Dear Church: Let's Talk About the Stumbling Block of Food

It's time to stop normalizing sin every time we sit down to eat

Church potlucks were a nightmare for me.

I was in my mid-20s, just recently baptized and still on the shaky road to recovery from a dual struggle with anorexia and bulimia. Being around large quantities of food—and other people eating large quantities of food—terrified me. I was afraid of slipping back into the cycle of bingeing, purging and restriction that had left me with only 90 pounds on my 5' 6" frame.

It wasn't just the potlucks, either. Any type of gathering where food was available sent me spiraling into a panic. But there seemed to be some kind of unspoken rule that church gatherings in particular required serving something to eat.

Beginning of the month? Potluck. Evening service? Refreshments. Bible study? Snacks.

I couldn't get away from it. And I couldn't figure out how to articulate my fears in a way that made sense to my church family. I couldn't make anyone understand why food upset me so much.

I remember asking a few times, or trying to ask, if we could have some gatherings without food. If we could back off the refreshments once and a while and just have fellowship.

And, in so many words, the response was, "You can't ask us to do that just because you don't like it."

It hurt. The one place—above all places—where I should have felt loved and supported, I felt judged, ostracized and weird. And I kept struggling.

This is far from an uncommon problem in churches. All across America (and, I'd imagine, around the world), pastors and congregants put psychological and spiritual stumbling blocks before brothers and sisters in Christ at every potluck, barbecue and picnic. Endless streams of burgers, hot dogs, pizza, cookies, cake, donuts and soda entice the senses with the same kind of magnetic pull that drew Eve to the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.

This has to stop.

It's so easy, so common, to use the excuse that what we choose to eat doesn't affect anyone but ourselves. But by doing so, we turn a blind eye to the pride, selfishness, idolatry and lust in our own lives and set the very same people we profess to care about up for a cycle of pain, shame and disease that stands in the way of them enjoying the abundant life Jesus promised.

In short, we increase our brothers’ and sisters’ physical and spiritual burdens for the sake of hanging onto our own pet sins.

Our Most Acceptable Addiction

It's common for those who know they have a problem with food—whether they understand the exact nature of it or not—to want to make choices that lead to the road of healing and health. But the prevailing attitudes toward and environments surrounding food in today's society make doing so a continual challenge.

The modern food landscape is practically engineered to conspire against making healthful, nutritious and beneficial food choices. (Both Michael Moss and Jack Bobo have illuminated this well in their work.) From fast food to convenience stores to the snacks in the break room at work, the temptation and encouragement to eat health-damaging foods, often to excess, is everywhere.

Those church potlucks and cookouts and picnics simply add more occasions where overeating the same types of foods is celebrated as acceptable.

In her book The Plan A Diet, nutrition and health educator Cyd Notter explains why this is such a huge problem:

"Food obsession is society's most accepted addiction. ... Can you think of any other addiction in which we give ourselves such nonchalant permission to damage ourselves and others? Most of us wouldn't supply an alcoholic or a drug addict with their next 'fix' while encouraging them to dig in, but we do that very casually in many ways when it comes to addictive foods."

From Addiction to Disorder

Like other types of addictions, food addictions have triggers. Thanks to a combination of dopamine and natural opioids, eating foods the brain equates with extreme pleasure—think sugar, salt and fat—creates a pleasure-seeking cycle with diminishing returns. It doesn't take long for the pleasurable "reward" to begin to fall short of expectations. In response, the brain sends the body in search of more to fill the void, irrespective of actual hunger.

Most of the time, those who find themselves in the cycle have no idea it's an addiction. They just know they can't stop no matter how hard they try.

This struggle can also manifest as a full-blown eating disorder like bulimia or binge eating disorder. In these cases, the addiction is accompanied by cycles of eating large quantities of food, with or without behavior to compensate afterwards.

Also along for the ride? Shame, self-hatred and a feeling of being out of control. Bondage to the disorder itself becomes an all-encompassing pursuit that robs the sufferer of the peace, joy and pleasure that comes from seeking ultimate fulfillment in God.

Because they can be so difficult to understand and are often shrouded in secrecy, these issues aren't often talked about. When they are, it can be hard to find the right words to describe what's going on. Sometimes all that comes out is a dolefully expressed wish for the willpower to quit sugar or self-deprecating remark about the inability to stick to a diet.

Even if the right words aren't there, the signals are. When someone speaks up about these issues, they're asking for help.

How many of us in the Church are listening? How many of us would even want to?

Turning a Blind Eye to Others' Struggles

There are people around us who, every day, wrestle with an inner turmoil related to food. These are real problems with real physiological and psychological aspects, not strange personal hang-ups. The people struggling are our friends, our family—our brothers and sisters in Christ.

