Why the Church Ignores Physical Health

I don’t blame pastors or church leaders for ignoring the are of physical health. People’s physical health is complex and dynamic if not just an incredibly sensitive area. We can no better judge a person’s health by looking at them than we can judge their economic or emotional health by their appearance. Regardless of the complexity of the conversation, the struggle is real as they say. Some reports estimate that only 12% of Americans are metabolically healthy. People in our churches and our communities are having a hard time with their health and the church has yet to join the conversation.

As best I can tell we ignore discussing health at church for a handful of reasons. This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list but I hope it at least helps us start the conversation about how the church can minister to people with grace and love. However, avoiding the topic is easily done for the reasons listed below, and if a pastor does not want to bring up the subject of health or nutrition the church at large won’t even notice or consider it unusual.

Our leaders feel inadequate or hypocritical.

It can feel hypocritical for a pastor to preach on the importance of physical health if he or she is unhealthy or overweight. One individual among a church of several hundred members is able to blend in, standing on the stage and teaching is entirely different. Every eye is on the teacher at that moment, and despite being told not to, we still judge people by their appearance.

Health is still superficial for many people, and we have an ideal body type or size we look for when determining whether a person is healthy or not. This is incorrect but can be a tough habit to break. Pastors might avoid teaching the idea of physical health if they don’t project an appearance that backs up their message. It can feel like hypocrisy.

There are two key flaws with this mindset. First, health goes far beyond appearance. It is impossible to judge a person’s level of wellness based solely on appearance. The term skinny fat refers to individuals who may present a healthy or fit appearnce but inside have the same health issues as someone who is outwardly obese. Likewise it is possible for someone to be heavier and bigger and be far fitter than someone much smaller. We simply can not evaluate someone’s health simply by looking at them.

The second flaw is the way we elevate leaders and don’t allow them to be human. Whoever is teaching at your church this Sunday, and the next, will not be perfect. They will be flawed with their own set of weaknesses and shortcomings. Rather than treat that as a disqualification for the office we need to extend the same grace to our leaders as we need ourselves. Habitual, intentional sin is one thing but needing help or not having it all together should be accepted as normal. This should help create connection and community in our churches, not separation.

We want to be welcoming

Church should be a safe place for some people. For many though, it can be intimidating and a serious step out of their comfort zones. Creating a welcoming and warm place for people to encounter Jesus is a huge part of sharing the Gospel and helping people grow in their faith. Addressing a sensitive issue like people's physical health may seem to be counterproductive to that purpose.

Anyone struggling with their weight may feel singled out or targeted. The discomfort that the Gospel already can produce has now been topped by what seems to be a secondary issue.

On the flip side however, if we believe the data, a large number of people are concerned with both their appearance and their physical health. The statistics are quite staggering:

Projected that 61% of U.S. adults (≈184 million people) will be affected by cardiovascular conditions by 2050 New York Post.

Cancer causes 600,000 deaths each year Harvard Health+15TechTarget+15Kelly Partners+15.
About 37 million people have diabetes, or close to 11% of the population.
About 40% of Americans are obese, close to 90 million people.
An estimated 50 million people live with chronic pain, or close to 20% of the population.

Beyond the numbers this tells me that a large percentage of the people in our congregation on Sunday morning are dealing with some sort of health related stressor. One of the roles of the church is to apply the truth of scripture to the issues people are dealing with daily. Doing this removes faith from remaining an abstract idea and makes it concrete. We don’t weaken the message of the Gospel but rather strengthen it by connecting it to a very real felt need. Does the Gospel need that in order to be received or be impactful, of course not. We don’t prop up the Gospel or the truth of the Bible when we apply it. What we can do though is create inroads for people to engage with it in a different way that may help them respond positively.

We are nervous about offending and giving

Churches depend on members giving. Without the generosity of the community, pastors won’t have the resources needed to do ministry, pay salaries and keep the lights on. This isn’t news to anyone. It can be tempting for churches to avoid controversial topics and stick to the hits so to speak in order to retain members and maintain consistent giving.

I don’t think this is a major reason we don’t hear messages about physical health but it can be an influence. What this line of thinking could expose however is a fracture in how we view dependence. Churches are not ultimately dependent on members for their financial needs to be met. God is the ultimate source of provision as we read over and over throughout scripture. He uses men and women to accomplish his purposes, including funding ministries and churches all over the world. As best I can tell, his generosity is not dependent on men and women and He can work in miraculous ways when He wants a need to be met. People pleasing is never a condition for God to act and in many cases can stand in direct opposition to obedience.

