Disordered Abundance:

American Protestantism & Food

By Holly Reed

Eat, drink, and be merry (Ecclesiastes)

Betcha can’t eat just one!

“Whenever you see a fat Christian, you’re looking at one who is not walking with the Lord.” (Bringle, 119)

“Almost all of us who can afford to be eating well are dieting – and hungry – almost all of the time.” (Bordo, 103)

Blessed are you that hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. (Luke)

WHAT WOULD JESUS EAT?

Food is not a neutral subject. It is also a subject that is inured by ambivalence and paradox. Whether you discuss hunger or overeating, everyone has an opinion about it. Many people also have a physically personal stake in the topic of food, because some people can’t live with it, and some can’t live without it.

Mainline American Protestantism, like all Christian communities, is intimately connected to food. Our basic identity is bound up in the sharing of a meal. Even if the Eucharist is taken and received only in a symbolic form, its power is vast. It is through food and drink that we draw close to God. In this sense, food is sacred, and it is to be encountered with respect and dignity. However, food can also be profane, as when it is abused or becomes a symbol of power and control. 

Because we have been blessed with existence in an affluent nation, we have had the rare opportunity in history to have too much food, and this has provoked a whole range of issues and questions about our attitudes and behaviors with food. As in other areas of social discourse, and at many other points in our national history, mainline denominations have dictated the ideologies and values by which we conduct and judge our lives. The definition of an appropriate relationship to food has not escaped the influence of church doctrine and attitudes, but it has undergone significant shifts over time as our sense of abundance waxes or wanes. Colonialism, western frontier expansion, an abundant creation, the Industrial Revolution, urbanization, medical and health issues, immigration, wars, globalization, advertising, mass media, consumerism, fashion, theology…these and many other factors mingle and move the prevailing attitudes about the best ways for a Christian to relate to food.

My interest here is in the developing problem of a disordered abundance. Despite our abundance, we still have people who go to bed hungry. Because of our abundance, we have people who eat too much, starve themselves to death, or otherwise abuse food. How does the church respond to disordered abundance? How is the church connected to the problem of disordered food relationships, and does the church collude with cultural attitudes effecting our patterns of eating and dieting?

To answer these, and other, questions, I would like to place the topic in a particular context: a small, rural parish in New England. By looking at one particular congregation’s response and relationship to disordered abundance, I believe we can catch a glimpse of the prevailing attitudes at a great number of Protestant churches. After the context is established, I will define the terms of the discussion as well as set the parameters within which I’ll work. Because food is such an immense topic and has so many implications, only a few issues will be reviewed. Once the topics are defined, I will provide a brief summary of the changes in how we relate to food, weight and body size, followed by a consideration of the particular ways that American Protestantism has been engaged in this history. Finally, I will propose a new – or at least amended – way to formulate a theology and relationship to food from within the church community.

First Church of Riverside

First Church of Riverside (not its real name) is a small church, with 130 members in a town of 8,500. Less than 10% of the membership qualifies as "newcomers" to the community, if you define a newcomer as someone who has lived in town less than fifteen years. Despite the small size, First Church is one of the largest congregations of its denomination in the entire county  (population in 2000: 71,500). Overall, the county is economically depressed, with the median household income being below the national average of $42,228. Riverside has an even lower median income of $33,750 (the state median household income is $52,253). Traditionally a farming community, Riverside became "industrialized" 100 years ago as factories sprang up along the river. Following World War II, most factories closed as manufacturing jobs moved south. Farming has also diminished, and the gap is only slowly being filled by educated "outsiders" who have jobs in other towns or operate computer-based or consulting businesses from their homes. Riverside is a white church, with essentially no minority representation. The town itself is predominately white, with 217 Hispanics and 71 African Americans. Despite the generally depressed economic situation, the village in which the church exists (called Riverside Center), which is made up of 1,945 people within the larger town of 8,000 people, itself is growing and prospering. However, the growth is seen as an invasion by long-time residents, who resent the turning of farmland into track housing. Riverside is becoming a bedroom community to several larger communities to the south, where white-collar jobs are relatively plentiful.

On the first Sunday in October, First Church celebrated. This was the Lord's Day, and the week designated for the monthly service of Holy Communion. Though the service remains the same each month, a different Deacon prepares the communion elements. This month the Deacon brought in sour dough bread, previously chopped into cubes, and a bottle of home-made red wine to be served along side the standard grape juice on the tray filled with small plastic cups.

Following the worship service there is traditionally a "coffee hour," where hot and cold beverages and an assortment of snacks are available while people greet one another and relax. Different people sign up to "do" coffee hour each week, so what is presented can vary from instant coffee and packaged cookies to a variety of drinks, cakes, cookies, cheese and crackers, fruit, and vegetables and dip.

But today would be different. Today, this first Sunday in October, was the day designated for the local hunger walk. Money was being raised to support both local and national efforts to help hungry folk, and to work towards an end to hunger as a result of economic need. Church members had gathered "sponsors" who would give them a designated amount of money after they completed the five mile walk. To send the walkers off in style and with tangible support, a potluck luncheon was served in place of coffee hour. Several pasta salads, jello salads, and bowls of chips started the meal, followed by an array of pasta dishes and casseroles. Baked goods were in abundance for dessert. People lingered longer than usual, and almost no food was left to clean up and take home as leftovers.  

