Abdominal worry
Abdominal care refers to human behavior that puts concern about one's own physical needs in the foreground and thus lets concern about spiritual needs take a back seat.
The term is found for the first time in Luther's Great Catechism :
“We have no small reason to practice the catechism very much and to demand it as much as we ask. Unfortunately, as we can see, many preachers and pastors are very delinquent in this; they despise both their office and this doctrine, some because of their great, high learning, but some out of sheer laziness and belly worry. In this way they do not deal with the matter any differently, as if they were pastors or preachers for their belly's sake and as if, as long as they were alive, they had nothing more to do than consume their goods; so they were used to it under the papacy. "
With this term he reformulates the deadly sin of indolence or Akedia. In doing so, he leans on the biblical motive not to first concern himself with the fulfillment of bodily needs, but rather to put the relationship with God in the foreground (cf. Mt 6.25 EU ). The pastoral administration in particular should present itself as a counter-example to the care of the belly, which Luther is promoting with the writing of his Great Catechism.
The term can also be found similarly with the reformer Johannes Agricola . A poem with this title is assigned to the poet Hans Sachs : " A spiritual song against belly worries ".