A Tool of Oppression
Leonardo Da Vinci, Count Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas Gandhi, Henry David
Thoreau, George Bernard Shaw, Susan B. Anthony, Percy Shelley, etc. were all
vegetarian, and none of them were Jewish or Muslim.
Animal rights issues like circuses, fur, and vivisection (animal
experimentation) have nothing to do with diet, eating, or food.
The real issue is the animals' right to life.
If vegetarianism were merely about "fit" or following a peculiar set of
"dietary laws" why would pro-lifers be offended by pro-choice vegetarians
and vegans?
They're offended because THEY KNOW vegetarianism involves the animals' right
to life, and thus these pro-choicers appear to value animal life over human
life under some circumstances.
Sometimes, being lighthearted gets the point across to Christians that
vegetarianism is about the animals' right to life rather than "dietary
laws": like Steve Martin in the '70s asking, "How many polyesters did you
have to kill to make that suit?"
****
In my November 1995 manuscript on The Politics of Vegetarianism, towards the
end of the manuscript, I wrote:
"Since its founding over two hundred years ago, the United States has been
both a haven for the oppressed, yearning to breathe free, as well as a
nation with a liberal and progressive concept of 'human rights.'
"The phrase 'all men are created equal' once referred only to white, male
property owners. With the abolition of human slavery, it has since been
expanded to include women and minorities. Why should our concepts of
equality, rights and justice end with the human species? Religion has
traditionally been a tool of oppression, but there have been voices calling
for justice towards the animals..."
And I went on to cite concern for animals within the biblical tradition.
Conservative Christians took offense at my words: "Religion has
traditionally been a tool of oppression..."
(e.g., the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Ku Klux Klan, etc.)
But they're proving my point, because at every turn, they're using religion
to justify exploiting animals! (e.g., saying "so much garbage" at every
opportunity, etc.)
They're *not* using religion to promote vegetarianism and compassion for
animals. Only a few clergy and theologians -- Reverend Andrew Linzey,
Reverend Marc Wessels, Reverend James Thompson, Reverend Frank & Mary
Hoffman, Reverend Dave & Patricia Koot, Reverend Annika Spalde and Pelle
Strindlund, the late Reverend Janet Regina Hyland, Dr. Richard Alan Young,
Dr. Charles Camosy, Carol J. Adams, etc. -- are doing this.
I would like to see organized religion join the struggle for animal rights.
Religion has been wrong before.
It has been said that on issues such as women's rights and human slavery,
religion has impeded social and moral progress.
It was a Spanish Catholic priest, Bartolome de las Casas, who first proposed
enslaving black Africans in place of the Native Americans who were dying off
in great numbers.
The church of the past never considered human slavery to be a moral evil.
The Protestant churches of Virginia, South Carolina, and other southern
states actually passed resolutions in favor of the human slave traffic.
Human slavery was called "by Divine Appointment," "a Divine institution," "a
moral relation," "God's institution," "not immoral," but "founded in right."
The slave trade was called "legal," "licit," "in accordance with humane
principles" and "the laws of revealed religion."
New Testament verses calling for obedience and subservience on the part of
slaves (Titus 2:9-10; Ephesians 6:5-9; Colossians 3:22-25; I Peter 2:18-25)
and respect for the master (I Timothy 6:1-2; Ephesians 6:5-9) were often
cited in order to justify human slavery.
Some of Jesus' parables refer to human slaves. Paul's epistle to Philemon
concerns a runaway slave returned to his master.
The Quakers were one of the earliest religious denominations to condemn
human slavery.
"Paul's outright endorsement of slavery should be an undying embarrassment
to Christianity as long as they hold the entire New Testament to be the word
of God," wrote Quaker physician Dr. Charles P. Vaclavik in his 1986 book,
The Vegetarianism of Jesus Christ: the Pacifism, Communalism, and
Vegetarianism of Primitive Christianity. "Without a doubt, the American
slaveholders quoted Paul again and again to substantiate their right to hold
slaves.