Attendance at worship on the first Sunday in October was above average. Just about everyone who came to the worship service stayed for this celebratory send-off meal. A few people actually came to the meal who had not attended the service, primarily husbands and post-Sunday school children. There were six people from the congregation making this walk for hunger. All together $1,350 was raised to fight hunger. This is not unusual at First Church: they give generously to hunger causes and help regularly at local food banks and at local soup kitchens. Though not a prosperous congregation, they are well aware that many people have less then they do. It is also not unusual for First Church to celebrate an event with food and drink, because where there is food, people linger and socialize, and connections are created and affirmed.

Definitions & Statistics

First Church, like every other church in the United States, lives in a paradoxical situation. The church is situated in the midst of an abundant creation, yet disorder abounds. Helping the hungry is an ever present and important cause to address. Though it is easiest to help the hungry “over there” – those who are not our neighbors and colleagues and are therefore less threatening – congregations can help the hungry in a number of different ways: monetary donations, food donations, helping at a soup kitchen, or even by walking, riding, rocking, running….to raise funds.

Of course, not everyone can walk for hunger. Some people are too overweight to run, or too obese to even walk very far. Others are unable to participate because they are too weak from self-starvation. The absence of these people is rarely noted at such an event, for many people choose to “sponsor” a walker than walk themselves. Yet if we note their absence and pursue their situations, we come to a deep, silent abyss at the heart of the church. Our churches, champions of the hungry as well as the faithful followers of the biblical injunction to “eat, drink and be merry” (Ecclesiastes 8:15), are silent in the presence of disordered eating. It is rarely spoken of, and even less often acted upon. Disordered abundance, it seems, is an individual problem that originates with an individuals choice, their human will power, and is not an issue requiring congregational attention.

But statistics indicate otherwise. The combined number of people in the US who are overweight, or who have an eating disorder, is estimated to be between 135 – 140 million adults, age twenty and above! (NIH, 6; NEDA, 1) Consider that number: the US alone has over 135 million people dealing with disorders of abundance. Juxtaposed to that statistic is the 815 million people world wide who are undernourished. In 1999, the US had 11.4 million of these people, people who are considered “food insecure with hunger.” (Amber Waves, 1) In other words, there are thirteen times more overweight or eating-disordered people than there hungry people in the US!

Before we go further, let me define the terms of this discussion. Food Insecurity is the current euphemism for hunger in US government publications. Food security, or the state of not being concerned about hunger, is defined as “access at all times to enough food for active, healthy living.” Food insecurity is when “the household did not always have access to enough food for active, healthy living for all household members because they lacked money or other resources for food.” There are 10.7 households in the US who describe themselves as food insecure, but this is still not quite the same as hungry in the USDA. Food insecurity with hunger is “involuntary hunger that results from not being able to afford enough food.” As noted above, only 3.3% – 3.8% percent of all households (a household is defined as three people) are food insecure with hunger. (Amber Waves, 1-2)

Eating disorders, on the other hand, always involve the presence of food:

Eating disorders involve abnormal eating or dieting behaviors. These can include starving or eating huge amounts of food (binge eating). People with eating disorders think too much about food, eating, body shape or weight. They may be normal weight, overweight, or underweight. (American Psychological Assoc.)

Commonly, eating disorders include anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating. Obesity is only occasionally included in this category because it is not clear if obesity is a moral or a medical condition.

Whatever we name the category, overweight and obesity are major health issues in the US. In a 1999-2000 study it was learned that 64.5% of US adults over age twenty are overweight. Over 30% of the adult population is obese. Overweight is defined as “an excess of body weight compared to set standards. The excess weight my come from muscle, bone, fat, and/or body water.” Obesity is the condition of having an abnormally high proportion of body fat. (National Institutes of Health,2) Obesity is measured at different levels of severity, ranging from moderately to morbidly obese, which is “either 100 pounds overweight or 100% above ideal weight.” (Thompson, 442)

The standards of ideal weight change periodically. For many years the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company ideal weight charts were used as the standard scale. Introduced in 1942, it was modified in 1983 and is still popular.

Weight Chart for Women

Weight in pounds, based on ages 25-59 with the lowest mortality rate
(indoor clothing weighing 3 pounds and shoes with 1" heels)
Click here to calculate frame size

Weight Chart for Men

Weight in pounds, based on ages 25-59 with the lowest mortality rate
(indoor clothing weighing 5 pounds and shoes with 1" heels)
Click here to calculate frame size

*Ideal Weights according to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company tables (1983) (from http://www.healthchecksystems.com/heightweightchart.htm)

An increasingly popular assessment tool, however, is the Body Mass Index (BMI), which is a calculation derived from ones height and weight. It does not distinguish between male and female. Most researchers and health care providers now use this information as the weight standard. In terms of the BMI, a healthy weight is larger than 18.5 and smaller than 25. An overweight person falls between BMI>25 and <29.9. An obese person is BMI>30. (NIH, 6)

(from http://www.consumer.gov/weightloss/bmi.htm)

Based on one’s BMI, studies have shown that a number of health risks are connected to an elevated BMI. Known health risks include diabetes, heart disease, stroke, hypertension, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, breathing problems, and several forms of cancer. (uterine, breast, colorectal, kidney, and gallbladder. (NIH, 2)  

(from http://www.consumer.gov/weightloss/bmi.htm)

Though its prevalence is obvious and its impact quite serious, there does not seem to be an easy answer as to its origin or its treatment:

Obesity is a complex disorder believed to be induced by any one or more of a number of biological, psychological, or social elements, including genetic makeup, metabolic factors, certain medical conditions, behavioral patters, and psychological issues. (Thompson, 442)

The traditional eating disorders have an equally broad spectrum of causes, which makes all of these disorders of abundance extremely difficult to treat.

