Christspiracy is a film that claims to reveal a secret spiritual truth that God does not want humans to kill and eat animals, that Jesus Christ was a vegan, and that the Bible is not true or trustworthy. In order for Christspriacy to be true, the Bible must be false.
Christspiracy was rejected by Netflix. It was not rejected because of its vegan message. There are loads of pro-vegan films on Netflix, including three by the Christspiracy filmmaker himself Kip Andersen: What the Health, Cowspiracy, and Seaspiracy, which make strong arguments for whole food plant-based eating and expose the horrific nature of factory farming and commercial fishing industries.
Christspiracy was not rejected because it is too controversial. There are plenty of anti-Christian and anti-Catholic films on Netflix and scores of films far more controversial than one with a “Jesus was a vegan” claim.
The filmmakers publicly claim they “parted ways” with Netflix. Having seen the film, it’s obvious to me that Netflix rejected it because didn’t want to be associated with, nor deal with the backlash of a film with such an absurd level of easily disprovable nonsense.
I had a Zoom call with the filmmakers in early 2023 after watching the film and gave them my feedback. I explained to them why their claims are in complete contradiction to the Bible. Clearly, they have chosen to proceed with the film’s release.
As my readers know, I am a devout Christian and I am an advocate for a whole food plant-based diet (95% or greater), not for spiritual reasons, but for health reasons. A mostly raw plant-based diet, rich in fruits vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, herbs, and spices, helped me and has helped many others overcome advanced cancers against the odds. I wrote a book about it called Chris Beat Cancer and a plant-based cookbook called Beat Cancer Kitchen. I have a plant-based nutrition and lifestyle coaching program and I’ve interviewed dozens of holistic survivors like myself who used food as medicine to heal as well as numerous doctors, scientists, and researchers with expertise in nutrition, longevity, and healing. Check those out here.
My diet is 98% plant-based and many of my dear friends are 100% plant-based and/or vegan. So let me be clear. This is not an attack on veganism as a personal dietary and lifestyle choice. As a Christian and follower of Jesus Christ I am compelled to stand for truth and defend scripture. This is my response to the claim that veganism is a higher form of spirituality and that Jesus wants us all to be vegan, which is false.
A more appropriate title for Christspiracy is Christ Piracy as it is an attempt to hijack the core purpose and message of Jesus Christ and replace it with a lie carefully crafted to promote a religious form of veganism. This is how all cults are started. An influential person attracts followers with the claim of a higher spiritual truth, promises of enlightenment, heaven on earth, moral superiority, etc.
However, in order to prove that God/Jesus doesn’t want animals to be killed or eaten you have to discredit Judaism and Christianity. You have to discredit the holy books of scripture the Torah and the Tanakh, which Christians call the Old Testament, and the books of the New Testament, which contain the historical account of Jesus’ life, ministry and teachings, the ministry of his disciples after his crucifixion and resurrection and the history of the early church.
In other words, either the Bible is true or Christspiracy is true, but they can’t both be true.
The significance of the Bible and Jesus
The Bible (Old and New Testament combined) is the most significant book in human history. It is the most sold book of all time with between 5-7 billion copies sold worldwide.
Jesus is not a myth. He lived on earth. The life of Jesus was so significant that the human historical calendar was divided into two parts: Before Christ (B.C.) and Anno Domini (A.D.), which is Latin for “in the Year of our Lord.” The year 2023 means it’s been 2023 years since Jesus was born.
What is the claim of the Bible?
Some believe that the Bible is just a history book or a book of philosophy, but that is not its claim. The claim of the Bible is that it is God’s infallible Word. That it is absolute truth. The Bible claims to be an accurate and reliable historical account of the creation of the universe, of human history, and of the nature and purpose of God and His will for us, His creation.
Christians believe that the Bible is true and trustworthy and that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, who was promised to the Jewish people, the descendants of Israel. He is “the stone that the builders rejected” (Psalm 118:22, Acts 4:11). Jesus came to show us the nature of God and how to live a life that is pleasing to God and to offer himself as the sacrifice and shed his blood for the sins of the world so that we can have a relationship with God the Father.
