Celebrating the Body Lessons Learned from my 2007 Trip to the Arnold Classic: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly by Trevor Howell |
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Celebrating the Body Lessons Learned from my 2007 Trip to the Arnold Classic: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Never before having the time or money to go anywhere for vacation, I had the opportunity this year of traveling to Columbus, Ohio and attending the 2007 Arnold Classic. It was an enlightening experience. First, I have never been a vacationer. I just can not relax. Too many years in the Marines have made it impossible for me to go anywhere without having some specific service to do for God once I get there. Enter Bobby and Val Barker from Midwest Christian Bodybuilding, whom I have had the privilege of entering into friendship with since the conclusion of my active duty. Upon hearing that Bobby would be attending this year’s Arnold in an attempt to plant good seeds for the furthering of God’s kingdom, that was all the confirmation I needed to attend a professional bodybuilding event—a sport that carries an insane amount of discipline which I have always found intensely admirable and interesting. So I ventured to join him in this righteous endeavor. The Good: Upon Bobby’s advice, I spent the first day just wandering around and “taking it all in,” as he suggested. The exhibit hall was packed with literally hundreds of booths for which I was thoroughly amazed; both positively and negatively. First the positives. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that despite the bad rap the sport of bodybuilding in particular and the fitness industry in general sometimes receives in the media or from general public perception, there are a few in the industry who have not fallen to the idolatries of self-worship and vanity so prominent and stereotypical of this craft. On the contrary, there are a few who recognize their strength and beauty to be good gifts, and who likewise see the goodness of caring well for the body; even if such people are not explicitly Christian (which few were). For these people, I am eternally grateful and did my best to plant good seeds of encouragement and praise for their fortitude in not falling to the many snares of the evil one so rampant in their tenuous craft. I saw a young man, Mike, who was a natural bodybuilder and had arms bigger than most men’s legs. Though I remained unimpressed with his tattoos (which he apparently did not recognize as sinful), I was glad to observe he carried with him the gentle soul, uncompromising intellect, and deeply believing spirit of a submissive, obedient Christian. He is an inspiration for all men, even though his lack of willingness to corrupt his body with performance enhancing drugs will likely prevent him from ever reaching the uppermost pinnacle of his sport professionally. Yet what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, but lose his soul? (Matthew 16:26, Mark 8:36) It is right and good for this young man to serve and glorify the Lord—and no other—with his good gift of strength. Equally, I was heartened to find a beautiful young lady, Tanji Johnson, who likewise refused to corrupt her body with performance enhancing drugs, hurtful and harmful breast implants, or by engaging in the violence of pornography; thereby prostituting her body and her “self” with nude photos in order to finance her craft. I watched her compete and if the Arnold would have been a beauty contest based on good health, muscularity, artistic athleticism and rightly proportioned feminine aesthetics rather than one of exhibitionism, she surely would have won. But her wholesome complexion coupled with the pharmaceutically untainted purity of her surpassing beauty simply did not present the drawn, stringy, chemically-purchased, rippled roadmaps that the judges now want to see equally displayed in women just as it is seen in their freakish male counterparts. Yet like her Christian male counterpart, this beautiful young woman’s victory, and her eternal legacy, lies in her willingness to give her good gift back to the Lord and to Him only. How her husband will praise her and honor such fidelity when God rewards her with someone to love her and share this life with. A more important truth can be affirmed of both of these servants for their shared fidelity when they receive the gift of eternal life in heaven. God Himself honors those who honor Him, and Him alone, with their bodies. The Bible says He will surround himself with such people, “For the Lord is great, and greatly to be praised: He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the Lord made the heavens. Honour and majesty are before him: strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. Give unto the Lord, O ye kindreds of the people, give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name: bring an offering and come into his courts. O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: fear before him all the earth.” (Psalm 96:4-9) The true, Godly gifts of strength and beauty graciously rendered to these two young athletes—who are rightly offering their good gifts back to God by serving Him alone with their treasures—such fidelity will be rewarded greatly in heaven as each will receive a place of honor in God’s own sanctuary; that they may continue to glorify God for all eternity, surrounding Him with the adornments of their strength and beauty. What a wonderful place to be in the kingdom of heaven! Praise God for these two devoutly committed young athletes! I encourage every Christian reading this article to pray your blessings over these two wonderful people. Pray for their encouragement, their financial security and most of all for the protection of their bodies—as their craft is wrought with drug abuse, pornography, plastic surgeries (and other evils that permanently mark the body), political corruption and all manner of homosexual and heterosexual immorality. Only God and our continued prayers can keep these two faithful servants pure and undefiled in their