Do Christians have moral obligations to animate creation? Many say no, citing the mandate to "have dominion" over all living things (Genesis 1:28) as reason enough to dismiss notions of animal welfare as a religious obligation. This verse is unambiguous, they argue, demonstrating that animals are a gift from God, available for human consumption whether as food, labor, entertainment or use in scientific research.
But is the language of Genesis so devoid of ambiguity? Some readers may happily embrace the instruction to "have dominion" but overlook the charge "Be fruitful and multiply" in the first half of the verse, perhaps using birth control without any qualm. Why is one imperative limited in scope, while the other universal and timeless? Who determines what laws remain in force, and which cease to apply? The same cynical respondent may also point out that the very next verse describes a plant-based diet, the first reference to food in the Bible (Genesis 1:29; the diet of 9:3 appears to be a concession for a sinful world, not an ideal state). If the "dominion" notion offers enduring permission to rule and consume, why is 1:29 not normative as well? My interest here is not interpretation of the priestly creation story. I merely want to show how the use of proof texts is a slippery business, inevitably involving omissions and selectivity. We cannot appeal to Genesis 1:28 as an easy answer to my opening question any more than we can read 1:29 as an obligatory menu. The Bible, however, is not silent on the subject of animal well-being.
A few admissions are in order before I proceed. Yes, I am aware the ancient Bible does not speak directly or simply to the ethical concerns of the modern world. Yes, I am aware that discourse about animal welfare is a relatively recent phenomenon, originating in part with objections to the use of animals in medical experimentation during the 19th-century vivisection debates. Yes, I acknowledge that I have a limited perspective as an urbanite who has spent little time on farms or in regions where hunting is a way of life. Yes, I am aware that it is a luxury to speak of ethical diets when many in our world go hungry. Yes, I am aware that sentimentality and the tendency to anthropomorphize can cloud objectivity. Yes, I am aware that many Christians view concern about the ethical treatment of animals as a misplaced priority because Jesus tells us clearly that people are worth far more than sparrows (Matthew 10:31; Luke 12:7). Yes, I am aware that animal meat is an essential food source for groups of people in some parts of the world (e.g., the Inuit in the Canadian arctic). Yes, I am aware that meat eating and animal sacrifice is integral to many indigenous cultures and religious communities. And yes, I am aware that arguments for animal rights often involve the assumption that humans are just another species, when the Bible indicates human beings have a unique status in creation (e.g., Genesis 1:26 cf. 1:24-25).
I should also be clear about my personal views on the issues at hand. I am an ethical vegetarian though originally chose to be so independent of theological reflection. Only later did I begin to think about animal compassion and diet in religious terms. I mention this because we must be cautious of asking the Bible to answer questions it does not address, or support convictions reached on other grounds. My initial interest in the subject and my choice of diet has much to do with a lack of confidence in the meat processing system, and its ability to provide consistently humane treatment of animals raised and slaughtered for food. Because of my biases, I approach the topic cautiously.
Though not mandated for Christians, a vegetarian diet does not conflict with any biblical teachings. Paul does not condemn those in the Roman church preferring to avoid meat (Romans 14:2, 21), though it was a fear of idols, not concern for animals, that motivated their choices. At the same time, though, the Bible does not speak often about human obligations to other species, it clearly does not condone cruelty to animals (see e.g., Proverbs 12:10), and there are Torah regulations apparently intent on alleviating undue distress for vulnerable creatures (consider e.g., Exodus 20:10; 23:5; Deuteronomy 22:4, 6-7, 10; 25:4). Is this reason enough for Christians to think carefully about their food choices? What troubles me is the ubiquity of meat in the diets of the developed world, and the enormity of the meat processing industry required to sustain them. Cruelty and inhumane treatment is inevitable in such a massive enterprise. I do not have clear answers to these questions but admit to a sense of dissonance when comparing the little Scripture says about animals with the eating habits and farming practices of the modern world.
Admittedly, most passages mentioning animals do not speak to ethical questions facing contemporary readers. References to the slaughter and consumption of animals in the Bible usually occur in relation to ritual activity, as is the case with Passover celebrations that require the consumption of a lamb (Exodus 12:3-10). The Bible also serves as witness to other belief systems that sacrificed animals (see e.g., Paul's words about meat offered to idols in 1 Corinthians 8:1-13). Occasionally, the killing of animals proves something about human characters in stories. Samson burns 300 jackals or foxes alive in an act of revenge thus proving his strength over the Philistines (Judges 15:4-5); David kills bears and lions as evidence of his courage (1 Samuel 17:34-37); Elijah shows himself to be a true prophet of a superior God through a contest involving the death of two bulls (1 Kings 18:22-23). In other stories, meat eating provides evidence of prosperity and God's blessings, or indicates generosity and hospitality (e.g., Genesis 18:8).
