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"A
farmer went out to sow his seed….[1]”
Some of the Religious Issues of Celiac Disease
As I’ve learned about gluten intolerance, I have struggled with the reality of wheat’s fundamental underpinning of western civilization. A colleague likes to tell me, “God put wheat on this planet for us to eat!” To question eating wheat today is sacrilege, but that same criticism also fell on John the Baptist who also happened to reject eating wheat as discussed below.[2]
In the West, wheat bread is the “staff of life”. For Christians, eating wheat is central to that religion’s most important sacrament[3]. No culture eats more wheat than Arab Islam[4]. Judaism observes their most sacred Passover with unleavened bread. The following paragraphs are commentary on relationships of wheat and some religions. Obviously, I still have some questions myself, any suggestions by e-mail would be welcome.
Contents:
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Christianity There is more here only because I know more about it Communion Did Adam and Eve eat bread? Was wheat even in the Garden of Eden at all? John The Baptist lived "wheat-free" Jesus Christ tried the gluten-free diet. |
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Christianity
I have a couple of biblical interpretations of gluten intolerance that depend on whether one is Believer or a Skeptic, … or both.
For the
Believer
Communion: A contemporary issue for millions of (mostly undiagnosed) Christian Celiacs world wide is Communion. “This is a particular challenge to Catholics, who believe that the celebration of the Holy Eucharist and the reception of Holy Communion are the very source and summit of the Christian life[5].” The non-Catholic may be able to arrange non-gluten wafers[6], but the Catholic’s options are constrained by that church’s belief that the bread cannot be Christ’s body unless made from wheat[7].
Some laypersons suggest that maybe Christ used something other than wheat bread at the Last Supper. Sure the Biblical Middle East cultivated millet and oats. But millet and oats were not commonly used for bread if they were used at all, especially when compared with the toxic trio, wheat, barley, and rye.
An interesting article in addition to those referenced in the footnotes is Communion Bread and Celiac Disease. This article introduces the doctrine issued related to wheat. But, I do fault this article for the false statement that gluten intolerance is “uncommon” and for the condescending suggestion that most Celiacs don’t really understand their condition and can still eat some wheat gluten without injury.
To this conversation, I would like to add the following Biblical commentary.
Did Adam and Eve eat bread? God gave Adam every seed-bearing plant and every tree that has fruit with seed in it (and perhaps every animal) for food[8]. I suppose wheat could be included in the seed bearing plant category, but wheat is very hard to eat and mildly toxic and almost indigestible without some sort of processing – one would starve. No, Adam did not eat bread until after his punishment for eating the fruit of tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam was cursed to be a *farmer*, to suffer and toil in pain, and then eat bread from the grain he grows[9] (I never head that sermon as a junior wheat farmer in Hays, Kansas!).
“…
Cursed is the ground because of you;
In toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.
"Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you will eat the plants of the field;
By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
…” [10]
Before their fall, Adam and Eve lived without effort, eating delicious fruit and nuts (and meat if you are not a vegan) that were there simply for the taking. After the fall, they had to work in suffering for their food, which was the nutritionally deficient wheat. Adam had to till the soil, and every farmer knows that tilled soil does indeed spring up with “thorns and thistles” unless you break your back hoeing weeds or unless you spray herbicide.
More to the point, was wheat even in the Garden of Eden at all? No! Wheat is a manmade grain that never existed in nature. Wheat is the result of generations if not centuries of genetic manipulation through hybridization.
So, I conclude that before Christ, growing grain and eating bread represented man’s fall from grace and expulsion from Eden. Ancient stone ground wheat bread was not particularly a happy food (try it), unless you are very hungry. (Let’s leave Passover for a later Section.)
John The Baptist famously lived and ate a Gluten Free Diet of locusts and wild honey. Here, perhaps, is some suggestion that virtue might be found in an eccentric, “hippie” diet. Or maybe this was just to illustrate that John lived outside civilization’s norm, that is to say, in the “wilderness”. For his diet, among other reasons, John was considered by civilization’s authorities to be possessed by a demon[11].
