Health and the Body with Dr. Bob Cutillo
Dr. Bob Cutillo, an amazing family physician, has practiced medicine for over 40 years. He trained at Columbia University in New York City, a very high-quality academic institution. But his story does not stop there.
It has always been Dr. Cutillo’s goal to give healthcare access to communities with the greatest needs and the least resources. He has served disenfranchised and underserved communities in Washington DC, Denver, Chicago, and Kinshasa.
Dr. Bob has a straightforward, holistic view of how we should view our bodies and our health. Not too long ago, he wrote a book called ‘Pursuing Health in an Anxious Age’ with the Gospel Coalition. In this first installment of our 2-part series with Dr. Bob, he and Jennie discuss the important connection between the body and the soul.
As believers, we don't often talk about how our diet and lifestyle affect our spiritual and emotional lives. Would you say that the Western Church views physical health as separate from spiritual or emotional health?
Dr. Cutillo: Yes, that's probably one of the ways that I think the church and Christian theology has misunderstood the body as they've marginalized it in many ways. The early church was facing Gnosticism, and we have a modern Gnosticism that's just as powerfully affecting our view of the body.
The Gnostic view saw the body as being an intolerably imperfect entity and a hindrance to our spiritual life. The old Gnosticism saw the body as unimportant to the spiritual life. So, it was something that one was separate from and considered unimportant.
The church spoke strongly against that dualism. People like Arrhenius and some of the other church fathers said we have to understand that Christ came in a body.
When Christ chose to come in a body, it forever changed our understanding of the body.
It revealed the body as something integral to who we are as human beings, as well as our efforts to separate the body from the soul.
We don't have to wait for Jesus to come in the body to tell us this. We have the creation story that tells us that God breathed into the body, and it became one. And so, the body and the soul are inseparable from the moment of creation.
When Christ came into the body, it told us a lot more about the body, in that Christ did not come into a perfect body. He chose to come into the same frail, finite, and fragile body that we possess. Knowing that Christ shared the frailty of our humanity with us automatically changes our view of the body.
Once we begin to understand that, then we begin to look at the limitations of the body differently. Modern culture views the body as merely a hindrance to our life and as imperfect by mechanical standards. The old Gnosticism said it was imperfect on spiritual standards. Modern Gnosticism seeks to fix the body and get rid of all imperfections. But it's a marginalized body.
Once we marginalize the body and separate it from the soul, then we either overemphasize or underemphasize its value.
So, we need to regain the integrity of the soul and the body as one, just as God created us. The limitations of the body and the state of our soul are inseparable.
You said can overemphasize the value of the body or underemphasize it. What would those two paths look like?
Dr. Cutillo: In the modern age, separating the body from the soul means you can manipulate it as you will. You can have it meet your needs because it is just a functional separation from you. In a sense, the body is something you possess, and it becomes too important. And so, we have to regain the body as a gift.
If the body is a gift, then the limitations on our bodies will not be the most important thing in the world, and we won’t feel compelled to overcome every one of them. This doesn’t mean we mistreat our bodies either.
Some people choose to abuse their body and not nurture it as a gift. They let it waste away, take whatever they can from it, and hope that medicine will repair the damage. They never see it as a gift.
What I was seeing more of as a physician was a medical culture that treated the body and its health as a possession.
By not seeing it as something that's given for us to nurture, appreciate, and accept in both its strengths and limitations, we have varied too far from the biblical view of the body.
It is really powerful and revolutionary for all of us to stop and think about the theology of the body and how important that is because we live in a visually perfectionistic and controlling culture. Let’s speak to the limiting forces of that.
Dr. Cutillo: The way we treat our bodies is partly dependent upon the state of our bodies and our life stages. When I was younger, I paid very little attention to my health. My body pretty much performed the way I wanted it, and I didn't have to pay too much attention to it.
It's when you experience a limitation of your body that you maybe recognize that you’ve neglected your body as an integral part of who you are. We need to be aware of what our body is going through to understand our spiritual life. And this is something that I tried to write into the book as carefully as I could.
The body we have is not randomly given.