craft. Even if we ourselves do not share in these same good gifts of strength and beauty, we must not be envious of what God has given these athletes by His grace. On the contrary, we must never fail to pray for those with whom God wishes to surround himself in His kingdom. This is our part in their salvation as they rightly seek to honor and glorify God in ways that perhaps we can not. The Bad: Now for the negatives of my trip to the Arnold; most of which I have already alluded to. For a show which markets itself as promoting all manner of “healthy living,” it is a shamefully unfortunate, yet equally undeniable truth that I encountered more evil there than good. Foremost, and most obvious to a fallen sinner like me, was the abundance of flesh I found impossible to avoid. At the risk of sounding offensive, I have never seen so many boob jobs—and all proudly on display—in one central location in all of my life. From the perspective of a still vibrant but very lonely single man in his early 30’s, it is difficult to be excessively angry at such beautifully tempting and seductive eroticism; especially when every day, I yearn all the more for someone special with whom to share my own life; both its tragedies and its triumphs. Most people fear death more than anything else. Yet there are far more fearful and agonizing things one might be called to endure in this mortal life; among them, the loss of a loved one—especially a spouse or fiancé. And after that, the intense and pervading loneliness that necessarily follows as one loses a part of his soul and his “self” in trying—and often failing—to let her go. Even years later, I sometimes wake screaming and cry uncontrollably in the thick blackness of night as my heart continues to reach out and grasp in hurtful futility for the only one I was ever allowed to love in this life. My time with her was the most precious and joyful time in my life; a wonderful gift viciously ripped from my spirit by the evil one who still attacks me without mercy in the vacant abyss of loneliness now pervading the deep places in my soul—places where the preternatural, angelic beauty and graceful radiance of her physical presence once exuded the fullness of life and joy in my heart. It is this last, most oppressive, evil of loneliness that I became most embattled with at the Arnold. Simply put, there is no more intense pain in this mortal life than the soul-sapping, spiritual torture of loneliness. I wake in agony to it every day and immediately plead the blood of Christ, so that God would pour his grace and mercy into my hurt and protect me from falling again into my own repented sins of the flesh—as I openly confess to multiple past experiences where I have wrongly sought solace in illicit sexual encounters outside of marriage in a misguided attempt to ease the terrible pain of this lonely brokenness in my life. Even more, I plead the blood of Christ so that I do not fall into the despair and hopelessness that accompanies such profound loneliness. That said, just as it deeply pains me to write down the difficult truths of this article, it was also exceedingly difficult and painful for me to pull back from the kind of willfully playful and titillating attention I received from stunningly beautiful women in every direction at the Arnold. Yet after some time of separation from the event, conscience and the need for spiritual and emotional catharsis insists that I lay aside the deep desires of my own heart and the incredible pangs of my own loneliness in order to recognize the much deeper pain of these young women; women who are so terribly unaffirmed and so desperately seeking that affirmation by wrongly surrendering their bodies and their very “selves” in exploitation to predatory men—and women—who, in return, are wrongly seeking to possess these young beauties in an unhealthy way. Not to mention the fact that in exhibiting themselves, these beautiful young ladies are (perhaps unwittingly) causing others to sin by revealing their bodies to such a sensuous degree that even the most viciously ascetic and chaste believer is in very real danger of falling into the destructive sin of lust. Therein lies the real danger in this industry; for outside of marriage, lust takes on a most sinister and perverted form of seduction and evil. It can not be denied that within the bounds of Godly marriage, lust is not necessarily sinful; though it should always be monitored through honest, open dialogue between husband and wife. Yet with such revealing honesty into the deepest, most guarded and privately intimate desires of each person’s heart, shame is removed so that lust (the Greek word is epithumia) may be tempered in such a way that it even enhances the physical relationship between marital lovers; as the Godly mystery of each person becomes further revealed to the other. The result of this kind of naked vulnerability is that each participant in the most holy act of love-making receives blessing by achieving greater trust, deeper intimacy, and greater connectedness with both their spouse and God. Yet when caused to manifest outside of those holy boundaries, lust becomes the inordinate and sinful desire of covetousness, which is nothing other than hate disguised as love. It can not build up. Though it promises to be love itself, just as it is cleverly disguised to be, it is an unquenchable fire; one that can only tear down and destroy. Unfortunately, the destruction to self and relationships with God and others is only realized after the forbidden fruits of lust have first been tasted, and the false promise revealed again and again to be a fleeting lie; something which is not only empty and unsatisfying, but is also a falsehood that can never become anything Godly or loving outside the bounds of Christian marriage. On the contrary, these inordinate affections can only lead to pornography, adultery, envious fornication—and worse—to the ever deepening hopelessness and despair of greater loneliness, sexual addiction and self-hatred. The Ugly: Feeding the insatiable hunger of lust in the fitness and bodybuilding world is the