcendental; they are shared and transmitted in the course
of religious practice. The sensational form is not meant in opposition to content or
meaning but as a necessary condition without which the latter cannot be conveyed
(Meyer 2010, 13). The body is a necessary component of these sensational forms
when its triple role as producer, transmitter and receiver of the transcendent is
acknowledged (Meyer 2012, 28)functions of the body that I have emphasized
throughout this study. As the analysis of devotional fitness has demonstrated, par-
ticipating in the specific sensational forms of these programs tunes believers sen-
sorium [] through distinct, gendered techniques of the body (Meyer 2012, 27).
Sensational forms are repeatable and thus attain continuity and availability for the
believer. Participants in devotional fitness classes, for instance, will regularly invoke
similar movements, combined with music, lyrics, and an inner attitude or expecta-
tion, that enable them to experience the transcendent, i.e., their connection to God.
The small group meeting itself, with its regular pattern, may also become a sensa-
tional form. In the center of this sensational form stands the body as a medium that
has gained legitimacy over the course of a process that I have outlined in this book.
Influenced by evangelical and non-evangelical discourses, the body became a
medium to connect the individual to God. The authority with which protagonists
reassure their followers that only the healthy body is a body pleasing to God
emerged as the result of a confluence of medical, social, evangelical, and fitness
discourses, as I have demonstrated in Chaps. 4 and 5. These sensational forms
always involve practice; they are not meant as a purely cognitive category.
Practicingin whatever form it may occuris, for the purpose of this study,
conceptualized as communication (Sect. 3.2). That does not entail falling back into
metaphors of language, structure, and textualism (as critiques suspect of Geertzs
approach; see, e.g., Vsquez 2011, 225), but highlights dynamic processes of nego-
tiation and making meaning. Devotional fitness, to my mind, is an excellent case to
show how the concept religion is constantly negotiated in discursive and embod-
ied practice. This happens both explicitlywhen outsiders argue that this is not
religious and that they are just making money or just shaping their bodiesand
implicitlywhen practitioners spiritualize seemingly non-spiritual activities.
Aerobics may become a deeply spiritual experience when it is recontextualized with
Christian praise music, scripture recitation, and an underlying theology of the body
that requires believers to attend to their temple and be good stewards of their
bodies. Eating well and living healthily may become features of a Christian life
when they are performed and communicated in the knowledge that the Bible expects
Christians to do so. The simple act of bookending a fitness session with prayer is an
effective practical way to make fitness into religion and communicate about the
specific identity of their program.
Semiotics and Somatics Reconsidered At this point, it is time to reconsider the

basic theoretical approach laid out as the foundation of this study in Sect. 3.2.
Specifically the combination of semiotic and somatic approaches that I have already
sketched above deserves reconsideration. Throughout this study, I have been eager
to demonstrate the value of considering both the somatic practice and the discursive
practice when looking at the ways in which shifts in meaning occur over time and
in the course of exchange between neighboring discourses. Thus it was possible to
detect semiotic shifts in relation to physical practice and, vice versa, the way in
which physical practice is subject to changing rationalizations and legitimations.
Based on these considerations and studies outlined earlier (specifically Bender
2003, 2012a, b; Csordas 1990, 1994; Vsquez 2011; Meyer 2010, 2012), I would
like to suggest a more integrative approach to theseonly superficially different
levels of semiotics and somatics.
As I have emphasized throughout this book, the lived reality of human beings is
not simply divided into a semiotic level (discourse, communication, and meaning)
and a somatic level (physical practice and sensory perception). These spheres of
experience are entangled. A way to integrate these areas also on the conceptual level
isin a first step of the argumentto use the overarching concept of practice (fol-
lowing Bender): From this perspective, semiotics refers to discursive practice and
somatics refers to bodily practice. This approach directs the researchers attention
towards the fact that what people do with (and to) their bodies is at least as impor-
tant as what they say, argue, or discuss about. In a second step of the argument,
however, it is necessary to take into account the deeply semiotic nature of all of
social reality, including the material and somatic spheres (Cassirer [1960] 2007).
In that sense, it is not useful to distinguish a somatic level from a semiotic level
because the somatic itself is part of a semiotic system. The somatic, in short, is
always meaningful. Practice, in this context, is symbolic communication too.
Starting from the overarching concept of communication, the conceptualization
arrives at different modes of communicating meaning, may they be gestural or
physical movement, written or spoken language, music, art, or any other medium. It
is the prominent position of the language of the body that makes devotional fitness
a particularly interesting communicative system different from older Protestant ver-
sions of semiotic systems. The way bodies look, move, feel, and are nurtured tells
us a great deal about the underlying meaningful concepts of devotional fitness pro-
gramsand that is before we have started to read primary sources and interview
participants: Simply observing a reducing or fitness event at a random bible church
in the United States reveals the appreciation of the active, moving body, the aesthet-
ics of the fitness center, and the valuation of a healthy lifestyle. Of course, it is
important and necessary to factor in participants motivations and leaders consid-
erations but these are not more relevant. In consequence, it is possible to collapse
the dichotomy of semiotics and somatics and investigate a field such as devotional
fitness as a meaningful communicative system that is perpetuated in different modes