We don’t want to judge

Don’t judge a book by it’s cover, we’ve all heard the phrase. There is a very real feeling of judgment or criticism when we point out other people’s health, especially regarding appearance. There is a legitimate fear that preaching on physical health will encourage people to look around the room searching for anyone obese or overweight. Those who are healthy can become proud or boastful and think they’ve got it all together.

But health goes far deeper than that. Our appearance does not tell the whole story of our diet, nutrition, exercise, or general fitness. You can be skinny because you eat well or because you are anorexic. You can be a bit overweight because of medication, or you are a single parent with zero margins in your schedule. Maybe your child is an aspiring baker and she is constantly making cookies and cakes, sabotaging any health goals you may have.

We can not judge a person’s physical health by looking at them any more than we can evaluate their marriage or spiritual fitness. Teaching about physical wellness will always carry the risk of judgement but the Gospel should allow us to lean into any discomfort.

Health and appearance are not the same thing and when we confuse the two we expose how deeply all of us can be impacted by misleading messages from media, social media, entertainment or culture as a whole. Appearances can be deceiving just as easily with physical health as they can be with spiritual wellness. Just like the church should feel the freedom and authority to address issues with poor spiritual wellness, we should do our part to help individuals in other parts of their lives so they can walk in freedom in Christ.

We fail to connect poor health and faith

What does pizza have to do with prayer? How can my physical health offer any insight into my faith or spiritual wellness? Consider the following questions:

After a stressful day do you find yourself tempted to eat differently?
Do you tend to get irritable or angry when you’re hungry?
Are you comfortable with your body and your appearance?
Do you find yourself overconsuming certain foods?
Can you connect your physical health with the needs of your local church?

What’s the point right? What does my health have to do with my faith? Quite a bit actually. Our bodies pay the price and tell the story of what is happening in our minds and souls. The inverse is true as well. By paying attention to our body and asking simple questions we can gain insight into our souls that would otherwise remain hidden.

Our eating habits reveal how we are feeling and the level of anxiety we are dealing with. How we eat can tell us more about the pace of our lives and how well we are incorporating the practice of Sabbath into our routine. I’ve heard it said that about 75% of Jesus’ messages involve food or take place around a meal. Over and over He was tending to people’s physical needs in order to point them to their true spiritual desperation.

Jordan Peterson describes this idea as not hiding unwanting things in the fog. Food is an amazing distraction. When we are feeling things we don’t want to feel or process we can avoid discomfort with a quick snack or the appropriately named comfort food. In interest of full disclosure, I prefer donuts. Blueberry glazed to be specific.

The thing is, the longer we maintain these habits the more ingrained they become until the point that we don’t even recognize them. Jesus stands ready to hear us, to hear me, and rather than work through our stress or hard day with the one person who can actually heal our circumstances and our soul we deal with it on our own. Surprisingly the same issues continue to haunt us and our health suffers as a result.

The Bible rarely talks about our physical health

This is true. The majority of instances when the Bible talks about health are diet related. From an evangelical perspective, almost none of these are still followed. Jews still follow a kosher diet depending on their level of adherence to the Torah. By and large, however, the Bible is fairly silent about the issues of obesity, blood pressure, diabetes, or heart disease.

We may not be in the position we are in if we walked everywhere and ate only locally sourced food, but I digress.

The Bible’s silence on an issue does not equate with low importance. The Bible never addresses pornography or technology, but it provides principles and a framework to deal with these issues. There are a few things in the Bible that lead me to believe God cares about our physical world, and specifically our health.

