Keith Akers

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Keith Akers is an American advocate of nonviolence, simple living and Christian vegetarianism.

Akers graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1971 with B. A. (magna cum laude) in philosophy and was a professional computer programmer for many years. He is very active in the vegetarian community, as former president of both the Vegetarian Society of D. C. and the Vegetarian Society of Colorado, and as an officer in the International Vegetarian Union.

He identifies his "debut in the field of religious controversy" to 1967, when he "delivered the 'youth sermon' for the First Baptist Church in Oak Ridge, Tennessee" and "shocked the congregation with the declaration that (based on Matthew 25:31–40) religious belief is irrelevant to salvation."

Keith Akers believes that modern Christians would do well to imitate the Ebionites in their vegetarianism and pacifism, doctrines he regards as going back to Jesus himself. Akers is a critic of "Pauline Christianity", claiming that Paul distorted Jesus' message.

[edit] Bibliography

The Lost Religion of Jesus: Simple Living and Nonviolence in Early Christianity (New York: Lantern Books, 2000)
A Vegetarian Sourcebook: The Nutrition, Ecology, and Ethics of a Natural Foods Diet (originally New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1983).