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.