The Emergent Prophet and Casual Christianity

Emergent Prophet here…I am writing in my diary this evening and may post to my web-blog later. So if you are reading this online, I guess I decided to vent in public. After all, isn’t that what it’s all about…if you got a beef (no pun intended as you will see later) about something or someone, the best thing to do is to post it online, or put it on my Facebook page so that when people disagree with my opinions and ideas, then I can denigrate them and have my peeples beat them up online with scathing critiques and well thought out editorials. I think that this is best. Well, anyway, what has me up late tonight (besides not wanting to miss another episode of Letterman and How I Met Your Mother) is that I am steamed about getting thrown out of the Vegan Rally and Fruitfest earlier today.

 Here’s how it went down… I had my booth set up at the Fair, I had paid my fees, had my license in hand and was all set up to try to make some much-needed funds to help pay for my botox injection, when some crazed, fanatical, apparently right-wing crazies from the Vegan Party came all unglued and went postal on me. They said that I had no right to be selling hot dogs, hamburgers and bratwursts (real meat mind you…nothing but) at their Fair. I said that I had paid my dues, had my license, it was all LEGAL mind you, and so I didn’t see the problem. They said that this was a VEGETARIAN outing and so selling of meat was offensive and would not be tolerated. I disagreed. They threw me out. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me give you a bit of background…

 I am a vegetarian. My parents were vegetarians. My grandparents were vegetarians. In fact, my great-grandfather was vegetarian prophet of sorts – he had an organic garden, he was always preaching to people about the benefits of the vegan diet and all. So, I was born a vegetarian. My parents took me to vegetarian meetings, they made me learn stuff about vegetarians, had me memorize vegetarian mantras, and would read to me from the Big Book of Vegetarian Teachings each night. I am a vegetarian.

 But, one day I left home and went away to college. It was there that I had my in-bred, farm-boy, narrow-minded vegetarian world blown away. It started off slowly at first. I met some guys at the dorm on the first day and they jokingly told me that they would have me eating meat by the end of the year. I was convinced that they were wrong, that I was born a vegetarian and couldn’t change, but they were persistent, and they were nice to me. I went to the cafeteria with these meat-eaters and there would be hamburgers, pork chops, meatloaf or whatever and they would always try to get me to just try a bite of meat, but I stuck to my guns (though I find real guns offensive and think that they should be banned by the government, who needs guns today anyway and who cares about what some fascists thought about 200 years ago?) and would only eat fruit and veggies, with the occasional triscuit. I wasn’t trying to offend anyone, I just thought that it was wrong to eat meat, and that meat-eaters were nice enough people – but misguided. My thinking was so quaint. After all, they were my friends and they seemed like such nice people who were sincere in their belief that they were born as meat eaters. And they were offended that I thought that it was wrong to eat meat. They said that if I loved them then I had to love their meat.

 Well, one day, after much pleading and begging from my friends, I tried a bite of corn dog. Wow, that was good. I began to see the error of my ways. Then the next day, I had a Quarter Pounder, then a spare rib, until eventually I went all out and ate a T-Bone Steak for dinner! This was an epiphany! I could not believe that I had lived my whole life in this little vegetarian cocoon and had not experienced something as wonderful as this T-Bone! I was converted. They were right – “eating meat is sweet” and I was a Carnivore by Carnivaal (another neat little saying that they had). But I was also a bit torn – after all, I was a vegetarian. I struggled with this apparent dichotomy, until one day I talked with one of my professors who said that he was a Carnivorous Vegetarian. I thought that this was a paradox and didn’t make much sense but when he explained that the roots of the vegetarian lifestyle went back thousands of years and that in the original manuscripts of the veggie doctrine, the real meaning in the ancient Sumerian language of the concept of vegetarianism was rooted in the idea that it was ok to eat meat, it was just forbidden to eat meat from animals that might become extinct (like Dodo bird, for example) then it suddenly became clear to me: I could be a vegetarian and still eat meat! Of course, I couldn’t eat Bald Eagle, or Siberian Tiger or something, but other than that I was free! This changed my life – I could literally “have my cake and eat it too!” What freedom! I was like Michael Moore at the Golden Corral – I just couldn’t stop eating meat, I reveled in my new found beliefs!

The problem came when I wrote home to tell my folks about what I had done. They couldn’t see it like I did and they were heartbroken and disillusioned. They thought that I had lost my religion, but I assured them that, “No, I am still a vegetarian! I can just eat meat, too!” I thought that we could all get along, but they are stuck in their traditional ways and think that in order to be a vegetarian that you should actually do what vegetarians do and believe what vegetarians believe (aren’t they sort of cute in their antiquated ways?) and that it was wrong and a conflict of principle to eat meat. They just don’t get it. And neither did those Pharisees at the Fair (I should call them Fair-isees, get it?) –they told me get out and take my meat with me.

Well, I am still recovering from that slap in the face, but I have found solace online by joining a support group for Carnivorous Vegetarians, and through my friends – who are so glad that I am a meat-eater now. It also helps to talk with my professors and other students (they are so wise in the things of the world…I was so sheltered before) who have had to shed their past upbringing as fundamental vegetarians and have moved on to the new and emerging vegetarian movement, where you can eat whatever you want and still call yourself a vegetarian/Vegan.

To be honest, I still have some guilt, but I think that is because of those vegetarians preachers on TV or sometimes there are vegetarians who meet (not “meat”, get it?) on campus and try to bring me back to true vegetarianism (but I remind myself that they are just hypocrites who probably help themselves to a can of Spam when no one is looking). I think that the school should ban these kinds of people from sharing their beliefs as it makes me uncomfortable. In fact, I think that the government should ban all fundamental vegetarians from discussing their radical beliefs with others in a public forum, you know maybe they should not allow them to even think their radical thoughts and they should put them in jail to get their minds right – after all, it has been really freeing for me to shed my past convictions and embrace the totality of who I am – a Carnivorous Vegetarian! Yeah, for me! I’m gonna make a quick run to Jimmy Johns!

  Titus 1:16 “They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient, and worthless for any good deed.”