Squeaky Wheels
by Mark Gutman
I have always tended to see the worst health “sin” as smoking. Next worst probably and right close behind smoking is a tie between alcohol and “no-no” drugs. I guess I’ve gotten my hierarchy from the church manual, which rates those particular problems as bad enough to merit church discipline (or to prevent acquiring membership). I didn’t see much drinking or drugging when I was growing up, so I guess that’s why I thought smoking was worst.
A church certainly has the right to set standards. People have benefited because the church discourages certain activities and provides programs to help people quit smoking or drinking. But why are some harmful behaviors allowed, while others aren’t? Some health rule violations rate as F, but others can be considered as C or D, so that your particular health style may not make the honor roll but at least you pass.
Maybe the church manual guidelines cover the most serious health problems. But perhaps it’s time to revise or modify the rankings. “Two RAND researchers, health economist Roland Sturm and psychiatrist Kenneth Wells examined the comparative effects of obesity, smoking, heavy drinking, and poverty on chronic health conditions and health expenditures. Their finding: Obesity is the most serious problem. It is linked to a big increase in chronic health conditions and significantly higher health expenditures. And it affects more people than smoking, heavy drinking, or poverty.” (https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB4549/index1.html.) The RAND article quoted goes on to describe the problem in more detail, but the point is that obesity is hurting us (at least the U.S.) more than smoking.
Because smoking has been recognized as a problem even in the secular world, all kinds of measures have been taken to limit it. “. . . increased education, access control (including smoking bans in many buildings nationwide), taxation, better enforcement of laws relating to minors, curbs on advertising, and increased clinical attention, have resulted in decreased rates for both smoking and drinking (ibid).” The squeaky wheel gets the grease. And the grease seems to be helping. Why not apply that same grease to some other areas that are hurting us physically, as well as mentally and spiritually?
Lack of exercise contributes to overweight, and also to lack of fitness regardless of weight, but exercise deficiency is still way down the list. The words “exercise” and “fitness” do not appear in the church manual. As long as you don’t smoke, drink, or do drugs, you can sit on a couch all day and stuff yourself at no risk to church membership.
How about time wasted on the internet? Recently I started posting a book report each week on Facebook, trying to provide something more than the “I played a game” reports and other trivia that are becoming more frequent on that site. Overeating and lack of exercise and spending a lot of time browsing or playing games online are part of the same package that is considered OK because it isn’t as bad as smoking.
How about getting too little sleep? The book Be Excellent at Anything, by Tony Schwartz, has led me to change my sleep habits, so that I aim to have my light out by 10:00 most nights. On page 57, Schwartz writes, “No single behavior, we’ve come to believe, more fundamentally influences our effectiveness in waking life than sleep. . . . William Dement, the widely acknowledged dean of sleep researchers, argues that sleep may well be more critical to our well-being than diet, exercise, and even heredity.” Lack of sleep affects driving, working, just plain thinking, and, of course, spirituality. So if we’re going to discipline people who can’t quit smoking, why don’t we discipline people who don’t get enough sleep? “We’ll be happy to baptize you, brother, as soon as you can report to us that you’re getting at least seven hours of sleep each night.” “Sister, we see the bags under your eyes, and we need to warn you that we may have to disfellowship you if you don’t start getting more sleep.”
My health habits are far from perfect, but I have never smoked, drunk an alcoholic beverage, taken a no-no drug, or even eaten meat. I don’t advocate doing any of those things. Loosening of health standards is not progress. I’m referring to the problem of failing to notice our own deficiencies because we are focusing on other people who have officially “bad” habits. Even people who aren’t overweight can have lousy diets or be physically unfit. And to realize how hard it is for others to change bad habits, we only need to pay attention to our own struggles to change.
If we were willing to point out the problems with and make help available for other habits the way we’ve done with smoking, people might be more motivated to work on other behavior changes. But when we single out a few problem behaviors (three, to be exact) and say virtually nothing about others, we help reinforce the idea that those other behaviors are unimportant matters. We’ll help people quit smoking so they can join the church, but we haven’t made a priority of helping with other health struggles.
Work at getting enough sleep, and you might think more clearly to eat better. Think of your weight, and you might be more interested in exercise and eating. Think of exercise, and you might shut off the computer (or television) more. Tackling one area often leads to tackling a second and then a third area. What seemed like a huge task gets taken care of one habit at a time. (See The Power of Less, by Leo Babauta. The whole book is about focusing on goals, one at a time. See also Be Excellent at Anything, p. 38.) Work on good health habits the way some motivated people work on quitting smoking.