The Bible has tremendous authority. If you want to use the Bible as an authority source for your argument you can’t cherrypick it, because the claim of the Bible is that it is God’s word and that it is entirely true. It’s an all-or-nothing proposition. As soon as you start trying to discredit parts of the Bible, you have compromised the authority and credibility of your source.
In order to make the case that the Bible is God’s Word and that Jesus was a vegan, you would have to tear out huge sections of the Bible.
If what the Bible says about God is not true, then it is mythology. It is fiction. The Jewish faith is fiction. The Christian faith is fiction. And if the Bible is fiction, then it is certainly not a source of authority and there is no point in referencing it. But I do believe that the Bible is God’s Word and reference it I shall.
The significance of Jesus doesn’t make sense until you understand Passover.
The story of Passover is found in Exodus chapter 12. The Israelites, who were slaves in Egypt, were instructed by God through Moses to sacrifice a 1-year-old male lamb, eat it, and then put the blood of the lamb around their door frames. That night, God killed every firstborn child and every firstborn animal in Egypt, but the angel of death passed over the houses with the blood of the lamb on the door. That was the tenth and final plague that compelled the Pharoah to let the Israelites leave Egypt, freeing them from slavery. God gave the Israelites a way to avoid this deadly plague, but they had to follow his instructions. They had to obey. The Israelites were told by God to observe this Passover ceremony every year and teach their descendants to do the same. Many orthodox Jews eat lamb on Passover today for this reason.
The Israelites were saved by the blood of the lamb.
Exodus 12:21-30
Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. 22 Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning. 23 When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.
“Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. 25 When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. 26 And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ 27 then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’”
Then the people bowed down and worshiped. 28 The Israelites did just what the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron. 29 At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. 30 Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.
The Israelites were saved by the blood of the lamb.
Christians believe that Jesus was born to a virgin, and because of this, He did not have a sinful nature. Jesus lead a sinless life, innocent of all wrongdoing. And as such, he was a pure and spotless sacrifice. This is why when the prophet John the Baptist saw Jesus said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” John also said about Jesus, “He is the son of God.” (John 1:29-34)
The blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God, was shed on Passover.
Jesus was the Passover Lamb, sacrificed to pay the penalty for the sins of the world.
Side note: John the Baptist was sent by God to preach repentance from sin and to prepare the people for the coming Messiah. John the Baptist was the first prophet to speak to Israel in 400 years. John baptized Jesus. His significance and spiritual authority cannot be understated. If God wanted us to be vegan and Jesus was vegan, certainly the prophet anointed to go before Jesus would also be vegan. He was not. John wore a camel hair cloak, a leather belt, and ate locusts and honey. (Matthew 3:4)
The Jewish religious leaders rejected Jesus and had him put to death for heresy. Because he came to fulfill and abolish the old religious order. And because Jesus said some extremely controversial things like:
“I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30) The religious leaders tried to stone Jesus after he said that.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me. If you really know me you will know my Father as well… He who has seen me has seen the Father”.” (John 14:6-9)
Jesus’s claim is that he is the only way to God and heaven. It doesn’t get any more controversial than that.
Back to the Beginning
Christians believe that Jesus (Yeshua), is the son of God (Yahweh), and part of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we believe that they were all together at the creation of the world.
Genesis 1:26 “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds of the sky and over the livestock and all the wild animals and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’”
There are several important takeaways from Genesis 1:26. First, “Let US make make man in our image…” Us is plural. The Father, the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit were together at creation. Second, we were made in the image of God, specifically Jesus. Third, God gave man dominion over all creation. Humans are not equal to animals. God put humans at the top of the food chain. Certainly, God cares about animals, but humans are more important to God than animals.
Christspiracy has a major theological problem.
The central claim of Christspiracy is that Yahweh, the God of the Bible, the creator of the universe, the God of Jewish and Christian faith, the God who Jesus claims to be, does not want us to kill and eat animals.
Jesus claims to be the Son of God and “one with God” (John 10:30). If this is true, then Jesus and God agree on everything. What God allows Jesus allows. If God condones the killing of animals, then Jesus condones the killing of animals.
Does God condone the killing of animals?
