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The Seven Deadly Sins Don’t Become Six Just Because A “Chubby” Pastor Has A Slow Metabolism
Doug Wilson Wrote About Gluttony A While Back… Now Let’s See If His New “Garden Rock” Excuse For Obesity Holds Up
Sure, a slow metabolism could explain a body’s size. It cannot grant a preacher an exemption from self-control.
There’s no doubt that Doug Wilson can make any argument dance. Give him an awkward question, and he can dress it in a clever phrase, spin it around the room, and send it home wearing somebody else’s hat. The audience gets a laugh. Whether the audience gets an answer is entirely another matter.
That’s the problem with the “slow-metabolism” defense described in a recent YouTube video. Even if you grant Doug’s sloppy explanation completely (which I don’t), it doesn’t answer the moral question. How a body handles food and whether a man submits his appetites to God are different questions.
No preacher gets to merge them when convenient and separate them when cornered. Doug stands under the same commands as the farmer in the back pew, the woman making supper, and the fellow writing this article.
The Scale Cannot Convict and Metabolism Cannot Acquit
First, clear the brush away. Being “chubby” does not establish gluttony, and being thin does not always establish temperance. A picture cannot show us everything about someone’s health, circumstances, or conduct.
But the reverse mistake is just as foolish. Explaining someone’s weight does not establish that his relationship with food is rightly ordered. A man can have a genuine physical limitation and still face genuine moral temptations.
Suppose a farmer explains that one tractor burns fuel differently from another. Fair enough. That tells us something about the machinery… it doesn’t tell us whether the operator is wasting diesel, neglecting maintenance, or doing his work responsibly.
The metabolism explanation might belong in the discussion. But it doesn’t get to swallow the discussion.
When the Defendant Also Holds the Gavel
So slow down and think about this carefully for a moment. A friendly question-and-answer program can resemble a courtroom built behind the defendant’s barn. The questioner in an “Ask Doug” interview presents the gluttony issue; Doug Wilson, the featured personality, then interprets it, and the audience hears the ruling before anybody can ask a follow-up.
That’s a criticism of the staging format, not absolute proof that the interviewer was part of a softball-tossing setup. The questions were obviously scripted, though. Hard not to see that.
But a slow-pitch softball format is no substitute for scrutiny. If the question becomes merely whether critics can prove gluttony from a waistline, the host can defeat that weak accusation while leaving the stronger question untouched: what conduct would count as gluttony, and who may hold him accountable?
The man answering cannot become the final court simply because he owns the stage and the microphone. Proverbs 18:17 warns that the first account sounds convincing until another examines it. That principle applies to fatty defenses, too.
God Governs the Kitchen Too
Here, in my view, is a guiding truth: God’s authority reaches ordinary life. The dinner table is not a little independent republic where appetite writes the constitution.
Food is a gift. Feasting, hospitality, and enjoying a good supper belong comfortably within Christian life. But a gift becomes a rival master when we insist on satisfying it regardless of our duties to God and neighbor.
First Corinthians 6:12 supplies the governing principle: Paul refuses to be brought under the power of anything. Although the surrounding discussion moves into sexual morality, that refusal of mastery speaks directly to Christian self-government.
The question reaches beyond portions. Can I accept restraint? Can I receive correction? Am I using what God entrusted to me responsibly, or am I arranging excuses so my desire always gets the last word?
Doug Has Already Written the Stronger Answer
Interestingly, Wilson’s own published teaching gives us a better standard than a metabolism joke. In his 2006 essay on gluttony, he identifies both compulsive eating and finicky food obsession as possible expressions of the sin. He expressly allows that the problem need not involve large quantities.
That is a broader account than spectacular banquet excess. It recognizes that the moral issue can be a governing habit, including one that never produces a public blowout.
So the fairest challenge is straightforward: apply that published standard consistently. If compulsive conduct matters when explaining the doctrine, it must also matter when a teacher examines himself. A bodily explanation cannot make that examination unnecessary.
In an August 2026 answer to a reader, Wilson also affirms the seriousness of gluttony and sloth for pastoral ministry while rejecting accusation as proof. Both points deserve their due. Neither establishes that he is guilty, and neither supplies personal immunity.
The Seven Deadly Sins Have No “YouTube” Celebrity Exception
Pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth are the traditional seven deadly sins. Scripture does not present that familiar list as one numbered passage; the categories help name destructive patterns Scripture condemns.
The point isn’t that Wilson has been proved guilty of all seven. It is that he is answerable to God concerning all seven, just as everyone else is. Writing books about sin doesn’t place Doug above it.