and media.
The concept of communication used here has to be broad and includes, as I have
mentioned a couple of times, not just written and spoken language but all other sorts
of practice too: In devotional fitness, we may think of praying, meeting in bible
studies, going for a run, grocery shopping, cooking with friends, meditating on
scripture, etc. In the semiotic system of devotional fitness, which includes practice
and the body as basic, meaningful elements, there are different media of signs that
allow for an analytical distinction of the multitude of communicative elements.
Depending on the context, different media may be preferred: Written and spoken
language plays an important role in the context of conscious debate about the value-
ideas purported in different programs. The human body as a medium, on the other
hand, is relevant not so much on the conscious level but on the unconscious level.
Without doing so intentionally, participants read their fellows body language and
communicate through their bodies too. Their habitus, as the internalized and somat-
ically reproducible discourse, contains all the notions of how a body should look
and how it should be used. On other occasions, bodies are explicitly read as instru-
ments of Gods will and as outer markers of inner, spiritual values.
Without neglecting the body and its practice, this approach enables us to see that
all different communicative elements (whether physical, verbal etc.) are set in rela-
tion to each other: They are hierarchized and, by their context, semanticized. The
central value-idea of the body as Gods temple is the pivot based on which all other
communicative elements are set within a new context and experience semiotic
shifts. In this way, a slim body is not just a fashion trend but a way to glorify God;
walking is not only modest endurance training, but a way to enjoy Gods creation
while meditating on his message; yoga is not simply a fitness trend inspired by
Eastern practices and holistic ideas, but a distinctly Christian practice.
It is this specific relation of different semiotic elements which allows for an iden-
tity of programs to emerge. The concept of the discursive contact zone which I have
introduced above to get hold of processes of social othering and identity building
also refers to the somatic mode of communication. In these contact zones, merging
and distancing not only happens by way of (spoken or written) discourse, but also
through sign exchange on less explicit levels, particularly the somatic level. If evan-
gelicals dance to Christian praise music with the intention to shape their bodies for
God, they are engaging in a contact zone between popular fitness and evangelical-
ism, and their bodies become the subjects of contestation between these seemingly
contradictory areas. Bodies cross borders, so to speak, and integrate such different
aspects as a lifestyle based on biblicism and the quest for a slender, young body. The
somatic practice of devotional fitness thus has an integrative potential for subjects
participating in these programs in that it allows them to transcend bordersboth
between Christian and non-Christian social spheres of society and between the
immanent and the transcendent, their everyday life as someone struggling with
weight issues and their personal relationship with Jesus.
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Spencer-Brown, George. 1999. Laws of Form: Gesetze der Form, 2nd ed. Lbeck: Bohmeier.
Sutcliffe, Steven J.2006. Rethinking New Age as a Popular Religious Habitus: A Review Essay
on The Spiritual Revolution. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 18(3): 294314.
University Press.
Williams, Peter W. 1980. Popular Religion in America: Symbolic Change and the Modernization
Process in Historical Perspective. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Chapter 9
Conclusions
Abstract In the concluding notes I look back at the guiding questions of this study
and summarize the main findings. The goal of this study was to understand what
happens in devotional fitness and how and why the underlying ideology works, how
participants and protagonists make sense of what they do, and how programs build
an identity in their different contexts. In answering these questions, I have dealt with
these issues in detail, analyzing the various practices and value-ideas occurring in
the field from different perspectives. In the conclusions, I draw together the main
arguments developed from this study.
KeywordsProtestantism and embodiment Body as instrument and index