If it is worth anything, Jesus Christ lived Gluten Free (OK, fasting) for his 40 days in the wilderness. When tempted by the “tempter” to use his own powers to make bread to eat, he replied famously, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God”.[12]
My best guess is that Christ says, “Forget about the (wheat) bread of this world, I am the true food you are hungering for.” [13]
For the Skeptic
Genesis provides an interesting condensing of Earth and Man’s Prehistory. First the earth formed, then came plants and animals, and finally there was man. In Genesis 1 and 2, early man foraged off the land, had no shelter or clothing, and he neither farmed nor processed his food. This is pre-Paleolithic Man! Paleolithic Man did not evolve to eat grain![14] In Genesis 3, man became “civilized”, developed social mores, and began to eat grain. This is Neolithic Man, the first farmer! Neolithic Man suffered in Adam-like fashion from the diseases associated with eating grain![15] The first warfare known in human history is associated with the Neolithic agricultural civilizations[16]. In comparison, Genesis 4:1-8 claims that the first human-on-human conflict was the murder of a herdsman by a farmer (this story probably having been recorded by herdsmen, such as were the Jews of the time of Moses).
Consider also the physical and mental ailments of Jesus’s time as historically recorded in the bible. Do not many of these ailments suggest symptoms of conditions that are now coming to be recognized as frequently related to food intolerances? Epilepsy, autism, paranoia, paralysis, lameness, schizophrenia? When a gluten free diet cures these conditions, it is not “instantaneous”, but great improvement can occur in a couple of weeks.
Islam
I am not at all knowledgeable of the religious role of wheat or any other grain in the Islamic Religion. However, an intensely religious culture such as Arab Islam that gets over 50% of is calories from wheat may hold that grain with some special regard[17]. But maybe wheat or bread has no important role in Islam at large, since such a large portion of Islam lives where rice, sorghum, and other safer grains, are the staple. I may find out someday.
However, I am concerned about the high rates of gluten intolerance in the Middle East[18], and the implications that fact has on the large-scale health and stability of that region. (See also the essay Solving the World's Problems.)
Judaism
Much is made of the eating of unleavened bread during Passover. Gliadin from wheat gluten is less soluble and therefore may be somewhat less hazardous in unleavened bread than in leavened bread. This leads me to wonder if undiagnosed Celiac Jews might notice health changes over the week of Passover.
Modern Paganism
By unusual circumstances, I have had a number of friends and acquaintances that have dabbled with or were involved in various forms of neo-paganism. Having read books by the Farrars as well as more encyclopedic studies of the neo-pagan phenomenon, and having studied Pre-1000 AD Norse and British Isle cultures relating to a number of subjects, I recall no outstanding religious significance placed on grain or bread in neither old Nordic nor modern pagan religions. Sure there were fertility rites, but nothing that really rises to the intensity of the Holy Communion, at least for today’s world, but I may be uninformed.
But I bring up the subject of modern paganism not to speak about the role of wheat in that group of theologies, but to speak about the general health of people participating in its loosely defined religions. It is my studied observation that a great portion, perhaps majority, is physically ill or disabled. Food allergies, emaciation, obesity, seizure, bipolar disorder, carpal tunnel, smoking, and other stereotypical ailments are too common in these particular religions. This is not something that has escaped the more observant in those communities, either, but it is hard to objectively measure. I rather knew this before I studied gluten intolerance, but now that I know the symptoms, I am even more concerned for them. I am only suggesting that people in certain social groups should be more suspicious of the possibilities of gluten intolerance than those in other groups. I do strongly suspect that the effects of gluten intolerance do affect one’s choices of social association. But the only way to conclusively prove this hunch one way or another would be a study of the levels of anti-gliadin antibodies in various religions.
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