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Keith Akers<\/a>\u00a0is a vegetarian writer. First let\u2019s briefly examine the background of some of Mr. Akers\u2019 religious beliefs. He is drawn to several ideas of the Unity School of Christianity (which is not a Christian group, according to traditional notions of orthodox Christianity held by all the major Christian groups: Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox). Here are some of his thoughts about this group, in his paper,\u00a0\u201cUnity and Early Christianity\u201d:<\/a><\/p>\n Unity School of Christianity, a New Thought denomination initiated by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore around the beginning of the twentieth century, is important because it recovers three critical pieces of early Christianity, as reflected in Jewish Christian Ebionism . . . These elements are (1) vegetarianism, (2) the \u201cChristhood of the believer,\u201d (3) the priority of divine experience over written documents.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n About the second aspect, he writes:<\/p>\n For Unity, it is the indwelling of the spirit of God that gives authority, and this indwelling is available to all. It is not something reserved for the unique, holy Son of God; it is for all believers. This same point of view can be found in early Christianity, among the Ebionites.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n . . . There is an important corollary to this idea, which is the rejection of original sin. Unity, and indeed all New Thought churches, reject the idea of original sin \u2014 that we are somehow inherently sinful at birth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n . . . Borrowing from Luther\u2019s terminology, I refer to the divine indwelling of Christ as \u201cthe Christhood of the believer\u201d \u2014 everyone is his or her own Christ, reflecting Jesus\u2019 own words, \u201cthe kingdom of God is within you.\u201d The first Christians did not think that we needed to go through Jesus in order to get to God. After Jesus had left the earth, in the upper room at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came directly to all the believers. To the early Christians, the answer to the question of whether the Christ has come, or even whether or not Jesus is the Christ, is superfluous: the believer is the Christ.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is not orthodox Christianity. It is not Christianity at all<\/em>, and I am duty-bound to point this out (nothing personal against Mr. Akers). He himself recognizes this in his final paragraph:<\/p>\n We certainly shouldn\u2019t jump to the conclusion that Unity and Ebionism are completely in harmony. There are stylistic and other differences between Ebionite Christianity and Unity . . . Nevertheless, we have here an example of two movements \u2014 one ancient, another modern \u2014 which both grasped key elements of Jesus\u2019 teachings which are conspicuously missing from most of modern Christianity.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n With this general approach to religion in mind, let us move on to interaction with Mr. Akers\u2019 thoughts on Jesus and vegetarianism. First, I will respond to various portions of his article,\u00a0\u201cChristian \/ Vegetarian Dialogue\u201d<\/a>. His words will be in blue<\/span>.<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n [M]ost vegetarians, when confronted with the idea that Jesus at meat, will say something like this: \u201cJesus ate meat? Your Lord and Savior, who is God incarnate, ate meat? Why should we pay any further attention to this unethical religion?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This illustrates the \u201cnon-negotiable\u201d status of vegetarianism as an ethical absolute in that position (at least what might be construed as the \u201cpurist\u201d position).<\/p>\n The heart of the vegetarian movement is the claim that it is wrong to eat animals killed for food. Once you stipulate that Jesus ate meat, further discussion between Christians and vegetarians on ethical issues is not impossible, but progress will be limited.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I agree with the second sentence.<\/p>\n What kind of basis do we have for ethical vegetarianism, if we stipulate in advance that Jesus ate meat? The answer I would give is simple: in\u00a0practical\u00a0terms, there is none; to condemn meat-eating is to condemn a meat-eating Jesus.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Consistency would seem to demand this, yes. And such a position obviously is a virtually impossible one for Christians to take: Jesus being sinless and the incarnate God.<\/p>\n There are ways you can consistently maintain both ethical vegetarianism and follow a meat-eating Jesus, but they are quite awkward and would have limited appeal. So let us examine, from various sources, possible arguments in favor of vegetarianism in spite of a meat-eating Jesus.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 1. Different periods of history require different ethics . . .