Healing relationships Embodying evangelicalism Identity of devotional fitness
programs
Looking into the question of how and why devotional fitness works, I have, in the
chapters of this book, unearthed the central motifs circulating in the discourse and
the ways they are related to other motifs and forms of embodied practice. Devotional
fitness programs work because they connect seamlessly to elementary values and
practices of contemporary US society and allow for a Christian enactment of cultur-
ally unquestioned ideals. At the same time, they provide believers with a way to
establish and demonstrate legitimate relationships to God. Throughout the study, I
was cautious to not oversimplify or construct devotional fitness as a unified move-
ment that exists only on paper. To this end, it was useful to pay attention to the
contradictions and opposing views existing in the field and underline the heteroge-
neity and diversity of programs. Nonetheless, I was also able to trace basic and
structural features of the discourse that span most, if not all, of the programs
researched. These central findings shall be summarized briefly here.
Shift in Protestant Christian Religion Devotional fitness programs may be
understood as evidencing an oft-noted shift in Protestant Christian religion, a trans-
formation from the cognitive to the sensual, from the textual to the practical, from
the mental to the physical.1 Protestant religion, historically associated with a strong
1
Pl S. Repstad, e.g., has led a project on this topic at Agder University (Norway). Entitled
Religion as Aestheticizing Practice (RESEP) and mostly focusing on Norwegian Protestant tra-

268 9Conclusions
emphasis on mind-body dualism (cherishing the mind at the expense of the body),
is witnessing a renewed focus on the bodynot just in fitness and not only in the
United States. In Germany, dance is becoming increasingly popular and acceptable
in Protestant communities. Although its characterization as promoting body-mind
dualism seems to be used more often as a hetero-stereotype rather than an auto-
stereotype, Protestant Christianity does carry older notions that bear out a dualistic
understanding of body and soul. Luther, for example, assumed that Christians have
a two-fold nature, spiritual and bodily (quoted in Tripp 1997, 134) and that the
bodys physical state is not of relevance to the soul (Mellor and Shilling 1997, 910,
4243). The actors discussed in this study do not deny that they are made of body
and soul (plus a number of other faculties, such as emotional and mental). They
would, however, argue that their bodys condition is not irrelevant at allneither to
their souls nor to their Godand that they can meet and commune with God not
only in their minds and hearts, but also in and through their bodies. These notions
are not entirely novel and I have mentioned in an earlier chapter that there are
Christian predecessors with regard to this way of thinking about body and soul
(Sect. 5.2). Finally, while there is no doubt that the body experiences a great deal of
attention in these programs, this attention ultimately aims at controlling the bodys
health, which is meant to affect spiritual states. In this sense, the body is still con-
sidered an opponent of the spirit, a site of sinful instincts and unhealthy habits
that should be expelled by prayer, meditation, dieting, and exercising in a prayerful
attitude. In a way, then, these programs may be seen as both a continuation and
transformation of older Protestant ideas of disciplining and controlling the body in
a quest for spiritual salvation. This new kind of controlling of the body, however,
does not result in deprivation and disregard of the body but in drawing attention to
the human body.
One of the desiderata of this study concerns the question if this shift towards the
body occurs in other religious traditions too. If non-Christian devotional fitness
practice exists and how it differs from and relates to evangelical fitness should be a
topic of future studies.
Relationships Devotional fitness, at its core, is about relationships that are consid-
ered of crucial importance to the believers spiritual and physical well-being. Both
physical and spiritual disorder, expressed in overweight and illness, require the
healing of relationshipsto God; to family, friends and colleagues; to the self;
and to the body. Devotional fitness specifies this focus on relationships, which is
typical of evangelicalism, with regard to the body. The body becomes both medium
and marker, both instrument for and index of these relationships when it is a crucial
element in establishing and sustaining them. In this study, I focused on the aspect of
relationships in a systematic manner, specifically examining the various interrelated
value-ideas and practices tied to the overarching principle of relationships.
ditions, it approaches questions such as Religion: More Sensual and Aesthetic, Less Cognitive
and Dogmatic? from various perspectives. The concept of aesthetics here is similar to the one
described in Sect. 3.2.
9Conclusions 269
Constructing Identity Devotional fitness constructs its identity by re-relating,

