P90X Christianity, by Scott Shirley

This morning I ran across a blog article by Richard Beck, a professor from Abilene Christian University, discussing the issue of Universalism.  It was a great article.  As good as it was, however, I was continually distracted by the picture Richard had embedded within the article.  It is a haunting image of a young child so thoroughly emaciated by the ravages of starvation that he looks like something out of a nightmare.  After several restarts I finished reading the words but couldn’t shake the image.  And then I ate a protein bar.

Here’s my problem… I see stuff like this picture all the time.  I know that suffering is out there.  I know that there are places in the world where people live in conditions I cannot imagine… conditions I don’t want to imagine.  I often feel pity and compassion for those people.  I may even make empathetic sounding comments about their plight.  But, quite frankly, there isn’t much I can do right now because today is day 2 of my third week of P90X, and, if you’ve ever done P90X, you know that day 2 is Plyometrics day… and Plyo day can kill you.  If Plyo day isn't enough pressure on its own, 2 days from today I run head-on into the most intense P90X hell-on-earth workout of them all… YogaX.  (If you haven’t done P90X and are tempted to laugh at my Yoga fears, click this link and listen to Jay Rome’s radio show assessment of YogaX.)  As you can see, I’ve got serious stuff going on in my life.

Scoff all you want at my cavalier attitude about the suffering in the world, but are you any different?  Maybe you are, maybe you are the Mother Teresa of your section of the world.  Maybe you don’t even pay for cable television because your busy schedule of ridding the world of suffering doesn’t afford you the time to watch it.  However, if you are like me (and the vast majority of the Christians in this country), you have most likely spent more time over the past year contemplating how to eat better or exercise better or diet better or avoid candy better than you have trying to solve the problems of the living skeleton in this picture.  We are more concerned with our bodies than his body.  We are P90X Christians.

Yesterday I spent an hour with Tony Horton (the workout guru in the P90X videos) and we laughed and grunted and worked hard together to get me more fit.  In fact, I have spent an hour or more with Tony for 15 straight days now.  I have cut out all sugars from my diet (giving up my crack-like addiction to Dr. Pepper was devilishly difficult), greatly reduced the amount of fried foods I eat, and, in general, tried to eat a significantly cleaner diet.  All because I want to be fitter, stronger, faster, and better looking with my shirt off when summer rolls around.  Not once in the past 15 days did I do anything of substance for anyone who was suffering with needs that, in comparison, might dwarf the importance of my quest for six pack abs.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it is important that we care for our bodies.  Exercise and proper diet are the foundation of a long and healthy life.  Our churches also need to be healthy and some degree of internal care for the church body is justified.  The problem isn’t in our desire to care for ourselves; the real problem is that our focus is PRIMARILY on caring for ourselves.  In our churches, a staggeringly disproportionate amount of money is spent on buildings, staff salaries, class materials, fellowship lunches, appreciation dinners, prayer breakfasts, holiday extravaganzas, VBS, youth events, adult events, older adult events, younger adult events, pre-teen events, toddler events, and soon-to-be mother events… all under the umbrella excuse of “building up the body.” But how much “building up” does a body need before it can get to work?  How much “building up” does a group of life-long Christians need before they can begin to lean their budget a little more toward the people who are really suffering?  I am confident it would be an embarrassingly reveling statistic if the percentage of the church’s income spent on the truly needy were made public.   Most churches can’t afford to spend any more than they do because it costs too much to fund the institutional behemoth we’ve created.

For breakfast this morning I drank a protein shake that is supposed to provide my body with the essential ingredients it needs to fuel this afternoon’s P90X workout.   A couple of hours later, after reading Richard’s article, I snacked on a protein bar.  I will likely eat 3 other very clean and healthy meals today that will provide my body with the proper nutrients to fuel the muscle growth I crave while simultaneously allowing me to shed the excess blubber accumulated around my gut.  But the young man in the picture may not have the energy he needs to do Plyo day.  He may not have a $60 jug of protein shake powders.  He may not be able to afford a $2 protein bar.  Maybe he can’t afford a piece of chicken, or a serving of beans, or even a rotten lemon peel.  He may not eat for another week.  I don’t know.  And I don’t have time to find out.  I have another date with Mr. Horton this afternoon and today I am going to rock it.  My body is getting used to these workouts and I am no longer sore.  My muscles are adjusting and growing and my fat deposits are shrinking.  Today I will keep on becoming a better me because my body’s health is extremely important.