Eating religiously: food and faith in the 21st century

ABSTRACT This, the first article in our co-edited Thematic Issue, “Eating Religiously: Food and Faith in the 21st Century“ introduces Food, Culture and Society readers to the intriguing research questions posed by the volume’s authors, who discussed these with us in a novel Israel Science Foundation-sponsored international conference at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in May 2019. We open this Introduction by presenting a contemporary paradox in which demands for resurrecting ancient animal sacrifices and encouraging the re-traditionalization of religious practices coexist with the growing influence of ecological, climate change and animal rights advocates’ pressures to ban such sacrifices and embrace veganism. After adding a brief overview of the growing anthropological subfield of Food and Religion, we set out the main concepts that guide the structure of this volume and explicate the social, cultural and political importance that considerations of eating religiously bring to bear in the 21st century.