Yes. God not only condones it, God kills people and animals throughout the Bible. There are far too many examples to list them all.
-After Adam and Eve sinned and realized they were naked, God made leather clothes for them. “And the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.” Presumably, this was skin from an animal that he killed. And this was the first death as a consequence of sin. (Genesis 3:21)
-During the Flood (Genesis 6-8), God killed all humans and animals on earth. The only humans and animals that were spared were Noah’s family, the animals he took with him on the ark, and the fish.
-After the flood, Noah sacrificed animals to God. “Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took some of every kind of clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. The Lord smelled the soothing aroma, and the Lord said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.”(Genesis 8:15-17, 20-21)
-God gave Noah permission to eat animal flesh, we assume this is because eating animals was necessary for survival when plant food was scarce. It’s important to note that God specifically forbade Noah from eating blood. “Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you… But you shall not eat the flesh with its life, that is, its blood.” (Genesis 9:3-4) God repeats this commandment in Leviticus 19:26. And in the New Testament, we see it a third time. In Acts 15:28-29, a letter from the church leaders to the new Gentile believers reaffirms this, “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to not burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.”
-God makes a blood covenant with Abraham, promising him a son and descendants as numerous as the stars, which many of us are! God instructed Abraham to sacrifice a cow, a goat, a ram, a dove, and a pigeon to ratify the covenant. (Genesis 15)
-The LORD appears to Abraham promising him a son in one year. Abraham prepares food for Him: fresh bread, meat from a calf, curds and milk.
-God tests Abraham instructing him to sacrifice his only son Isaac. Abraham obeyed and put Isaac on an altar, but an angel of the LORD stopped him. Abraham sacrifices a ram instead. God promises to bless Abraham with many descendants. God also says to Abraham, “All nations on earth will be blessed because you have obeyed me.” (Genesis 22)
-God instructed Israelites to kill and eat lamb during the first Passover and every year after. (Exodus 12:21-30)
-God instructed the Israelites to make three parts of the tabernacle covering, which was His dwelling place, his temple, which housed the Ark of the Covenant, out of goats hair and animal skins (Exodus 25).
-The entire book of Leviticus contains specific instructions from God on how to sacrifice animals as atonement for sin. Leviticus chapter 11 has instructions on which animals the Israelites were allowed to eat and which ones they were not. Carnivores, scavengers and certain types of ruminant animals were “unclean” and forbidden. This includes pigs, shellfish, cats, dogs, rats, camels, eagles, vultures, certain types of insects and more. This wan’t advice, it was a commandment. Eating those types of animals was considered a sin. These instructions were for the Israelites protection. We know now today that eating those types of animals increases your likelihood of infectious disease in humans due to exceptional levels of environmental pollutants and pathogenic microbes: viruses, bacteria and parasites, etc.
Side note: This dietary law was abolished after Jesus’s ministry on earth in a vision given to the apostle Peter in Acts 10:9-16. Those types of animals are no longer considered spiritually unclean and God gave his people, specifically the Jews, permission to eat them, but as the Apostle Paul said in his letter to the Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 10:23), “Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial.”
And as for Jesus, before we get into all the examples of him not being a vegan, remember Jesus is the Son of God, who said he “only does what he sees his Father doing.”(John chapter 5).
https://owlcation.com/humanities/The-Purpose-of-the-Wilderness-Tabernacle-The-Covering-Materials
-Jesus helped his disciples, at least five of whom were fishermen, catch a huge net full of fish after they had fished all night and caught nothing. Jesus then cooked fish for his disciples for breakfast (John 21).
-Jesus fed fish to thousands of hungry people on two occasions.
-Jesus killed a herd of pigs. He cast demons out of a possessed man and into a herd of pigs, which then ran off a cliff and drowned (Matthew 8:28, Luke 8:26).
-Jesus cooked and ate fish and fed fish to his disciples after his resurrection (Luke 24:40).
Some have tried to claim that the word fish was mistranslated and that it actually means “wisdom.” It doesn’t. Fish means fish. If you read the four gospels and try to substitute wisdom for the word fish you will quickly realize how absurd this proposition is.
