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THE CHURCH,
SEXUALITY, AND EATING DISORDERS
Cissy Brady-Rogers
The struggles of
Christian women with sexuality, food, and their bodies reflect
the Church’s historic ambivalence towards the body—particularly
the female body. The embodiment of God in the Incarnation,
Jesus’ embrace of lepers, prostitutes, and women, and Jesus’
bodily resurrection establish a radical foundation of body
affirmation. Yet the history of the Church demonstrates a
decidedly negative view of the body and sexuality. Both of these
dynamics express themselves in women’s conflicts with our
bodies. We desire to be fully embodied despite our learned fear
of our body and appetites.
Anorexia and bulimia
nervosa in particular reflect this dualistic view of the body,
one evident in Western culture as well as historical and
practical theology. These serious, multi-layer diseases combine
biological, social, psychological, cultural, and spiritual
facets. Indeed, current research suggests that both genes and
environment are factors in the development of anorexia and
bulimia. Some girls and women may already be genetically
hard-wired with a predisposition to obsessive thinking,
people-pleasing, and perfectionism [1],
and can slip into disordered eating behaviors when triggered by
certain environmental factors (puberty, transitions, family
problems, trauma, cultural idealization of thinness).
Disembodiment and Shame
In my 25 years of
ministry among women and girls in the Church (the last 15 as a
psychotherapist), I have heard hundreds of stories of female
disembodiment. These women speak of their bodies as alien to
themselves—a “thing” to be evaluated, regulated and controlled
in order to conform “it” to cultural stereotypes of beauty. One
woman stated, “The mirror pulls me outside myself and turns me
into an object of my own gaze. From this perspective, I lose my
power, my sense of self. I am not in my body. I become an
observer of my body.”
My conversations
with women in recovery often turn to the impact of sexuality on
their body concept. The majority of Christian women with food
and body problems who I have worked with have deep sexual wounds
and insecurities. Some were sexually molested, traumatized by
exposure to pornography, or psychologically tormented by sibling
or peer sexual bullying. All lacked healthy models or teaching
on how to integrate their sexuality with their Christian faith.
The absence of a
positive sexual identity among many women raised in the Church
does not surprise me. As a youth worker during seminary, I felt
ill-equipped to mentor high school girls through their sexual
maturation. When the subject arose, they giggled and squirmed,
talking about boys, kissing, and who was “going” with whom,
sometimes inviting me into their discussions. At a summer camp,
several of my girls confided that they were having intercourse
with their boyfriends. “I know it’s wrong,” they said. “I feel
guilty. But I don’t know how to stop now that we’ve begun.” I
felt a similar sense of conflict—obligated by my position to
uphold biblical boundaries, but deeply aware of their need to be
heard, understood, and loved in the midst of their sin.
My lack of equipping
may not be as common among youth workers today as it was 20
years ago. Many resources for teaching biblical values in
non-judgmental ways are now available for leaders and parents.
However, my current experience with teen and young adult women
in recovery from eating disorders indicates that in many
churches things have not changed enough. Shame, judgment, and
secrecy about sexuality remain familiar dynamics for Christian
girls and women both in and out of the Church.
Edward Cumella,
Executive Director of Performance Management at Arizona’s Remuda
Ranch (a biblically-based treatment program for eating
disorders) reports that, upon admission to their treatment
program, two-thirds of adolescents and three-fourths of adults
exhibit significant distress in the area of shame and judgment.
Dr. Cumella suggests that these patients’ genetic predisposition
to perfectionism, rigidity, people-pleasing, and obsessive
thinking may “make it harder for them to experience spiritual
joy, grace, and freedom, and may predispose them to the massive
amounts of spiritual shame and judgment that we are seeing in
their assessments” [2].
Spirituality and Temperament
While little
empirical evidence currently exists as to the direct influence
of religion and spirituality on the etiology of eating disorders
or to their treatment and prevention, I propose that the same
genes which predispose girls to food and body problems may also
make them especially hungry for meaningful spirituality. Women
with such temperaments experience the world as very unsafe—and
rigidity, people-pleasing, perfectionism, and obsessive thinking
temporarily address this need by providing a perceived sense of
control [3].
Meanwhile, their
predispositions breed internal conflicts. Empathic, bright, and
compassionate, they easily sense dishonesty and evasion. As
children, they are often viewed as precocious, asking Sunday
School teachers difficult questions like, “Why does God let
people fly planes into buildings and kill other people?”—or make
unsettling statements like, “How does anyone really know who
goes to heaven and who doesn’t? Isn’t that up to God?” This
propensity to ask questions and seek deep understanding
conflicts with their desire to please people and do the right
thing. So they learn to adapt, comply, and be “good.” Eating
disorders help them do that by providing a concrete outlet for
their bright minds and a distraction from the mysteries and
uncertainties that both intrigue and frighten them.