recontextualizing, and resemanticizing communicative and practical elements from
its cultural environment. In the terms of cultural semiotics, programs recombine
existing communicative elements and create an internally coherent semiotic system
within which those who have learned to share the systems meaning, its symbols,
and its communicative elements are able to communicate, and in so doing negotiate
and perpetuate the system or discourse. Dealing with devotional fitness from a reli-
gious studies perspective reveals how fitness and dieting are spiritualized and
evangelicalized. Practices that appear non-spiritual, profane, or secular to the
average American dieter or athlete are charged with spiritual meaning to the evan-
gelical dieter when they are reshaped on the basis of biblical scripture and divine
inspiration.
The inner coherence and identity of the discourse is even able to cover the central
paradoxes of devotional fitness which I have mentioned in this study. For instance,
the quest for an eternally young body conflicts with the Christian belief in a new
life after death with a new physical body. The highly individual goal of weight-loss
conflicts with the value-idea of communality and Christian fellowship. In these and
other instances, value-ideas are configured in a hierarchical manner: A perfect body
is perceived necessary to do Gods work in this life (not the next one); being healthy
is deemed necessary to entertain healthy relationships in a Christian community.
Embodying Evangelicalism Devotional fitness is embodied evangelicalism. This
is the flipside of the concept of devotional fitness as spiritualizing fitness. Many
central features of evangelicalism are embodied in devotional fitness: spiritual expe-
rience, conversion, relationships, prayer, listening and working out to music, bible
studies, and values of community and individuality. Working out, walking, perform-
ing stretching poses, and sticking to a dietary regimen deepen and further partici-
pants spiritual experiences. Although it is oversimplified to describe devotional
fitness as equaling unsaved with overweight and saved with fit, narratives of
religious conversion are structurally similar and often connected to narratives of
fitness conversion, and many programs explicitly work towards evangelizing and
eventually converting members, readers, or viewers. Relationships that are central
to the believers life are embodied when the body becomes both tool and index of
these relationships. Extending the imperative of praying continually to the realms of
fitness and dieting makes every chin-up, every run, and every meal a way of praying
and living in a prayerful attitude. Taking care of their bodies, Christians learn that
they take seriously their responsibility to church and family, and that they empower
themselves to live their lives the best way possible, bringing out their true self and
following Gods purpose for their lives. On the other hand, a wide-spread anthropo-
logical concept, that of illness as disorder, is specifically reformulated in an
evangelical frame: Troubled relationships lead to illness, i.e. overweight or lack of
fitness, and the way of choice is to seek for healing through movement and prayer.
Understanding devotional fitness as embodied evangelicalism does not mean that
devotional fitness emerges only in evangelical communities. In transformed yet vis-
270 9Conclusions
ible ways, the discourse of devotional fitness is realized in mainline Protestant con-
gregations, in Catholic churches and communities, and non-Christian settings both
in the United States and, I may add, in Germany as well, where practices have
appeared in recent years that resemble evangelicals programs in the United States.
Frank Homann, for example, journalist and editor-in-chief of the German edition of
Runners World, published the book Marathon zu Gott (Marathon to God) in 2011
in which he promotes the spiritual and mental benefits of running and narrates how
he found God in his running practice (Hofmann 2011). Aside from apparent simi-
larities to American programs of devotional fitness (e.g., the experience of closeness
to God in athletic practice), the notion of shaping the body, let alone weight-loss, as
part of Gods plan for his people does not appear in this program. This example
demonstrates that devotional fitness as a discourse, although I have described it as
embodied evangelicalism, is not necessarily bound to a fixed set of value-ideas and
practices emerging within evangelical communities. Comparative studies looking
into the relationships of yoga and devotional fitness or into forms of devotional fit-
ness in different regions or religions are among the desiderata of this study. Variations
of devotional fitness will occur in different contexts and in transformed expressions,
always connecting in some way physical perfection (the fit body) with spiritual
enlightenment. Certain notions might be dismissed, others will be transformed, and
yet others will appear in a similar fashion compared to the programs analyzed in this
study. Although this approach broadens the concept devotional fitness in a way
that makes it less handy it acknowledges the non-limitable and ever transforming
nature of social reality. Finally, the approach behind this concept suggests that we
should not think of social settings and institutions as containers but as spaces of
encounters of different discourses that are, in their embodied realities, entangled in
manifold ways.
References
Hofmann, Frank. 2011. Marathon zu Gott: Ein spiritueller Trainingsplan. Gtersloh: Gtersloher
Verlagshaus.
Mellor, Philip A., and Chris Shilling. 1997. Re-Forming the Body: Religion, Community and
Modernity. London: Sage.
Tripp, David. 1997. The Image of the Body in the Formative Phases of the Protestant Reformation.
In Religion and the Body, ed. Sarah Coakley, 131152. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Index
A target-oriented reading, 164, 165

