Everyone has to decide whether or not they are willing to participate in the cruelty and violence required to bring animals to their plate. I will not cast a blind eye to the suffering of ANY of God’s creatures, be they human, animal, or otherwise. To me, killing animals for human use is wrong. It is a sin. (Michele, “Testimonies: Christians Speak Up for Animals,” n.p.)

2. Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8 provide critical information on diet as relates to Acts 10 and Mark 7.

Romans 14:15–21

If your brother or sister is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Do not let what you eat cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died. . . . For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. . . . Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for you to make others fall by what you eat; it is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that makes your brother or sister stumble.

1 Corinthians 8:8-13

“Food will not bring us close to God.” We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols? So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed. But when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.

In Biblical times, flesh that was sold in the markets had generally been offered to idols beforehand (Abingdon 1182). Some Christians were concerned about eating food that had been “offered to idols” (1 Corinthians 8:4), which prevented Christians from sharing meals with non-Christians, which prevented spreading the Good News around the table.

As noted (Acts 10:9-16, above), Christians were to be mindful of dietary choices that might prevent spreading the Good News, and social life almost always involves the sharing of food. Consequently, Jewish food laws were “abrogated explicitly as they had been implicitly” in the Gospels (Mark 7:14) (Guthrie 985).

Paul speaks to the growing concern over divisions and exclusions caused by dietary laws in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8 (Petruzzello, “St. Paul’s,” n.p.). He instructs Christians not to make choices that are likely to alienate people from joining the church or cause people to veer away from faith in Jesus. He instructs Christians to adjust their eating habits accordingly (Abingdon 1182). Toward this end, certain foods are to be avoided not because they are forbidden (they are not) but because they might turn people away. Paul is clear: Those whose diet causes others to fall away from Christianity “destroy the work of God” (Romans 14:20).

The letters of Paul teach that Christian love requires that food choices invite people in and not drive people out of the fold. Today, many vegans find their church unfriendly to those who choose a vegan lifestyle, and so they leave their church (Kemmerer, In Search of Consistency, 263). This leads to a different read of Paul’s writings. “How Christians relate to the rest of the world is determined, in part, by how they eat” (Webb 144). Today, those who serve anymal products in community “sin against . . . family,” and in so doing, “sin against Christ” (1 Corinthians 8:12). To serve anymal products is to “destroy the work of God” (Romans 14:20) both literally (killing anymals and wrecking the earth) and figuratively (preventing the spreading of the Word of God to vegans). In communities where vegans feel excluded Romans 14, 1 Corinthians 8, and Acts 10 speak to a vegan diet and a vegan life (Kemmerer, In Search of Consistency, 264).

At the start of summer, a hog roast was planned for a church social event. I was a regular server at church events but I explained to the pastor that I didn’t feel comfort serving at a hog roast. I did however say I would help serve a vegan option if it was made available. The pastor was furious and told me ‘Jesus has made everything clean. If you want to forbid yourself from eating pork, become a Muslim.’” (Vegan Christian in Manchester, from Sarx, “Be Not Afraid,” n.p.)

3. Mark 7 also supports Acts 10

Mark 7: 18-21

Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come.

Indeed, hands, teeth, and stomachs are not the problem—the problem is our hearts. To know of the sufferings and destruction caused by flesh, dairy, and eggs and to know that vegans feel alienated in omnivorous churches, and yet to nonetheless carry on as if no vegans were present, reveals a problem of caring, a noticeable lack of compassion and neighborliness. In excluding vegans from fellowship, churches also miss an opportunity to take a stand against misery, death, and indifference toward God’s creatures. Christians who exclude vegans simultaneously throw peace, redemption, and inclusivity to the wind. It is not merely meat, flesh, and dairy that reveal a lack of fidelity to core Christian ethics and values, but rather the hard-heartedness that allows someone to continue this diet despite readily-available alternative options and despite knowledge of the sufferings, deaths, damage, and alienation these foods cause. (For more on these harms, see the book “Vegan Ethics: AMORE—Five Critical Reasons to Choose Vegan.”)