I have already said that the position I am arguing for here is not food egalitarianism, or worse, food relativism. There is no neutrality anywhere, including in the kitchen and dining room, and this means that in principle we can say that “this food” is better than “that food.” But when we do, we are making an aesthetic and practical judgment grounded in a biblical worldview. We are making a judgment that has moral implications (as everything does) — but we are not making a moral judgment on individual behavior.
A moral judgment proper says that if you commit adultery, you have sinned. If you steal something from the local drugstore, you have sinned. An aesthetic judgment with moral implications is a very different thing. A practical judgment with moral implications is a very different thing.
But the legalistic mind is a simplistic mind and doesn’t want to grapple with any of this stuff. In that mindset, if something has negative moral implications then we must have the authority to make a moral judgment on anyone participating in that thing at any level. But the Bible doesn’t address broad moral situations in this fashion at all.
The biblical commandments tell us what the sins are. The biblical worldview tells us what the moral ramifications are. But we are not allowed to generate new commandments from those ramifications, even as we labor and pray for those ramifications.
Eating meat offered to idols provides one example. Christians remaining in the Roman army would be another. Christians serving as tax collectors for a pagan system would be another. Daniel serving as the chancellor of the University of Babylon is another. Scripture is full of believers participating in sub-par systems — as weighed in the balances of a biblical worldview — and it does not follow from this that such participation is sinful. Since we are allowed to look to these instances as exemplars, the opposite follows. To participate enthusiastically in the midst of a sinful set-up (like the world) is not the same thing as sinning. To make such an illegitimate jump is to create the basis for suffocating legalisms.
In principle, all Christians would be immediately paralyzed, were they consistent, because virtually every transaction in this sinful world has the ramification, at some level, of keeping some unbeliever or unbelieving system going. To buy gas at a convenience store that sells porn keeps the porn industry going. To buy groceries from a grocery store owned by Mormons keeps their false doctrine going. To ride in a car built by non-Christians to go to the gas station or grocery store is to add a second layer to your perfidious conduct. And there are about a thousand layers to go. This is just like the house that Jack built.
Now in the past, I have inveighed (on aesthetic grounds, with moral implications) against Thomas Kinkade paintings, wearing gym shorts and flip flops to church, three chord treacle songs, church architecture that looks like an attempt to be a mid-range mall, and the aesthetic howlers associated with every form of faux-authenticity (factory-torn jeans, paint spatters extra). Why wouldn’t I be willing to do the same kind of thing with food? Oh, but I am. It is exactly the same kind of deal.
I believe that we as Christians are called to cultivate cultural maturity over time, and that in every generation there will be people in the vanguard trying to show the way. They will be headed in the right direction, and they will know that none of us have arrived or attained, and that we will be centuries getting there. But they are confident, joyful, and glad nonetheless. At the same time, there will be others claiming to know the way, and they will have strict and detailed instructions for the rest of us proles. They are fussers and cranks, whose chief delight in life is having something or someone to look down on. The realm of food is a prime breeding ground for this second kind of person, although they often pretend, as necessary, to be the first kind of person.
So, if we are engaged in trying to raise the standard when it comes to what and how we eat, how do we proceed? What do we need to remember?
First, everything is grounded in the nature and character of God. We are Trinitarians, which means that we must not look for our eating habits to be any kind of monochrome affair. How will the new human race that is being established in the world display the infinite and astonishing character of this God? Will it all end with everybody eating the same tasteless oatmeal-like paste for every meal, no sugar, no cream? No . . . wrong God. Aesthetic judgments that are grounded in the character of God are tricky if we have a false picture of this God. If we think that creation is a pyramid and God is the mathematical apex, then there is room for only one beautiful thing there, if that. This is a false move that gets us, at best a functional unitarianism, and at worst, mathematical point atheism. But Flannery O’ Connor notwithstanding (with her everything that rises must converge stuff), when we get to the top, we find that it is infinite there. Further up and further in. The peak is bigger than the base of the mountain.