Food, Dieting & Body Size in the U.S.

The paradox continues when we consider the ideal body type for an American woman. (Lupton, 137; Weighty Issues, 118-119) Never left to her own devices, a woman can look to the Bible and religion, to film and theatre, to advertising and fashion, to science and medicine….to just about any source beyond her own intuition and self-awareness to find out what she should look like.

Since 1959, the Mattel toy company, consumerism, and the media have brought us The Barbie Doll as an example of the perfect woman. I know of no one, young or old, who aspires to be like Barbie on a conscious level, but decades of high-volume sales indicate that Barbie has a grip on our imagination. Each week 1.5 million Barbies are sold; that is 2 dolls per second. How many times must we see a doll in the human likeness of a body with the measurements of 39-18-33 before we begin to understand that in some way she represents the ideal woman.

I asked my daughter about Barbie. She is a prodigious collector of Barbie Dolls, and she plays with them regularly. I told her about my theory…that by having such a thin, beautiful doll as the standard fashion doll, we, the consumers, were making a statement about what we thought a female should look like in order to be beautiful. She would have none of it. She loves all her dolls equally. However, later in the day she reversed her position. She commented that she has one doll, made in the image of Rosie O’Donnell, which she never gives a prominent role in her family configurations. She may play a distant relative or an occasional babysitter, but she is never a mother or sister. Why? She wasn’t pretty enough.

It would be difficult to be as “pretty” as Barbie. Even if we consider the l998 update of the Barbie physique, she is still a voluptuous 40-22-33!

Knowing this to be a nearly impossible ideal, the doll industry has produced alternative fashion dolls. Rosie O’Donnell is one example, and more recently the Emme Doll has been launched. Created in the image of Emme, the real-life plus-size model, this doll has distinctly larger proportions than Barbie, measuring in at 43-33-44, and wearing “size 16.”(Interpreting Weight, 45)

Producing a more substantial fashion doll is one way to deconstruct our cultures’ unrealistic and destructive images of female beauty, but it is not enough. The cultural discourse of fashion, health and beauty, medicine, politics, religion, media, consumerism, classism and any number of other trends work together to construct the ideal physical woman. By reviewing the change in popular female image and fashion, it becomes clear that more than mere whimsy guides these changes. (Manton,93; Lelwica,50-51)

The Gibson Girl was the popular image at the turn of the 20^th century. She was self-confident but not aggressive; she was aloof but not unapproachable. She was also impossibly contained in corsets and long skirts that served to constrict her abilities. Though ideally thin, not all women were forced into the mold of thinness in these years. Lillian Russell (1861-1922) was called “The American Beauty” and was famous as both singer and actress. At the height of her career, she weighed 200 pounds. (Bordo, 102)

Following World War I the fashion scene dramatically changed. Women were actively seeking the vote and freedom was their desire. Clothing became more daring, more boyish, more free. At the same time, however, it took more “constraining” to accomplish the look, and few women could make it happen. The actress Clara Bow serves as an example of The Flapper look, prominent in the 1920’s, and characterized not only by a thin, boyish figure, but by a childlike face as well. The Flapper was a woman who was athletic, exuberant, fit and healthy. Organizations dedicated to making health, shapeliness and beauty happen became a big industry during this era.

During World War II, “Rosie the Riveter” was a popular icon, reinforcing the strength and hard work that made America strong. Even her women could take up any job and prevail. However, the image of the female shifted dramatically after the War, with women returning to the home and their role as housewife and housekeeper. Soft, feminine lines took over the tough firmness that Rosie had displayed, and actresses such as Marilyn Monroe became the image of ideal womanhood. With women safe at home, and with the balance of power as men wanted it to be, women could gain weight, sensuality and femininity.                                                                   

Marilyn was by no means a large woman. She was 5’5” and weighed 118 pounds, wore a size 12 dress and a figure of 37-23-36. Yet she was to be one of this culture’s final “rounded” icons. In the 1960’s – amidst the development of women’s rights and new freedoms in one’s sexual and social life, Twiggy appeared. In 1967 Twiggy was a popular model. She was 5’7’’ and weighted 91 pounds. She was thin and waif like, looking as if she would be blown over in a strong wind. She looked child-like and innocent, hardly one who could, or would, make sound career choices or forceful personal positions. This trend continues into the current years, with a relative recent example being Kate Moss as chief iconic waif. Ms. Moss is 5’7” and weighs 100 pounds. (Lelwica, 50)

In 1992, the average woman in the US measured in at 5’4”, 144 pounds, while the average model was 5’10” and 111 pounds. (Lelwica, 50-51). Though statistics change from year to year, a quick look at our favorite actresses and at magazine covers will attest to the fact that thin is in, and reality is not playing a big factor in discerning how to define thin. This situation is aggravated by our persistent confusion between health and thinness. This confusion began long ago, and can be traced through our national history as well as in our church history.

