Should Christians Love Their Neighbor by Giving up Meat?

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People are tired of hearing nothing but doom and despair on the radio. The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of almighty God is hanging over our heads.

They will hear his words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed and they will perish.

God wrapped himself in flesh, condescended and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the Father, where he sits now to make intercession for us.

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll seek to answer the age-old question, should Christians love their neighbor by giving up meat?

Now, this is something that is being talked about a lot right now, especially if you're familiar with the World Economic Forum and those types of organizations that are really pushing specific narratives like the climate change quote-unquote crisis, for example.

It's funny, Tim. It's like everything's a crisis now. We just did an episode on the student loan debt forgiveness stuff, and I failed to mention this in that episode, but the White House refers to the current climate of student debt as a crisis right now.

They call it the student debt crisis. Look, we're living in pretty troubled times right now. We've got the COVID -19 pandemic crisis, and we've got the student debt crisis going on. We've got the climate change crisis going on right now.

The crisis of white supremacists.

The crisis of white supremacists.

The Trump voter crisis.

There's just not a shortage of crisis right now. So I wanted to point that out.

Never let a good crisis go to waste, man.

Exactly, man. Hey, they're just being shrewd, man. The left's just being shrewd right now, so you've got to tip your hat to them a little bit there. But it's funny. Okay, so with this beef thing, with the meat thing, it sounds kind of ridiculous to ask, hey, should Christians love their neighbor by giving up meat?

You might think that maybe where you are in the U .S. or whatever, you haven't heard about people saying that we should be giving up meat in order to fight the climate change, right? But I was looking up articles so that I could find something to read, you guys, just as like a little bit of a primer and something for us to respond to directly.

I think that's helpful sometimes. When I was Googling things, the first thing that popped up was not even an article, but it was just like a little blurb from Google right at the top. It's not a link or anything.

It's just a body of text, and it's right at the top, and it says this. By eating less beef, we can start to decrease that demand. You do not have to become a vegan to do this. According to one recent study, if every person in the U .S. cut their meat consumption by 25%, it would reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by 1%.

There you go.

Those dangerous cow farts, man.

The cow farts, man. They're dangerous. You're right. They're very dangerous. So it does bring into question there's a lot that goes into a question like this, and I don't know that we'll be able to cover absolutely everything in one episode.

But I did think, hey, maybe we should do an episode on this just to help Christians understand how to approach this kind of conversation with other people and should we actually give up meat. So Tim, I guess we'll just start with is it loving your neighbor to give up meat in order to defeat climate change?

It's confusing to think about what we're actually being asked because I know that most people have probably forgotten about this, but then a few weeks ago, maybe about a month ago or so, a month and a half ago, we were reading all those articles about cannibalism being in and all that.

Yes, it's time for cannibalism.

Yes.

Apparently, the question is not whether we should give up meat, it's what kind of meat should we give up. And so apparently we should grow accustomed to eating human meat, but then not animal meat.

Well, the way I see that, Tim, is by eating human meat, you're not only reducing the demand for dangerous fart-producing cows, but you're actually reducing the human population, which is contributing to climate change.

And so it's kind of like a double whammy in my mind.

Yes, you have less people to worry about because one of the agendas is to try to dramatically reduce the human population by half. And so it's basically just quit eating the cows and start eating each other and everyone will be happy, including the animals, because we have to care about their safety and their welfare.

And they're just like us to stop the animal genocide and all that.

Stop the animal genocide, start the people genocide.

Start the people. So apparently the most loving thing you can do then is instead of eating animals, eat people.

Yes. Hey, look, here's how you love your neighbor.

Eat them.

Eat your neighbor.

Eat your neighbor. I mean, it makes perfect sense to me. You just have to take it in steps, you know, take it in steps. But, yeah, I mean, I think, well, on the face of it, I'll just say something insane and I would just think that maybe it's more loving to your neighbor to eat cows instead of people.

Okay.

How is it more loving?

I don't know how to explain it. It's one of those deep mysteries. It's one of those deep, deep mysteries. But, no, I mean, you know, as you read the Bible, obviously, God gives human beings essentially, you know, animals to eat as food.