There are references to devout individuals in the Bible choosing to refrain from eating meat, usually involving efforts to avoid ritual defilement (Daniel 1:5-16; Tobit 1:10-13; Judith 10:5; 12:2; Romans 14:2), and in other cases as an act of self-denial or a vow to God (e.g., Numbers 6:3; Judges 13:4, 7, 14). These, however, are exceptions to usual practices. Though some maintain Jesus was vegetarian, many more insist this was not the case. Meat eating was certainly not widespread in the Jewish world around the turn of the era. According to Ben Sira, writing in the second century before Christ, "The basic necessities of human life are water and fire and iron and salt and wheat flower and milk and honey, the blood of the grape and oil and clothing. All these are good for the godly, but for sinners they turn into evils" (Ecclesiasticus 39:26-27). The omission of meat from this list suggests many did not rely on it as a staple for their diet.
It deserves repeating that almost all references to meat eating in the Bible (and decisions to abstain from it) are associated with cultic activity and religious expression in some form or other. This is rarely true in the modern, developed world, and as a result there is little conscious thought about the animals killed for food, and no serious reflection on the sacredness of blood and death. My impression is that many Christians are cavalier in their attitude toward animal-based diets, quickly adopting the "dominion" language of the creation story (Genesis 1:26), and quickly dismissing language pointing to the solemnity of ritual, sacrificial death (e.g., Leviticus 16:1-34) and respect for the blood of living things (e.g., Leviticus 17:10-14). Meat eating becomes commonplace in an over-nourished, over-fed society. It is normative, a part of all meals. We eat for pleasure, not for religious purposes or subsistence or as an occasional luxury. This trivializing of sentient creation is theologically problematic, if Karl Barth is correct. He recommends Romans 8:18-19 be written "in letters of fire ... across every hunting lodge, abattoir and vivisection chamber," and maintains that the killing of animals is only possible "as a deeply reverential act of repentance, gratitude and praise on the part of the forgiven sinner" (Church Dogmatics).
There is little evidence of such reverence in contemporary Christianity, which by-and-large rarely considers moral obligations to animals. Our society breeds and slaughters far more animals for food than we actually need. The combination of a high demand for meat, and a concomitant loss of respect for animals, encourages tolerance for a meat-processing system that frequently takes the well-being of animals for granted. It does not take long on websites dedicated to these issues (see e.g., the Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals), to discover that the realities of the factory farm and human treatment of animals in other settings are often horrific.
The Mishnah refers to making a fence for the Torah (Avot 1:1), a concept responding to the ambiguities of introducing ethical teachings to new contexts. What does it mean, for instance, to take the Lord's name in vain? What does it mean to keep the Sabbath holy? To avoid breaking the laws of God, the rabbis recommend limiting opportunities for doing so. If you do not want to use the divine name in vain, "build a fence" around that command and do not say that name at all. If you do not want to profane the Sabbath, "build a fence" around that command and expand the definition of what constitutes work. Do more than is asked in hope of doing what is asked. Here we have a useful model to consider with reference to religious obligations to non-human, sentient creation.
If we want to avoid cruelty and irreverent treatment of other living things, vegetarianism -- or at least limiting meat intake -- is a small step in that direction. By choosing not to eat animals, Christians build a hedge in an effort to avoid treating God's good creatures (Genesis 1:20-25) cruelly or frivolously.
Fitting my name is Daniel, lions should fear me.
I don't see any conflict between Christianity and vegetarianism and although I haven't read any of the other comments on this post yet, I don't know of anyone who thinks there is.
We need courageous leaders to follow the whole Gospel concerning Jesus and the redemption of creation (including God's animas) - our responsibility towards them and that we will be held accountable someday for them --- Col 1:15-17; Ro 8:19-22 and Heb 4:13. Anyone who truly loves God should at least respect and treat His creatures with kindness and speak out against the evil we've allowed to grow with our silence to billions of animals in factories. It's been allowed and promoted by churches/Pastors and other church leaders. There are some who speak out and hopefully more will join them. The younger generation may 'see the light' in churches hopefully if it's not too late.
Jan
Founder, God's Creatures Ministry
Well, they could use the protein just any one else could, but there's a very good reason they don't eat them, and it has absolutely nothing to do with preserving or saving the animal species of the world.
Ever since Noah's nephews left home and migrated to the Indus valley and turned from the God of their fathers to the spirits of that recondite realm, they entered into a degraded belief of making every thing that moved into objects representing those "gods".
Talk to any Hindu you meet on the street, and they won't even blink an eye when they tell you that they don't eat meat because it hinders the natural gates of their soul from freely opening to the "gods": this is widely taught in all their religious literature, and some of us should perhaps read them.