A Brief History of Food, Dieting and the Protestant Church

Of course, the history of health and weight concerns does not rest solely upon the construction of the female body. Health became an issue with increased national affluence and the growth of leisure time, as well as by the seductions of abundance. Until the Industrial Revolution, few people had sufficient resources to be overweight. Food, if not scarce, was not excessive. In the pre-19^th century western society, corpulence (which was obtained by more food and less activity) was seen as a gift and a joy. (Bordo, 191-192; Bringle, 91-92) It was a sign of prosperity and wealth. Plumpness was considered a sign of health and strength.

This perception was true for the settlers in the expanding frontier of the US. It is also true that frontier living did not promote healthy living. Food was often scarce, and when it was abundant it was not always consumed with nutrition as the determining factor. Accessibility was a more likely reason to eat or drink particular food item. (Schwartz, 40-42) By the mid 19^th century there was more time, however, to consider what was being put into ones mouth. Frontier habits had become bad habits, and they were beginning to produce negative results in a less active, urbanized environment.

One of the first diet crusaders against this unhealthy eating was Reverend Sylvester Graham. Beginning in 1830 with a Temperance lecture in Philadelphia, Graham went on to decry masturbation, cholera and gluttony. His target audience was women, specifically wives and mothers, because they controlled feeding. (Schwartz, 25) Good bread, less fat, few spices and lots of fruit and vegetables led to the fist generation of dieters. Their concern, however, was with gluttony, not weight. (27)

Gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins, was in the beginning a sin of overeating; it was the act of excessive indulgence. (Schwartz, 9; Bringle, 56). Only later did the emphasis shift to the possible result of excessive eating – weight gain. Excessive patterns of eating were difficult to stop because there was so much to eat. Abundance became a problem. As demographics constantly changed, physical demands altered with new technologies and urbanization, and food availability fluctuated, gluttony as size-of-being rather than a way-of-being became a target of criticism. (Stacey, 49-50) Regulation of food intake became an increasingly popular theme in American life.

At the extreme end of weight concerns were those who took an ascetic approach. Fasting was a firm tradition within Christianity, and even the Puritans were fasters. The Puritan tradition tended to use fasting as a spiritual tool, a way of aligning the physical with the spiritual desire for God’s blessing or forgiveness. Puritanical fasting was not about gluttony. It was a spiritual exercise. (Schwartz, 117)

However, fasting was appropriated for any number of reasons by society in general. For example, the 19^th century produced a series of fasters known as The Fasting Girls. (Counihan, 99) In their lives, fasting became a way to exert control, gain attention, and to rupture the “weight” of oppression they felt burdened by. (Schwartz, 123) Schwartz identifies our ongoing battle with the gift of abundance as a major factor in the trend towards fasting and control:

Ambivalent about surplus and its waste, its heaviness, its sprawl, Americans were finding more drama in starvation than in gluttony… Fat bodies out of control no longer appeared powerful or competent. Hunger artists battling appetite, fighting off desire, waxed noble in the very midst of their waning. Long fasts could be the means of regaining control of the body, as therapy at once moral and physical. (Schwartz, 122)

In the decades following Reverend Graham’s opening salvos in the fight against fat, a number of methods and attitudes toward weight regulation and reduction gained acceptance. Joining Graham and his now-famous crackers, was John Harvey Kellogg, a Seventh-Day Adventist from Michigan, who advocated an entire regimen for health and fitness – which included eating Kellogg corn flakes. (Schwartz, 184-185; Stacey, 12-15) Exercise was gaining attention, as was the caloric content of food. In general, the move was from a concern with gluttony to an obsession with obesity. (Schwartz, 185)

By 1952 the National Institutes of Health (NIH) declared obesity to be the primary national health problem. (Schwartz, 206) Within years several national weight programs had evolved, each with a different approach. TOPS (Taking Off Pounds Sensibly) began between 1948-1952, and by 1963 had over sixty thousand members. Its approach blended shame, competition, and fellowship as a way to support the lonely fat woman and her desire to lose weight. (Schwartz, 206 - 207)

Overeaters Anonymous (OA), modeled upon Alcoholics Anonymous, was established in 1960. Its approach to weight was much more serious than TOPS: “OA worked through psychomachia, that inward battle for the soul which could be resolved only by a human admission of weakness…” (Schwartz, 207) Weight Watchers was another popular program to develop in this era. Beginning between 1961-1963, Weight Watchers tried to juggle a rational approach to food, both in taste and volume, and a strong memory of “the way it was,” using negative memories as an impetus to continue dieting. (Schwartz, 209)

DIETING GROUOPS CONTRASTED

(Schwartz, 209)

These three dieting programs, as well as countless others, tried to find a way in which to make the impossible possible: abundant living with no physical side-effects. As scientific discoveries continued to amass data about the horrors and health issues of fat, weight control continued to grow as a public issue. This trend began as early as the 1870’s. An idea came of age: people should not eat what they want to eat. Calories, vitamins, minerals, fats…the invisible but most important elements of food gained ascendancy. Control, efficiency and thinness came together to define the human body, replacing the old concepts of corpulence, health, and prosperity. (Lelwica, 72-73)

Schwartz describes the years following the Great Depression as a time of fear, and as a time of both emptiness and abundance:

There was to the culture of slimming between 1930 – 1960 an elemental fear that the more one had, the emptier one would be. The overprotective mother made for hollow-hearted, insatiable children. The round fat man had constricted arteries and a weak heart. The endomorph was soft, passive, out of focus. Overweight and obesity were, ironically, symptoms of emptiness, not signs of fullness. The emptiness was disturbing because the desire that lay behind it was remorseless and unquenchable. This was, as heart, the fantastic nightmare of the consumer who finds that the more one has, the less one is. Americans of the Depression and the Cold War projected onto fat men and women their own basic fears of abundance, their own confusions about how to handle themselves in a world that seemed to offer so much and yet guaranteed so little. (Schwartz, 234-235)             

Lelwica goes a step further in her assessment of the tyranny of thinness:

…the saving promises of Culture Lite are fueled by a culture of self-deception. The search for a sense of meaning that America’s battle with the bulge both conceals and reveals represents a large-scale attempt not merely to manage this society’s abundance but, more important, to divert attention away from the damaging effects of its grossly uneven distribution. According to the ethos and logic of Culture Lite, it is good to have excess in your billfold but not on your body, and is right to want to change your thighs but dangerous, indeed crazy, to want to change the world. Organized around the pursuit of slenderness, especially the quest for the flab-free female body, Culture Lite is a central nerve in this society’s politics of distraction: the wide-scale diversion of attention away from the prevailing values and actual conditions that undermine individual and social well-being. (Lelwica, 79)

What is perhaps most disheartening about this situation from a Christian perspective is the continual intertwining of religious themes and ideals of social and consumer behaviors. It is impossible to extract two separate discussions on religion and dieting from the literature on food history. Whether this entanglement is positive or negative depends upon your religious convictions: a God of thinness can be liberating, oppressive, angry, or simply and totally absent.

The story of food and Christianity goes back to our very creation, when God created All (according to the Bible) and saw that it was good. From the beginning of the biblical narrative we find God described as Creator, Provider, Sustainer, Nurturer. One of the two central sacraments of the Protestant tradition is the Eucharist, when believers are called to eat and drink of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. In addition, as believers in the incarnation, we maintain that the body and the spirit are both part of God’s creation, and that both have been redeemed through Christ.

However, Christians have often been partial to a Gnostic interpretation of the faith, which divides our existence into two distinct realms: the bodily and the material on one side, and the mental, or spiritual on the other. (Bordo, 144) The body is always the least respected side of this equation, and has been variously identified as alien, the enemy, a prison, a swamp, and female. Our efforts become focused on controlling this lesser state of being, and subduing its needs and desires:

…how to gain control over the body, with the ultimate aim – for this is what their regimen finally boils down to – of learning to live without it. By that is meant: to achieve intellectual independence from the lure of the body’s illusions, to become impervious to its distractions, and, most important, to kill of its desires and hungers. (Bordo, 145)

Our insipid religious Gnosticism has attached itself to our cultural Gnosticism, and it forms a matrix of disgust with bodily existence – its needs and desires, its visibility and carnality:

When we hate rounded and softened bodies, when we spend our money and energy in the quasi-religious pursuit of muscled hardness and angularity, a large part of what we are hating is our native femaleness. And, to return to our origins (in more ways than one), what we are hating about femaleness is its relentless reminder of our interdependence and vulnerability. (Bringle, 37)

Of course, our scriptures have lent themselves to these Gnostic tendencies….or at least our interpretation of them has led us to this point. For example, the first transgression against God in the Garden of Eden was about a woman taking the “forbidden” fruit and ingesting it. (Bringle, 53-54) “Taking” becomes sinful; pleasure and temptation become snarled and she who transgressed becomes sin incarnate. There are any number of scriptural references as to why eating is sinful, or at least problematic. They can be reduced, in my opinion, to the idea of idolatry. Food an eating is not an issue if engaged in moderately, joyfully and with conscientious stewardship of resources. It becomes a sin (gluttony), or an “issue” when ones attitude and manner towards food becomes self-centered:

Christian scripture thus provides the basis for a healthily balanced theology of eating. Taken in the totality of its teachings, the Bible focuses neither on “forbidden fruits” nor on offensive fatness, but rather on perfidious attitudes. Food itself is good. Girth in and of itself is not an issue. But gluttony does represent a problem for both testaments insofar as it endangers physical health and social well-being. Even more seriously, gluttony is labeled as sin insofar is it focuses on the willful pursuit of personal pleasure to the exclusion of any greater value – including that o gratitude to the Supreme Source of all good pleasure, namely God. (Bringle, 60)

For an extended discourse on the development of the concept of gluttony, I commend to Bringle’s book The God of Thinness.

Another example of the convergence of concepts that have come to define disordered eating is the tension between moral and medical models for the understanding of obesity. A medical model would take responsibility out of the hands of the individual and place it squarely in the realm of biology and genetics. We often call this the “disease model,” which has come to be associated with alcoholism. On the other side is the moral model, which places responsibility for obesity on the individual. On this pole of the argument, obesity is a choice one makes. And of course, there is a right choice to be made, and obesity is not it. (Bringle, 132) The extreme positions of either of these arguments is unacceptable because they have no nuance and no recognition of the cultural, economic, sexual and social factors that influence either the medical or moral position. Like so much in the realm of disordered eating, judgmentalism takes over before the conversation even begins.