So this is one of those things where you just, you know, when you're living in a society that is not governing itself by the law of God, it doesn't want to look at what the Bible actually says about these things.

We mix up these categories at almost every level. And so, you know, when you're just forced to think about things from an evolutionary worldview, essentially there is no way to distinguish human beings from animals other than, you know, we're just higher up on the evolutionary ladder, which, I mean, in some sense is a little bit surprising that we are where we are as it relates to these kind of things anyway, as to where, you know, you're living in a society that fundamentally views, like, eating animals as somehow immoral, even though it's supposed to be a society that is based on evolutionary assumptions.

And that really doesn't make a whole lot of sense because, I mean, animals don't agonize over eating other animals. And if that's all that we are, we're just higher on the food chain than, you know, Mike makes right, survival of the fittest and all that.

That should make a certain kind of sense. But then when you add the environmental argument here, that somehow we're contributing to the decline of the environment, I do think a Christian has to step into that kind of situation and just basically say that we're going to believe the Bible, we're going to look at what the Bible says, and what God says is right is right.

And if God's given us, you know, animals to eat for food, that, you know, I think the environmental crisis must be overblown in that kind of way. And, you know, it's one of those things where it really doesn't take a lot of objective, hard, like it doesn't really take like a lot of brain power to figure out that this is probably overblown.

And when you look at all the catastrophic kind of warnings that you've had from, you know, the same group of people over the years, you realize that most of what they've predicted really hasn't panned out and that we're, you know, we do better just to have a simple kind of faith in the Bible and believe what God has to say and not, you know, worry about the kind of individuals who really, you know, they are held captive by the fear of death.

And that's what the Bible says, they're put to flight like at a sound of a leaf, you know, like the Israelites in judgment will be put to flight at the sound of a leaf, like the wicked flee when no one pursues.

And we're the kind of individuals who, you know, really are, we're psychologically destabilized because of our sin. We have this looming sense that judgment is hanging over our head, and that's why you have so many movies that are, you know, basically apocalyptic in origin, you know, in nature.

Like they're apocalyptic because they, you're living, we're living in societies that have rejected everything that God has to say in such a comprehensive way that it's destabilized us. And we fear this judgment, you know, and we're looking over our shoulders to this upcoming judgment.

And really, I mean, we are going to be the recipients of judgment, but it's not going to come through, you know, doing the things that we're designed ourself to do, that God has designed us to do, essentially.

It's not going to come that way. It's going to come, you know, through basically us being, you know, destabilized as a population, you know, and basically, like, you know, if you want to know how the disaster actually will happen, you know, it probably is much more likely that it's going to happen through these globalist elites essentially killing all the, you know, crops off and killing all the animals off and then starving us all to death to the point where we end up having to eat each other, you know, so it's going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, you know, and that way it's just not going to come through the means that they think it's going to come.

You know, it's kind of interesting hearing you think, hearing you talk about that, it made me think about some of the stuff that is prophesied in Revelation, right? And you basically have several different judgments that come along, and a lot of them kill off like a third of the world's population or like some fraction like that.

It kills off the population, and then you have a second round of judgments that come along and basically get rid of the majority of the world's population at that point, and it's interesting that, you know, you're saying that there's a lot of people who they rebel against God, they hate God, they reject God at every turn, and then they're absolutely terrified of death, right?

And they're put to flight at the sound of a leaf, right? And so you have these people that are crying, you know, climate change, climate change, climate change, and at the same time you can read Revelation and see that to a certain extent, a lot of the judgments do have to do with the world.

The heat of the sun, I think, scorches a lot of people, and the fresh water supplies are spoiled, basically. So you have all of these sort of natural disasters, basically, if you want to call them that.

I think it's better to just call them judgments, but these natural disasters, and then you have the elite-type people who are saying like, hey, these things are coming, we need to stop them, we need to stop them, we need to stop them, as if whatever judgments are coming could be stopped.

Does that make sense what I'm saying?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, depending on the interpretive scheme that a person uses with the Book of Revelation in general, you know, there's a lot of people who view those kind of passages that you're talking about in Revelation as just the types of judgments which are characteristic of the church age.