Romans 2:21 puts the question directly to the teacher: do you teach yourself? And James 3:1 gives teachers reason for greater care, not a special exemption embedded in clever rhetoric.
The truth is, a pastor’s ability to expose somebody else’s rationalization should sharpen his attention to his own. Otherwise, the watchdog has only learned to bark at every gate except the one behind his house.
A Quiet Appetite Can Still Take Command
Proverbs 23:20–21 places gluttonous eating beside drunkenness and warns of ruin. That pairing concerns destructive indulgence, not the moral contamination of meat or wine.
A habit need not arrive with trumpets. Repeatedly letting appetite crowd out obligations can reveal a disorder that one holiday dinner never would. Conversely, one hearty meal cannot establish a ruling vice.
Even the severe case in Deuteronomy 21:18–21 describes persistent rebellion alongside gluttony and drunkenness.
This raises a question all churches should ask: why condemn some dependencies readily while treating destructive eating as harmless? The useful lesson is consistent accountability. Further, turning every struggle into an accusation of demonic activity would only replace one shortcut with another.
Stewardship Begins Before the Pantry Door
If you live out in the sticks, self-reliance often means governing resources before trouble arrives. A pantry, a fuel tank, and a bank account all tell stories about what a household values.
Our bodies belong within that stewardship, but appearance is an unreliable ledger of obedience. The more useful questions concern conduct: are we neglecting responsibilities, wasting provisions, or refusing reasonable correction to protect a pleasure?
The same test reaches entertainment, spending, and the hunger for applause and clicks. A man can talk about discipline while spending his evenings feeding the very appetite that is running his household into the ditch.
That is why Christian self-government matters. Freedom requires learning to say no to ourselves under God’s authority. A household that treats every private desire as a command eventually discovers how expensive its private little monarchy has become.
Accountability Requires Evidence and Real Answers
Nobody owes internet strangers a refrigerator inventory or private medical records. Church discipline also requires evidence and fairness; First Timothy 5:19–21 guards against unsupported accusations while rejecting partiality.
But a public teacher owes readers clarity about his public argument. Not gamesmanship. What is gluttony? Can it be habitual? What distinguishes an explanation from an excuse? Would the same reasoning satisfy him if somebody else offered it?
Or think about this. Maybe the snarky young critics of Doug’s waistline simply have a fast metabolism. Instead of Doug’s garden rock biology, maybe they’re hardwired like thin flat skipping stones. You know, like the ones around the bank of a fast-moving river. That gives them the right to say whatever they want, right? Of course not. Who would believe any such thing?
But what’s good for the big Christmas goose is also good for the gander, as they say. And, if that’s the softball league we’re playing in… all seven deadly sins can be dismissed just as easily as long as the defendant is clever.
The big questions here don’t require smoke and mirrors. They require plain answers and a standard that remains the same when the speaker changes seats.
There’s another possible pastoral escape hatch. Making any questioning of you sound like you’re being persecuted. Celebrity preachers do this all the time.
It’s true that Jesus was falsely accused of gluttony, but His innocence does not automatically transfer to every preacher who receives a similar accusation. Luke 7:34 exposes the malice of His critics… it doesn’t settle the conduct of Christian leadership.
Nor does rejecting legalism settle the matter. A man may correctly refuse an invented rule and still break a real command. Throwing away a crooked measuring stick does not make every board straight.
That’s where Wilson’s rhetorical gamesmanship becomes spiritually dangerous. Once every challenge is classified as ignorance, envy, or hostility, correction has no door through which to enter. An honest, humble teacher should be especially wary of arguments that always end with his own acquittal.
The test is whether truth can interrupt the performance. Can a fair objection change the answer, or does every road lead back to clicks, applause, or an escape hatch?
Grace Does Not Need a Clever Escape
The Christian answer to sinful appetite begins with Christ, not excuses. Galatians 5:22–23 presents self-control as the Spirit’s fruit. Repentance, prayer, practical restraint, and honest help belong together.
Listen, Doug doesn’t need to prove that his body resembles somebody else’s. He does need to recognize that no explanation for his body weight exempts him from obedience. And the truth is, no one would be discussing this if it weren’t for Doug’s know-it-all attitude. Asking a fat pastor if it’s okay to be fat is a bit over the top. Especially if that pastor is the king of justifying anything he says or does as all well and good.
A slow metabolism may be entirely real. So just eat less. Seems pretty simple.
The jurisdiction of God is real, too. No clever punch line cancels it.
Bottom Line: The preacher gets the same Bible as the people in the pews. He does not get an escape hatch in the binding.
