Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Perilous Body Gospels -- A Note on Reading the Images -- 1. GLUTTONS FOR REGIMEN: ANGLO-PROTESTANT CULTURE AND THE REORIENTATION OF APPETITE -- The Diet of Angels: Fasting in Early Modern Anglo-American Protestantism -- Gospels of Physick: Medicine, Methodism, and Mortification -- Rarefied Flesh: Sexual Regulation, Bodily Pleasure, and Perfection -- Phrenology and Somatic Authenticity -- 2. SCULPTORS OF OUR OWN EXTERIOR: NEW THOUGHT PHYSIQUES -- "Nothing but a Dense Shadow": The Body as Delusion? -- Corresponding Bodies -- Female Sexual Pleasure and Mystical Communion: Reproducing a Civilized Race -- Regimens Shaping Bodies to Come -- 3. MINDING THE BODY: DIVERGENT PATHS OF NEW THOUGHT PERFECTIONISM -- Living on Air: Gospels of Fasting, Conquest, and Purgation -- William Sheldon's Metaphysical Somatotypes -- God in a Body: Gastronomy and Black Power -- 4. PRAY THE WEIGHT AWAY: SHAPING DEVOTIONAL FITNESS CULTURE -- Shedd-ing Pounds: Scripture and Devotional Practice in Service to Weight Loss -- The Burgeoning Christian Diet Culture -- From Empathy to Authority: Shifting Models of Expertise -- Religious Devotion to Thinness Outside Mainstream Protestantism -- 5. "DON'T EAT THAT": DENIAL, INDULGENCE, AND EXCLUSION IN CHRISTIAN DIET CULTURE -- Poisoned Bodies, Blemished Souls: Food as Taint and Transgression -- Loved on a Smaller Scale: Women, Weight, and the Divine Lover Above -- The Power of Perfection: Purified Bodies and Racialized Worlds -- Epilogue: Bodies in Crisis? -- Notes -- Primary Source Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z.