I mean, there have been times where, you know, like the Black Plague, for instance, wiped out half of Europe.

Right.

So there's been times where, you know, you think about communism, like in the 20th century, it killed 120 million people. And so, you know, there's been catastrophic kind of judgments on society. You know, that are much more significant than we may actually realize.

And a lot of those, you know, have to do with, you know, us making certain problems for ourself and not from the creation itself doing that. You know, and so however you think about these things, like whether you think about like those judgments as being like characteristic of the church age in general, or like them finding some sort of climactic and dramatic fulfillment in the earth in the future, you know, and I think it's going to be probably a mixture of both as far as that goes.

Like, I mean, we've seen, you know, like there are patterns like that we've seen and that they'll come to some sort of climactic head in the future as far as those things are concerned. But then like what you have to do in order to gain some kind of sanity in even dealing with the discussion along these lines is to realize that whatever God tells you to do, that's what you do.

You understand what I'm saying? And you're not going to like kill the earth through doing the kind of things that God tells you to do. So, I mean, if God has given us animals to eat, you know, we're not going to kill the earth through eating those animals.

And, you know, I mean, it doesn't take like a lot of brainpower just to look at all the dramatic and dire predictions that these kind of individuals have made over the years and realize that they're overblown in certain ways.

And, you know, I mean, I'm old enough to remember when we were told, like in order to save the environment, you need to, you know, use plastic bags at the grocery store or something like that.

Right, right. Now you need to use paper instead of plastic.

Go back to paper because the plastic are harmful for the environment. And that just goes to show you, though, that I think in a certain sense, like we all have this fear of judgment. Like we're living in a society that has this fear of judgment.

And like in a lot of times, like if you can just go back and forth and back and forth like that. Like there's a lot of, like it's not as if like the science is objective and it's not as if the science is spoken like in any kind of comprehensive way.

And, you know, like a lot of these dire warnings that were being given as it relates to, you know, like climate change and everything else, you can look, I mean, you can go back and like we're looking at a certain moment in history.

And like there's like, I mean, these things happen in scales, you know. I mean, like they happen in cycles and patterns. And so, you know, like we're being warned of all these dramatic things. And I think we don't understand like what we think we understand as far as all these things are concerned.

And not only that, I mean, there's great pressure to, you know, not allow objective scientists to actually speak into these kind of issues. And so there is a group of, you know, global elites out there who stand to make a lot of money and like with fundamentally reorienting a society along these lines.

And what you have to do is you just have to realize that like we are individuals who like the Bible says like as long as the earth remains, there'll be seed time and harvest. Like and that's going to be characteristic of our time as long as the earth remains.

And those things have to be, you know, guiding posts in the mind of a Christian that is interacting with a world that basically is just, you know, held captive by the sphere of death and giving us these dire kinds of predictions.

And, you know, certainly famine is going to be characteristic of life in this age. Certainly war is going to be characteristic of life in this age. You know, disease is going to be characteristic of life in this age.

Pestilence is going to be characterized by life in this age. There'll be wars, there'll be rumors, wars, see that you're not alarmed, the end is not yet. So, you know, these things will happen. You know, there'll be wars, there'll be famines, there'll be diseases, you know, and everything else.

But as Christians we ought not to be alarmist and we ought to just go about the things that God calls us to do. And, you know, let us just suggest in the mildest and humblest way imaginable that it's better to, you know, eat a cow than it is to eat people or bugs.

You know, I mean, you know, watching like….

You don't want the cricket pizza?

Man, no.

Like watching Nicole Kidman do that video where she's eating all the worms is grossest. She's trying to do it in like a seductive kind of way and it's just the grossest thing that you can ever think of.

They used to make TV shows about…. I mean, that used to be like entertainment, you know, Fear Factor. You know, like getting laid down in beds of bugs and having to eat bugs and whatnot. And now they're, you know, now you've got like late night talk show hosts with jars of crickets that they're eating and pretending is good, you know.