AA. See Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) translations, 164
Abraham, Faith, 135. See also Jesus Body Biggest Loser, The (TV show), 233
A Course in Weight Loss, 53. See also Bikram Yoga, 80
Williamson, Marianne Bloomberg, Michael, 230
ActivPrayer, 37, 146, 191, 192. See also Bod4God, 37, 130, 163, 177, 188, 194.
Burgis, Luke Seealso Reynolds, Steve
Aerobics, 78, 80, 134, 146 Body, 50
Aesthetics (concept), 40 in academic discourse, 15
AHELP. See Association for the Health concept, 44
Enrichment of Large People (AHELP) as research tool (see Droogers, Andr)
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), 22, 76, 84 as temple, 101, 104, 170, 172, 210, 252
Anderson, Diana, 163, 176. See also Fit for as witnessing instrument, 173
Faith Body & Soul, 115, 118, 189
Anorexia, 7, 210, 220, 221 Body-soul dualism, 105, 199, 268
Anti-diet movement, 28, 77, 112, 113, 211, 218 Body by God, 107, 119, 172. See also Lerner,
Appetite Control Centers, 77 Ben
Application (of programs) Bodybuilding, 78, 103, 146, 147
marital problems, 177 Body forming, 35, 145
overweight, 7, 86, 109, 131, 182 Body Gospel, 197. See also Richardson
stress management, 138 Joyner, Donna
Ashtanga Yoga, 80 Bordo, Susan, 219, 225
Association for the Health Enrichment of Breathing, 147, 156, 157, 173, 242
Large People (AHELP), 77 Bringle, Mary L., 17, 210
Athletes for Christ, 17 Buchman, Frank, 84
Athletes in Action, 17, 99 Burgis, Luke, 37. See also ActivPrayer
Attentiveness, 81, 156, 157, 242
C
B Calling, 25, 116
Bender, Courtney, 22, 237, 259 Camp Fire Girls, 103, 106
Bible Capital Baptist Church, 50, 147
as source of legitimacy, 163 Cardiovascular workouts, 78, 148
Bible study, 153, 215 Charismatics, 93, 160
literalism, 165 Chiropractic, 230

A Social-Scientific Approach 2, DOI10.1007/978-3-319-49823-2
272 Index
Christian Fitness TV (TV show), 187, 221. Evangelicals, 93

