Adoniram Judson, D.D. "The Burman Apostle"

 A message of missionary work had sunk "down into [Judson's] heart, as lead goes down into the ocean... and led him to abandon home, country, and all the joys of civilized life, for chains, and dungeons and torture." Adoniram Judson was on his way to Rangoon, Burma  (Yangon, Myanmar) to preach the Gospel of Christ to a 'heathen' nation. He left as a Congregational theologian and arrived to Calcutta as a Baptist convert because he tried to use scripture to prove the baptists wrong and when he realized his belief was mistaken he had the humility to change even though rejecting his own organization meant the loss of funding and support for his 40 year long mission. He is a hero to me.

'The Departure' of Rev. Adoniram Judson, D.D.  (found in BYU Library 'Judson Offering' 1847)

200 years later I was leaving Thailand and the Thai language behind as one of the first twenty missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to serve in Myanmar and I thought few could understand my position. I felt like I was starting from scratch until I began to learn of the man who was the reason behind the Burmese Bible which I now held. 

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Dieting has become a common practice in our society.

During the 20th century, with the rise of the entertainment industry, namely movies and television, physical image began to become a huge fixation for our society. Magazines showing off models and actors and actresses at every checkout stand showed the public the "perfect" figure. We have been told what we should aspire to look like and it has become ingrained in us. To achieve this, many people began to create extreme eating plans or diets which would help people to lose weight and create their own "perfect" body. The problem with this is many were created not by scientists who understand how the body works, but by people trying to make money. Diets plans have made people extremely rich over the years. The consumers of these diets buy into it hoping they get the same results they see on the commercials where people have lost incredible amounts of weight. Often times these diets have very negative side affects to them if people are not careful.

Two themes from the reformation that apply to this fad are sola fide and sola scriptura. Sola fide refers to the ideology that faith is all that is required to achieve salvation. Sola Scriptura refers to the ideology that the scriptures contain the keys to salvation. In the reformation these were competing ideologies. In this situation they still compete. I would apply the idea of sola fide to the followers of fad dieting. They believe the diet works and trust that if they keep at it they will achieve the results they want. If they believe in it, it will work. I would apply sola scriptura to scientists who understand how the body works and how these diets can affect it. They believe in the "book" or science which gives us an understanding of how diets can harm, or help the body. Those who are in the sola fide camp so often don't research and look into the science behind the diets and don't understand possible dangers lurking behind the hope of weight loss.

Many diets do work and can help us become healthier, but the obsession of looking perfect and losing weight can lead people to blindly follow diets and ignore potential dangers.