The Cult of Crunch: Braking down the good, the bad, and the biblical (or not) of natural living Part 3: Crunchy Christian?
Kids were yelling and running in the background as we parents sat in lawn chairs and sipped on lemonade enjoying adult company while seeing our kids play together. Naturally, the topic of raw milk came up which as it does leads to other topics in the heath sphere. As more naturally minded people, we started chatting on different things we had tried or heard tried. One said, “yeah, I thought it was just a regular massage, but she didn’t something weird at the end. Like some kind of energy thing. I didn’t like it.” Another popped up and started saying, “Gosh, I heard of this thing where someone was like ringing fingers together to figure out some supplement or something?” “I just saw a shop owner share that she had a tincture that was the sun’s essence of a flower? It supposedly put off the energy of the sun in every drop.” We all stated how wild some of the current crunchy practices seemed. What was even crazier was that some of our fellow Christians not just supported but practiced some of the more obscure crunchy practices that seemed a bit off. It was stated, “It comes down to the fact that many Christians don’t have a good biblical worldview.”
Then and there the idea of this series was conceived.
Don’t take that opening paragraph as one where I am condemning others as I have not struggled with my worldview or ideologies myself. First, go read my story at the beginning of this series. Second, that shop owner became a good friend of mine for a while. I would spend hours in her apothecary chatting herbs and grounding and more thinking that we had similar worldviews because, despite the sage bundles and questionable literature she sold, she would mention providence on occasion and talk about a higher power. I valued her friendship and her insight to the natural world. Our babies were born a month apart so we bonded over motherhood, co-sleeping, breastfeeding, trimming little toenails, and caring well for our families. I have invested in tinctures and ideologies that probably weren’t helpful to say the least. So set your pitchfork down, and let’s carry on as humans together who are trying their best but sometimes miss the mark.
Before diving into individual topics, I want to do a fly over of how Christians should go about living naturally. Understanding the history of the crunchy movement is key to understanding how we can use the chew and spit method (chew the meat, spit out the bones) to derive the most benefit and stay true to our God.
Should Christians Be Crunchy?
Well, that depends on a lot of things. It depends on what we mean by “should” and “crunchy.”
Should we be crunchy? It’s an area of Christian liberty. If you want to eat well, spend more time in nature, and live as low toxin as possible, that’s totally within your right to do so! Alternatively, you can also drink diet coke, stay inside most of the time, and use Fabuloso on your floors and it is NOT a sin. Natural living is not a moral virtue though it is often treated as so.
To be clear, we are to steward our bodies well. 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 sates that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirt. Romans 12:1 calls Christians to present their bodies as “a living sacrifice.” Genisis 1:27 says that humans are made in the image of God. These significant verses show that we are to care well for our bodies. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 explicitly states, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So, glorify God in your body.” The bible warns against gluttony (Proverbs 23:20-21; Philippians 3:19) and recommends moderation in rich foods (Proverbs 25:16). 1 Corinthians 10:31 says, “So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” We are called to treat well the bodies that God has entrusted to us.
I am personally convinced that natural living is one of the best ways we can treat our bodies well. Eating whole foods most of the time, using moderation with foods that are ultra processed, spending time outside in natural light with fresh air, moving well, avoiding pharmaceuticals with harmful side effects, and reducing exposure to toxic chemicals is good for our bodies. There was so much benefit to natural life prior to the Industrial Revolution where natural living was just living. Food and movement and being in nature seems to be a lot closer to God’s original intent.
That being said, there isn’t a biblical prescription for natural living. Sure, they didn’t have red dye 40 in bible times. But there were food debates. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul addresses the problem in the church of eating meat that might have been sacrificed to idols. He in verses 25-27 he says, “Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the grounds of conscience. For, ‘the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.’ If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the grounds of conscience.” The debate on eating meat sacrificed to idols was a moral one because many early Christians were converts from Judaism which had strict food laws on the handling of meat (for people’s good!). Also, eating meat sacrificed to an idol was seen as a secondhand way of worshiping said idol. For some it pricked their conscience to eat that meat as they didn’t want to inadvertently worship a false god. Paul was echoing Christ in saying that it didn’t matter. Jesus said in Mark 7:18-19, “…’then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from the outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean.)” But Paul did caveat in 1 Corinthians 10:28-29 to not eat it if it did prick someone’s conscience nor to eat it in the presence of a weaker Christian if they had an issue with it. As Martin Luther famously said, “to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.” Still, Paul says in verse 30, “If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I gave thanks?” If eating meat which may have been sacrificed to idols was not condemned for the early believer, then I think we can calm down on the meal that may have some seed oils in it but another person lovingly prepared for us.
We are not commanded to be crunchy, but we are commanded to steward our bodies well. Through prayer and reading our bibles, we should do that to the best of our knowledge and ability knowing that there is a LOT of room for Christian liberty.
What is crunchy? Depends on who you ask as we learned from the history of the crunchy movement!
If by “crunchy” we mean stewarding our bodies well and living naturally, yeah that’s great! But the modern-day crunchy movement comes with a layered history of different ideologies and belief systems. I don’t think it’s quite so cut and dry.
