A Christological Anthropology for Thinking About Our Bodies

In Fit for What?, Andrew Borror offers a cultural exegesis of modern fitness culture, asking: What story does fitness culture tell about the body? What vision of the good life does it assume? And how might the person of Christ, who neither lived a sedentary life nor trained in a modern gym, reshape the way we think about exercise, health, and embodiment?

Drawing on theological anthropology, the sociology of fitness culture, scientific health research, the theology of health and medicine, the theology of sport, disability theology, and theological ethics, Borror constructs an interdisciplinary Christian ethic of the body. Rather than treating the body as a machine to optimize or an image to manage, he argues that Christians should receive their creaturely, limited bodies as gifts from God and care for them in accordance with their vocations.

What you'll find in Fit for What?:



- A Christian ethic for physical fitness that honors God and the human body rather than exalting or idolizing the self

- A vision of Christ's human body that helps Christians make discerning decisions about our own bodies, seeing both exercise and our limitations as gifts

- Examination of the stories, values, and assumptions embedded in contemporary fitness trends, equipping readers to engage them discerningly

- An ideal resource for undergraduate exercise science majors and seminary courses on anthropology, ethics, or health and the body

Borror asserts that fitness culture is not guilty of loving the body too much; it is guilty of not loving the body enough. By chasing an abstract ideal of physical perfection, fitness culture fails to appreciate the actual bodies of actual people. Fit for What? revitalizes wonder at the gift of the body without denying the difficulties of embodied life in a broken world. This book is essential reading for scholars and students interested in theological anthropology and those wanting to think deeply about how their faith informs physical exercise.



Andrew Borror (PhD, Aberdeen) is a theological ethicist and priest who teaches and directs programs at the North Carolina Study Center in Chapel Hill. His graduate training includes exercise physiology at the University of North Carolina and theology at Duke Divinity School, where he later served as a Research Fellow with Duke's Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative. He lives with his family in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.



Introduction



Part I: Exercise in a Technological Age



1. Our (Mis)Embodied World



2. Fitness as Self-Optimization



3. Fitness as Image Management



4. Your Body Is not Your Own

Part II: Christ's Three-fold Body

Limits

5. Honoring Creaturely Limits



6. The Destiny of the Body

Community

7. Strengthening Christ's Body



8. Health and Fitness in Membership

Vocation

9. Fruitful Dominion



10. Receiving the Body as a Gift



11. Discipline and Discernment

Part III: Exercise in the Kingdom of God



12. Exercise for Spiritual Growth



13. The Hope of a Perfect Body



14. Beauty in Human Form



15. Christ's Image in All Bodies



Conclusion: Fitness as Fidelity



Bibliography