Symptoms Don't Kill You

I've been meaning for some time to jot down a quick reflection on a recent article I read entitled Metabolic syndrome: A game of consequences?

The gist of the article, should the link grow cold, is simply the fascinating thesis that being fat is not bad for you.

What???

Yes. Being fat is not bad for you. Eating too much is the real culprit. The new thinking is that, when we eat too much, our bodies convert the stuff we eat into fat. So far so good. No surprises there.

But the next thought is that it is literally the food that is killing us, and not the fat. Fat, by this reasoning, is merely an indicator of the thing that's really killing us. The details get pretty scientific, but the short of it is that food itself (great in moderation) is toxic in bulk quantities.

That's a revolutionary restatement of the problem, and it has real-world implications in how we think about things. If it's true, for example, then liposuction is not helpful, nor even neutral, but rather harmful in that it not only hides the problem but also strips the body of a key tool in its arsenal to fight the toxic effects of food.

I was struck by this for reasons noted in the article and also for reasons not explored in the article. Chief among those thoughts that ran through my mind was the fact that a healthy habit of fasting regularly is, in light of this research, clearly an extremely healthy thing to do. Fasting is one of those spiritual disciplines widely practiced throughout church history up until a few hundred years ago.

A lot of good Christian habits have fallen by the wayside in recent centuries. Silence. Solitude. Hospitality. The roadside to modernity is littered with the corpses of good Christian disciplines. I know hardly a soul who practices fasting regularly.

But I digress.

On further reflection, I was also struck by other areas in Christian life where I have seen this sort of confusion in play. For example, I have learned in recent years to not lament the decline of a local church.

Christ's bride is alive and well. Where God is served, the Spirit is present. Where Christ is honored, his people will, as he promised, have life, and life abundant at that.

If a local congregation is dwindling... if a church closes... that's fat. An external indicator of a critical problem that lies elsewhere. The real problem? That Christ is no longer honored at that church. That is what we ought to lament.

Once this thinking is in place, we are all freed of the ritual hand-wringing when churches are run poorly or close up shop, etc. Let us focus rather on watching God and serving His church. The other stuff may come and go, but in the end are just symptoms of how well or poorly the Christians within them are living out God's calling.

God's calling, and His church... are quite safe. And I can rest in that peace.

So let's worry about honoring Christ. The churches we call "home" on Sunday morning will take care of themselves if we do that.

Just like fat doesn't gather on a body that eats in moderation and exercises regularly.