rampant use of performance enhancing drugs (both legal and illegal) the results of which do succeed in producing the superhuman physiques required to win in our modern society; a decadent, sexually-charged society that ever demands more from our athletes in order to satisfy our own ill-formed appetites for the flesh. Yet whether we are talking about steroids, diuretics or human growth hormone, etc., the negative effects of these drugs produce not only a litany of health problems but also serve to exceedingly corrupt the already heightened and accelerated sexual desires of the spirited athletes who use them. I was blessed to meet a former professional bodybuilder who had made it all the way to the top of his sport before exiting, coming to know the Lord, and repenting of his sins. He enlightened me to the darker (hidden) side of the professional sports world in general and to bodybuilding in particular. It is a world wrought with political corruption where all manner of sexual sin—including heterosexual and homosexual favors for both male and female competitors—are exchanged for drugs among doctors, judges and other competitors in order to construct and administer the right chemical formula necessary to set the placement of the industry’s top competitors. It is, of course, contingent upon the willingness of these athletes to pay the high price demanded of their flesh; a harsh reality that many do not realize until they are already drawn too deep into the industry and “hooked” on the various toxins necessary to win at the top and finance their craft. While I might agree that the physiques on display at the Arnold were awesome to behold, I also acknowledge the high and sinful price that is laid down in order to manufacture these idols. Yes there is a lot of hard work, strict dieting, training and discipline still inherent to the craft. But make no mistake, the kind of physiques one sees at the top of this profession are bought and paid for with very powerful chemicals. The price paid, is one of human flesh as unscrupulous doctors and judges—themselves consumed with lust and hungry for flesh—drive the industry by exchanging drugs and sex for adequate placement at the top. Such willful enticements into the violence and slaveries of drug addiction, pornography, prostitution and human trafficking are repugnant to the Christian mind. I come against these evils in the name of Jesus and I implore every Christian reading this article to do the same. Many of these athletes purport to be Christians—and I honestly believe that some of them really may have a relationship with Christ—yet still I assert that there is simply no union between good and evil. (Isaiah 5:20-21) At some point, each of these athletes will have to choose between their craft as it is, and Jesus; and the penalty for failing to choose Christ over the sinful lifestyle required to succeed in this profession, is eternal damnation. (1Corinthians 6:9-12) It really is that simple. Too often in modern Christianity the tendency among good-hearted Christians is to first overemphasize God’s love and mercy as they are expressed in the gospel through His son Jesus Christ, while wrongly glossing over God’s just judgment, in fear of causing offense. Wanting to spare the person we are witnessing to the pain of actually confessing and repenting of his sins, or perhaps wanting to hold on to our own sins, we tend to view the gospel through rose colored glasses—only accepting the positives while passing over the negatives in willful ignorance. We must be careful not to fall into this trap while addressing the needs of this particular community so steeped in darkness. The harsh reality of scripture is that God’s mercy and love are not mutually exclusive from God’s just judgment. On the contrary, these divine attributes of God exist coextensively, as evidenced by the words of Jesus himself, who refers to Hell and the consequences of unrepentant sin far more often than he refers to Heaven (33 times). With this coextensive relationship in mind, the scripture is clear that we are all going to be held accountable and judged for our mortal lives. Understanding this harsh truth, we must also understand that no matter what anyone in modern “happy meal” Christianity is trying to sell, those who refuse to rightly confess and repent of their sins will not be saved. On the contrary they will be punished—without mercy—in the fires of Hell, ever dwelling in eternal separation, suffering and darkness; forever damned from God and His love. It is incumbent upon Christians to reach these athletes before it is too late. It is also incumbent upon Christians to pray for—and actively seek—the reformation of this industry; a potentially righteous industry with much reason to glorify God. Satan will work hard against us by attacking human minds and seeking to possess the souls of men by speaking his venomous poison into their hearts, to later be uttered from lying lips. As an example of this supernatural phenomenon, there are a number of twisted rhetorical arguments being offered to justify the current state of corruption in this industry. Foremost among the poisonous lines of reasoning in defense of the status quo, it is often levied that even with the widespread acceptance of performance enhancing drugs; the International Federation of Body Building (IFBB) still presents a level playing field to the athletes. Poor reasoning put forth for the acceptance of this position is that the current top athletes in the IFBB still have great genetics and would still be the top athletes even without the drugs. They just would not be as big. This argument is dubious in that it presents a false moral dilemma. It is not sound reasoning to justify the acceptance of drugs in the IFBB on two counts. First, there simply is no justification for the corruption of the body. Unlike the ancient Greek culture, Christianity was revolutionary to history because it acknowledged the body was actually created to be good, and was therefore not inherently evil. On the contrary, as the dwelling place of Christ, Christians are commanded to always honor the body and never to defile Christ’s holy temple. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) Second, laying Christianity aside, there are a good number of equally genetically gifted athletes—both Christian and secular—who have enough respect and reverence for their bodies not to defile them with performance enhancing drugs and who are therefore not competing professionally due to the current state of corruption in the industry. That said, while I agree that the top performing athletes now competing in the IFBB might remain among the top, they would still have a lot more competition to contend with. Therefore the argument suggesting the widespread acceptance of performance enhancing drugs in this industry still presents a level playing field, is erroneous. This false line of reasoning succeeds in presenting a level playing field for only the most morally corrupt athletes to compete against other morally corrupt athletes while those athletes (Christian or otherwise) who really are living healthy lifestyles and therefore truly deserve to compete, are wrongly relegated to the periphery for their right sense of moral uncompromise. It is clear that if we accept the poisonous rhetoric of a twisted athletic ethic, we succeed only in rewarding evil, while punishing good. Further, the logically and epistemologically shaky reasoning offered in support of retaining the current morally corrupt system promulgates a number of additional false lines of reasoning. Namely, that cheating is sometimes morally acceptable; if the public demands it. That the ends justify the means; if the athletes are willing. That corrupting the body can sometimes be morally justified; if the prize money and return from magazine sales presents enough potential capital to continue exploiting those athletes who are willing for as long as their health and magazine sales hold out. Finally and most abhorrent, that evil is stronger than the good. All of these are lies! Hope—God Grants the Righteous Power and Authority over Evil: The Christian Call to War Yet there is hope. While vastly outnumbered at the Arnold, I found myself not to be outgunned. On the second day of the exhibition, I linked up with Bobby Barker from Midwest Christian Bodybuilding and his friend Jimmy Choteau from the Extreme Team. We spent the day witnessing to people. Actually, I am pretty shy and introverted in person so they did most of the witnessing and I was just there mostly to watch and learn; and perhaps lend moral support. I was refreshed in my spirit to see several encounters that proved fruitful even in the midst of the Arnold. I would encourage more Christians to attend next year’s show. Contrary to what the media might be feeding us today, the fact is that evil is not stronger than good. If we like the sport of bodybuilding and fitness, and if we are to rightly love these wonderful athletes for who they are, then it is right and good for Christians to make war on this particular battlefield. As a final note, while at the Arnold I was blessed to meet Joe Meeko and Annibel Lopez in person. It is good to have their kind of strong advocacy and witness from within the bodybuilding community. I am hopeful to return next year; yet I am more hopeful for many additional Christians to join in the battle. Satan would like for us to believe this is a community which has fallen so deeply into illicit drug use and sexual immorality, it is beyond hope. This is yet another lie straight out of Hell. Aside from blaspheming the Holy Spirit, there is no unforgivable sin. Likewise, there is no sin larger than God. Not drugs, not heterosexual or homosexual sin. Nothing. Christ’s perfect sacrifice was sufficient to cover all sins from every person—past, present and future. It is complete. Likewise, all are called to confession and repentance; as the free gift of salvation extends to every sinner. I am hopeful this article serves as an accurate portrayal of the current condition in the bodybuilding and fitness industry. I am also hopeful it will be convincing towards drawing more Christians into ministry in this hurting community so desperately in need. But in doing that, it is not enough to convict these people in their conscience of their sins. We must also tell them how much God loves them—especially after they become willing to confess and repent. We must help to build them up after Satan has invested so much in tearing them down. We must offer them a Godly alternative to their sins. Toward offering that sanctification and healing, there are many scripturally focused, non-denominational pastoral care programs available in the modern ecumenical Church which offer (strictly confidential) counseling in a private, safe forum for those struggling with drug addictions, pornography and all manner of sexual addiction and relational brokenness—to include the many variants of heterosexual and homosexual sin. Among them, are the various Living Waters programs developed and offered by Andrew Comisky at www.desertstream.org or the celebrate recovery programs from Warren Hardy at www.celebraterecovery.com or finally, Leanne Payne at www.leannepayne.org offers an number of programs from Pastoral Care Ministries. God is love and love manifests itself in an infinite number of ways so I am sure there must be a litany of additional resources available for healing that more Christians serving in this community could surely bring into God’s service in this precious but hurting community of athletes; as they rightly seek to exercise and magnify their good gifts of strength and beauty. It is my hope that more Christians serving in this community will help these precious people to direct the fullness of their good gifts back to the Lord for His glory; while simultaneously helping to keep them from falling into the many forms of self-destruction I witnessed. Despite the very real evils I encountered on my trip to the 2007 Arnold Classic, I was glad to serve God in this community. I hope to continue and I hope you will too. God bless. Trevor Howell |
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