This
spiritually-oriented temperament makes these girls and women
highly sensitized to the uncertainty, stress, and
vulnerabilities of life, and enhances their need for the comfort
and containment that a life-giving spirituality provides. In the
United States, where a preponderance of eating disorders exist
and where surveys indicate that a significant majority of the
population (84% in a 2004 Gallup study) identify with either
Protestant, Catholic, or other Christian religions, the
Christian community has a unique opportunity to be a part of the
healing and prevention of eating and body image problems among
the young women who spend their key developmental years under
our spiritual care.
The Church and Disembodiment
A recent insight
into the study of eating disorders from self-objectification
theory sheds light on the Church’s role in female development.
Maria Cottingham, a doctoral student at Fuller Seminary’s School
of Psychology, writes, “Objectification theory posits that girls
and women are socialized to believe that they are objects to be
viewed by other people, and that this belief affects the ways
that women think and feel about themselves.” Specifically, it
creates “a tendency to see their bodies as alien to themselves”
and disrupts their capacity to read cues about hunger, fullness,
and other bodily instincts. Some research indicates a direct
relationship between self-objectification and disordered eating
[4].
Sexual and physical
objectification of females in the media as well as a variety of
social experiences (unwanted touching, leering, gesturing,
teasing, overt or covert training in sexual manipulation,
exposure to pornography, sexual trauma) contribute to the
development of an objectified sense of self. While popular
culture establishes female objectification as a norm, the Church
may exacerbate this problem through the ways we communicate
about gender and sexuality in the Church.
Varying degrees of
self-objectification and disembodiment are the hermeneutical
grid through which a predisposed girl or woman digests her
experiences, including what she hears, reads, or sees modeled
about God and Christian faith. For those with the genetics and
environmental factors in place, an “eating disorder mind” can
begin to develop in an effort to manage the vulnerabilities of
life. According to Dr. Cumella, it is “quite possible that,
regardless of their faith background, these girls and women
interpret the spiritual messages they hear through these
cognitive filters—thinking that God expects perfect behavior
(perfectionism), that there is no room for error (rigidity),
feeling as though God is disappointed in them because of their
less than perfect behaviors including their eating disorder
(people-pleasing), and ruminating about their failings so much
(obsessive thinking) that they feel ashamed and judged”
[5].
The Church may
reinforce self-objectification through inadequate and sometimes
damaging teaching regarding sexuality and gender. While the
media trains us to view our bodies as sexual objects and to
strive to look like the women glamorized on screen and in print,
the Church gives little or no alternative perspective. Few women
I have known in my personal or my professional life recall any
helpful teaching on sexuality, embodiment, or being a woman from
the Church.
Instead, what women
hear from the Church typically establishes rules for behavior
apart from the context of relationship with self, God, and
others in which sexuality develops and is expressed. Such
teachings in the Church might include: don’t explore or touch
your private parts—that is dirty; good girls keep their legs
crossed and don’t let the boys see their panties. In some
churches even knowing about anything sexual is perceived
as sinful; one woman reported that in her Baptist church “my
wanting to know about my sexuality made me feel like a
horrible person, so I kept my questions to myself.” Many women
report being taught that modest dress was required, lest they
“cause their brothers to stumble.” Others learned that sex was
God’s gift for married couples but was sinful when expressed
outside marriage—leaving the impression that sexual desires were
themselves sinful if felt outside marriage. These and similar
messages teach girls that it is their responsibility to
suppress their own desire and to avoid arousing male
desire. That is quite a burden for an adolescent girl to bear.
Teachings that
convey a dualistic view of humans further reinforce a young
woman’s perception that the very nature of women is
objectification. Biblical concepts such as “flesh and spirit” or
“old self and new self” can convey a splitting of the self into
unacceptable (flesh, old self) and acceptable (spirit, new self)
parts. The eating disorder mind uses these juxtapositions to
reinforce the separation of the “good/spiritual self” from the
“bad/flesh body.” The use of biblical metaphors including body
references can be confusing to children still in the concrete
thinking stages—especially to those with the inclination to
negative body image, the precursor to eating disorders. A girl
with a rigid, perfectionistic tendency hears Scriptures such as
1 Corinthians 9.27 “…I punish my body and enslave it…” as a
reinforcement of her own negative feelings about her body.
The absence of women
in visible leadership further complicates our integration of
sexuality with spirituality. Even churches theologically
supportive of an egalitarian model of gender often lack equality
in practice. Girls may grow up seeing and hearing women lead and
teach on occasion, but in most churches men continue to dominate
in roles of visible leadership. This imbalance in practice, even
when men in leadership demonstrate and teach mutuality, instills
a developing girl with a sense of being the lesser gender,
thereby creating a need to find a way to redeem her body and
integrate her physicality into her faith experience.
The Church can
contribute to the prevention of eating disorders by avoiding
language and practices that perpetuate self-objectification. The
majority of American girls and women are dissatisfied with their
appearance—and are potentially suffering from varying degrees of
self-objectification [6]. In this
state, a woman or girl will report perceiving her body as an
object (an “it” to be seen by others) rather than an instrument
of which she is the subject (the “I” who acts and operates as a
physical body to love, work, play, live her life). She
experiences herself as having a body rather than being a
body.
