Heaven's Kitchen: Living Religion at God's Love We Deliver

by Courtney Bender

How do people practice religion in their everyday lives? How do our daily encounters with people who hold different religious beliefs shape the way we understand our own moral and spiritual selves? In Heaven's Kitchen , Courtney Bender takes a highly original approach to answering these questions. For more than a year she worked in New York City as a volunteer for a nonprofit, nonreligious organization called God's Love We Deliver, helping to prepare home-cooked meals for people with AIDS. Paying close attention to what was said and not said, Bender traces how the volunteers gave voice to their moral positions and religious values. She also examines how they invested their conversations, and mundane activities such as cooking, with personal meaning that in turn affected how they saw their own spiritual lives. Filled with vibrant storytelling and rich theoretical insights, Heaven's Kitchen shows faith as a living practice, reshaping our understanding of the role of religion in contemporary American life.

Genres: Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2003

Reviews

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bender’s ethnographic work gives you the sense of serving the God’s love We Deliver community. As a study from the late 1980s to 1990s, the challenges of that specific time and place are contained in this body. I was hoping for more conclusions.

[Shubhi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just feel like I didn't have to be that long