-Jesus observed Passover. The Last Supper of Christ was the Passover meal. Although it is not explicitly stated, it is reasonable to assume Jesus ate lamb during Passover, as was tradition.
Another false claim of Christspiracy is that Jesus drove the merchants out of the temple because he was angry that they were selling animals for sacrifice at the temple. Jesus was angry because the temple marketplace was full of money changers, cheats, thieves, and crooks, saying, “My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.” Then the blind and the lame came to the temple and he healed them. (Matthew 21:12-13) Jesus’s mission was to heal and save humans, not animals.
The conspiracy to kill Jesus
In John chapter 5, Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath and the religious leaders accused him of working on the Sabbath which was a violation of religious law and they conspired to kill him.
“For this reason, the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.”I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” (John 5)
Jesus says he only does what God the Father does. He also claims to be the judge of the world. And Jesus said if you do not honor him, you do not honor God. He said if you believe in Him you will have eternal life and not be condemned.
Jesus claimed to be God and the Messiah, the king of the Jews, as prophesied in Isaiah chapter 9. His crucifiers, mocked him by putting a crown of thorns on his head and a sign on the cross that said, “King of the Jews.”
Based on these claims, Jesus is either a liar or a lunatic, or he is exactly who he claimed to be, the Son of God and Savior of the world.
Abel was keeping livestock for food
“And again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a cultivator of the ground. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord from the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought an offering, from the firstborn of his flock and from their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering; but for Cain and his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his face was gloomy.” God preferred Abel’s meat offering, not because it was meat per se, but because Abel brought God his best.
Genesis 4:2-5 NASB2020
Noah and The Flood
“Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of mankind was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. So the Lord was sorry that He had made mankind on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. Then the Lord said, “I will wipe out mankind whom I have created from the face of the land; mankind, and animals as well, and crawling things, and the birds of the sky. For I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”
Genesis 6:5-8 NASB2020
“Now behold, I Myself am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which there is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall perish. But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall enter the ark—you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kind, and of the animals according to their kind, of every crawling thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. As for you, take for yourself some of every food that is edible, and gather it to yourself; and it shall be food for you and them.””
Genesis 6:17-21 NASB2020
Nearly all humans and animals are killed in the flood.
“Then the Lord said to Noah, “Enter the ark, you and all your household, for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this generation. You shall take with you seven pairs of every clean animal, a male and his female; and two of the animals that are not clean, a male and his female; also of the birds of the sky, seven pairs, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. For after seven more days, I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights; and I will wipe out from the face of the land every living thing that I have made.”
So all creatures that moved on the earth perished: birds, livestock, animals, and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind; of all that was on the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, died. So He wiped out every living thing that was upon the face of the land, from mankind to animals, to crawling things, and the birds of the sky, and they were wiped out from the earth; and only Noah was left, together with those that were with him in the ark.”
Genesis 7:1-4, 21-23 NASB2020
“Then God spoke to Noah, saying, “Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you, birds and animals and every crawling thing that crawls on the earth, that they may breed abundantly on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”
What does it mean to Believe in Jesus?
In John 3:16, Jesus says about himself, “For God so loved the world that he sent his only son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” So what does believing in Jesus mean? It doesn’t mean believing he was a vegan. It means believing that Jesus was the innocent lamb who offered himself up as a sacrifice to pay the penalty for your sin. Jesus took your punishment on the cross and shed his blood to spare you from judgement, from the wrath of God and from eternal punishment in hell.
The Hebrew name for Jesus, Yeshua, means to rescue, to deliver, to save.
No amount of good deeds can offset the sin you have committed and spare you from judgement. The beautiful message of Jesus is that salvation is a free gift of God that no one deserves and yet is available to all who believe in Jesus.
The notion that there was a secret conspiracy to edit Jesus’s “vegan message” defies logic. If Jesus did in fact teach that humans should not eat animals, that would have been one of the least controversial things he said!
Nazareth didn’t exist
https://ehrmanblog.org/did-nazareth-exist/
The significance of Jesus coming from Nazareth is that it was a town of no significance. Jesus was born to poor people from a nothing town. Jesus came into the world in the lowliest, most humble of circumstances.
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