Protestants in America have been a strong judgmental voice in opposition to obesity. Protestants have a long tradition of upholding particular moral standards, and among those are discipline, control of impulse, fighting temptation and seeking perfection (in God’s eyes). All of these moral standards have been attached to the battle against weight and eating disorders, which has perpetuated the understanding of disordered eating as an act of willful immorality. What Protestants have neglected to do is emphasize strongly enough that faith, not works, is the preferred path to salvation in most mainline Protestant denominations. It is not what we do that will make the difference: we are in God’s hands. Without God, we are nothing and capable of nothing. But Calvinism is out of vogue, and such concepts of eternal purpose or talk about sinful humanity is not popular. Our neglect of sin as a fact of human existence places even more burden upon those with food problems, because its absence implies our control of the situation. And as moral people, we should fight sin/disordered eating and overcome it/maintain the ideal body.

There has been no lack of resources for the weight-conscious Christian. At least since the 1950’s there have been volumes of testimonials and dieting guides to help the faithful in their quest. A sampling of the titles is representative of their content:

• Pray Your Weight Away (1957), by Charles Shedd

• I Prayed Myself Thin (1960), Deborah Pierce

• Devotions for Dieters (1967), by H. Victor Kane

• God’s Answer to Fat – Loose It! (mid-1970’s), by Marie Chapian

• More of Jesus and Less of Me (1976), by John Cavanaugh

• Help Lord – The Devil Wants Me Fat! (1978), by C.S. Lovett

• Thin, Trim, and Triumphant: How to Get God’s Help in Losing Unwanted Pounds (1988) by Roger Campell

• Weigh Down Diet (1997), by Gwen Shamblin

• The Bible Cure for Weight Loss & Muscle Gain (2000), by Don Colbert

• Choosing to Change (2001), by Gospel Light Publications

• Life that Wins (2002), by Gospel Light Publications

• Life under Control (2002), by Gospel Light Publications

(Schwartz, 307-309; Bringle, 116)

Temptation, sin, control, thinness, perfection, salvation…the titles listed above are just a sampling of the ways in which the Christian diet industry has brought together religious themes, Protestant moralism and the dieting industry. Assumptions abound as to what is the right way to be with God, both physically and spiritually, and what is the right way to be in society. There is an implicit works-righteousness and individualism that belies any true dependence upon God. But these publications are clear that the source of healing and control will come from a prayerful commitment to Christ. For instance, the back covers of most of the books in the First Place Diet series (Gospel Light Publications, above) tell us that: “…the only solution is to change your life forever by putting Christ first…give Christ first place, and invest your commitment and dedication. You will see improvements in every area of your life – spiritual, physical, mental, emotional.” That’s a tall order! And it does not quite get to the point of addressing those prayerful Christians who remain obese, or become obese or are otherwise unsuccessful in their prayers. Could it mean they are not “good” enough, not faithful enough? Or could it mean there is not God, at least no God who answers such personal prayers?

Of course, books such as these are not necessarily endorsed by any particular denomination, which allows them to be condemned or embraced, depending upon the reader’s personal position. But in each case, these books do lift up the entanglement of religion and dieting, judgment and punishment. These concerns are often wrestled with on an individual basis, even though churches and theologies have converged to create some of these issues. In fact, the development of Protestant churches in the US is intimately connected to food and social gatherings. Though there have been feasts and fasts in every culture with recorded history, the American experience and Protestantism took the relationship in a slightly new direction.

In western Europe the church had been a center for worship. People in the community gathered together in prayer and celebration at church, and conducted the remainder of their lives in the home or the school or the marketplace. The American experience was different, however, in that people were spread out across vast areas and often had rare opportunities to socialize. Church gatherings became not only a time to worship, but also a time for fellowship. This practice has not diminished with time, and in fact, has become accepted and even mandatory tradition.

Why have American Protestant churches devoted so much of their resources to feeding their members, mot of whom were perfectly capable of feeding themselves? It’s because Americans go to church for more than teaching and prayer. The go looking for community. We live in a society that discourages connections between people. On the frontier Americans lived miles away from their nearest neighbors. As cities grew, everyone was a stranger. Our market economy encourages competition rather than community. In the middle of this life of isolation, Americans hunger for community, for connections with other people. They find that community in church – specifically, in the church’s social events. (Sack, 61-62)

Daniel Sack dates the rise of the church as a social institution to the camp meetings of the early 19^th century, when people traveled great distances for worship and socializing. Food was a practical requirement at that point, but it was also a clear “drawing card” for people interested in something different, something pleasurable. Food was already an established way of sharing and caring, and it became a symbol of community life. Over the years, as the population grew and denominations increased, food became a way to attract people and compete with other denominations. Having an attractive fellowship hall and efficient kitchen was as good a selling point in evangelization efforts as the Word or salvation.

