Fat As a Bad Witness?

When I was in college I knew a student through one of the campus ministries. This woman was kind and compassionate, with an extensive knowledge of the Bible. She led a weekly Bible study and was diligent in discipling other young women. She seemed to have a real heart for reaching out and loving others. She was everything a fine, upstanding, Christian college student should be. But she was overweight.

When she graduated from college she wanted to go on staff with this particular ministry. Now, I wasn't there in the interview. I didn't hear all that was said. But I remember hearing the upshot. They would accept her as a staff member only if she lost weight because "being overweight is a bad witness."

I still reel when I think about this.

Let's unpack this. "Being overweight is a bad witness." Says who?

Those who have no problem with this statement will usually come up with, "well, gluttony, after all, is a sin." But who says she is a glutton? Unless you get ahold of her medical charts and her personal history and a map of her DNA and a long term calorie count, there is no way for you to truly know the source of her weight problem. And unless you can see to the depths of her heart, there is no way that you can know that she is a glutton. Gluttony, after all, encompasses a heck of a lot more than a passion for Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

People are overweight for all sorts of reasons and sometimes these are reasons beyond their control. Some people are overweight for medical reasons. Some people are overweight due to side effects from a medication they take. Some people are overweight because their body just doesn't burn fuel like thinner people. Some are overweight because their appetite control mechanism seems to have gone wonky. Some people are overweight because they have totally screwed up their metabolism through diet after diet after stinkin' diet, in pursuit of some sort of cultural approval, only to find themselves fatter than ever.

And some people ARE overweight because they eat too much. But we don't always know why. Some, having grown up with deprivation, are terrified of going hungry. Some, having been violated by the opposite sex, are terrified of having an attractive body. Some are using food to fill a hole, a deep longing. And some are eating too much because it just plain tastes good. Perhaps this was the problem the Powers That Be at the campus ministry assumed. That my friend was overweight because she ate too much and that was a bad witness.

Tell me, why can't you be fat and be a good witness? After all, a witness is somebody who shares their side of the story.

If you are called in to court as a witness to a crime,you are not called in to recount the laws of the land, you are called in to tell what you experienced and what you saw. That is it. This is what you know.

Unless this woman was specifically committing the sin of gluttony (and that is a Pandora's Box if there ever was one), why should she be kept from ministry just because she is overweight?

As I see it, she would be just as, if not better, equipped to minister to others as anyone out there. Not only does her weight in no way hinder God working in her life, she could have a much deeper view into what it means to cling to God when you are scorned by the beauty standards of our world.

I cannot imagine being a college student struggling with my weight or my lack of physical beauty and finding that only thin, fit, pretty, perky people representing Christ on campus. What does that say? That God doesn't care about you if you are fat or homely. I would want to have someone to turn to who knows rejection and shame and heartbreak. Being a fat person in today's world pretty much guarantees you all of those.

I see nowhere in the Bible where we are told that somebody's BMI will limit the working of God in their life or through their life.

Might there be issues in her life that needed to be dealt with? Sure! Might it be good for her to develop, if she already hadn't, a healthy lifestyle? Of course! Could she be a witness, even a GOOD witness, for Christ, even if she was fat? Absolutely!