By considering transformative ideas and experiences which are explicitly articulated or implicitly structured in languages of religion and spirituality, Alternative Salvations probes concepts including 'religious', 'secular', 'spiritual', 'post-Christian', and 'post-secular', providing a series of studies which question the functionality of these broad categories.

Part one draws on contemporary salvation narratives showing how current cultural forms, social practices and secular discourses are influenced by, or are interpreted through, the lens of religious and theological...

The fat body has increasingly become a site for a confrontation of different ideologies about lifestyle, as it is increasingly stigmatised and concerns about the obesity 'epidemic' create headlines in the newspapers. The weight-loss and diet industries are booming, and the rise in faith-based dieting among evangelical women in the US evidences a growing relationship between Christian devotion and the pursuit of female thinness. What exactly though is the relationship between Christianity and secular commercial diet plans?

Bacon draws on qualitative research conducted inside one UK...

The fat body has increasingly become a site for a confrontation of different ideologies about lifestyle, as it is increasingly stigmatised and concerns about the obesity 'epidemic' create headlines in the newspapers. The weight-loss and diet industries are booming, and the rise in faith-based dieting among evangelical women in the US evidences a growing relationship between Christian devotion and the pursuit of female thinness. What exactly though is the relationship between Christianity and secular commercial diet plans?

Bacon draws on qualitative research conducted inside one UK...