Seealso Evans, Robert Evangelization, 95, 132, 174
Christoga, 243 Evans, Robert, 177, 178, 186. See also
Clothing, 149 Christian Fitness TV (TV show)
700 Club, The (TV show), 130 Exercise with Purpose, 133, 148. See also
Communication (concept), 42 Mayhew, Emily
Communicative element (concept), 40, 42 Exodus International, 27, 134
Contemporary spirituality, 198, 258 Experience
Contrology. See Pilates embodied experience, 44, 47
Conversion narrative, 158, 162 as source of legitimation, 93, 167, 258
in fitness, 158
Cook, Shirley, 131. See also Diary of a FAT
Housewife F
Coyle, Neva, 113, 213. See also Overeaters Failure, 27, 193. See also Success
Victorious Family, 133, 170, 176
Criticizing devotional fitness, 213 Fast Food Nation (movie), 233
Crossroads Christian Communications, 160 Fat (as social wall), 175, 181
Csordas, Thomas J., 41, 45, 256 Fat Jesus, The, 209. See also Isherwood, Lisa
Cultural repertoire, 72, 83, 108 Fellowship of Christian Athletes, 17, 99
First Place 4 Health, 27, 115, 128, 155, 176,
182, 195. See also Lewis, Carole
D Fit for Faith, 37, 163. See also Anderson,
3D. See Diet, Discipline and Discipleship (3D) Diana
Dancing, 147, 212 Fit for God, 37. See also Weaver, La Vita M.
Dangers of devotional fitness, 220 Fonda, Jane, 78
Daniel Plan, The, 120, 163, 187. See also Fraser, Laura, 82, 218
Warren, Rick Free to Be Thin, 113, 213. See also Coyle,
Dedifferentiation, 197, 198, 254, 257 Neva
Devi, Indra, 79 Full Circle (TV show), 130, 133
Devotional fitness (concept), 35 Fundamentalists, 93
Diary of a FAT Housewife, 131. See also
Cook, Shirley
Diet Control Centers, 77 G
Diet, Discipline and Discipleship (3D), Gender, 134, 176, 177
77,234. See also Showalter, Carol concept, 40
Diet Workshop, 77 homosexuality, 134
Disability, 135 of participants, 133
Discourse Gerber, Lynne, 26, 188
concept, 43 Girl Scouts, 106
discursive contact zone, 207 Goal, The, 145
Droogers, Andr, 50 God (as source of legitimacy), 163
Dumont, Louis, 198 Gods Answer to Fat, 163, 181. See also
Hunter, Frances
Gospel Fitness Workouts, 147, 212. See also
E Eugene, Paul
Effect (of programs), 137 Graham, Billy, 99
Embodied evangelicalism, 168 Griffith, R.Marie, 21, 26, 108, 111, 118, 170
devotional fitness as, 34 Gulick, Luther H., 103
Embodiment, 45, 192. See also Somatics
(concept)
Emotional eating, 110, 182 H
Eugene, Paul, 172. See also Gospel Fitness Harvest Show, The (TV show), 130
Workouts Health, 7, 27, 81, 100, 142, 143, 153, 182,
Evangelicalism (concept), 93 190, 197, 211, 221, 227, 229, 234
Index 273
Heath, Vicki, 115, 137. See also First Place 4 Loy, Kenneth E., 166. See also My Body, His
Health Temple
Help Lord: The Devil Wants Me Fat!, 77, 82.
See also Lovett, C.S.
Holism, 195, 198, 199 M
as analytic category, 197 Maddox, Adrian, 37. See also Tune Up Your
holism-argument, 228 Temple
Houstons First Baptist Church Fitness & Manz, Esther, 76. See also Take Off Pounds
Recreation Program, 150 Sensibly (TOPS)
Hunter, Frances, 163. See also Gods Answer Maximized living, 119, 231. See also Lerner,
to Fat Ben
100 Huntley Street (TV show), 130, 160 Mayhew, Emily, 133, 146. See also Exercise
with Purpose
McBurney, Robert, 102
I Medicine, 228
Identity as source of legitimacy, 166
of devotional fitness, 254 Metropolitan Life Insurance Company
Illness, 229 (MLIC), 82
in devotional fitness, 186 Michelis, Elizabeth de, 80
as disorder, 186 MLIC. See Metropolitan Life Insurance
Individualism, 198, 224 Company (MLIC)
Inner-worldly asceticism, 26 Monica, Laura, 95, 101, 130, 187, 190, 192,
I Prayed Myself Slim, 109. See also Pierce, 238. See also WholyFit
Deborah Motivation (of participants), 139
Isherwood, Lisa, 209. Ms. Christian Workout Coach, 38, 54. See also
See also Fat Jesus, The Zakiya, Denise
Music
contemporary Christian music, 149
J in devotional fitness classes, 150
Jesus and health, 152
as example, 165 Muscular Christianity, 22, 97, 102
relationship to, 215 My Body, His Temple, 141. See also Loy,
as source of legitimacy, 165 Kenneth E.
Jesus Body, 37. See also Abraham, Faith
N
L National Association to Aid Fat Americans
Legitimacy (strategies of), 162 (NAAFA), 83
Lelwica, Michelle M., 17, 19, 211 New Thought, 21, 53, 108, 114
Lerner, Ben, 119, 138, 176, 179, 183. See also Nidetch, Jean, 76. See also Weight Watchers
Body by God
Lewis, Carole, 113, 213. See also First Place 4
Health O
Litany of fat diseases, 186 OA. See Overeaters Anonymous (OA)
Lords Gym, The, 104 Obesity epidemic, 113, 177, 229, 230, 233
Losing to Live, 74, 129, 161, 177, 217. See Overeaters Anonymous (OA), 76. See also
also Reynolds, Steve Roxanne S.
Loved on a Grander Scale, 113, 213. See also Overeaters Victorious, 113, 213. See also
Coyle, Neva Coyle, Neva
Lovett, C.S., 77, 79, 113, 175. See also Help Owensboro Christian Recreation Ministry, 177
Lord: The Devil Wants me Fat! Oxford Group, 84
274 Index
P Richardson Joyner, Donna, 134, 177, 236.

