The Fellowship of Life
a Christian-based vegetarian group founded in 1973

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Letters

Christian Vegetarianism

Hugh Montefiore's criticism of a booklet which gives biblical suppport for a vegetarian lifestyle is most disconcerting: particularly in the wake of BSE; and even more so, in the light of the starving millions.

Doesn't the retired bishop know that in advocating a vegetarian diet enough food would then be provided for every mouth? As things are, the waste that exists through converting nourishment from vegetable to meat protein is at enormous waste.

Admittedly, the biblical record reveals that, following the fall, carnivorism became the permitted practice. However, whether we interpret Genesis literally or figuritively, the message is clear: within the Edenic state nothing that harms or destroys is allowed to enter!

Consequently, long before Christ's birth amongst the animals, prophets envisaged a greater paradise restored than was ever lost through man's sin; and in it, even the lion eats straw as does the ox.

We repetitively pray: "Thy Kingdom come", yet we envisage this greater paradise restored as confined to our own predatory species. I ask: who in their right mind would want to go there?

St Paul - hardly an animal rights advocate! writes about the restoration of all life through the Greater Adam. Indeed, he was conscious of the whole creation being in travail and looking for liberation through God's children; while John envisages the worship of the redeemed being led by representatives of the animal kingdom.

Much, admittedly, is figurative. Nevertheless, the message is clear: wheras there was room in the Old Testament ark for the salvation of animals, the Church - a large part of which claims to be the New Testament ark of salvation - blatantly casts them out!

If this is the way we exercise our guardian stewardship over creation then Heaven help us!

An unpublished letter to the Church Times by Rev James Thompson, 7th April 1998.

See: God is a veggie, says booklet

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