Yeah, I mean, and it's just insane, you know. I think I saw a study or a poll online that is something like, you know, if your only options were to eat…. Like if you had to give up, it was said to men, like men, like if you had to give up crickets or if you had to give up meat, you know, or die, what would you choose?

And I think 70 of the men chose like death, you know. But, I mean, it is…. I mean, like thinking about like eating meat, you know, a major source of protein is going to be found in meat, you know. And so, in a sense, this is also an attack on masculinity, too, is trying to get people to, you know, get rid of all the meat and, you know, eat largely vegetables and, you know, insects and everything else.

But that's, you know, you're basically living in a world that like hates humanity, despises humanity and thinks of humanity as a virus and wants to dramatically reduce the population of humanity. And it's insane.

I mean, we're living in a time right now where we've done more to alleviate hunger and world hunger than we've ever had in the history of the world. And yet you have individuals who are hell-bent on sabotaging it all and trying to, you know, essentially kill off half of us and get us to eat each other.

So it's crazy. But just trust the Bible, you know. Just trust the Bible and look at what the Bible says and do what God says and don't worry about the shifting sands of whatever is currently popular.

You know, nowadays they've put out alternatives to meat, right? So I was Googling. There's like a specific brand I was trying to remember. I couldn't remember the name of it, but I did actually find it, though.

I wrote it down. It's called Beyond Beef. That's not the only plant-based meat substitute, but it was the one that I was thinking of. So, you know, nowadays we have these alternatives to regular meat, right?

Well, yeah. We pretend like they're alternatives.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, in the name of, like, loving our neighbor or laying down our rights, shouldn't we say, like, all right, hey, look, you know, if it's like a stumbling block for you, I'll eat Beyond Beef and give up steak.

No.

Okay.

I mean, the issue is, all right, one, you know, assumption one there is that, like, this actually is helping anything, right? All right. So the first assumption is that it would actually help the earth, you know, to remove, like, all the pollution caused by cow farts or something like that.

Well, that needs to be established. That needs to be established objectively, and it needs to be established objectively in an environment where, like, both sides are allowed to speak, okay? Like, scientists are allowed to, like, you know, their information is not going to be suppressed by social media, and you're allowed to have studies on both sides that are not being funded by, you know, globalist elites.

Like, follow the actual science. So that, like, so step one, like, is it actually, like, is this, you know, is this actually harming the environment? That needs to be, like, asked, okay? So I would reject step one as far as that goes.

In terms of that, now, like, if you're just in the land of subjectively eating beyond meat in order to coddle people's feelings at that point, so assuming that, like, test one fails, and it should, like, I mean, then you're just in the land of, like, trying to, like, at that point you're just—this is more just about, like, not offending people.

And then you have to ask, well, does the Bible have a category for not offending people? Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Like, so is there some demand in the Bible just to not offend people? Now, like, where this, like, issue comes up in the Bible is that, like, many people, like, think about, like, the King James language at that point, and, like, you know, in the language of the King James, often it'll say, give offense to your brother, right?

As if it's a moral command to not give offense. But then the issue is that, like, words have changed over time, and a lot of the new translations, what they translate that language of giving offense is causing your brother to stumble.

And so that's a very different thing, like, the idea of causing someone to stumble over than just offending their sensibilities along those lines. So, like, you know, what—like, if me eating meat is going to lead an individual into sin, like a new Christian into sin, there are different scenarios that me eating meat could lead a brother or sister to sin that the Bible actually addresses.

So the Bible addresses situations along those lines. Like, if I go to the meat market, and there's meat that's being offered to an idol, and me as a strong Christian goes and eats this meat offered to the idol, and the weak Christian comes along and follows suit, they may think— they may be led into that false religion.

So in that way, I would be giving him offense, I would be causing him to stumble, because by my example, I'm basically—I'm leading him into an idolatrous practice unintentionally. Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah.

And so I shouldn't do that, but that's not the scenario that we're finding ourselves in. No one is going to bow down and worship and serve, like, you know, Baal or something like that, or one of the polytheistic, you know, Greek or Roman gods because I'm eating meat that's offered to a certain, you know, pretend god or something along those lines.

