Christian Vegetarian

Early Christians were often vegetarian.

In Genesis, God gave us all GREEN good to enjoy… and to share with other life.

I am a Christian seminary student.  This is from a paper that I wrote for my Christian ethics class:

“As Christians, we should remember the story of Genesis.  While many find in its stories a justification for human dominance over animals, we can also see that God called all of creation good, including the elements of creation we treat as food.  God’s creation and abundant life is given to all creatures.   “‘To every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’  And it was so.  God saw everything that [God] had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Genesis 1:29-31).  This passage shows a God who shows concern for people and animals, calling us to share our food and calling the animals good, just like humans.  If animals share the same goodness as humans and if they are created to participate in the abundance of life as we are, it stands to reason that they should be treated with respect.  Whether we see them as a source of food or as spiritual equals, we can see that torturing animals and creating conditions of abuse and cruelty for them to live their lives in are not in line with the spirit displayed in Genesis.  In Job, animals are portrayed as sources of wisdom to be learned from.  God implores Job to “ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you” (Job 12:7-9).  It is hard to suggest that a God who sees animals as teachers of wisdom would respect a culture complicit in animal cruelty.”  

You can read the whole essay here: Factory Farms: Humanity Slaughtered 

The essay prompt was to write against consumption of factory farmed beef and pork (specifically) from a Christian ethical perspective.