Can I Gain And Be A Good Christian?

Dear Dr. Fatology,

I'm 16, and ever since I was little, always had an interest in overweight people.  In middle school, I found that the interest was only in their stomaches.  I was confused at what I was feeling, because my family is divided by strict Christians on my mom's side, and strict atheists on my dad's side. 

 I myself am a Christian, and try to be a good Christian, but yet I still want to gain when I am older and have a stable income, and have moved out.  I am straight, and I have no interest in anything except stomaches, which is why in freshman year, I researched it and found out about gainers and all that.  I know that not all gainers are gay, and I want to make a decision that I will be happy with, without felling like I'm sinning by giving in to gluttony.  I intend to gain until 35, then lose the weight by 40 or 45, because I know about the health issues. 

 Thanks in advance for your advice.  1. Can I gain and still be a Christian.  2. Can I marry someone who is open to me gaining and then stopping, because I want someone who likes me for who I am. 3. How can I live a normal life with friends and family, or at this point is it not worth it.  Sorry for really asking a lot.

************.

What an interesting set of questions. I have taught at the Illiff School of Theology in Colorado, and the Pacific Lutheran Seminary in Washington State.  As you may know, I am American Indian. I worked for 5 years with an Ecumenical project called One With The Spirit, involving a number of mainstream Christian Churches, and the three traditional paths of spirituality for American Indians in the Pacific NW. In connection with this I also worked with Harvard University for three years as part of an annual conference on Spirituality and Healing. I was part of a group of Native Americans asked by the World Council of Churches to be part of the bicentennial celebration of Australia, working with Australian Aborigines, although I’m sorry to say the leadership of the Council changed before we left, so the meeting did not happen.

While you state you come from a family of “strict Christians,” you don’t share what denomination of Christianity your mother’s side of the family follows.  Saying one is Christian is a bit like saying one is American Indian.  It tells others something general about you, but not a lot of specifics. For example, there are over 500 federally recognized Native Nations/Tribes in the United States alone, which doesn’t include Canadian Native people, or any Indigenous people from Meso-and South America. Catholic belief systems and practices (including not following Church tradition—for example, over 90% of Catholic women in the United States chose to use Birth Control, although this is against Catholic policy) are significantly different from Lutherans (which, for example, allow women priests) or Southern Baptists, who do not permit wine (because of its alcohol content) to be used in communion, where Catholics do.   Southern Baptists teach the “wine” referred to in the Bible is “new wine,” or grape juice, which is what is used in Baptist communion services. 

When I was around 9 years old, I was in Sunday School and after the teacher had introduced the lesson, I asked him about a passage I had read in the Old Testament, which stated a type of a person should be killed. I should mention this was about “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” and not about sexuality. The Sunday School teacher told me when Jesus came, he replaced the laws of the Old Testament with the “New Law”—which was basically to believe in Christ, and in John 13:34, Jesus is quoted as saying: “A new commandment I give unto you,  That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” That was a huge relief for me.  Later on, I discovered this is not necessarily the standard belief of the Southern Baptists.

It is also possible as you become an adult you may choose a spiritual path that is a better match to your own heart and spirit than the one your mother’s family follows.  And indeed, you may explore other spiritual paths and end up returning to your own roots at a later time in your life. I remember having lunch with a nun in Canada and we discussed part of the concept of “Free Will,” is that it honors the Creator more to know that you have other options but choose the path of good, rather than to not have any choices and only follow what you might consider to be “God’s Word.”

For many Christians the general media has popularized the concept of the Seven Deadly Sins, of which one is Gluttony. If one looks at the history of Christianity, this isn’t an idea directly from the Bible.  The Bible, however, does quote Solomon (in Proverbs) who stated that the Lord specifically regards “six things the Lord hateth and the seventh His soul detesteth.” These were:

1)     A proud look.

2)      A lying tongue.

3)      Hands that shed innocent blood

4)      A heart that devises wicked plots

5)      Feet that are swift to run into mischief

6)      A deceitful witness that uttereth lies

7)      Him that soweth discord among brethren.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t see gluttony on this list.  It was added by a Greek monk (who listed the “8 Evil Thoughts,”—in Greek) and the monk put them in order from the what he considered the least evil to the most.  Interestingly, he considered gluttony the least evil of these “Evil Thoughts.” After that a number of Catholic scholars did a number of different lists, some of which included gluttony. How closely does your family follow Catholic teachings? If you aren’t Catholic, how important are Catholic teachings to you?