So, like, the issue, though, is just, you know, you have—I think what many people have described is the Bible doesn't teach, like, the tyranny of the weaker brother, meaning that, you know, individuals who get offended, like, as a Christian, might have some moral obligation or duty not to offend my brother or do something that my brother considers to be, you know, untasteful.

I mean, I think I saw a video online of, you know, some guy eating a shish kebab on a stick or something in front of an animal rights activist who was screaming at him and cursing him and, you know, calling him names and calling him a murderer and everything else, and he's just doing it with a smile on his face.

And, like, I mean, like, he has—you know, he's perfectly well within his right to eat food, and we all have to eat, okay? And so, like, you know, if loving you means you're demanding that I starve to death or that I, you know, I'm unable to feed my family or I only eat plants, you know, whatever else, then you're not in control of what I eat, and I'm not giving you authority over my diet.

And if God tells me I'm allowed to eat meat, then I'm allowed to eat meat. And this isn't just a right that I have. This is—in some sense, this is a creation ordinance. God has given mankind food to eat, and, you know, you don't get to determine what kind of food I eat just because you're an individual who has different priorities and values than I have.

And so there isn't—the short of it is there isn't in the Bible some sort of command that a Christian is just going to—anytime anyone is offended about anything, that they are just going to roll over and give the other person whatever that they want at that point.

And so that—those assumptions need to be tested, you know. So first, is it actually harmful for the environment? And two, like, there's some sort of assumption that anytime someone wants to exercise some kind of extreme control over my life, I just bow down and give in to their crazy demands.

Yeah, if they scream loud enough.

Yeah, it's just like, you know, like, for example, I mean, a lot of, like, parents nowadays are, like, very hostile to the idea of their kids getting married, right? They don't want their kids to get married because that'll make their life hard.

They want them to wait until they're 30 and, you know, have their house paid off and whatever else and, you know, are well into their career and financially stable. And at a certain point, it's just like, you know, somewhere along the line, you have to obey God rather than man, right?

And if God tells you to get married, be fruitful, multiply, and you have someone who's just absolutely hostile and resistant to that because they don't share the Bible's priorities, at a certain point, it's just like, I know you're offended by this.

I know this mortally offends you, but I just simply don't know what to tell you, right?

Yeah.

And it's the same thing with eating meat. If God's given mankind meat to eat and, you know, that's stated in the Noahic Covenant and that's reiterated where God declares all food clean post-Pentecost, like, at a certain point, it's just like the idea of someone just being upset about it just because they're upset about it, because they're hostile to it, because they share a different worldview.

The Bible has nothing to say about that, and there's nothing in the Bible that would commend us just to lay down this creation kind of ordinance that we're given at that point and, you know, pretend like we're, you know, to the vegans you become a vegan in order to win the vegans at that point.

That's just not what the Bible's talking about. The Bible's talking about being concerned to not lead your Christian brother into sin and, like, that has nothing to do with leading them into sin whatsoever.

Right.

Okay, so the long and short of it is basically eat cows, not people, right?

Let's say it that way.

And don't go buying beyond beef.

I mean, if you want to eat a bad meat substitute, you know, and pay more for it, you know, go for it. But don't think that, you know, there's anything godly or righteous about that.

Right, right, okay. All right, well, I think that's a good place to end this episode.

We're planning on grilling out in a few minutes, so, you know, we're preparing to apply.

You're about to practice this firsthand.

We're going to eat, yeah, some hamburgers and hot dogs and all that, so, you know, I hate to say it, but I could care less, you know, who's offended by that.

Hey, by the way, if beyond beef wants to reach out to us and, you know, offer, like, a sponsorship, an advertisement that we do, we would be more than happy to reject that offer. So go ahead and reach out to us and we'll reject it for you.

But anyways, I think that's a good place to end this episode. Hopefully this has given you guys some stuff to think about and has equipped you to be able to have these conversations. There's a lot of people pushing these ideas right now, and we as Christians need to be people who respond in love, but who respond with truth and a faith in God's promises, right?

So hopefully listening to this has encouraged you guys to do that, and we thank you for all your support and we look forward to having you on the next one. This has been another episode of Bible Bashed.

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Now, go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.