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Christian
vegetarianism is the dietary practice of vegetarianism or veganism based on
the belief that Jesus, the twelve apostles and the early Messianic Jewish
followers of Jesus (the Ebionites) were vegetarians.
However critics
point out the decision to be vegetarian or omnivore is purely a personal
choice, as there are many passages in the Bible that advocate meat and fish
within the diet.
Some Christian
vegetarians, such as Keith Akers, think that a movement away from simple
living and vegetarianism began with Paul, and that they need to return to
pre-Pauline early Christianity.
There are also
Christian vegetarians, such as Leo Tolstoy and Ammon Hennacy, who believe
that the Christian principles of compassion and nonviolence require a
vegetarian diet whether the Jews and the early Christians were historically
vegetarians or not.
Some
Charismatics believe a vegan diet such as fruitarianism was the original
diet of humankind in the form of Adam and Eve, and if they are ever to
return to an Eden-like paradise then they will have to go back to a holistic
approach to health and diet.
Nathan Braun
states that the Christian mandate to feed the hungry can only be truly
fulfilled on a world-wide scale by our evolution to a vegetarian diet.
He, along with
many other environmental vegetarians, believe that a carnivorous diet
consumes and destroys too large a proportion of the world's food resources. |