Whether we recognize it or not, it’s easy to let the belief systems that made up the history of the crunchy movement slip in to our subconscious. We can start equating our morality with how healthy we are. Instead of a way to optimize our health and life, it can shift into an obsession. We can start viewing the world through the lens of wellness instead of viewing it in light of what the bible says is good, right, and true. We can begin to believe in the wisdom of our bodies over the all-wise God. We can see nature as sacred and filled with a god-like energy instead of seeing it as beautiful and helpful but created by God. We can trade “Sola Feels” for “Sola Scriptura.” We can aim to free ourselves from institutions and Big pharma or Big Food or Big whatever and start to think that we need to break free of all these authorities as they don’t have our best interest in mind. While that is likely true, we cannot forget the ultimate Authority who has sovereignty over all things in the universe.
We may not directly say that we have misplaced our center of worship and have changed the way in which we view the world. It probably won’t be that explicit. Instead, it’ll come out as panics over air fresheners at a relative’s house. Or maybe belittling someone, even just in your head, over the food they brought to a get together because it has ingredients in it that are ultra processed. Or maybe thinking if you could just ground more or get a better ashwagandha supplement or get that one type of magnesium you would finally calm down a bit and have some peace. Or maybe spending beyond your means because your favorite influencer or biohacker said you NEED this air purifier or red-light device. Or maybe it’s holding tightly to a practice like yoga or Reiki even when you’ve had some spiritual questions about it because you also get physical benefits from it. Or maybe just a tiny bit of a feeling of superiority for your home birth or breastfeeding, and if other moms just had some discipline they could do it too. Any of these examples sting a little bit? Yeah, same here.
“You shall have no other gods before me,” Exodus 20:3. We need to assure that God is still God in our life and not our wellness or the wellness of our families. If we approach wellness through a biblical worldview and just aim to steward our bodies well, then, yes, Christians should (a more accurate verb would be “can”) be crunchy.
For our last segment of this, let’s lay out clearly what is a worldview and compare and contrast the biblical worldview from the crunchy worldview.
A worldview is a comprehensive conception of the world from a specific standpoint. Per Got Questions’ website, every worldview deals with at least three questions:
1. Where did we come from?
2. What is wrong with the world?
3. How can we fix it?
The biblical worldview has comprehensive answers for these questions. For the first question, the biblical worldview states that man is made in the image of God. We were created to be above the plants and animals and govern them. We were designed to be in fellowship with God and bring Him glory (Genesis 1:27-28, 2:15; Isaiah 43:7; Revelation 4:11). Second, what’s wrong with the world is we sinned against God and now the whole world is under the curse of sin (Genesis 3; Romans 3:23, 5:12). Lastly, we can’t fix it, but God did. God redeemed the world through the sacrifice of Jesus, and one day He will restore creation to perfection (Luke 19:10; Ephesians 3:13; Galatians 3:13; Romans 3:24; Isaiah 65:17-25). (Credit to Got Questions for this section.)
The crunchy worldview also has answers. While many different people make up the crunchy movement, we can look back through the history of the movement and see general answers to the worldview questions. First, it says we came from nature and should therefore live in harmony with it. Second, it’s answer to what is wrong with the world is that we have become disconnected namely from nature but also our bodies, our food, and one another. Lastly, the crunchy answer to how we can fix the world is via retuning to more natural, intentional living.
See the difference? The biblical worldview puts God at the center where the crunchy worldview puts nature and man at the center. One’s worldview is comprehensive. You don’t have to know you have it to use it every day. It’s truly how you view the world. It affects every aspect of life. How you think about the world will determine how you spend money, what job you choose, what music you listen to, what foods you eat and more. With God at the center, you may choose to save your money for emergencies. With nature at the center, you may choose to go into debt to get better air quality. If we’re inherently valuable because God made us, we may choose to steward our bodies well to honor and glorify Him who made us. If we’re just another part of nature, we could wear ourselves out trying to be perfect, or worse elevate ourselves to a god status because nature is the highest good and we’re a part of it. If the problem is sin, it can drive us to repentance and fellowship with God. If the problem is disconnection with nature, we can try to swear off all industrialization and institutions but probably really struggle with that as it’s hard to avoid today. If the solution is the finished work of Christ on the cross, we can rest in Him and find peace. If the solution is returning to more natural living, we may work ourselves to death as salvation is something we must do, not a free gift.
The crunchy movement is dangerous to the Christian not because it’s fully false, but because it’s almost true. Yes, nature matters and we should steward our bodies and the environment well. But the core beliefs behind why we should care about health and nature are drastically off from the truth of the gospel.
In conclusion, we can live naturally! I think it’s a wonderful way of stewarding our bodies well. Let’s eat whole foods (go new food pyramid!!), get outside, move well, appreciate motherhood and fatherhood, be wise about the substances we put into our bodies, and overall live for the glory of God. Let’s realize that some things are areas of Christian liberty. Maybe a fellow Christian is taking Ozempic or eating Twizzlers every day. We could debate on whether or not that is the healthiest thing for them, but we can’t claim it to be a sin. But there are things in the crunchy movement that can outright be called a sin. If we’re worshiping at the proverbial alter of natural living, we have put another god before God. Or if we’re participating in practices that are against God’s laws, we’re sinning and need to repent. We need to check our worldview. We need to check our hearts. And we need to check our practices.
Next in the series, we will be doing deep dives on individual wellness practices. We’ll look at what the practice is, the history of the it to know the roots, then look at the effectiveness of it. We will conclude with looking at it through the biblical worldview. Hang on, it’s about to get wild.