It’s a body that God chose particularly for you to inhabit and live the life He wants you to live. The flourishing of your life is meant to fit within the body you have. And so, part of the way we discern our spiritual life is to be in touch with our bodies. If we don't listen to them, we will pay the price; we will get sicker. You shouldn’t wait until your body's falling apart to discern that.
You are meant to nurture this body as a gift. It's not meant to be something you control. You can take advantage of various sources of healthcare that are available in our society.
One must be careful to not let the forces of healthcare you submit your body to deviate from the biblical view that it's a gift.
Some limitations cannot be fixed. What is crucial for us to understand is that God often speaks to us through the limitations of our bodies. He speaks to us through the strengths that we have. But we fail to recognize it, especially in the American culture.
God speaks to us through our limitations to nurture the spiritual life that is meant to flourish. People fail to understand that God's purpose in our lives is to create dependency upon Him. The One True God will always disappoint our efforts at self-sufficiency and independence.
The whole purpose of our time on earth is to learn that we are dependent creatures on a heavenly Father who delights in us and wants us to flourish. But we're not going to learn that if we think we have control of our bodies.
Often, sickness is the very moment in which God is speaking loudest to us. And the Scriptures tell us that. I'm hoping that our preachers and teachers are telling us that, but the culture is rarely telling us that.
I’ve noticed that there is a tie we sometimes miss between anxiety and our physical health. Can you talk a bit about that and why you titled your book ‘Pursuing Health in an Anxious Age’?
Dr. Cutillo: Much of our anxiety comes from our inability to accept ourselves as dependent, contingent creatures who need help. I said we're pursuing health in an anxious age because it's an observation that is crucial for folks in more western societies to take a hold of. Much of my perspective was gained by seeing the world through the eyes of the disenfranchised.
I’ve noticed that the more people feel like they're in control of their lives, the more anxious they are about the things that they don't control.
And that often shows up as something in your body. We live in a culture where most people are not worried about their next meal, what they're going to wear, and whether they're going to have a home to stay in. But people are mostly praying about health issues.
Many of the people I worked with in the underserved populations were much more willing to deal with the contingencies of life. They were in a trust mode and were less anxious about the ups and downs of life. When I come back to mainstream culture in America, I see that people start to worry that the sky is going to fall in on them if the smallest thing happens.
Anxiety and worry are not good for your health. If there is a physical component to that, we have many ways to investigate it. And so, part of a health checkup that includes assessments for physical things that might be contributing to anxiety should be looked into because we can't separate our emotions from our bodies.
Our efforts to separate the body into parts have been a big mistake. You can do that, and medicine trains us to look at the parts of the body. But if you don't reintegrate them when you see the person, then you've made a mistake. I need to see you as a whole person. And when I do, I'm more likely to be able to help you as a physician.
Many people are so low right now. What would you say to them? What would you say is the right first step for someone who’s in a dark place?
Dr. Cutillo:
Let's be honest with the fact that loneliness is an epidemic in our culture.
And the sense that we, on our own, have to find a way to dig out of the hole is one of the biggest mistakes we can make. We were made to be in a community. Yet, we've become increasingly isolated, especially during the pandemic. As isolated individuals, it's much easier to fall prey to the negative thoughts that prey upon our souls.
We have an adversary of our souls. Satan is about to tell us how much we are not loved, how much we are unimportant, and how much we are all alone in the world. And when we're all by ourselves to wrestle with those thoughts, we're in big trouble.
The first thing we have to do is call out to God, admit our powerlessness over our ability to dig out of this hole, and then seek help because we cannot do this on our own.
Many of the people I’ve cared for as a physician were unwell because they were alone and felt like no one cared for them. There are words of refreshment and encouragement that we can all give to each other. And the longer we stay in isolation and surround ourselves with a social media world that isolates us even further and strengthens our negative thinking, the more trouble we are in.
So, breaking out of isolation is the first thing. We first do that by crying out to God. If we don't tell God, who loves us more than anyone, how lonely we are and how much we need help, we won’t be able to dig out of this hole on our own.
If you want to experience more of Dr. Bob Cutillo’s wisdom, you can find his book ‘Pursuing Health in an Anxious Age’ here.