And what do we do?

We brush it off. We think they're being difficult or combative, that they're judging our food choices or trying to ruin our personal enjoyment of events that have, traditionally, revolved around eating. They express discomfort over the types and amounts of food on offer, and we bristle, thinking, "I am not giving up my burgers/pizza/cookies/cake just because that person has weird ideas about food."

Or, when they talk, we we nod and murmur assent and vague understanding, thinking we can sympathize. Perhaps we say something about how we, too, occasionally can't resist taking a third or fourth helping after we’ve had more than enough. We say we get it, but we really don't.

Neither approach, neither conversation, is helpful.

The one reveals our own selfishness and unwillingness (or inability) to let go of the foods we consume for personal enjoyment, even if the act of eating those foods exacerbates our loved ones’ struggles. It may even signal that we have addictive or disordered attitudes toward food ourselves, something we would never admit because it doesn't even register as an issue.

The other runs the risk of normalizing the damaging cycle of food addiction and disordered eating, an approach which can cause uncomfortable dissonance in the hearts and minds of people facing these difficulties. Because we don't really know what they're going through, our attempts at sympathy turn us into hypocrites. We say we feel for them, we say we care—and then go back to our regular habits, clinging to our refusal to change.

In so doing, we forget God's command in Galatians 6:2, where we're told to bear one another's burdens, and ignore 1 Corinthians 13:4 when it declares that Christian love is both patient and kind.

From Fellowship to Food Frenzy

It's not that we should never eat when we come together. The Bible sets a precedent for communal meals in Acts 2:46, where we're told members of the early Church were "breaking bread from house to house" as a normal and accepted part of daily fellowship.

They were following a pattern that appears throughout the Bible, from the time the Israelites ate and drank in God's presence on the mountain in Exodus to Jesus' sharing the Last Supper with His disciples before His crucifixion. It was, in a way, the embodiment of that simple line in the Lord's Prayer: "Give us this day our daily bread."

None of these passages gives any indication of eating to excess—because food wasn't the focus.

God was.

Today's church gatherings are different stories. There's often far more food available than a crowd of any size can reasonably eat, and much of it is of the type that can prompt addictive behaviors. The traditional buffet style encourages everyone to eat as much as they want regardless of the consequences. It's an environment that invites and condones overindulgence.

Our conversation at the table only serves as reinforcement. How often do we justify our overeating, saying we don't do this very often, it's just a little bit, one more helping of dessert won't hurt me?

In making light of our own overindulgent behavior, we do one of two things: Either we wrongly reassure those battling food addiction and disordered eating that their problem is actually normal behavior, or we push them deeper into the very cycle they're trying to escape.

Celebrating Intemperance: The Normalization of Sin

There’s an even bigger problem here: Being out of control or intemperate, including in our eating habits, is sin. It points us—and others—away from the life that God intends (See Titus 2:11-12). By creating an environment that makes an excess of addictive foods readily accessible, we, at best, lead others to intemperance; or, at worst, enable self-harm.

We don't think about the triggering foods that might trip up those around us. We don't consider their level of comfort or discomfort—even after they try to tell us.

But the way we behave in an eating context, choosing to indulge our desires and refuse to make changes—especially when we know what we’re doing is hurting someone else—is unloving, selfish and yes, sinful.

And it can cause others to sin instead of pointing them toward healing and hope.

To Eat, or Not to Eat?

This is not a new problem. Divisions over and questions about food and fellowship arose when the church was still in its infancy.

At the time, some Christians who had come out of idolatrous pagan religions were struggling with questions about morality—in particular, the issue of meat offered as sacrifices in pagan temples. After being used in sacrificial rituals, it was common for meat from those temples to be sold in the marketplace for general consumption, meaning it might wind up being served at communal gatherings.

The question was: Because the practices of these sacrificial rituals were idolatrous, running counter to God's commandment to have no other gods before Him, should Christians eat or avoid this meat? Was the meat unclean or corrupted? Was eating it tantamount to condoning idolatry?

The apostle Paul had a great deal to say about this—to the point where he dedicated two lengthy sections of his letters to the issue: chapters 14 and 15 of the book of Romans and 8 through 10 in the book of 1 Corinthians.

His answer did more than address the questions of those early believers; it set an illuminating precedent for the Church today:

"But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled.

But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse.

But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumblingblock to them that are weak." (1 Corinthians 8:6-9, KJV)

Essentially, Paul argues that God is God, idols have no power, and eating meat used in sacrifices can't inherently cause physical or spiritual harm.