We don’t need sermons or articles that tell how us how bad we are because of the way we eat, sleep, or use our time. More than two-thirds of smokers say they want to quit, but few actually succeed, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (https://healthland.time.com/2011/11/11/most-smokers-want-to-quit-but-few-use-the-best-strategies/). That sentence can probably have the words “smokers” and “quit” replaced by “overweight people” and “lose weight” or “couch potatoes” “get more exercise” and . . . . You can fill the blanks with your own relevant words.
We can improve in problem areas. Like smokers who have to quit several times before they quit for good, we may have ups and downs before we finally stop a damaging habit or start a healthful one. In The Willpower Instinct, Kelly McGonigal describes how we are often set up for failure at reaching a goal despite our best intentions. But if we’re as motivated to change as we want smokers to be if they’re going to join our church, we’ll keep looking for better ways to accomplish our goals. How about using the buddy system, used by the Five-Day Plan to Stop Smoking? Find someone else who’s sharing your struggles, and help each other tackle them.
We’re not healthy just because we avoid three bad behaviors. Let’s help each other with exercise, healthful eating, sleeping, use of time, and other healthful practices that can improve the quality of life for us and those around us.
We Adventists have made much of avoiding mind-altering substances that could stand in the way of receiving and conveying Holy Spirit gifts and impressions. Hence the proscription of psychotropic drugs other than those prescribed by healthcare professionals, and many Adventists even resist these medications, believing them to be tantamount to sorcery—i.e., that taking drugs for neurological and psychiatric conditions could actually predispose them to devil possession (why the devil's spirit is facilitated by psychotropic drugs and God's spirit is inhibited thereby is a topic perhaps we will study more in depth in a loftier realm.) Nicotine and caffeine, especially taken together, reportedly provide a wonderful rebirth of false energy and productivity achievable mid-morning and mid-afternoon in no other way. Both substances were once viewed with absolute moral horror by devout Adventist Christians (with the allure of decadent coffee concoctions so readily available today, rumblings from the pulpit against the evils of caffeine have become decidedly muted).
But I would suggest that as a rule, we Adventists choose to inveigh particularly against habit-forming indulgences that we see as decisively affecting the mind. Those who ingest these substances are seen as getting the "F" grades, which here in Oregon raises some interesting issues regarding Adventists who use prescribed marijuana for relief of chronic pain and nausea [I know (and of) several who do.] Should a pastor or head elder be seen inhaling a bit of legal weed out back before the second service, to prepare him/her for responsibilities on the platform? Certainly not an unrealistic question here in the People's Republic of Oregon. And interestingly enough, the practice of masturbation, believed by some Adventists even today to lead to serious psychological problems, is nowhere mentioned in connection with competency for church membership or office. On the other hand, strong admonitions against meat, cheese, and other animal products were once heavily supported with the assertion that these foods altered the mind of the user and strengthened the animal passions—something the continently religious generally find problematic.
Standards for membership come and go with time, and often gain and lose emphasis according to the general expectations of the culture and the popular scientific teachings of the day. But I would generally concur with the blogger that as we learn of the serious psychological and physical problems associated with overweight, sleep-deprivation, and lack of exercise that we do what we can to pastorally encourage our membership in general to avoid falling into these patterns of behavior. But what of the insomniac who begins smoking marijuana to alleviate the uncontrollable wakefulness that in turn will set him snoring during the pastor’s upcoming sermon on health reform? Perhaps that's another one the unions will have to decide by culture and situation….I gotta go to bed….
“And interestingly enough, the practice of masturbation, believed by some Adventists even today to lead to serious psychological problems, is nowhere mentioned in connection with competency for church membership or office.”
But our denomination does have the illustrious distinction of having developed a remedy for masturbation – or rather SDA pioneer Dr Kellogg did – called cornflakes! I believe he also advocated yogurt enemas. Perhaps he did it because Ellen White said masturbation caused cancer?
They do say that 99% of men admit to masturbating, and 1% are liars. Thus, it would be curious indeed if they made masturbation a test of membership.
“But I would generally concur with the blogger that as we learn of the serious psychological and physical problems associated with overweight, sleep-deprivation, and lack of exercise that we do what we can to pastorally encourage our membership in general to avoid falling into these patterns of behavior.”