\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n . . . \u201cSomehow, it was all right for Jesus to eat meat, but it\u2019s not all right for us; somehow, we are ethically obligated to uphold a higher standard than Jesus did.\u201d Who can fail to see that this is inconsistent?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mr. Akers is thinking consistently, according to his own premises.<\/p>\n 2. Killing animals is sometimes necessary . . .\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n [Mr. Akers makes some small concessions, then concludes]:<\/p>\n The question is not whether we can be perfect and avoid killing every tiny bug and insect; the question is whether not eating animals for food is a both desirable and a reasonable behavior to expect from us or from the Prince of Peace in a time when we do not have to eat animals for food.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So Jesus sinned once again . . .<\/p>\n 3. The \u201cFactory Farming\u201d Gambit: Jesus may have eaten meat in the first century, but with the manifest cruelty involved in the modern factory farming system, it is wrong to eat meat today and Jesus would not eat meat today.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n . . . But will it convince anyone to become vegetarian who thinks that Jesus ate meat? This appears to be a rationalization adopted by conservative Christian vegetarians after the fact, rather than a serious attempt at talking with Christians about factory farming. It makes Jesus a rather inconsistent moralist; meat-eating is all right, as long as it doesn\u2019t cause too much suffering. This argument would legitimate\u00a0most\u00a0<\/b>meat-eating throughout history.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n . . . This position of course is possible, and it is certainly more enlightened than that of most meat-eaters, but it is not an ethical vegetarian view. It is a \u201creformist\u201d point of view that vegetarians and animal rights advocates often ridicule . . . it\u2019s hard to see how anyone who believes, and feels, that meat-eating is wrong is going to be persuaded to follow such an indecisive Jesus.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n All of the above analysis, presupposes, of course, that meat-eating is absolutely wrong in the first place. But Christians (or anyone else) will want to know how one\u00a0arrives<\/i>\u00a0at such a position; on what ethical and epistemological grounds?<\/p>\n 4. For world hunger reasons, and the inefficiency of producing meat and other animal products, vegetarianism is necessary.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Here is another argument that lets Jesus off the hook for eating meat; presumably, the inefficiency of meat production was not a significant factor in the hunger of Jesus\u2019 day. This is indeed an ethical argument, but it is about the ethics of our treating\u00a0humans<\/b>. In other words, we have no obligations towards the animals themselves, but we do have obligations toward humans, and because eating meat causes other humans to suffer (they are deprived of the grain fed to cattle), we should be vegetarians. By this logic, it is all right to kill a stray dog, but it is not all right to kill your neighbor\u2019s dog. This isn\u2019t a bad argument to use with people who have no compassion for animals; at least this way the dogs who have owners are safe. But an ethical vegetarian is one who sees our obligations to animals as extending at least as far as not killing them for food, regardless of the economic or other factors involved in meat production.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Again, these intermediate positions are deemed unacceptable and inconsistent with a \u201chard-core\u201d or \u201cpurist\u201d vegetarianism.<\/p>\n 5. Jesus is fallible, so perhaps he did not see the vegetarian issue clearly, though we should follow him in other respects.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This argument, as far as I know, has never been made in public, though some people have suggested it to me privately. Such an argument, while it would satisfy most ethical vegetarians, essentially takes us out of Christianity. Here is a key ethical issue, central to our lives, and central to the lives of at least some of Jesus\u2019 contemporaries and followers. Yet Jesus himself did not understand this issue. If we are to find spiritual role models, it will either have to be Christians who saw this issue more clearly than Christ, or it will be among non-Christians. To say that Jesus was wrong about a key ethical or social issue does not logically take us out of Christianity, but it does take us beyond Christianity for all practical purposes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mr. Akers is absolutely correct about how such arguments rule out Christianity, and he has maintained logical consistency throughout \u2014 as we would expect from a philosophy major (i.e., assuming the correctness of his initial premises). Vegetarianism is adopted with such conviction, that if Jesus rejected it, so much for Jesus.