On a deeper level, a number of Christian teachers work from the idea “sin” is doing something that turns your heart from the Creator.  In this way, gluttony can be an evil when it means you have selfishly turned your back to the Creator, or if by concentrating on feeding yourself you deprive other people of their food. A writer from the Gainer community quotes Henry David  Thoreau who indicated “He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise.” If by “true savor” Thoreau meant when you eat, do you give thanks to the Creator and truly enjoy the experience—then you are not experiencing gluttony. For American Indians, one of the worst things we are taught one can do is to disrespect food. In fact we are raised to never speak ill of food in the food’s presence. We believe when we eat Salmon, for example, the salmon gave up its life for us. Life comes from life, and in our tradition, when we die, we don’t believe in embalming. Our dead bodies are wrapped in deerskin and buried in the ground so our bodies will return to the Earth and nourish the plants, which nourish the animals, which then nourish us, so the Circle of Life can continue. According to Thoreau, as with many American Indians, the concern is celebrating and honoring what the Creator has provided.

To answer your specific questions

1.     1. Can I gain and still be a Christian? Many who identify as Christians see their celebration of their bodies to not challenge their faith. Part of this also ties into what I’ve discussed before—different Christian groups follow different paths in their understanding of what being Christian means. It is, however, my understanding that the ultimate “sin” is that of despair—the idea that you are so evil, that the Creator can never forgive you. Part of the foundation of Christianity is that salvation is always available for those who believe in Christ, and have accepted His Word. In other words, even if you follow a faith that teaches you gaining is gluttony and a sin, there is no sin that cannot be forgiven. There are other teachings that would associate your gaining with other changes to your body, such as choosing to be a bodybuilder, or getting a tan. These are other things that aren’t actually “covered” specifically in the Bible itself. Just so, I'm not so sure gaining is precisely the same thing as gluttony. The Bible verses that do mention gluttony (and they don't mention gaining) are focused on the idea that the end result of gluttony can include being poor, or worshiping your stomach instead of God, which again, doesn't seem to me what gaining itself is all about.

2.       2. Can I marry someone who is open to me gaining and then stopping, because I want someone who likes me for who I am. You know, a lot of women are not as “hung up” on their spouses’ personal appearance as a lot of men are about women’s appearance. It is very common in many cultures to associate weight gain with a happy and successful marriage, so gaining weight is considered a normal part of growing into adulthood.  If your wife becomes pregnant, you will probably gain weight along with her as you share more frequent meals. Gaining weight in this case is a sign to your community your family is successful enough to be able to provide for its members, and that your wife is a good cook. If you remain in a long term relationship, there are all sorts of changes that will happen to the bodies of both you and your wife—which includes changes in body fat percentage, hair loss, wrinkles, etc.  If you really love each other—it’s through sickness and health. In what way does your waist size over the years really differ from how much hair on your head you can (or can’t) grow, or if your face isn’t as smooth when you’re 50 as it is now?

3.      3. How can I live a normal life with friends and family, or at this point is it not worth.  I’m not entirely sure what a “normal life” is, or who gets to define it. I do know it’s usually not appropriate to tell all of your friends, family, and your peers at work what “turns you on,” because sexuality is a very private issue in North American culture.  Just so, you probably don’t want to hear your parents go into great detail in terms of what turns them on in their bedroom. If one considers a “normal life” to be where you get to live in a peaceful and productive way that doesn’t hurt other people, then absolutely I think you can find joy in your life and support others in discovering and manifesting their joy as well. When I look at the words directly accredited to Jesus, here are some that are meaningful in answer to your questions.  Matthew 7:5: “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” In other words, if others stand in judgment of you, then they are neglecting the words of the Apostle Paul, who states in Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” In other words, from the standpoint of the Bible, we’ve all sinned.  And this is the kicker—if you feel your own “sins” are worse (which means they are greater) than someone else’s—that’s considered “Pride,” which Solomon lists as the first of the “Evil Thoughts,” and the Catholics include as one of the Seven Cardinal/Deadly Sins.

I would also suggest you take a deep breath and the next time you attend the church of your mother, look around and see how many of the members of your congregation and your church leaders are overweight. I’m going to take a wild guess many of them are. Would you judge them as being “sinful” because of their waist size? If things continue to develop as they are going, by the time you are in your 30s, being overweight will be something you will share with the vast majority of Americans. And you know—that is pretty much the definition of “normal,” isn’t it?