From: wheeler@SUPER.ORG (Ferrell S. Wheeler)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: Linzey on Vegetarianism
Date: 8 Oct 92 15:57:18 GMT



          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.

From: kingsley@hpwrce.mayfield.hp.com (Kingsley Morse)
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 16:06:18 GMT
Subject: Oops
Organization: HP Western Response Center