From: abulsari@abo.fi (Abhay Bulsari VT)
Subject: The Christian Argument for Vegetarianism
Organization: Abo Akademi University
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 06:58:42 GMT


Thanks to Michael Traub for this article. 
While he is not willing to post, I will post his excerpts.
No followups needed or e-mails to him or me.
This is valuable information for newcomers.


          The Christian Argument for Vegetarianism


Excerpted from the book:
Christianity and the Rights of Animals, (Crossroad Publ. Co., NY)

by

Rev. Dr. Andrew Linzey
Director of Studies
Center for the Study of Theology
University of Essex


   It is well known that during the last thirty years or more, farmers
have been  under  increasing pressure to  tailor  traditional  farming
methods  to the needs  of cost-effective  production.  Farming animals
intensively has become the norm.

   It seems to me the only satisfactory basis  on  which we can oppose
systems of close confinement is by recourse to the argument drawn from
theos-rights.  To  put it at its most basic: animals have the right to
be  animals.  The natural  life of a Spirit-filled  creature is a gift
from God.  When we take over the  life of an animal  to  the extent of
distorting its natural life for no other purpose than our own gain, we
fall into sin.  There is  no  clearer  blasphemy  before God than  the
perversion of his creatures.

   To the question: 'Why is  it wrong to deny chickens the rudimentary
requirements  of  their  natural  life, such as freedom of movement or
association?' there is, therefore, only one satisfactory answer: Since
an  animal's natural life is  a gift  from God, it follows that  God's
right is violated when the natural life of his creatures is perverted.
Those who,  in contrast, opt for the welfarist approach  to  intensive
farming are  inevitably involved in speculating how far  such and such
may  or may not suffer in what are plainly unnatural conditions.   But
unless animals  are  judged to have some right  to their natural life,
from  what  standpoint  can  we  judge  abnormalities, mutilations  or
adjustments?  Confining a de-beaked hen in a battery cage is more than
a  moral  crime; it  is a living sign of our failure to  recognize the
blessing of God in creation.

   What   makes  this  situation  all  the  more  lamentable  is   the
realization that the use to which animals are put in intensive farming
goes  far  beyond  even the most generous interpretation  of need.  It
will  be  obvious  that  humans  can  live  healthy,  stimulating  and
rewarding  lives  without  white  veal,  pate' de  foie  gras,  or the
ever-increasing  quantities of cheap eggs.  The  truth is that we  can
afford to be much more generous to farm animals than is frequently the
case today.

   Churches  need to  reflect in  their  own  collective  actions  the
sensitivity they  frequently hope for in others.  [In England],  under
present legislation, animals can be subject  to intensive  farming and
are so  on Church  land.  It is anomalous that  the  Church of England
should  allow  on  its  land  farming  practices   which  many  senior
ecclesiastics  oppose and which  one  bishop  recently  likened to  an
Auschwitz for animals.

   The Christian argument  for  vegetarianism  then  is simple:  since
animals belong to God, have value to God and live for  God, then their
needless  destruction is sinful.  In short: animals have some right to
their  life,  all  circumstances  being  equal.   That  it  has  taken
Christians so  long to  grasp  this  need  not worry  us.  There  were
doubtless good reasons, partly theological, partly cultural and partly
economic,  why  Christians  in  the   past  have  found  vegetarianism
unfeasible.   We do  well not  to  judge too  hastily, if at all.   We
cannot relive others' lives, or think  their thoughts, or enter  their
consciences.   But what we  can be sure about is  that living  without
what Clark calls "avoidable ill" has a strong moral claim upon us now.

   Some will surely question the limits of  the vegetarian world  here
envisaged.   Will  large-scale  vegetarianism  work  in  practice?   I
confess I am agnostic, surely legitimately, about the possibility of a
world-transforming  vegetarianism.    But   clairvoyance  is   not  an
essential prerequisite of the  vegetarian option,  and what the future
may hold, and  its consequences, cannot easily  be determined from any
perspective.   What I think is  important  to hold on to is the notion
that the God  who provides moral  opportunities  is the same  God  who
enables  the  world,  slowly  but surely, to respond to  them.  From a
theological  perspective, no moral endeavor is  wasted  so long  as it
coheres with God's purpose for his cosmos.


-- 
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