A Vegan Diet, Jesus, and Illness: Are They Connected?

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January 15, 2013 by Cory Bellamy

I’ve been doing some thinking lately. Mainly on the thought of how health, a vegan diet, and Christianity all tie together. It is kind of a long journey that isn’t complete, but I want to share my thoughts and get feedback from other vegans and vegetarians.

For starters, Jackie and I have a strong foundation in the Christian faith, and believe that the Bible is truthful and real. We believe it’s Godly inspired and divine in nature.

That being said, it wasn’t until I was watching the documentary Vegucated on Netflix that I even thought about what God thought about vegetarian or vegan living. In the documentary, three people attempting a vegan diet attend a conference about vegan living where one of the vendors is the Christian Vegetarian Association, which interested one of the vegans-in-training. After the conversation between the representative and the new vegan, I was quite interested in the CVA and what they had to say. The CVA rep in the documentary said that he believed that in the beginning of the world at the Garden of Eden, The Lord created man to live on a vegan diet (Gen. 1:29), and that it wasn’t until after the fall of man that humanity began to eat animals.

That thought blew my mind. In God’s perfect world we were to live off what He had provided:

“Look I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food.” Gen 1:29 NLT.

Now obviously not every region of the world can live off a plant based diet currently, because places like Siberia and Alaska don’t really have a great time of the year for growing fruit and veggies. And I don’t believe that God is requiring us to live as vegans or vegetarians to get into heaven, but like the CVA, I believe it’s a practical act of stewardship with what God has given us. I do believe that with the technology we have, we can create fully sustainable greenhouses in places like Alaska that can allow for the communities to increase their plant consumption and overall health, and thus be better stewards of our resources and health.

After this mind blowing epiphany, I also thought about how overall health plays into this. Only after the fall of man (Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit) did animals become part of the human diet. And only after the fall of man did illness enter the world. I believe that only after sin entered the world that only then did illness exist. When we began to do things on our own, including deciding what we want to eat, did we begin to get sick. I’m trusting that being on a vegan diet is going to overall improve the health of Jackie and I. Please understand that I’m not saying we won’t ever get sick, because we still have the ability to sin (Rom 3:23), and are affected by others sins. It gets complicated, because the things that affect our health like second hand smoke, the flu, etc. can be outside of our immediate control, but I believe that these things exist because of sin in the world. If we could all be perfect on our own (not gonna happen…I’m a terrible person), I believe that illness wouldn’t exist. Since that can’t happen though, I feel like having a vegan diet can help more than not having a vegan diet.

Whew, that’s hard to wrap my brain around and make even a little sense of.

 

What are your thoughts on the subject of being a vegan or vegetarian in relation to religion and faith? And then how do you believe it plays into the health of our world?

 

Thanks for reading!

-Cory