What this means is our attempts to reduce aesthetic judgments to the level of a footrace are misguided in the extreme. When we judge a footrace, what we need is a stopwatch. When we judge a painting, a dance, or a superb five-star meal, far more is going on. Some defend objective beauty (as they ought to), but they approach aesthetics simplistically, with a stopwatch. Others see how difficult it is, needing to involve much more than a stopwatch, and conclude that it must be impossible, and veer into an incoherent relativism.
Second, our pattern in this world is the life of the Church. We should worship every Lord’s Day, with joy and exuberance, confessing our sins, hearing the Word, and sitting down every week in the heavenly places for a simple meal of bread and wine. We are to do so free from all guilt and shame, accepted by the Father. This is the bedrock upon which we are to build everything in our week, which means that we should be growing to the point where we take all our meals free of guilt and shame, and where saying grace with gratitude over everything we ingest is not an empty ritual. We are really thankful for it. We are on a pilgrimage, which means that we are not there yet. We must be content with not being there yet. We are helped on the way by the Lord’s Spirit because we are not there yet. Insistence that we “attain” right now, in any area, is simply an ungodly impatience. But discontent and impatience set us back. If we pursue something because we really like it, we are growing in our understanding in the way we ought to, without fussing, and without guilt.
Twenty years ago, Nancy and I did not know nearly as much about wines as we do know. Were we in sin back then? What kind of question is that? We live in the Pacific Northwest, which has pioneered the ideal of the coffee aesthetic. Was that a good development? Sure, so long as it is driven by learning and appreciation and gladness, and not by snobbery. We should pursue the ideal of good cooking and good food the same way — free from guilt, free from snobbery, free from lies about cooties in the food.
Third, recognize that in this fallen world we are striving to mature in a number of different areas at the same time. This means a series of trade-offs. For a harried mother striving to be “reformational” in her approach to her domestic challenges, she might find herself (multiple times a day) having to choose between this and that, both options insisting that they represent a higher and better way. She can cook the kids a real meal, hot and nutrious, ready at six, or she can get the laundry done and have their sheets changed, clean and fresh, ready by bedtime. But not both. They can have the reformational meal, and deal with the sheets for one more night, or they can enjoy clean sheets after a dinner of pancakes. In this life, perfectionism is paralyzing. Strive for excellence while taking it easy.
Fourth, recognize that striving to improve in this way cannot be separated from the economic realities. Money is one of the factors in the trade-offs. If you choose to buy the best produce, for example, you are going to pay more for it. If you are paying top dollar for such things, then don’t pretend you are doing something else. Recognize that you are comparatively rich, and that you are using your disposable income on luxuries. One of saddest features (or funniest, depending) of contemporary food snobbery is the notion that rich people are getting in touch with the rythyms of the earth when they shop at the Whole Foods market. Paying three times as much for a really good apple is a fine thing to do, so long as you know that you are doing it. But if you think that you are a humble creature of the soil because you are whooping it up on luxuries is one of the oddest things that I have ever seen in my life. I understand, to return to an earlier example, why people would come to the point where they would be willing to drop five bucks on a cup of coffee. Okay, I think. It’s a free country and you obviously have a lot of money. And if you don’t have a lot of money, or you haven’t bought into the aesthetic coffee imperative, I understand staying with the older drop coffee. Great. Still a free country. But what I don’t get is the idea of someone spending five dollars on a cup of coffee as a way of expressing solidarity with peasants the world over. Look, you’re rich. Come to terms with it.
Fifth, striving for cultural maturation includes the recognition that context matters. When we use the expression “good clothes” we know that a wedding tuxedo fits in that category, and coveralls for changing the oil in the car do not. But this general tag should not mislead. The tuxedo is an inferior clothing choice if what you are doing is changing the oil in the car. Depending on context, the superior item is often the inferior choice. To use another illustration I have used before, a cathedral is a superior architectural specimen to a typical suburban house. But a suburban house is far superior if the task at land is frying up some bacon, or watching Monday Night Football.
Food choices function the same way. The very best food possible is not the very best choice for every occasion. Distinguish between steak dinners for your anniversary, and Cheerios in the morning.
There is much more to say on all this, which I hope to say later, but I see that I am out of time. Like I said, life is a series of trade-offs.