True. It seems rather ironic that Adventist cooking often seems to be layered with extra cheese, full of sugar and carbs, but as long as it doesn’t have pork (or meat) and caffeine. I have often wondered at a Christian culture where morbidly obese brethren (no offence intended) can buy a double whopper with cheese and a large fries with a large soda, all without much guilt, as long as the burger has no meat and the soda no caffeine. Moreover, we would all feel mortified if we saw a brother or sister eat some bacon and eggs, not because they might be cooked in deep-fried transfats, but because of the bacon of course.
In fairness to Ellen White and the pioneers, I don’t necessarily believe how we moderns interpret the health message is white how she intended it to be applied. We have skewed the message to our own cultural whims.
Perhaps and obvious and stupid question – does the SDA Church teach, or has it ever taught, that eating pork or other things contrary to the ‘health message’ constitute a sin? I would suggest we don’t, we haven’t, or at the very least, we shouldn’t. I would suggest if you say, ‘Because it is in Leviticus’, that is a F-grade answer.
In some ways I think it sad that we are kind of losing our health message. On the other hand, I always thought we have been very unbalanced, and very open to criticism that we are picking and choosing certain Jewish ceremonial laws, which opens up questions as to why we don’t also wear tassels on our garments or refrain from cutting the corners of our hair.
I have also thought it quite stupid that we might not let someone join our Church because they smoked, but if they were extremely obese, and had that 4th slice of cheesecake, that was ok. No wonder people scratch their heads at us. Do we even really know what we believe, and why our pioneers came to that belief, or is it just Sevy tradition?
Mark,
To borrow the old Southern phrase, "You done quit preaching and gone to meddlin!" You've gone from talking about the sins of others to mine.
Temperance needs to be a balanced, wholistic approach where we encourage everyone toward better health practices. Years ago high cholesterol was a problem of older people. Now that I'm older it is my problem and I keep getting those lectures from my doctor every six months about needing to get more exercise and reduce my fat intake.
In the formative years of the church smoking and drunkenness were obvious behaviors that could be classed as "sins" and used to exclude people from church membership. That it is still a practical tool for screening potential members is debatable because, as you have illustrated, it is an incomplete approach. We need recovery programs and support groups for people who have addiction problems. We need to be illustrating the benefits that come from enhancing your health through simple lifestyle changes. Healthful living should be as much of what we teach as the Three Angels messages. How to do it is the challenge. For a variety of reasons self-supporting institutions have largely relegated themselves to the fringes of the church with minimal credibility or apparent benefit. So how to bring it back into the mainstream of relevant faith is a challenge for all of us.
If the church wishes to baptize only those who have no bad habits as mentioned above, how many baptisms would be recorded annually?
Why do we demand evidence one has given up smoking, drinking, caffeine before membership, but we do baptize very obese individuals, those that may, or may not be using drugs mentioned above?
We should educate people as much as possible without being so aggressive as to question their habits. It has been estimated that more than 50% of all Adventists drink coffee; and both coffee and alcohol in moderation have been shown repeatedly in hundreds of test to promote longevity, mental acuity, and forestall dementia.
Some of the conditions affect us differently. Lack of sleep for some is worse than most any abuse of prescription drugs. There are some who refuse to take prescribed drugs when they would really offer benefits. Threre is no excuse to be uninformed today on medical and health issues. The internet is a wealth of sources but one must use discretion and seek NIH, Mayo's, WebMD and well recognized medical authorities for good info. When your physician has diagnosed a condition and prescribed medication, the internet can be a source of much additional information as physicians do not have the time to fully inform all patients with their questions. Learn of benefits and side effects when a new medication has been prescribed. Then, if your body reacts badly, contact your physician and an alteranative drug can be prescribed.
"Why do we demand evidence one has given up smoking, drinking, caffeine before membership, but we do baptize very obese individuals, those that may, or may not be using drugs mentioned above?"
Yes, I have always wondered this myself.
Did not the once skinny-as-bones Ellen White attain a more substantial frame as she moved into middle age? Her spiritual growth has been a topic of avid discussion; her physical expansion not so.
I have known Adventists from heavy-framed families who were able to combat the extra pounds only through constant attention to exercise, food deprivation, and monitoring—almost to the point of their losing contact with the "real world" because of the fixation on "not getting fat." Perhaps because the Red Books make less of an issue of obesity, culturally we have never stressed its harm as we have the effects of alcohol. For example, I do not believe we have ever asked our grade school kids to sign an anti-obesity "pledge," as I did in the second grade against alcohol.