Feeding themselves, of course, did not mean they did not feed others. Though it may never have been discussed overtly, the importance and value of food was clear: it is necessary to survival and we are going to help others survive. Over the years the forms of feeding others have fluctuated from camp meeting suppers, to church potlucks, to soup kitchens, canned food drives and sending whole animals to people in need. Protestants take seriously the command to serve others, and did their best to help others eat up to their standards. This was possible, for many decades, because of the abundant life possible in the US. When life didn’t seem so abundant, people might decrease their “outreach” with food and strengthen their “inreach” – refocusing their concerns to personal issues of lifestyle and stewardship of resources. Likewise, moral judgments have come and gone depending upon our levels of abundance. Food takes on greater moral freight in churches when hunger or poverty seem closer at hand than is comfortable. Thus, being in control of one’s life, one’s eating, one’s health takes on redemptive proportions: save others by saving oneself. Sack refers to this as “food moralism:”

…food has moral meaning for white mainline Protestants. Grape juice and the individual cup prevailed over wine and the common cup because they fit the participants understanding of what it meant to be a Christian. Churches created social events, often centered on food, because they wanted to created a setting for a Christian social life. Mainline Protestants founded institutions to feed the hungry – at home and abroad – because of a clear biblical mandate and a vague feeling of privilege when they were faced with extreme need. In all these settings, food practices in whitebread Protestant churches have been shaped by moral convictions, by the need to behave the way Christians should. (Sack, 186)

The convergence of theology, tradition, history, abundance, morality, economics….an endless list of factors, this convergence of factors has brought churches today to a place where the idea of gathering without food is anathema. It is anti-social, unchristian, unloving, uncivilized. We always have food, because we always have done it that way. And food is indeed a wonderful way to connect and share a bit of oneself. Yet our attachment to food bears some scrutiny simply because of this careless, unconsidered use of popular tradition. What weight have we attached to food that is unintended, unfaithful or untenable in contemporary American culture? Clearly the church and food, health and dieting are intertwined: need our understanding and relationship to food stop here?

Theological Thinking about Disordered Abundance

Remember First Church in Riverside, described early in this exposition? Recall First Church and its relationship to food. On the particular Sunday described, they came together for worship and Holy Communion, had a potluck lunch as a send off for “hunger walkers,” and raised almost $1,500 for the hunger needs of others – local, national and global. This was a big day at church, drawing more worshippers than usual. Partly the larger numbers were due to hunger issues; but really it is eating is the major rallying point of this congregation. Preparing and eating food brings people together to socialize and to share their gifts with one another. The hunger of people outside the community is also important because it draws the congregants together in service to others: strangers, “the least of them,” even enemies. Food, both these instances, is a metaphor for caring, sharing, and selflessness, and it is vitally important to these Christians as a sign of faithful discipleship and moral living.

None of these characteristics should be abandoned, but I do contend that First Church needs to take a step away from its current food practices and associations and consider what it means to be engaged with food in these ways. Stepping away from food is a subversive act in our culture and in our churches, because it calls into question traditions and habits that have sustained us for centuries. However, our traditions no longer function usefully in our culture of abundance. We have too much food, too much disordered relationship to food, and we need to adjust our behaviors about food. If we take seriously the Great Commandment “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matt. 22:37-39) we must apply this “love,” care and concern to how food is being used and abused in our midst. We must not only focus on “them,” the hungry ones who aren’t quite like us. We must look ourselves in the mirror and ask what we are doing with the food we have. This is not to be condemned as selfishness: it is the first step in adopting a new relationship to food.

First Church, and a great number of Protestant churches, have already engaged in this process in other arenas of community life. For example, the move of replacing wine with grape juice was at least partially a response to the Temperance movement and the desire to help the alcoholic by removing temptation. It can be debated as to whether this was a good or appropriate move. My point is that it was a decision that pulled together Protestant moral standards and a caring commitment to others in a way that ultimately changed Protestant worship. On this Sunday in October, when Holy Communion was served with the choice of wine or juice, a hue and cry developed because juice was considered by many to be the only appropriate element. Alcohol, it seems, has no place in church, no matter who drank it at the Last Supper. In this congregation, the move away from wine to juice has been so complete it is now difficult to use wine at all.

This type of move away from long-standing tradition and the formation of new traditions has been accomplished at First Church in other ways as well. For example, First Church offers water as an alternative to juice, for those who have food allergies. In another arena, First Church does not allow smoking in the building because it is not necessary to worship, not in the Bible, it is offensive to some and harmful to others. Ramps and rails have been installed so that less able participants may gain access to the different rooms. Hearing aids are available during the worship service, and large-print Bibles are in the pews.

So why not add food to our list of “issues” to be tackled in the name of love and service? Perhaps the list of questions to be considered could include:

Ø      Could serving a variety of tasty goodies at coffee hour drive some people away?

Ø      If you are afraid of food, controlled by food, or allergic to food, would you willingly or happily place yourself in an environment defined by food?

Ø      Are you gathering to eat out of hunger, or are you eating because you are gathered?

Ø      Can one socialize and connect on a deeper, more intimate, level if food is not present to distract us?

Ø      Are we willing to sacrifice some people to disordered eating so that we may indulge our desires?

It is difficult to disentangle ourselves from food because it is such a weighty issue. It is a moral issue, because we look at eating as an individual choice. Those who eat inappropriately are somehow immoral, and are at the very least responsible for their own poor decisions. Food has become so identified with caring that it is difficult to imagine caring for someone without food being involved. Jesus was always feeding people, and so should we. “Sin” and “temptation” become enmeshed and confused, and we end up causing more harm than good by ignoring or disregarding the knowledge of disordered eating.

This response is not a faithful response to the Great Commandment because it denies love on all three levels. God has been honored or loved by our overindulgence or arrogant display of overabundance in a hungry world. We are not loving ourselves because we are ignoring and/or denying the power of food/sin/gluttony in our own lives. We are arrogant if we think of ourselves as beyond such human frailties. And we are certainly not serving others if we are willing to overindulge in the face of known hungers, or if we are willing to sacrifice the emotional, physical and spiritual integrity of another for our own pleasures.

