For Russia, with love: Navalny vs Putin and the way of the cross
On August 20th 2020, Alexei Navalny was poisoned by Vladimir Putin. That’s where his recently published autobiography begins. The poisoning was no surpris...
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Cutting carbs. Counting calories. Taking weight-loss pills. Doing juice cleanses. Watching ‘what I eat in the day’ reels. I think it would be fair to say our society is obsessed with controlling food.
Some of you will be rolling your eyes at these ‘foodie fads’; others will be part of a diet tribe, convinced that eating in a particular way has helped you feel ‘better than ever’. With these impassioned perspectives in the mix, it’s no surprise that conversations about dieting can quickly become heated and polarised. But that’s not the Jesus way.
When speaking to the divided Roman church on this very topic, Paul said: ‘The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them’ (Romans 14:3–4). Where it’s a matter of personal preference, we’re told there’s no place for judgementalism because God doesn’t judge us for our food choices. That said, he does care about us fuelling our bodies well and making choices that enable our emotional and physical flourishing.
God accepts us and invites us to feast at his table whether we’re carnivores, pescatarians, flexitarians, vegetarians, vegans, or don’t fit into any of these categories. Because whilst diet culture tells us we are what we eat, Jesus tells us our value is based on who we are in him.
The passage goes on to tell us that we’re to ‘make every effort to do what leads to peace and mutual edification’ and that it’s ‘wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble’ (Romans 14:19–21). Because, in all that we do, we’re called to love our neighbours lavishly and sacrificially, just like Jesus.
What might this look like in our everyday lives? It might be putting your preference for pizza aside and finding a salad bar to meet your friend who’s struggling to get their type 2 diabetes under control. Or simply not passing judgement on your spouse when they take seconds or give intermittent fasting a go.
Because ultimately, Jesus hasn’t provided us with prescriptive meal plans. And so, many of us can rejoice in having food on our plate – and some can even rejoice in having choice, too. This is the Jesus diet. And I’m excited to start following it.
Sophie Sanders
Marketing & Communications Lead, LICC
Thank you for this reflection and whilst I applaud the topic being discussed I wholeheartedly disagree with the premise that Jesus doesn’t mind what we eat . He does – and we need to be extremely awake to the reasons why. The earth God breathes with life is burning and sick, creatures made by God are exploited and farmed in horrific conditions, there are more autoimmune diseases than ever before massively impacted by diet and we have an obesity crisis . I cannot and will not agree that all diets are equally good for all and I must heartily remind us all that we need to eat what the world can afford and it cannot afford much more than a plant based diet frankly. Loving our neighbour means we wake up to the climate crisis and actually decide this is a form of deep evangelism
My understanding is that when Paul and his contemporaries were living nearly all food would have been unprocessed, and by definition organic as there were no industrially produced fertilisers or insecticides etc then. Now it is estimated, that in the UK, over 60% of food eaten is Ultra Processed (UPF), which is now known to be detrimental to our health, e.g. plays a big part in the obesity problem in our society.
I am sure Paul is right in telling the Romans, and us, not to be judgemental, but I wonder what he would have said about feeding our children and ourselves so much food that can probably damage health.