Stop it! That has nothing to do with gluttony! re: In Praise of Fat Pastors.

In Praise of Fat Pastors was a great post at the Gospel Coalition. But then Jared Wilson had to go and ruin it for me. Last paragraph:

So no, I am not advocating gluttony here, just a Christward self-disregard, a godly un-self-consciousness…

No, you’re not advocating gluttony because nothing you are writing about has anything remotely to do with gluttony. The Bible never associates gluttony with fat but with profligate spending and thus the temptation to crime as a way to support oneself. It associates gluttony with the laziness of refusing to work for a living, not a refusal to use the gym.

Here is the data. Tell me where I’m wrong.

Since I’m posting on this anyway, I’ll make another comment about Jared’s post: It is simply a fact that fat or otherwise unattractive pastors are rarely going to be hired. If you want to get into ministry and are not young or hip or skinny or handsome you need to go into a denomination where you get assigned to a congregation by a bishop or some other authority. If you are relying on a congregation to call you, you are up against bad odds. Jared’s anecdote about the pastor who wore his pants too high is nice, but that’s an anomaly.

The people who cultivate the godly attitude, which Jared rightly commends, are people who don’t have calls and are working odd jobs to pay off money borrowed to pay for a useless seminary degree.

Nothing Jared said is wrong; but I’m telling you the way it is.

I suppose my advice would be to cultivate self-disregard and then cover it with a layer of savviness about acquiring gainful employment. I guess that means your example will be somewhat distorted. So you’ll have to decide what you think about the trade-offs in your quest for a church ministry.

And now I realize I am blogging again!

 

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