Culturally food has become far more plentiful than it was back in the 1800s, even as automation has made life far less calorically demanding, and "Present Truth" might well be urging us as a church to now take a stronger and more redemptive stand on this question. It's notable that the Bible itself never seems to identify obesity as a condition unbecoming a Christian—perhaps because undernourishment (and the need to feed the starving and fortify the hungry) was far the greater need in biblical times.
How many old, obese Adventists do you know? (Obesity as at least 50 lbs. above normal.)
It's the same as for pilots: there are no old, bold pilots.
Mark,
Some good questions, but I am not sure how much you are aware of it, the problem is being addressed frequently in this part of the country at least. After 50 we are all battling the weight problem to some degree. Practically, it would be difficult to demand someone lose weight before baptism. The CHIP program is found in most parts of the country–we did two of them here. Interestingly, the GC health department didn't want to have it there because they don't want to be seen as promoting veganism–that would be "new age."
However, this successful program and those like it do help people lose weight and make it easier by eliminating certain food groups and adding a couple of supplements. They also see a big difference in their heart profiles. I don't always follow it 100%, but it has helped me a lot, especially getting rid of milk products and exercising regularly.
Now if you could just get people to perceive alcohol in the same way as smoking, we would save a lot of lives, marriages, and families.
"Giving up smoking is easy. I've done it thousands of times." So said the great wit, Mark Twain. Same goes for every other 'bad habit.' It appears that the 'health message' is/was based on one major concept: avoidance of stimulants; that which would 'stimulate' the 'baser passions.' Hence Ellen's first health message was entitled "Message to Mothers," or similar. Subtitle could have been, 'How to stop your child from indulging in the secret vice.' This appears to be based on the view espoused by some in the wider society of the day that masturbation in childhood sets the child onto a life-long course of deepening depravity.
All 'stimulants' were therefore to be shunned. Nicotine, Alcohol, flesh foods, arsenic, strychnine etc. Some of these prescriptions made good sense, even if by default. Nicotine was not proscribed because of its effects in heart disease and lung cancer. Alcohol was likewise rejected on the basis, not of biblical requirement, but of the 'weaker brethren' argument. (not in itself a bad one). In the place of flesh foods, grains were mandated. Graham crackers, to be precise. Fortunately, vegetables were encouraged. But grains-for-meat formed the mainstay of the early SDA dietary requirement. And from hence, cornflakes. So began, it might be said, the American/Western European love of cereals and the devastation that has resulted. Metabolic syndrome, the health scourge of our age, is the result of too much dietary intake of sugar, be it white crystals, High-fructose corn syrup, or starch from any source. Wheat being the main culprit. Not only is modern wheat higher in starch, it contains proteins, other than gluten, which stimulate various types of immune and disease responses in just about every bodily system. The book 'Wheat Belly' tells the story quite well. Not all 'plant-based' foods are good for you.
If one must eat wheat, find the genetically older varieties, einkorn or kammut, and then treat them the Three Angels' way: In the Essene Gospel of Peace, a 1st century Aramaic manuscript, the Master gives the following instructions on how to make the bread.
"How should we cook our daily bread without fire, Master?' asked some with great astonishment. 'Let the angels of God prepare your bread. Moisten your wheat, that the angel of water may enter it. Then set it in the air, that the angel of air may also embrace it. And leave it from morning to evening beneath the sun, that the angel of sunshine may descend upon it. And the blessing of the three angels will soon make the germ of life to sprout in your wheat. Then crush your grain, and make thin wafers, as did your forefathers when they departed out of Egypt, the house of bondage. Put them back again beneath the sun from its appearing, and when it is risen to its highest in the heavens, turn them over on the other side that they be embraced there also by the angel of sunshine, and leave them there until the sun be set.'" (p. 37)
How is that for a Three Angels' message?
Mark has done well to highlight this issue. It would appear that SDAs are now falling far behind in health reform. The type and quantity of food we eat is now as critical to health as the other poisons we may or may not indulge.
PS. I should have added, the Essene Gospel of Peace is disputed as an authentic first century manuscript. But whatever its age, the message of the three angels of water, air and sunshine is quite fascinating. Sprouted grain bread is very easy to make and is available commercially nowadays, but still should be eaten sparingly.
Simply eliminate all white flour and sugar from the diet (100% whole grains only).
There is sufficient natural sugars in fruits and that is most nutrious diet, but will lose weight.