Christspiracy’s Dumb Conspiracy Theory, Explained
Last week we had an opportunity to view a sneak peek of an upcoming animal-rights film called Christspiracy, which is slated for a short theater run next month. The film is made by a vegan animal rights activist known for Cowspiracy and Seaspiracy, two schlock productions that attack beef and seafood. The premise of this film is that there’s a 2,000-year-old cover-up about religion and animals.
What’s the big reveal? Christspiracy argues that Jesus may have really been crucified because he supposedly spoke out against killing animals.
That’s a bold claim. But the film’s evidence is so scant, it’s insulting to viewers. And it’s not even new: PETA has been doing “Jesus was veg” stunts since the 1990s.
But first, here’s an overview of the film.
Overview
Filmmaker Kip Andersen connects with a guy living in his van who is going through a spiritual crisis of sorts. The van-dweller had a religious upbringing but is confused about how Jesus would kill an animal. This sparks an investigation into whether it’s biblically moral to eat meat.
Except it’s not really an investigation. It’s more of a series of poorly done interviews with little substance that provides the veneer of analysis.
First, the vegan filmmaker–it helps to remember they have an agenda–flies to Rome and speaks to a Catholic priest at the Vatican who answers their questions.
In fact, the filmmakers didn’t even need to go to Rome. All they had to do was Google the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which explains why, from a Biblical perspective, it’s moral to eat meat or wear leather:
God entrusted animals to the stewardship of those whom he created in his own image. Hence it is legitimate to use animals for food and clothing. They may be domesticated to help man in his work and leisure. Medical and scientific experimentation on animals is a morally acceptable practice if it remains within reasonable limits and contributes to caring for or saving human lives.
It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly.
In other words, the 2,000-year-old authority on Christianity says: No, the Bible doesn’t say you have to be vegan. Quite the opposite. This, and many scriptures that support animal use in the Bible, are absent in the film.
In fact, the film devolves into something akin to Vegan Q-Anon meets Dan Brown. Several interviewees are paraded into the film who make fantastical claims with little evidence to back them up.
At one point, an interviewee claims that there were books that showed Jesus to be a vegetarian, but these books were suppressed. This wild claim is not substantiated, and it also begs the logical question: If this material was suppressed so long ago, how does someone in 2024 know about it?
Who are these supposed religious scholars? One of them is introduced as a “Father Munro,” and with his on-screen attire it’d be easy to confuse him with a real Catholic priest. But “Father Munro” appears to be nothing more than a one-man vegan preacher squad with a New York group calling itself the “Humanitarian Church.”
And unsurprisingly, such a lightweight lineup leads to a bungled climax.
Christspiracy’s Conspiracy Theory
There’s a famous passage in the Bible called the cleansing of the temple. Jesus goes to a temple in Jerusalem and runs out the merchants and money-changers there. This leads to his arrest and crucifixion. In the Bible, it’s abundantly clear that Jesus is upset because the temple–a holy place–is being defiled by being turned into a marketplace.
The main theory of Christspiracy is that Jesus was actually crucified because he was really opposed to the business of some of the merchants–slaughtering animals. In other words, the film wants viewers to believe Jesus was really a vegetarian activist.
What’s the proof? At one point, the film consults someone who is supposedly an ancient languages scholar. There’s a sequence in which she reads a passage and is asked the meaning of the word “robber,” which is used in the phrase “den of robbers.” She agrees it could mean “violent one,” which supposedly could be a reference to animal slaughter. The whole sequence is awkward and comes across as if it was scripted, despite trying to frame itself as an unscripted “a-ha” moment.
The evidence so skin-deep as to be laughable. Is the joke on us for watching in the first place?
Other Religions?
Christspiracy does include short segments dealing with Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism and teachings of these religions on animals. But herein lies another glaring contradiction of the filmmakers. On the other one, the film focuses on a 2,000-year “cover-up”–a numerical figure that is clearly tied to Christianity (to say nothing of the film’s title). On the one hand, they try to argue that there’s a common message across world religions to show compassion (which they interpret, of course, to mean to be vegan).
The messages are confused, and mixed together in a way that the film ends with a montage of vegan/animal rights messages with kumbaya music. It’s truly bizarre.
Conclusion
Christspiracy isn’t treading new ground. The infamous animal rights group PETA has obnoxiously claimed that Jesus was a vegetarian for at least 25 years. Back when they appeared in the 1990s, a religious scholar called PETA’s arguments “so thin they’re pretty difficult to deal with,” while a bishop plainly said, “There are no indications [in the New Testament] of Christ being a vegetarian.” Christspiracy is the same old PETA wine in a new bottle.