How, then, can the church approach food and our lives of disordered abundance? I believe that four “turns” in our thinking, our theology, and our behavior could redeem our relationships to food and set us upon a new path.

First, we must Relinquish our moral judgments about disordered eating. Christians have been able to do this with hunger in many ways, and I believe it could be transferred to disordered eating as well. Surely there is still an undercurrent of judgment about poverty, race, and class in hunger issues, but churches do reach out to those in need. Somehow, through the grace of God, the judgments are suspended long enough to allow real service to be accomplished. I believe this is possible, in many instances, because we are addressing “the other” who is not one of us. To relinquish our moral stand on disordered eating would involve looking in the face of our neighbors and friends and family and realizing that the problem at hand is right here among us. And to that we must add the effort of meeting this uncomfortable problem with love, not blame, criticism or judgment.

Once we have been able to free our hearts and minds from the snares of moralism and judgmentalism, we can begin to Retrieve a theology of compassion and stewardship that meets the individual, or a specific situation, in context. Along with the many destructive theologies that seek to define disordered eating versus the “right way,” there are ways of looking at one another that is more open and compassionate. A compassionate theology would be one that would not insist upon its own way, but would rather meet the individual in their specific situation. It would not be a theology of rigid norms and requirements, a one-size-fits-all approach: it would be a theology of wholeness and integrity that encourages the individual to reflect their God-given gifts and bodily shape, not defining it by humanly constructed definitions.

Such a theology must be accompanied by a strong sense of stewardship of God’s creation. If we do indeed see ourselves as blessed by an abundant creation, we must also assume responsibility for its care and sustenance. If our bodies are also a part of creation, this same sense of stewardship must apply to our own lives as well. Excess, overindulgence, greed, and abuse would not have a place in a sound application of stewardship, because these are sins associated with the self and do not hold all of humanity, or all of creation, at its center. Stewardship would lead us away from our selves as the center of creation and return us to a God-centered creation.

It would also contribute to the dismantling of our idolatrous relationship to food. In a world of disordered abundance we have become disoriented. Our focus is on the rewards of abundance, the tangible gifts of abundance. This can become idolatry in that food and all that it represents becomes the driving force in our lives. Whether we talk about food, health, wellness, dieting…each of these has become a driving force in American lives. Returning to the source of our abundance would help us to let go of cultural idols and refocus on God.

Once we have retrieved some theological alternatives to traditional positions on food and body, we can begin to Redefine our relationships to food and disordered abundance. This may well entail developing a new model for hospitality, a model that does not depend on the metaphor of food to carry its meaning. Perhaps food would not be a part of social events, but beverages would be. Perhaps hospitality could be formed through manipulation of the environment instead of the digestive track, using candles, music, lighting, warmth and other sensual embodiments of caring and welcoming. Along with hospitality, we may need to redefine our idea of an appropriate social event. When the church turned to food in its socializing, it was because of necessity. People were gathered and they were hungry, so let’s eat. That is rarely the case now. We have food available whenever we want it, so do we need to also have it when we gather together? Certainly the Bible is full of meals and feasting and marvelous celebrations, but do we need to imitate the event, or rather the feeling and intention behind it?

By engaging in this process of redefinition, we would be Reaffirming each individual as being created in the image of God. We would, finally, after centuries of silence and disregard, be willing to place the welfare of one person above our own desires when it comes to food in the church. How it would feel, to have avoided food social events for years because of being a bulimic, to be able to join in a conversation with others without worrying about the quality or amount of something going into your mouth! Wouldn’t it be a great kindness to every obese congregant to allow a time for fellowship without the pressure of making food choices! Even if only one or two people amongst us have been affected by disordered abundance (though statistically 65% of us are in that category!) it would be a wonderful thing to liberate them from the tyranny of weight control and disordered eating.

This is not a call to affirm destructive eating habits and ignore health issues. It is a call to move beyond culturally established definitions and to renew our understanding of the Imagio Dei and its implications for a healthy, whole life on a person to person basis. There is no one way to be physically in order to be in the image of God, and we need to affirm that reality. By doing so we will be advocating for a group of people in our society who are mistreated and misunderstood. We will become a supportive environment for those with disordered eating rather than a place to avoid or a place to indulge. We may even become a place where justice takes on a new meaning as we begin this process of battering against cultural standards and norms.

This has always been the call of Christians; to transform the world rather than to be conformed to it. We have been given the opportunity to see life in a new way, and to offer new life to those who cry out for it. Century upon century of heroic and saintly behavior speaks to the myriad ways Christians have carried out this command. But we must continue to heed this command by addressing new issues that emerge. Disordered abundance is one of them. This issue is confined to affluent, privileged people. It is an issue in our midst, but it remains oddly invisible despite the physical presence of so many overweight and obese people. So let’s make it visible by subverting the status quo and reorienting our relationship to abundance. Countercultural behaviors are not, of course, always rewarded highly. But we are not disciples in a popularity contest. We are faithful Christians seeking to do God’s will and to God’s creation by living justly and compassionately. Therefore, let us carry justice forward and seek to transform our disordered abundance into lives of wholeness, both in body and in spirit.

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