<\/p>\n Despite the arguments of some conservative vegetarian Christians, they remain largely uninterested in vegetarianism for ethical reasons, concentrating instead on the health aspects. One can also advance various reasons, such as mercy and compassion, to limit the worst abuses of meat consumption, but obviously mercy and compassion is inherently limited \u2014 it cannot be extended to the act of killing and eating an animal for food without changing conservative Christian theology. I wish them luck in their efforts. However, as a practical matter,\u00a0ethical vegetarianism is incompatible with the orthodox view of a meat-eating Jesus<\/b>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This is correct and there is no cogent, sensible, intermediate position (as Mr. Akers is eloquently proving). And there is such a thing as historic, orthodox, biblical Christianity, and an absolute prohibition of killing animals (and eating them) as unethical is inconsistent with it. It can\u2019t be sustained for a second if one accepts the Bible as an infallible divine revelation.<\/p>\n I have met countless people in the vegetarian movement who were once Christians, or were raised as Christians, but upon becoming vegetarian found no place for themselves in the church they were raised in. They simply dropped out. They correctly perceived that their new beliefs were incompatible with the conservative Christianity which they knew. The vegetarian movement today is significantly secular, anti-religious, and anti-Christian.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Thanks for the honesty and drawing the inevitable stark contrast.<\/p>\n That element of vegetarianism which is interested in spiritual matters tends to be eclectic, open, tolerant, and progressive. The vegetarian subculture did not acquire this character either because of a deliberate program to exclude Christianity, nor by chance; this happened because people who are open, tolerant, and progressive in matters of food are usually also open, tolerant, and progressive about other matters as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I wonder how \u201cprogressive\u201d and \u201ctolerant\u201d it is on the issue of abortion (child-killing, usually entailing child-torturing)?<\/p>\n Christianity is in ferment. The struggle to change society and the struggle to change Christianity are not two different and independent events; they are parallel and interrelated events. Everywhere, people are saying things that have not been questioned for centuries and that would have been unthinkable a century ago. The spectacular and steady popularity enjoyed by such progressive thinkers as Matthew Fox and John Shelby Spong is evidence that Christianity is changing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Not at all; it is evidence that liberal Christians who reject historic, biblical Christianity are more numerous and currently fashionable according to the\u00a0zeitgeist<\/i>. That has no relation to the truthfulness or falsity of orthodox Christianity. Liberals and dissidents, like the poor, are always with us.<\/p>\n On the other hand, there is a strong conservative element within Christianity that wants to keep things the same.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Yes, truth has an annoying way of being quite \u201csamey.\u201d The laws of thermodynamics or of gravity don\u2019t change according to the whims and fancies and trendy fads of a particular age. Neither do Christian doctrinal and theological truths.<\/p>\n . . . In the long run, this conservative element is clearly losing the battle . . .\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Why didn\u2019t they lose it\u00a0centuries\u00a0<\/i>ago, then? Why is orthodox Christianity still here if there is this mythical, inexorable \u201cprogressive\u201d direction of history? G. K. Chesterton has a great line about, \u201cat least five times in history the Church has gone to the dogs, but in each case, the dog died.\u201d<\/p>\n Efforts to promote vegetarianism within Christianity \u2014 if they are to be more than just \u201cback door\u201d efforts \u2014 must attack the problem at its source. Christianity has lost its way on countless issues: by making judgments on people whose lifestyles or religions are different, by advocating war and violence, by putting forward a primitive and hateful theology, and by ignoring consumerism in a rich and wasteful society. Vegetarianism cannot be separated from these other issues. If we are committed to Christian renewal, we must start with the practice and teaching of Jesus and must radically reinterpret the nature of Christianity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Thanks to Mr. Akers for another clear statement of the inherent anti-Christian nature of this philosophy, complete with the inevitable \u201ctolerant hatred\u201d of Christian thought, assuming it is hateful because certain ethical distinctions are made, and some behaviors are deemed sinful. It\u2019s okay to assume killing an animal is sinful, but how dare we say that homosexuality is!!! That must be hatred and could be no other . . . so suddenly (but not surprisingly, Mr. Akers becomes quite unreasonable (in terms of internal consistency \u2014 his premises already were unreasonable, in my opinion).<\/p>\n