Seth Troutt: Let's raise our glasses

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Millions of Americans are not healthy. About three in four American adults are overweight or obese. For children, the numbers aren’t much better. And almost half of all Americans have one or more preventable chronic diseases, many related to what people eat and how often they eat it.

EICHER: WORLD Opinions contributor Seth Troutt says it’s a warning call we need to heed, but he argues the real battle isn’t on the plate—it’s in the heart.

SETH TROUTT: Recently I received this message from a member of my congregation: “When are you going to teach on gluttony? You couldn’t pay me to have sex out of marriage or steal, but [I’ll] eat a bag of chips and a box of cookies at the same time in my living room watching TV. The guilt? It’s horrible.”

I appreciate her self-awareness, honesty, and courage. She’s not alone. Especially during this holiday season. It raises the perennial question: what are the eating patterns that represent a problem?

Gluttony is thankless, mindless overeating. It’s rooted in comfort-seeking and incubated in entitlement; acting as though every bite of food is salvific. Gluttony is the Standard American Die. High carbs, high fat, accompanied by low fiber and low protein. Can someone gluttonously eat broccoli and beef? Unlikely, as the fiber and protein naturally satiate. Yet ultra-processed foods, mechanistically stripped of their fiber and protein in order to make them more immediately gratifying and addicting, serve as the foundation for the way many Americans eat.

Government food, agricultural, and pharmaceutical subsidies incentivize unhealthy eating patterns in multiple directions: doing things like underwriting weight loss drugs and allowing $23 billion dollars in SNAP benefits to be spent on sugary drinks, desserts, salty snacks, candy, and sugar.

Proverbs 28:7 says: “A companion of gluttons shames his father.” Why? The glutton doesn’t delay gratification. His god is literally his belly, and he’s unwilling to steward the good gifts of his body and food. Unable to stop scratching the itch, he is on the trajectory of prematurely ending his life.

So how is gluttony different from feasting? To begin with, feasting is more than just overeating. It’s indulgence with a conscious purpose…giving thanks. If entitlement is the soil in which gluttony grows; gratitude is the environment in which feasting flourishes.

We raise our glasses “to the King.” We give honor where honor is due. Celebrate victories, and appreciate friends and family when we feast. There are toasts, speeches, prayers, and shared stories. History is remembered, blessings are counted, and hope is spread like too much butter on warm toast.

If you add up all the feast days that were prescribed in the Old Testament, it accounted for about 19% of the annual calendar. It wasn’t mindless indulgence. It was a time focused on remembering the works of the Lord and reminding one another of His promises.

Surprisingly, proper feasting, not just fasting, is the antidote America needs to address its gluttony problem. The age of cynicism has begotten the age of gluttony. When you lack thankfulness and embrace spirits of negativity, you start to feel entitled to foolish pleasure seeking…after all, who cares? Likewise, the spirit of nihilism begets gluttony; if there’s no life after death, then your only hope is to maximize your return on every moment, one morsel of pleasure after another. “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”

It’s harder than ever to be mentally and physically fit. Billions of dollars are invested every month to make you envious, entitled, engorged, and enraged. America needs the holiday feasts now more than ever. So plan a feast, attend or host, make speeches, sing a hymn, drink to the King, and wear your stretchy pants. Feast in rebellious resistance to gluttonous, entitled, and cynical culture.

I’m reminded of the dying words of a dwarf-king filled with regret, Thorin, near the end of The Hobbit: “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

The Psalmist put it this way: “Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his steadfast love endures forever; to him who alone does great wonders”

I’m Seth Troutt.

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