At this point in time, Wed. Sept 30, 2020, I believe that it is more important for someone to be a Christian Universalist than a vegan.
However, people who are residents exploring membership in the monastery, will be required to eat a plant-based diet when physically on the monastery land, and when monastics are eating together when traveling.
There will be no hunting, or having animals except for companion animals (AKA pets) and those animals who are part of the future farm animal sanctuary.
When women make the commitment to live on monastery land, I am hoping that they will welcome the opportunity to eat a plant-based diet. This will be part of the austere lifestyle that we pursue. I plan to design a diet that is sure to be complete with all the nutrients needed for optimum health.
We will have neighbors who are very close by who might have a diet which includes eggs, dairy and meat. Although monastics will be required to eat meals with the others, and participate in intermittent fasting, they can eat meals with neighbors during free times. If a person goes on an errand by herself, she can eat non-vegan.
However, I am hoping that monastics will feel so great on the plant-based diet that they will really want to make the effort to eat this way.
Also, if someone’s health is suffering because the individual is going off the healthy plant-based diet, then we will need to have a discussion about how this behavior is affecting the whole group.
My ideal is that we all are so healthy and happy with our diet, that it will be an upward spiral.
My experience is that Christians would eat plant-based if they understood the biblical, spiritual, and health reasons.
I think that Christian Universalists, more than most other Christians, can understand how we have been misinterpreting the Bible when it comes to diet. Also, CU’s look at the early Christians as well as how the Bible has been mis-translated. We who are Christian vegans have a similar problem as CU’s. People try to persuade us that veganism is actually NOT Biblical.
Here are some resources about veganism that help anyone wanting to explore this topic to do so:
I hope this helps you to get a good overview.
I purchased the book this person wrote, and found it to be the best resource that proves that Christians need to be vegan in order to live in alignment with Christ’s teachings. This is a very short video that I hope you will enjoy.
Here is a playlist I created about Christian veganism.
