Church and Nutrition Fat Pastors Need to Confront Gluttony

Main Category: Nutrition / Diet
Article Date: 29 Feb 2004 - 0:00 PDT

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A Dallas (Texas, USA) church is beginning to worry about waistlines. The congregation at Fellowship Church used to pray and then eat doughnuts (nice creamy ones).

One day a preacher there, Ed Young, started talking about the temple of the Holy Spirit -our bodies.

Ed decided that it was not possible or right to talk about purity and being virtuous while they were stuffing their faces with Krispy Kremes (type of doughnut). Apart from the health implications, this was gluttony.

The Dallas church, which has 18,000 members is moving into the realms of healthy eating and keeping fit.

Generally, bible-belt America has never worried about waistlines. On the contrary, portly pastors were just a normal part of the landscape.

Bible belters, they say, do not drink, they do not smoke, they never curse, and they most definitely never commit adultery. So what do they do? They eat and eat and eat....

The bible does say that gluttony is wrong. However, in most people's minds it is further down the sin ladder than grabbing your best friend's wife.

According to some studies carried out in the USA, regular churchgoers tend to be fatter than others in the population. One such study was carried out by a Purdue University Sociologist, Kenneth Ferraro in 1998.

According to him, Southern Baptists were the fattest people. Jews, Muslims and Buddhists were the most likely to be of ideal weight.

Ferraro said 'In many respects, a lot of the Christian religions, especially the fundamentalists, just have not made the connection yet that you can dig a grave with a fork.'

Many religious leaders are slowly becoming aware of this. Secular parts of society are catching on to the dangers of gluttony more quickly and more effectively than the Christian churches.

Apparently, 75% of Baptists eat fried foods four times a week or more. 40% of them have cookie/candy snacks at least twice a day. While they virtuously steer clear of alcohol, they guzzle down plenty of coffee. A quarter of Baptists drink at least six cups of coffee a day.

A problem pastors have, or will have when they want to preach health and anti-gluttony, is that many of them would look strange. How can you tell people to eat properly if you are clearly obese yourself?

The Reverend Byron McWilliams weighed 260 pounds. He used to be super fit when he was younger. He is pastor of First Baptist Church in Buna. He could not, he said, talk about healthy eating to his congregation. He would have felt like a hypocrite (well, he would have been, wouldn't he?)

He witnessed a member of his congregation die from heart disease. This was probably caused by the persons weight. The person was middle-aged, like him. At this point he realised he was, by being fat and expecting to set an example to his congregation, more of a problem than a solution.

To cut a long story short, he lost 60 pounds and reduced his waistline by 6 inches.

'It was pretty amazing as to how quickly the body, the way God has designed it, responds to regular exercise and eating correctly,' he said.

So, you can imagine what he talks about now from the pulpit.

My question is. When regular churchgoers (of which I am one) attend various bazaars and charity events, how are they going to get people to come along without the tasty morcels donated by kind old ladies? How am I going to persuade my kids to come out with me? Nutritionists and gourmets will have to get together and think up something fast.