"The moralist movement to abolish slavery had to go to non-biblical sources
to demonstrate the immoral nature of slavery. The abolitionists could not
turn to Christian sources to condemn slavery, for Christianity had become
the bastion of the evil practice through its endorsement by the Apostle
Paul.
"Only the Old Testament gave the abolitionist any Biblical support in his
efforts to free the slaves. 'You shall not surrender to his master a slave
who has taken refuge with you.' (Deuteronomy 23:15) What a pittance of
material opposing slavery from a book supposedly representing the word of
God."
In 1852, Josiah Priest wrote Bible Defense of Slavery. Others claimed blacks
were subhuman. Buckner H. Payne, calling himself "Ariel," wrote in 1867:
"the tempter in the Garden of Eden... was a beast, a talking beast... the
negro." Ariel argued that since the negro was not part of Noah's family, he
must have been a beast.
"Eight souls were saved on the ark, therefore, the negro must be a beast,
and "consequently, he has no soul to be saved."
The status of animals in contemporary human society is like that of human
slaves in centuries past.
Quoting Luke 4:18, Colossians 3:11, Galatians 3:28 or any other biblical
passages merely suggesting liberty, equality and an end to human slavery in
the 18th or 19th century would have been met with the kind of response
animal rights activists receive today if they quote Bible verses in favor of
ethical vegetarianism and compassion towards animals.
Past generations of Christians quoted the Bible to justify human slavery,
and Christians today quote the Bible to justify killing animals.
Some of the worst crimes in history were committed in the name of religion.
There's a great song along these lines from 1992 by Rage Against the
Machine, entitled "Killing in the Name."
Someone once pointed out that while Hitler may have claimed to be a
Christian, he imprisoned Christian clergy who opposed the Nazi regime, and
even Christian churches were subject to the terror of the Nazis. Thinking
along these lines, I realize that while I would like to see organized
religion support animal liberation (e.g., as was the case with Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. and the American civil rights movement) rather than simply
remain an obstacle to social and moral progress (e.g., 19th century southern
churches in the U.S. upheld human slavery on biblical grounds), this support
must come freely and voluntarily (e.g., "The Liberation of All Life"
resolution issued by the World Council of Churches in 1988).
Religious institutions can't be coerced into rewriting their holy books or
teaching a convoluted doctrine to suit the whims or the secular political
ideology of a particular demagogue. American liberals argue that principle
of the separation of church and state gives us freedom FROM religious
tyranny and theocracy. Conservatives argue (the other side of the coin!)
that one of the reasons America's founding fathers established the
separation of church and state was to prevent government intrusion or
intrusion by persons of other faiths or other denominations into religious
affairs.
I agree with Reverend Marc Wessels, Executive Director of the International
Network for Religion and Animals (INRA), who said on Earth Day 1990:
"It is a fact that no significant social reform has yet taken place in this
country without the voice of the religious community being heard. The
endeavors of the abolition of slavery; the women's suffrage movement; the
emergence of the pacifist tradition during World War I; the struggles to
support civil rights, labor unions, and migrant farm workers; and the
anti-nuclear and peace movements have all succeeded in part because of the
power and support of organized religion.
"Such authority and energy is required by individual Christians and the
institutional church today if the liberation of animals is to become a
reality."
****
Christianity can also be a force for change, a force for good, like the
civil rights movement. In the early '00s, Maynard Clark, a prominent
Christian vegan, asked rhetorically why should the animal rights movement
even bother with religion?
I told Maynard that his words reminded me of Gene Roddenberry, the creator
of Star Trek, who was on the lecture circuit in the '70s, explaining the
problems of being a television producer: network censors, etc.
When someone asked him, "Why bother with television at all?" Gene
Roddenberry found himself forced to defend the very medium he was so often
at odds with!
"You can't just abandon a powerful medium like television," he explained.
"It's one of the most effective ways we have of reaching people."
The same might be true of organized religion as well. My words may have
resonated with Maynard, as my friend Albert, a Catholic vegetarian in
Michigan, told me they were forwarded on to Reverend Frank Hoffman, who,
with his wife Mary, runs the
www.all-creatures.org Christian vegan website.
Go on to: A Universal Ethic for All Mankind
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