Haven’t heard much from the Christian Coalition of Alabama lately. The CCA made headlines supporting former Judge Roy Moore and the “monument,” but ever since the state was handed a bill for half million dollars in court costs and such, the judges’ supporters have been laying low. The Coalition came out against “Bingo for Books and Beds and ’bout everything else” but that issue hasn’t rallied the troops or raised the contributions like the lottery or Amendment One. So while Christian Coalition lobbyists are still working the Legislature, they aren’t much in the news.The CCA needs a big target to shoot at. And I’m gonna give them one.
Waistlines. Alabama waistlines.
Let me explain.
This state has a problem with the high cost of health insurance. (How bad depends on who you ask, but everyone says it is bad.) And studies show that the state also has a problem with plump people — too many of ’em.
Well someone has suggested that state employees and teachers who are considered obese should have to pay more for health insurance than those who aren’t. (Now I’m not talking ’bout folks with glandular conditions. I’m talking about the “belly up to the buffet” crowd. We know who we are.)
Now the CCA should jump on that one like a chicken on a June bug.
First, if you believe all the Coalition said back during the Amendment One debate, next to bringing folks to Jesus, their main goal is reducing the size and cost of state government. Now they can do this by reducing the size of our citizens. (Me included. I can look in the mirror as well as point fingers.)
Now how are they going to do this?
Well, to begin with they need to come out full-favor, flags flying, in support of the state charging fluffy folks more for health insurance.
Then they should launch a campaign among their members to get them to set the example of clean living for those state employees who are being hit with higher premiums.
And the members they should target first are ministers.
“But wait,” I hear you saying, “aren’t ministers already examples of clean living?”
Well, mostly.
Except around the middle.
And it’s not just the ministers; it’s their flocks as well. As Autumn Marshall, a nutritionist at Churches of Christ Lipscomb University observed, “most evangelical Christians don’t drink, smoke, curse or commit adultery. So what do we do? We eat.”
And you know what eating does.
But let’s start with the ministers, since studies show that when you break down the population into religious groups, evangelical Christians come out the heaviest. (Southern Baptists top the list so those ministers should readily rally to the cause. Why in 2002 the top medical claims paid by that denomination’s employee health insurance program were for bad backs and high blood pressure — conditions associated with being overweight. So they could save their church some money as well.)
And how will the CCA and the ministers set this example?
By getting on board the Christian weight loss program that has been around for years and which Alabama evangelicals have generally ignored.
Way back in 1957, Charles W. Shedd published Pray Your Weight Away. Other titles by other authors soon followed: Help Lord – The Devil Wants Me Fat, More of Jesus, Less of Me, and my personal favorite Slim for Him. In 1972, a Christian diet program, “3D (diet, discipline, and discipleship)” got going, to be followed by “First Place” (which is used in more than 5,000 churches) and “Jesus is the Weight.” (ALFA, which you know wants to keep insurance costs down, and which has long been suspected of financing the CCA’s position on taxes, would surely contribute to getting this going.)
But start with the ministers. Not just because they are the leaders but because in most evangelical churches they are men — and men are the ones who don’t diet. Can you picture a deacon coming down to the altar and testifying as to how “the Lord has delivered me from Little Debbie cakes,” as a woman recently did at a seminar in a large Pentecostal church?
Nossir, the ministers have got to set the example, got to resist that second piece of fried chicken, got to tell mashed potatoes and gravy to get behind them, back there with Satan.
And with the Christian Coalition urging them on, and ALFA footing some of the bill, I bet the ministers can do it. And if the ministers do it, their congregations will surely follow — for following ministers has long been a central feature of Alabama evangelicalism. And because so many state employees and teachers are good church going folks, they will adopt that heathen lifestyle, shed the pounds, and health care costs will go down.
Why ALFA might even drop their rates … miracles do happen.
