Riverwood Presbyterian Church

Culture Wars

Diets and Faith, or “What Would Jesus Eat?” and Other Things

by Jimmy Hopper

Years ago now, in my early days of being a Christian, I stood before a groaning buffet table with my pastor, Dr. Robert Ostenson, in his home at Christmas. As we stared at what seemed to be acres of delicious food, I remarked jokingly, “Dr. O, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you preach on gluttony.” He replied with a twinkle in his eye, “And you never will.” That incident crossed my mind a few days ago as I read an article in the Tuscaloosa News about “Books that rely on faith to sustain dieters.” The reviewer, a woman from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, looked at five books, all the while noting that it was only a sampling of many, that connected a successful diet with religion, or, as the reviewer put it; “when the Ben and Jerry’s in the freezer is calling your name, you gotta have faith. Or a dash of old-time religion.”

The books range from an irrevant Our Lady of Weight Loss to the spectacularly sober Living in Divine Health (by the author of the best selling What Would Jesus Eat, and with a foreword by Benny Hinn.) All of this is relatively harmless, although apparently, given the number of entities hinted at in this field, extraordinarily profitable but this time it brought me up short. In the Riverwood Book Group, we have been reading and discussing Marilynne Robinson’s wonderful book of essays, The Death of Adam. In her essay, “Puritans and Prigs,” she discusses the negative (and false) connatations attached to the word, “Puritan” in our culture. She says that priggishness has replaced puritanism, and that it is “useful in the absence of true morality.” She defines this trait further as being “highly predictable because it is nothing else than a consuming loyalty to ideals and beliefs that are so widely shared that the spectacle of zealous adherance to them is reassuring.” As an example, Ms. Robinson speaks of modern dietary “laws,” i.e. what foods are considered healthy by the “in” group. She speaks of this tendency to zealotry as “archdefenders of the obvious” and “simple snobbery.” In short, the new zealot is a prig rather than a puritan, and these types of things have become the new secular “religion” and have replaced the more rigorous puritanism that is so out of favor that the word itself brings up certain unacceptable connatations.

This obviously came to my mind as I read the newspaper article. The extreme religious group that partakes of Tim’s “Christian Chaff” and can’t eat in moderation and excercise apparently need to adopt a Christian zealotry to their attempts instead of simply doing what they know they need to do to lose weight. This strikes me as being on something of the same level as praying for a football victory against the “enemy,” another high school team, as depicted at a Birmingham high school recently on MTV. I’m sure God’s love for you is not dependent on your weight and that “Divine Health” is almost certainly spiritual and is centered only in Christ and the Gospel. Thus, if Ms. Robinson is correct, this entire business has only to do with self satisfaction and snobbery. It is often amazing how well the church has adapted to the mores of the world. Perhaps next we will see a tome on “Spiritual Shopping.” Wearing out of style clothes certainly lends itself to snobbery and prigishness.