Palmer, Daniel D., 230 Seealso Body Gospel
Participants Riverside Church, The, 191
children, 134, 177 Roberts, Robert J., 103
men, 133 Rowe, Theresa, 133, 156, 160, 173, 192, 197.
racial diversity, 135 See also Shaped by Faith
seniors, 134 Roxanne S., 76. See also Overeaters
women, 133 Anonymous (OA)
Pea, Jimmy, 154. See also PrayFit
Pentecostals, 93
Personalization (of programs), 139 S
Peterson, Eugenie. See Devi, Indra Saddleback Church, 95. See also Warren, Rick
Pierce, Deborah, 21, 109, 139. See also Schrettle, Gregor, 23
IPrayed Myself Slim Seid, Roberta P., 20, 218
Pilates, 133, 134, 146, 157 Self (concept), 196
Popular religion Self-reliance, 224
devotional fitness as, 198 Semiotics (concept), 40
Power Team, The, 78, 133, 147, 174 Semiotic system (concept), 41
Practice Shamblin, Gwen, 23, 47, 166, 209, 229, 231.
calorie-counting, 74, 141 See also Weigh Down Workshop
communicative practice, 43, 255, 260 Shaped by Faith, 133, 166. See also Rowe,
daniel fasting, 141 Theresa
dietary changes, 140 Shedd, Charlie, 108, 131, 181. See also Pray
endurance training, 78, 148 Your Weight Away
jogging, 79, 149 Showalter, Carol, 112, 213. See also Diet,
meditation, 81, 114, 156 Discipline and Discipleship (3D)
strength training, 146 Sign. See Communicative element (concept)
PraiseMoves, 144, 154, 239. See also Willis, Slimness ideal, 20, 72, 74, 83, 218, 224, 225
Laurette Somatics (concept), 39, 40, 47. See also
Prayer, 108, 109, 117, 151, 155, 183, 210 Embodiment
PrayFit, 154, 191. See also Pea, Jimmy Southern Baptist Convention, 115
Pray Your Weight Away, 108. See also Shedd, Sports Ambassadors, 99
Charlie Sports and religion in academic discourse, 16
Predestination, 26 Sports Outreach America, 99
Program (concept), 37 Strenuous Life, 98
Purpose Driven Life, The, 95. See also Success, 83, 116, 139, 193. See also Failure
Warren, Rick Supersize Me (movie), 233
Sweating in the Spirit, 134, 177, 197. See also
Richardson Joyner, Donna
Q Sweatworking, 224
Quantification (of personal characteristics), 74 Syman, Stefanie, 79
R T
Raising Fit Kids in a Fat World, 178 Take Off Pounds Sensibly (TOPS), 76.
Relationship Seealso Manz, Esther
to God, 172 Tanny, Vic, 77
to humans, 176 Time-efficiency, 223
to self, 180 TOPS. See Take Off Pounds Sensibly (TOPS)
to the body, 184 Transformation (of the person), 7, 137, 193,
Remnant Fellowship. See also Shamblin, 237
Gwen Tune Up Your Temple, 37. See also Maddox,
Reynolds, Steve, 140, 163, 186, 188, 234. Adrian
Seealso Bod4God Two voids theory, 183, 210
Index 275
V Willis, Laurette, 136, 239. See also

View, The (TV show), 217 PraiseMoves
Vivekananda, 79, 237 Wilson, Bill, 84. See also Alcoholics
Anonymous (AA)
World Health Organization (WHO), 190
W
Warren, Rick, 95, 120, 167, 236. See also
Daniel Plan, The Y
Weaver, La Vita M., 37, 160. See also Fit for YMCA. See Young Mens Christian
God Association (YMCA)
Weber, Max, 23, 24 Yoga, 36, 79, 104, 148, 157, 237
Weigh Down Workshop, 115, 177, 182, 183, Young Mens Christian Association (YMCA),
188, 209. See also Shamblin, Gwen 80, 101, 115
Weight Watchers, 76, 234. See also Nidetch, Young Womens Christian Association
Jean (YWCA), 97, 106
Weight Watchers phenomenon, 76 Youth for Christ, 99
Wellness, 46, 81, 107, 119, 133, 191, 228 YWCA. See Young Womens Christian
Wholeness, 108, 195, 211 Association (YWCA)
Wholly Fitness, 129
WholyFit, 37, 101, 153, 187, 195. See also
Monica, Laura Z
Wilke, Annette, 165 Zakiya, Denise, 38, 164. See also Ms.
Williamson, Marianne, 53, 68, 180. See also Christian Workout Coach
ACourse in Weight Loss

Devotional Fitness: Martin Radermacher

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Devotional Fitness: Martin Radermacher

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Popular Culture, Religion and Society.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13357

ISSN 2509-3223 ISSN 2509-3231(electronic)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016961696

Springer International Publishing AG 2017

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature

Mnster, Germany MartinRadermacher

Part I Theoretical and Methodological Background

Part IIBody and Religion in Twentieth Century America:

Part IIIAnalysis of Empirical Data: Products, Narratives,

6.3 Authority, Qualification, andLegitimacy............................................ 162

Part IV Theoretical ReflectionsReflecting Theory

Martin Radermacher is an associate researcher at the Center for Religious

Abstract Devotional fitness is a mainly US American discourse and practice which

Keywords Devotional fitness Christian fitness programs Semiotics Somatics

Springer International Publishing AG 2017 1

assembly in the auditorium. Reynolds asks me to join Julia1 in her preparations of a

The atmosphere is relaxed, people seem mostly cheerful. The auditorium is

as embodiment theories (as formulated in the wake of Thomas J. Csordas 1990)

Abstract This chapter retraces devotional fitness as a focus of study, touching

Springer International Publishing AG 2017 15

An opposing scholarly opinion is articulated by Guiseppe Giordan who, follow-

Major Scholarly Works on Devotional Fitness To my knowledge, only three

Griffith also notes an increasing attention to health instead of weight-loss in

Similar criticism comes from Anderson (2005, 646).

Schrettles analysis provides useful background to my research, yet there are

had caused (Klein 2013).

Keywords Understanding devotional fitness Semiotics Somatics Discourse

3.1 Goal andBasic Concepts

Springer International Publishing AG 2017 33

noncompetitive2 individual sports such as aerobics, Pilates, yoga, strength training,

this practices. WholyFit, e.g., is devotional exercise (WholyFit 2011), and

3.2 Theoretical Perspectives: Semiotics andSomatics

(focus on text vs. focus on bodies) it is fruitful to combine them in a complementary

Eliasoph and Paul Lichterman (2003).

Communicative elements, the basic units of semiotic systems, may be under-

1990, 7). Accordingly, Csordas tries to elaborate a non-dualistic paradigm of

and somatic (practice-oriented) approaches. While acknowledging the importance

3.3 Method ofData Collection andData Analysis

The Result of Data Collection: A Stock of Empirical Materials As of spring

behavior are certainly influencedunconsciously and unintentionallyby my sta-

Beschleunigung, ed. Christian F. Hoffstadt, Franz Peschke, Andreas Schulz-Buchta, and

Keywords New thought movement Self-help Alcoholics Anonymous Body

In the following chapters, I first give a prelude, briefly summarizing R. Marie

Springer International Publishing AG 2017 63

4.1 Prelude: New Thought andtheBody

It was a broad and by no means unified movement, organized in loose networks,

h omeopathy, hydropathy, Mesmerism, and, eventually, came across Quimby who

4.2 Body Ideals andTechniques oftheLast Century

In the 1980s, aerobics was popular specifically among women: 90 % of partici-

Modern meditative yoga emphasizes meditation and attentiveness. (3) Modern

My informants in the field mirrored this thesis in a strikingly similar manner,

Perhaps unexpectedly, the discourse of devotional fitness sometimes links to

4.3 The Therapeutic Culture: Alcoholics Anonymous

transformed and recontextualized manner, also play an important role in evangelical

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcoholthat our lives had become

Abstract Having started from a general overview on the emergence of contempo-

Keywords Muscular Christianity Young Mens Christian Association Charlie

5.1 US Evangelicalism: Historical andConceptual Notes

In this section, I give an overview on the history of US evangelicalism in the last

Springer International Publishing AG 2017 91

After this initial impetus, religion in general and evangelicalism in particular

Mnster, Germany MartinRadermacher

Part IIBody and Religion in Twentieth Century America:

Part IIIAnalysis of Empirical Data: Products, Narratives,

6.3 Authority, Qualification, andLegitimacy............................................ 162

3.1 Goal andBasic Concepts

3.2 Theoretical Perspectives: Semiotics andSomatics

3.3 Method ofData Collection andData Analysis

4.1 Prelude: New Thought andtheBody

4.2 Body Ideals andTechniques oftheLast Century

4.3 The Therapeutic Culture: Alcoholics Anonymous

5.1 US Evangelicalism: Historical andConceptual Notes

5.2 Muscular Christianity andtheYMCA

5.3 Devotional Fitness: Selected Programs Since the1950s

6.1.1 Operational andOrganizational Structures

6.1.2 Needs oftheMarket andTarget Groups

6.1.3 Effects, Application Range, Strategies, andMeasures

6.2 Transformation: Embodied Conversion Narratives

6.3 Authority, Qualification, andLegitimacy

6.4 Body asTemple: Theologies oftheBody

6.4.1 Body asInstrument andIndex ofRelationships

7.1 Devotional Fitness inIts Christian Environment

7.2 Devotional Fitness andSociety

7.3 Devotional Fitness andMedicine

7.4 Devotional Fitness andNon-Christian Fitness