A few days ago, I posted about the way some Christians talk about body shape, especially women’s bodies. For the most part, this takes the form of criticizing any form or type of “fatness,” real or perceived. Good Christian women should be thin, in order to demonstrate that their faith is real and active in their lives. After all, fatness is a sign that you’ve given in to gluttony. (I am not making this up. An acquaintance of mine once said that eating meat is gluttonous.)
I suppose, being a woman myself, that I thought the idea that you can tell if a person is really a Christian by body type applied only to females. Not so. I just read a very disturbing comment from a father regarding his deceased son. The son in question is a fallen Marine, stationed in Afghanistan. He overcame many personal challenges in his young life. I have no doubt that he was a fine individual. In no way do I want to take away from his accomplishments or speak ill of the dead. I do not want to cause further grief to bereaved family members. That said, here is the quote that bothered me: “‘He was my hero before he joined the Marines,’ Dr. Rivers said. ‘He overcame so many obstacles to transform from a thin child into a ripped warrior.'” (You can read the full article here.)
This disturbs me even more given the fact that this young man (and presumably his family) was a professing Christian. Here we have a good example of the male version of body-as-evidence-of-faith. In order to be a “real man,” and possibly a real Christian, one must be “ripped.” Being thin and less muscular is apparently a sign that you haven’t drawn on God’s power to be physically impressive. After all, real Christian men need to be able to beat down the enemy. Heaven forbid that a man should be peaceful and gentle.
This actually goes right along with the idea of Jesus as a macho hero. Eugene Cho has an excellent take on fitting Jesus into our cultural notions of masculinity.
