X-No-Archive: The Se7en Deadly Sins: Gluttony
By Doug Giles
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=the_se7en_deadly_sins:_gluttony&ns=DougGiles&dt=08/05/2006&page=full&comments=true
"I eat because I'm unhappy and I'm unhappy because I eat." -
Fat *****, from Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Thanks to the pervasive spread of gluttony within the Land O' Plenty,
Fat ***** is no longer just a character in an Austin Powers' flick
.. . . chances are, he's your kid. Never in American history has there
been so many sweaty sea cowesque adults and so many man-boobed little
boys and chunky cheese, disease-primed little girls.
I'm forty-three years old as I write this column. When I was twelve
years old growing up in Texas there was only one overweight kid in my
sixth grade class of 300. That was one boy, not two, not 60% of my
school carting around junk in their trunk, but one. Today, according to
MSN online, over half of the adults in the good old US of Excess weigh
too much and nearly a quarter of our kids aren't just a little pudgy,
but are obese. Wow.
Just yesterday while I was kayaking in the Atlantic, I saw this one boy
(somewhere between 6-8 years old) on a boat with his shirt off. This
kid was so chubby you could have hidden small toys in the folds of his
fat. This kind of ruinous abuse, to me, is just as sad and as bad as
the eight-year-old Russian heroine addict I saw on a video blog last
week.
So what is gluttony?
Gluttony, according to Os Guinness, is the "idolization of food."
Os states, "Just as avarice idolizes possessions and lust sex, so
gluttony idolizes food. It lifts it out of its place and distorts both
food and eating. Thus, unlike a gourmet who enjoys and appreciates
food, a traditional glutton enjoys eating, almost regardless of its
taste, beauty or the company shared.
Whereas the gourmet savors, the traditional glutton devours."
What's funny is that the church used to look at you weird if you were
a glutton. Yeah, the ecclesia used to side with God and denounce the
glut. We can't do that nowadays because the church is packing more
pork than a congressional subcommittee. Oh sure, we will condemn the
obvious bacchanalian, Diddy-like excesses of the unwashed rich and
famous with their groaning tables and uncouth comportment; but that
doesn't keep the called out ones from getting seconds of the Savory
Sausage Slam at Denny's! Glory, hallelujah!
I find it real convenient for the chunky church of the 21st century to
go postal on the vices of drunkenness and porn, but you don't hear a
peep out of them when it comes to their paunch. Just the other day I
was watching TBN . . . Why? I do not know . . . Anyway, the preacher
was railing against drinking, smoking and pornography. Y'know, the
unholy trinity, the three big sins the church really needs to be
focusing on right now. The funny thing was that this man of God was at
least, at least, 100 lbs. overweight, and he had more chins than a
Chinese phone book.
Yes, the church will go medieval if you snort coke by the gram or toke
marijuana by the ounce, but they won't say a word if you commit spoon
suicide by eating chicken by the bucket, pizza by the foot and
hamburger by the pound. Why won't they? Well, to say something about
the sin of overeating would equate putting a knife to their own
throats.
Now granted, in the grand scheme of things, gluttony is less egregious
to other people than some sins. I'd rather be driving on the road
with a guy who's had eight hot dogs than a Mel Gibson lit up on eight
Glenlivets. Having said that, gluttony (unless you want to blow off
huge chunks of the Bible) remains a sin; and according to historic
church doctrine, a deadly one. Can you say, "deadly"?
But before all the svelte health freaks start to self-congratulate, the
medieval view of this vice was not simply constrained to ravenous
appetites and bulging hips. That's way too easy and such a narrow
definition; it lets far too many food fanatics off the hook. No, the
medieval ones saw five ways in which one could maintain the sin of
gluttony without looking like a manatee: by eating and drinking too
soon, too expensively, too much, too eagerly and with too much fuss.
Ouch, baby, very ouch.
--snip--
So, work with me now. Put down that gallon of Ben and Jerry's cookie
dough ice cream and back slowly away from it. Now, put on a fresh
change of clothes and go out into the desert to speak to God about
giving you some reason for living . . . something great to live and die
for. And watch, just watch, what that'll eventually do for your
waistline-and your life!
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