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Vegetarianism from a Christian Perspective
The Essence Of WorshipFaith Fellowship Church'PO Box 1586'Broken Arrow, OK 74013'Pastor Terry Dashner 'Essence of Worship' Is ..... There are many good reasons for being vegetarians, but I
think that the Bible (both in the gospels and in the epistles)
is fairly clear about religion not being a good one.
You have Jesus saying that it is not what goes into one's
mouth that makes one good or bad, and you have writings
from Paul about people arguing over whether they eat meat
or drink wine. Also, there is the story (in the book of Acts)
about the sheet coming down from heaven with various
forms of "unclean meat" in it for Peter to eat. What all of this
is saying is pretty strong. It is saying that a religious slant on
dietary issues tends to destroy good relations between
people, because it is so easy to become self-righteous
about what we do or do not eat.
Any theory that Jesus himself was a vegetarian seems to be
strongly overshadowed by his clear understanding that
vegetarianism is a non-issue. Even if he WAS a vegetarian,
it would not be significant. I think there is no doubt that meat
eating was practiced throughout the Old Testament. So if
vegetarianism was to be any part of Jesus' new message,
he would have had to be quite specific about it, and, of
course, he has not been. What he is quoted as having said
seems to lean more in the other direction, as stated at the
paragraph above.
Certainly when you get the vision of the difference between
religion and the kingdom of heaven, you see just how
foreign to that whole teaching it is to start preaching
vegetarianism. Health issues are promoted by religions
around the world, while Jesus and other New Testament
writers tended to see this religious approach to health
issues as a bad thing.
I am not saying that vegetarianism is wrong, any more than
it is wrong to refrain from taking heroin. Things going into
your body may not destroy your soul, but they still can do
some pretty bad things to your health. So do look after your
health. There are legitimate health arguments with regard to
certain things that we eat or don't eat. In particular, if there is
a lot of FAT on the meat that you eat, it is going to greatly
increase your cholesterol, and your risk of heart disease. So
do what you can to alter your diet in order to be HEALTHY,
as long as you don't get RELIGIOUS about it.
Islamic World DominationThe question is not whether terrorism is now a world-wide reality, but why is terrorism happening at all' And, is it possible to ..... There is a fairly simple way to pick up the difference
between seeing diet as a health issue and seeing it as a
religious issue. Religious vegetarians almost always have
a closed mind about any good that can come from eating
meat (e.g. the wonderful source of iron in red meat), and no
matter where you start from, they usually end up with the
same conclusion, i.e. that if you just stop eating meat, your
problems will be solved.
But there are two other reasons for being vegetarians which
are closer to the spirit of what Jesus taught. One is concern
about cruelty to animals.
It may sound a bit strange, but I personally don't see that
killing animals is necessarily the same as being cruel to
animals. You can have animals as pets and still be cruel to
them; and, by the same token, you can raise animals for
food and still be sensitive to their needs. The reason I am
saying this is because I don't think that life in itself is the
highest good. Was it Socrates who said "Not life, but a
GOOD life, is to be chiefly valued"? I think the same can
apply to animals. We are all going to die sometime, but
what matters is how we live life before that day comes.
We are told that God gives and God takes away'; but
unfortunately, when God "takes away" (i.e. when someone
dies) many people get angry with him and say that he is
unloving. But they forget that he was the one who gave us
life to begin with. My own personal feeling is that God has
given much that same power to us humans, i.e. that we can
give life to animals by breeding them, and by providing food,
shelter, etc. for them, but that we can also take that life away
when it is needed for food. Whether we are caring for the
animals or killing them for food (as a way to care for
humans) I think that we should be humane in how we do it.
This is consistent with the message of love in the gospels.
It has been argued that when Jesus told us to preach the
gospel to every creature, he was putting animals on a par
with humans. I don't personally see that this passage is
talking about us preaching to animals. I think the word
"creature" in this context is limited to human beings... those
creatures who can comprehend the gospel. (After all, what
would you say to an ant about Christ dying for their sins, or
about living by faith?)
The final reason for being a vegetarian is based on
concerns about the wise use of Earth's resources. I believe
that this is the best reason of all for being a vegetarian, and
it is a reason which did not exist in Christ's day, which would
explain why he did not make specific mention of it.
The amount of land that it takes to provide meat for a
thousand people is many times more than the land that is
necessary to provide replacements for meat (e.g. soya
beans) for the same number of people. If the whole world
were to become vegetarians, we would find ourselves with
thousands (if not millions) of square miles of farmland to
spare, so that there would be crops enough to feed the
whole world a few times over.
In summary, there are four main reasons why people are
vegetarians. The worst reason is because of religious
teachings (which is why I get a bit nervous the moment
someone tries to quote scriptures to support
vegetarianism). Any of the other reasons for being a
vegetarian can turn sour if one becomes religious about it.
The second reason is because of health concerns. Then
there are concerns about cruelty to animals. And finally there
are concerns about wise use of the world's resources. I
hope that we can all appreciate the significance of each of
these approaches to vegetarianism.
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