Bad Theology Made Me Fat

From Ikon

(work in progress, come back later)

I recently marked the 20th anniversary of one of the seminal experiences in my faith journey. During the last few days of December 1986, I was in a gathering in Utrecht, Holland with 10,000 Christians from across Europe. The purpose of Mission 87 was to challenge young people to get involved in world evangelization and when the time of the altar call came I was swept to the front in a wave of euphoria. God had spoken and I was going to save the world.

I have a predisposition towards obsessiveness. So once I had committed myself to this idea, I gave all of my energy to it. Jesus was coming back when the task of world evangelism was complete and all that mattered was 'plundering hell to populate heaven' and 'finishing the task'. 11 years after Mission 87 I was leading a church planting team in Central Asia. I had also increased in body weight to 105 Kg, which for my height and build is overweight, borderline obese.

It may not seem obvious at first what the relationship was between my theology and being fat, but there definitely was a link. My life choices were built around my belief that Jesus was coming back and that we could speed his return through evangelism. So all that mattered was the eternal, future hope and our present situation counted for little. Everything I did had to be subordinated to the task of world evangelisation, so I could give my time to learning language or leading a team or whatever, but I had no time to waste on exercise. After all, why bother when this earthly body is going to pass away and only what is eternal will endure?