What would Jesus . . . eat?
That’s the subject of a new film named Christspiracy, which presents Biblical evidence that Jesus was actually a vegan, though he never said so outright. The movie raises intriguing questions that anyone who believes in Jesus can ask themselves, such as:
If he wasn’t a vegan, how would Jesus kill an animal? Can you even visualize that happening?
I haven’t seen the film or formed an opinion either way, but it’s believable. And I feel some fascination at how that concept fits with a premise lurking in my latest book, Crosswinds.
That premise is that it’s difficult to deny the possibility that the Bible might have been corrupted over the centuries in small and even large ways. Most of us accept that the world is packed with purposeful disinformation in just about every form of communication. Why, then, would we not entertain the likelihood that that holy book, which so many take as the absolute, unadulterated Word of God, might also be filled with nefarious misdirection to fake us all out?
I found this quote online of Genesis 9:3, stated to be from the New International Version: “Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.”
I really should read a lot, maybe all, of what’s before and after that because to my quite unscholarly eye, that seems to say that cannibalism is fine too. Sheesh, I think I’ll save that traumatic possibility for another post. Or maybe never. Yeah . . . never sounds about right.
Let’s suppose that all of the Bible’s mentions of eating animals—indeed, that they’re here to sustain us—is not the Word of God. Suppose it’s horribly wrong to intentionally take any life, even if in a humane, caring way and only for continuing our own lives.
Now, let’s also suppose that our bodies operate in such a way that we need the nutrition found in animal products to stay healthy. That’s believable, too, and there are likely countless studies one can find that will confirm that. I honestly don’t know whether that’s true or not.
So, if we put these two supposed facts together—that eating animals is wrong and also that we need to eat animals to stay healthy—where the hell does that leave us? If we respect the lives of every animal, and we don’t kill them for the nutrition that is necessary for our health, are we knowingly rejecting the gift of life we’ve been given by choosing to weaken and ultimately wreck our heath? And if we respect and value our own bodies and supply ourselves with the best nutrition we can, are we then willingly killing animals when we know that we shouldn’t, even though we have to?
When I entertain this as the actual situation confronting us, I see a big, glaring, flashing sign that says, “Haha! Original Sin! Gotcha!” This would mean that we have no choice but to do wrong one way or the other: kill animals (which maybe we should not do) or neglect our own health (which maybe shows a lack of appreciation for own lives). Damned if we do, damned if we don’t? A can’t-win scenario?
Allow me a paragraph or two to crack open a window into my own mind and heart and share some thoughts that have assaulted me over the years, even though I’ve never considered that Jesus might be a vegan. It’s been more about a general uneasiness at being responsible for so many deaths.
A nagging image that often torments me is that after I leave this world, I’ll have all of eternity to review my life choices with every living thing that has crossed my path. Oh my God, I’ve eaten so many of them. In particular, I can imagine a line of, say, turkeys, stretching to the horizon, all of them waiting to hear what I have to say about how I treated them.
It’s possible that each and every one of them will say, “Hey, that’s kind of what I was there for. Don’t feel bad about it, alright?”
It’s also possible that each and every one of them will say, “What the hell, man? You didn’t even take the responsibility to kill me yourself. You basically hired a stranger to slaughter me. Sure, there were times when you were thankful for the life that was taken but most of the time, you were just hungry. So, you ate. Then, you watched TV or got busy with some other nonsense while what was left of me got washed down a drain or composted.”
I know that I’d stare into that turkey’s eyes, with my own eyes quite wet, and wouldn’t know what to say. To which the turkey might snicker and say, “At least tell me my death to keep you alive led to something good in the world. Tell me: did you do good with your life, or was I butchered and devoured just so that you could drift through your days mindlessly, not even thinking about life all that much?”
I just don’t know what to think about all of this. But I do know that when I feed the birds (and squirrels and possums and skunks and . . . well, you get the idea), that I hope it’s at least partly making up for the lives that have ended so that mine can continue.
And if/when I see a bird that’s missing a leg, or a squirrel that displays a nasty patch of mange, or even a raccoon coated with snowflakes as it pokes around during a blizzard for any remaining scraps, my heart tells me to help them, though I know that there’s little I can do. Well, I could throw a slice of pizza toward that raccoon, I suppose. She probably wouldn’t angrily splat it against my window if it had pepperonis either.
So, I do care about the living ones, and I sure do feed them a lot, multiple times per day, and still, I’m constantly eating many others. Ending their lives so that I can keep mine.
Feeding some. Killing others.
It’s the stuff of madness. But maybe I have to be okay with knowing full well that feeding every living animal will never bring back even one that I’ve killed. Maybe my best plan is to strive to live a life that adds something good to the world. You know, kid myself that those countless deaths mattered for more than filling my belly.
But here’s one more bit of madness just for fun. Should we fool ourselves by believing that eating only plants preserves all non-plant life? I hardly think so.
Think of a tractor plowing up a field. Are signs posted to alert all of the residents to vacate the fields prior to the onslaught’s planned date and time? How about the use of pesticides and fertilizers? That can’t be healthy for anything living out there, can it? Even harvesting the crops. I can’t imagine anything trying to survive, scampering madly for its life, could escape without a horrible mangling at best.
Spend a second thinking about what surely happens even when a shovel is poked into the ground. I do. Close up, down in the dirt, it’s some kind of wicked attack. A nightmare that none of them down there could have seen coming or even imagined.
Hell, just walking across a lawn probably crushes all kinds of things that just want to be left alone. No, none of those little things creeping around in the dirt have cute, furry faces, but I bet they kind of want to stay alive anyway.
It seems that to live means to kill. Like we’ve been given no choice.
Original sin, anyone?