[1] From the thousands of people who tune their televisions to
watch Emeril "Bam!" their much loved comfort foods, to
the millions who log onto the Internet to download their favorite
recipes or flip to the latest restaurant review in the newspaper,
there is no denying that Americans love food. We gather at picnics,
meet for coffee, enjoy an ice-cream cone after a softball game,
and assemble Sunday dinners together - all of which often connect
us with a religious community or church social event. Daniel Sack,
author of Whitebread Protestants, insists that food and American
religion are unavoidably coupled.
[2] Whitebread Protestants explores the connectedness of
the two. In a religiously pluralistic society, anthropologists,
historians, and sociologists frequently have noted how ethnic foods
bind social ties in immigrant religious communities. Sack, however,
has decided to emphasize the mainstream - white, liberal Protestants.
Those who can identify with green Jell-o salad molds, fried chicken,
and potlucks will find Sack's book to be an easy, entertaining read.
Protestants who are vegetarians, people who are active in social
justice issues, and anyone following the latest health food craze
will also empathize with Sack's study. However, even for those of
us who are none of the above, Whitebread Protestants offers
a variety of perspectives and methods for understanding American
ingestion and churches, spanning from food events to food ideology.
[3] Sack analyzes five major topics, beginning with an exploration
of the ritual of communion or Lord's supper from the late 19th
through the 20th century. He is especially concerned
with two major debates: 1) how Protestants replaced wine with grape
juice, and 2) how they replaced the single-serving chalice with
individual cups. His insights in this chapter are interesting, but
seemingly not connected with his later concentration on the symbolic
aspects of food. Perhaps Sack's discussion would have benefited
from detailing the differences of sacramental symbolism and mystical
notions of communion for the variant Protestant denominations. Communion
connotes starkly different meanings for more liturgical traditions
than for Baptists or Methodists.
[4] The rest of the book concentrates more on non-sacramental uses
of food. Chapter two, "Social Food: Potlucks and Coffee Houses,"
explores how food events typically are the focal activity for churches
as well as a means for providing alternatives to secular entertainment.
The reader learns of the communal aspects of eating, from the rich
and lavish men's church dinners at the beginning of the century
to the contrasting contemporary youth group pizza and soda parties.
Although Sack makes it clear that the food is not religious itself,
he fails to mention how such communal events are often conjoined
with powerful spiritual experiences. For instance, a church picnic
held at a local campground would most likely include an evening
outdoor worship service fraught with emotion under the expanse of
a starry sky, or a late-night youth pizza pig-out might follow a
heart-rending final night and altar-call at summer Bible camp.
[5] Sack does associate feelings with agency and asserts that because
Protestants connect grace with social responsibility to feed the
hungry, clothe the poor, and help the downtrodden, soup kitchens
are essential church outreach programs. He demonstrates how Protestants
have combined evangelism with meeting the basic needs of people
by tracing the development of soup kitchens. Sack's ideas are synthesized
from field visits to food pantries and soup kitchens in Atlanta,
and he provides a variety of social-service models, while also explaining
each organization's goals and rating their effectiveness toward
addressing the causes of hunger. These organizations eventually
become institutionalized, thus losing their initial evangelistic
emphasis. Sack laments that several of these organizations have
failed to reevaluate their progress, and he implies that the most
useful soup kitchens are those that are not overtly evangelistic,
and those that provide holistic ministries.
[6] International food relief ministries are more than meals served
at soup kitchens. Protestants have raised money for a plethora of
hunger agencies. Sack's insights into volunteers' motivations, Christian
educational material, ministry brochures, and litanies related to
issues of world hunger are insightful and creative. The reader,
as well as Sack, questions whether a child exposed to such ideology
holds the same belief as an adult - this inquiry begs for more research.
This chapter's focus on hunger politics, however, was also the most
tedious. The numerous agencies mentioned and the acronyms used to
describe them presented pockets of convoluted and confusing discussion.
[7] Sack struggles to relate institutional history to individual
agency when describing hunger politics, but he returns to personal
involvement in the concluding chapter when discussing the moral
value of food for Protestants. The reader learns of America's antebellum
reformers warning of the dangers of overindulging in meat and grease,
and readers might be surprised to learn that the contemporary health
food craze - advocating fruit, vegetables, and whole grains - is
nothing novel. Sack asserts that early connections with temperance
reform cannot be ignored. Moreover, throughout the decades, reformers
have advocated food must be pure for the Christian body. For a more
timely diet discussion, Sack uses Frances Moore Lappe's Diet
for a Small Planet (1971). According to Sack, Lappe's book serves
as the central catalyst for Christians understanding and embracing
vegetarianism.
[8] In sum, although Sack contends he has organized the chapters
thematically, at times, the prose lacks connectedness and focus,
but parts are extremely interesting - posing more questions than
answers. Perhaps Sack's analysis could best be enhanced by expanding
the diversity of Protestants discussed (conservatives to liberals).
How did small, rural congregations feed the hungry in their community?
Alternatively, could the poor congregation ever identify with America's
overabundance? Finally, how did more theologically conservative
Protestant congregations address world hunger, vegetarianisms, or
the deal church cook, if at all?
[9] Nonetheless, Whitebread Protestants is a general narrative
appealing to historians, Protestants, and foodies, which reminds
us that the study of American religion is more than intellectual
history and theological debates. It is about the bland, spicy, bitter,
and sweet aspects that tickle the senses of America's living religions.
Howell Williams, Florida State University
(Hlw02c@fsu.edu)