The Hindu practice of not eating beef is not nearly as ancient as the Hindu religion itself and in fact the Vedas talk a lot about animal sacrifice and eating meat of all kinds, including beef. Check out Prof. D. N. Jha's study "Holy Cow: Beef in Indian Dietary Traditions" (interesting review in the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/17/books/holy-cow-a-myth-an-indian-finds-the-kick-is-real.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm). The practice of not eating beef may also have practical roots in the fact that a live cow is more useful to a peasant subsistence farmer over the long run as a source of milk , fuel (dried dung) and offspring (other cows and bullocks used for for labor) than in the short term as a source of meat.
Back in the early 1940's, as late as that, when Western culture wasn't so bleek, spiritually empty and devoid of all meaning as we see all around us today, the average person, even if they didn't know the word Syncretisim, sure knew it when they saw it practiced, as when someone proposes to MIX Christian precepts and principles with Eastern religious practices, as is so casually done today by frightful numbers of Christians, and to a much greater degree among non-Christians in America.
Back when America was a proud Protestant Republic of great stature on the world stage, American citizens had no truck with such nonsense, and followed the precepts of the Scriptures which absolutely forbade mixing Christianity with any other religion.As the world's 56 Muslim countries do today, having only recently escaped 300 years of Roman Catholic subjugation in Europe, they would not allow any other religion to be practiced or established on American soil.
Now that they have lost that vision, the byword now is, "all religions are equal!". So now Vegetarianism is practiced: a practice known for millennia to lessen the will and natural barriers of the devotee, all the better to allow [demon] spirits easy entre.
The United States is not a "Protestant Republic," proud or otherwise. The United States is a secular country, without a state religion (although some individual clearly would like it to have one), with a Constitutional guarantee of separation of church and state, and while many Americans "followed the precepts of the Scriptures," they did so purely in their personal lives, not in their capacity AS "American citizens."
I believe in another post you commented that you are in Sweden. Perhaps you should confine yourself to commenting matters of Swedish society and politics, because your ideas about the United States are completely off the wall. Your ideas about vegetarianism are pretty off the wall, too.
But what does that matter? All you need, to be informed about American's Protestant history is knowing how to read.
Here's a little: When Britain broke free of the Roman Catholic Church's Domination, James I commissioned the Scriptures into the King James translation and wrote its teachings into the Laws honoring God in all institutions, strictly observing Sunday as the Sabbath and so that little Island became the greatest Empire on earth!
That Empire expanded into America, establishing Protestant colonies. In the 1600's, temporal power and heavenly authority was seen as residing in one person: the King, but the Protestants in the colonies wanted to worship God "without" interference from "temporal power" of the King.
This led to their declaring independence from [the] King, and writing the Constitution establishing the separation of Church and State. Because they were Protestants.
You made this statement above then went on to say "God's Word is the fence for the Christian."
So in your words, your god doesn't have a case then?
Look, my philosophy is simple: Suffering is the enemy. And when I look around, the exploitation of animals is the worst, and most needless and preventable form of suffering today. The sheer number of individual animal beings, and the abject horrors of factory farms,, "laboratories", fur "production", etc. etc., inflicted upon them for human's pleasure and profit is inexcusable, in my view. Inexcusable. Inexcusable.
It may not be a 'Christian' point of view to consider even our prey animals kin and living souls, but I can't see setting people over and against the rest of the world, be they plants, animals, or microbes, has either brought health or plenty, of itself.
I'm not in a position to only eat animals I kill myself, but even if it's a McSoyburger I thank the creatures who went in whatever blender. :)
'Respect' doesn't necessarily mean 'Presuming to order ourselves above the rest of the world, then moralistically-only accepting that we're eating creatures we consider 'lesser' enough.
We're part of *all* of this. Stag or soybean, we show respect or we lose it.
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
Genesis9:3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.
Romans 14:1-23 As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.
1 Corinthians 10:25 Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience.
Of course, none of this means a thing to someone (like me) who is not a Christian or a Jew in any event.
We have been sold a protein myth by agribusiness and the government that we're still struggling with today.
The problem with 'The American Diet' is not that it includes meat... It's that we *eat too much.* And part of that problem is indeed that much of the junk we eat is corporate-designed to replicate things our instincts tell us are 'Precious: Eat more. And More. And More. And then they toss on MSG.
The animals we are ecolved under circumstances where protein is in fact very needed to think properly, but fats and sugars and salt are in fact rare feeding opportunities we have instincts to try and maximize. And they advertise them every day.
It's not about the meat. Or other plants and animals... So much as who *we* are. As animals. This isn't about *moralistic laws,* or some 'One perfect human,' ....it's about respect and dealing with abundance. We're not used to that. But here it is. Blessed be. :)
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Really? Then why do many people salivate at the sight, smell, or even thought of meat? Your post actually had merit up until this ludicrous statement.
God doesn't exist, that's why evolution designed us to adapt and survive.