But—and this is the important part—some of the Christians who had recently come out of the culture and practice of idol worship still weren't comfortable eating the meat. Their consciences told them it was wrong, so to eat it would go against their sense of morality.

Seeing others eat the sacrificed meat freely and without question could embolden these believers to step outside their moral boundaries and violate their consciences. This put them at risk of losing discernment in matters that actually were offensive to God, which could send them backsliding into a life of sin.

Self or Others?

We can’t ignore the powerful message in Paul’s words: The foods we serve or eat in the company of others can have a profoundly negative impact on the people we claim to love.

By minimizing or ignoring what our brothers and sisters try to communicate about their struggles with eating and continuing to normalize overconsumption of foods that can trigger addictive behavior or binges, we're effectively saying we care more about our personal choices than others' physical, mental and spiritual health.

This is an especially big deal for Christians in light of what Paul writes in Romans:

"For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.

...why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God." (Romans 14:8,10b,12, KJV)

Living unto God includes how we treat people—and which of us wants to be the one to have to admit to Christ Himself that we ignored, downplayed or enabled the struggles and sins of those He died to save?

"I Will Not Cause Them to Fall."

But Paul doesn't leave us without a solution. Writing to the early church in Corinth, he lays out the simple approach to ending the problem of normalizing sin of any kind, including sins involving food.

It is, in fact, so simple as to be humbling:

"Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall." (1 Corinthians 8:13, NIV)

In other words, if our behaviors or choices have the potential to entice others to violate their consciences before God, we do whatever it takes to protect and help them.

If food is going to cause someone else to lose control or struggle, if the implied invitation to partake in as much as they want is going to enable addictive patterns or cause them to binge eat, we don't make the option available.

We don't have the potluck. We don't insist on the picnic. We don't make every event an excuse to eat.

And, when food is an appropriate way to celebrate, commemorate or enjoy each other's company, we make the environment one that nurtures instead of challenges. In being mindful of others' struggles, we remove the foods that invite temptation.

Even if we want them. Even if we've always had them. Even if people complain that there's no dessert. We take Paul's words seriously and voluntarily give up some of what we want for the sake of preventing our brothers and sisters from mistreating the bodies God has given them.

A New Way to Celebrate with Food

For everyone's sake, it's time to reframe the way we approach our gatherings, particularly in church.

We can look to Biblical examples of shared eating experiences—like in the book of Exodus, where God provided just enough food for each family every day.

We can look to the celebratory feasts held to commemorate victories, where people rejoiced in what they were able to share.

We can examine God's instruction to consider food a sacred gift from Him, to be accepted with thanksgiving and not abused.

And we can take some practical steps to make eating environments safer for those who struggle:

• Rethink the type of food served at gatherings. Remove the foods that most likely to trigger disordered eating: those high in fat, sugar and salt, as well as highly processed foods made with artificial ingredients.

• Limit the amount of food available to minimize opportunities for overindulgence.

• Choose which occasions truly warrant a communal meal, and consider limiting refreshments to water, coffee and tea the rest of the time.

Above all, we need to listen when our friends and family try to communicate their struggles. We need to stop pretending we get it, make a real effort to understand what they're saying and find out how we can help.

It's time to recognize and talk about what's really going on in the lives of the people around us who are in the grip of food addiction and disordered eating. We need to work to change the deeply ingrained mindset that overeating at gatherings—or any time—is normal and those who try to avoid it are weird.

We need to learn to set aside our desires and preferences in order to support others in their struggles. If we truly care about them, it's what we must do. Doing this is better for us, too; removing their stumbling blocks gives us the chance to reflect and realize that perhaps we have been making allowances for the sin of intemperance in our own lives.

It's time to stop normalizing that sin every time we sit down to eat—and instead focus on helping our loved ones be overcomers in their struggles.

Change (and Victory) is Possible

My story had a happy ending: I'm now over 10 years past my bout with disordered eating.

God's intervention through one single verse of Scripture (1 Corinthians 3:17) woke me up to the damage I was doing to my body, and He led me on a path of healing that involved a gradual movement away from fear, shame and self-hate toward a focus on physical and spiritual well-being.

I do still get nervous. I do still get scared. But I know that I can choose to eat foods that nourish me while being mindful about eating enough to be healthy without overdoing it to the point of bingeing. Because Christ overcame temptation and sin, so can I.

I know that God can do the same for others who are struggling. And He wants His Church to share that message of hope.

Come on, Church. Are we ready?

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Thanks to Foster members Cameron Zargar, Rob Hardy, Amy Jo Weaver and Stacey King Gordon for their help making this piece a reality!