Do we in the Church
directly or indirectly communicate a dualistic view of human
nature that feeds this self perception? Or do we offer body
affirming perspectives that encourage the integration of body
and soul? Do we use metaphors that split the body in ways that
seem to give more honor to some parts than others? As one women
in recovery asked, “Why do we invite Jesus into our hearts and
not into our stomachs?”
The Church and Prevention of Disembodiment
Pastors and teachers
can give thoughtful examination of the view of human nature
embedded in their theology and communicated in their teaching.
Nancey Murphy, Professor of Christian Philosophy at Fuller
Seminary, writes that it is “important to be aware of this…since
whatever we believe on this subject will influence how we think
about a great number of other issues”
[7].
Welcoming and
embracing the unique temperament of children and youth who think
outside the structures of standard Christian education
curriculum might be another way that churches can help prevent
eating disorders. We can affirm the validity of questions or
uncertainties rather than feel compelled to provide the
“correct” theological answers. We nurture children’s
spirituality by not fearing the unknowns ourselves. By modeling
secure faith in the face of questions we reveal a God who is big
enough to contain the existential anxieties of those under our
care. Our example encourages children to see the safety of a
Savior who holds all things together even when the world appears
to be falling apart.
We can train girls
and boys to critically evaluate popular values and models of
female beauty. We can put their questioning temperaments to work
for them by encouraging questions both within and outside the
Church. Equipping girls who are genetically predisposed to
eating disorders with faith-based critical thinking skills may
decrease their need to adopt maladaptive coping tools such as
rigidity and perfectionism.
Finally, we can help
girls embrace their sexual instincts as a normal part of
development and teach biblical guidelines for sexuality within
the context of relationship with God, self, and others. While
relationally-based sexual education programs and curriculum
might be effective avenues for guiding sexual maturation, the
greatest expressed need of young women is older Christian women
who are not afraid to talk about sex and who model integrated
sexuality. “We want role models who live in all of life’s
colors,” as one young woman said, “women who can be sexual,
experience sexual things, and acknowledge that they are sexual
beings…who live in a way that is pleasing to God because it’s an
expression of their relationship to God and not just because
they are following rules.” Women model this through developing
comfort and security with their own sexuality. This was the
missing piece for me in my days of youth ministry; I had not
been mentored through my own sexual maturation, so I stumbled
about in my efforts to guide teenagers through theirs.
I am encouraged by
what I see in the young women working with teenagers and college
students today. Many are far more sexually integrated than we
were twenty years ago. But older women cannot leave it to the
next generations to find their way through the tumultuous waters
of sexual maturation alone. Kristen Ritzau, a research
coordinator at Azusa Pacific University who mentors young women
in various ministry capacities, says, “We need to talk about
these things in the open, in a normalized way. We need to stop
making sex shameful. And we need mentoring. Younger people need
older people who’ve been through stuff, to share it with us”
[8].
Ultimately the
Church needs to model and teach an integrated view of the female
body that celebrates diversity of beauty and embraces female
appetites for both food and sex as necessary and good parts of
being created in the image of God. We need to offer an
alternative to the degrading sexual values offered in popular
culture. But we need to do so in a way that normalizes sexuality
as a gift from God that influences our actions and engagements
with people, ideas, work, and play. Communities of faith that
honor female passions, desires, and instincts and that nurture
integration of physicality and spirituality will be the places
of refuge and empowerment that the women of the 21st century
need.
Notes
1. Tori DeAngelis.
Anorexia nervosa: A genetic link? Eating Disorders Today,
3(1), 2005, p. 10-11.
[back to text]
2. From personal
e-mail correspondence with Dr. Edward Cumella, November 30,
2006.
[back to text]
3. The material
here expands on ideas originally presented in professional
workshops at the Renfrew Center Foundation's annual conferences
in 2003 ("The Spiritual Dimensions of Eating Disorders in the
Clinical Setting," co-presented with Michelle Lelwica, Th.D.)
and 2004 ("Eating Disorders and the Search for Meaning and
Purpose," co-presented with Carolyn Costin, LMFT). Anita
Johnston reports similar observations about the heightened
intuitive and emotional capacities of eating disorder patients
in her book Eating In The Light of the Moon (Carlsbad,
CA: Gurze Books. 2000).
[back to text]
4. Maria Easter
Cottingham, unpublished doctoral research on
“Self-Objectification, Spirituality, Purpose in Life, and
Disordered Eating in College Women,” Fuller Seminary, 2006.
[back to text]
5. From personal
e-mail correspondence with Dr. Edward Cumella, November 30,
2006.
[back to text]
6. For statistics
on body dissatisfaction and related issues see “Statistics:
Eating disorders and their precursors,” at www.edap.org.
[back
to text]
7. Nancey Murphy,
Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? Cambridge
University Press, 2006.
[back to text]
8. From a personal
interview with Kristen Ritzau, December 4, 2006.
[back
to text]
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