God created the physical world and man and pronounced both as good, very good in man’s case. He didn’t have to make the creation or create us with bodies as intricate as ours, but He did. And he says it is good. Sin has tainted and skewed creation, but it does not change the intrinsic value and dignity of every individual. This belief is what compels us to love our neighbor as ourselves. We don’t diminish other people’s merit based on the fact we are all sinners.
Jesus appeared to the world in a physical body. The God of the universe chose to empty himself and become fully human. In doing so he identified with us in such a way as to remedy our problem with sin through his life, death, and resurrection. If our physical body were in some way sinful or wrong it would have made the incarnation of Jesus impossible.
Jesus taught about the Kingdom of God coming to earth. He encouraged his followers to build upon his ministry and continue to make God’s rule on earth more and more of a reality. As Jesus taught, he also healed people’s physical bodies, fed them with physical food, and cared for their very real needs. He didn’t dismiss their hunger as secondary or allow them to suffer illness and die so they could depart Earth and go to heaven sooner. Jesus taught that eternal and abundant life begins here on earth and then continues after we die. We don’t wait to live in communion with God once we die, it happens now, and rather than lessen the importance of our physical life it actually infuses it with more meaning and more significance.
God’s eventual plan is not to destroy creation but to restore it and redeem it. All of creation is in a waiting process for this to come to fruition. God does not look at creation as a mistake to be cleaned up or a lost cause. Thankfully so because we are part of creation and none of us want to be dismissed. We are products of God’s grace and mercy and continue to live based solely on God’s common grace for all of us. In a sense when we care for creation, whether it be our communities, bodies, or creation in general, we participate with God in the beginning stages of his restorative work and point to the value of creation. We agree with God that what He has made is indeed good and worth caring for.
Finally, God charged Adam and Eve with caring for creation. Subdue what is wild and out of alignment with God’s plan and help it all flourish. This was for their good, creation’s benefit, and most importantly God’s glory. I can’t help but look at the overall health situation in the US as a whole, and the church specifically, and feel that many people are not flourishing.

Church history is largely silent on physical health

In much the same way that the Bible is relatively silent on physical health, so have our church leaders throughout history. The two are related, church leaders addressed the major issues of their time, and most were living in times when food was nowhere near as available as it is today. Our traditions largely don’t include teaching or doctrine discussing diet, food, or physical health. Because of that, we can dismiss it as not important or secondary and allow it to be ignored completely.

Doing so however would be missing a massive open door to speak to people’s circumstances. Athanasius of Alexandria was hugely influential in addressing Arianism and arguing for the full deity of Jesus Christ. Tertullian fought against modalism and was the first to use the term trinity to describe the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thomas Aquinas didn’t battle against heresies in the same sense but contended for the faith in an era of transubstantion, a rise of Islam and Aristotleniasm. Bonhoeffer courageoulsy spoke out against the rise of Nazism and paid for it with his life.

Do I think physical health is on the same level as these issues? Of course not. I do think there is a precedence however for the church to address the circumstances of the day. We don’t choose the water we swim in. For better or worse God has placed each of us in the time and place we are living in for a purpose. Might not part of the church’s role today be to speak up about the beauty of physical creation. We are quick to argue for intelligent design and the divine presence in each human when it comes to areas of sexuality and same sex marriage but we fail to continue that line of thinking when it extends to promoting flourishing through stewarding our health. It’s time for us to be a bit more consistent with our theology and encourage people to health as a result of the healing that comes from union with God through Jesus.

We value (overvalue?) personal autonomy and freedom in our diet

How many individuals in your local church would be excited to receive a check for $6000. I’m assuming that most of us wouldn’t mind an extra $500 a month added to our paycheck.

On average, obesity costs the 200 million adults in the United States $1.4 trillion, which works out to $7000 annually. Individuals who are struggling with obesity incur about $2500 in additional medical costs. Add that to the shared cost and it’s almost $10k a year.

Point being, how we care for ourselves has an impact on our communities and nation as a whole.

On top of that the Bible routinely teaches that our bodies are not our own. We are livign in a leased vehicle. Just as art belongs to its creator, we belong to ours. That is what makes sin so rebellious. We have hijacked our lives and used them to do our own will against what we were designed for, glorifying God with our mind, heart, body, and soul. Paul worded it to Corinth like this: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

Marriage seems to add another layer. My body no longer is my own but it has been united to that of my wife. Caring for my body is one of many ways that I can show love and care for my wife. All spiritual lessons aside, I am asking my wife to be with me until death. Neglecting my health or letting myself go physically to the point where I can’t care for her how I’m called to or love our children and grandchildren should we be so blessed to have them simply seems ungrateful.

Teaching of Some Value

Let me close with this. I understand that this is a sensitive topic for many people. My hope and intention is not to create any shame or embarrassment or division of any kind in the church. It is very possible that I have overstepped or need other voices in the conversation to help guide me to truth that comes from the Holy Spirit and not my own opinion. I’ve done my best but welcome any help from a community that has largely stayed silent on the subject.

All shortcomings aside, this is a topic of some value. Paul told Timothy not to neglect his physical health and acknowledged that physical training has some value. If nothing else, I hope I’ve provided some value to the church and it’s mission to reach people with the love and grace of God made real in Jesus.