Vegetarianism and Concern for Animals Can Be Found in Protestant Christianity
Commenting on Deuteronomy 22:6, which forbids harming a mother-bird if
her eggs or chicks are taken, Martin Luther (1483-1546) wrote: “What else
does this law teach but that by the kind treatment of animals they are to
learn gentleness and kindness? Otherwise it would seem to be a stupid
ordinance not only to regulate a matter so unimportant, but also to promise
happiness and a long life to those who keep it.”
According to Luther, Adam “would not have used the creatures as we do
today,” but rather, “for the admiration of God and a holy joy.” Referring to
passages from Scripture concerning the redemption of the entire creation and
the Kingdom of Peace, Luther taught that “the creatures are created for an
end; for the glory that is to come.”
British historian William Lecky observed that, “Luther grew sad and
thoughtful at a hare hunt, for it seemed to him to represent the pursuit of
souls by the devil.” Author Dix Harwood, in Love for Animals, depicts a
grieving young girl being comforted by Luther. Luther assures her that her
pet dog who died would certainly go to heaven. Luther tells her that in the
“new heavens and new earth...all creatures will not only be harmless, but
lovely and joyful...Why, then, should there not be little dogs in the new
earth, whose skin might be as fair as gold, and their hair as bright as
precious stones?”
Biblical teachings on human responsibilities towards animals were not lost
on John Calvin (1509-1564). According to Calvin, animals exist within the
framework of human justice: “But it must be remembered that men are required
to practice justice even in dealing with animals. Solomon condemns injustice
to our neighbours the more severely when he says, ‘a just man cares well for
his beasts’ (Proverbs 12:10). In a word, we are to do what is right
voluntarily and freely, and each of us is responsible for doing his duty.”
John Wray (1627?-1705), the “father of English natural history,” made the
first systematic description and classification of animal and vegetable
species. He wrote numerous works on botany, zoology, and theology. In 1691,
Wray published The Wisdom of God Manifest in the Works of His Creation,
which emphasized the sanctity and value of the natural world.
Wray advocated vegetarianism and made two points in his book. The first was
that God can best be seen and understood in the study of His creation. “Let
us then consider the works of God and observe the operation of His hands,”
wrote Wray. “Let us take notice of and admire His infinite goodness and
wisdom in the formation of them. No creature in the sublunary world is
capable of doing this except man, and yet we have been deficient therein.”
Wray’s second point was that God placed animals here for their own sake, and
not just for the pleasure of humans. Animals have their own intrinsic value.
“If a good man be merciful to his beast, then surely a good God takes
pleasure that all His creatures enjoy themselves that have life and sense
and are capable of enjoying.”
Thomas Tryon’s lengthy The Way to Health, Wealth, and Happiness was
published in 1691. Tryon defended vegetarianism as a physically and
spiritually superior way of life. He came to this conclusion from his
interpretation of the Bible as well as his understanding of Christianity.
Tryon wrote against “that depraved custom of eating flesh and blood.” The
opening pages of his book begin with an eloquent plea for mercy towards the
animals:
“Refrain at all times such foods as cannot be procured without violence and
oppression, for know, that all the inferior creatures when hurt do cry and
fend forth their complaints to their Maker...Be not insensible that every
creature doth bear the image of the great Creator according to the nature of
each, and that He is the vital power in all things. Therefore, let none take
pleasure to offer violence to that life, lest he awaken the fierce wrath,
and bring danger to his own soul. But let mercy and compassion dwell
plentifully in your hearts, that you may be comprehended in the friendly
principle of God’s love and holy light. Be a friend to everything that’s
good, and then everything will be a friend to thee, and co-operate for thy
good and welfare.”
In The Way, Tryon (1634-1703) also condemned “Hunting, hawking, shooting,
and all violent oppressive exercises...” On a separate occasion, he warned
the first Quaker settlers of Pennsylvania that their “holy experiment” in
peaceful living would fail unless they extended their Christian precepts of
nonviolence to the animal kingdom:
"Does not bounteous Mother Earth furnish us with all sorts of food necessary
for life?” he asked. “Though you will not fight with and kill those of your
own species, yet I must be bold to tell you, that these lesser violences (as
you call them) do proceed from the same root of wrath and bitterness as the
greater do.”
“Thanks be to God!” wrote John Wesley, founder of Methodism, to the Bishop
of London in 1747. “Since the time I gave up the use of flesh-meats and
wine, I have been delivered from all physical ills.” Wesley was a vegetarian
for spiritual reasons as well. He based his vegetarianism on the Biblical
prophecies concerning the Kingdom of Peace, where “on the new earth, no
creature will kill, or hurt, or give pain to any other.” He further taught
that animals “shall receive an ample amends for all their present
sufferings.”
Wesley’s teachings placed an emphasis on inner religion and the effect of
the Holy Spirit upon the consciousness of such followers. Wesley taught that
animals will attain heaven: in the “general deliverance” from the evils of
this world, animals would be given “vigor, strength and swiftness...to a far
higher degree than they ever enjoyed.”
Wesley urged parents to educate their children about compassion towards
animals. He wrote: “I am persuaded you are not insensible of the pain given
to every Christian, every humane heart, by those savage diversions,
bull-baiting, cock-fighting, horse-racing, and hunting.”
In 1786, Reverend Richard Dean, the curate of Middleton, published An Essay
on the Future Life of Brute Creatures. He told his readers to treat animals
with compassion, and not to “treat them as sticks, or stones, or things that
cannot feel...Surely ...sensibility in brutes entitles them to a milder
treatment than they usually meet from hard and unthinking wretches.”
The Quakers have a long history of advocating kindness towards animals. In
1795, the Society of Friends (Quakers) in London passed a resolution
condemning sport hunting. The resolution stated in part, “let our leisure be
employed in serving our neighbor, and not in distressing, for our amusement,
the creatures of God.”
John Woolman (1720-72) was a Quaker preacher and abolitionist who traveled
throughout the American colonies attacking slavery and cruelty to animals.
Woolman wrote that he was “early convinced in my mind that true religion
consisted in an inward life, wherein the heart doth love and reverence God
the Creator and learn to exercise true justice and goodness, not only toward
all men, but also toward the brute creatures...”
Woolman’s deep faith in God thus led to his reverence for all life. “Where
the love of God is verily perfected and the true spirit of government
watchfully attended to,” he taught, “a tenderness toward all creatures made
subject to us will be experienced, and a care felt in us that we do not
lessen that sweetness of life in the animal creation which the great Creator
intends for them.”
Joshua Evans (1731-1798), a Quaker and a contemporary of Woolman’s, stated
that reverence for life was the moral basis of his vegetarianism. “I
considered that life was sweet in all living creatures,” he wrote, ‘and
taking it away became a very tender point with me...I believe my dear Master
has been pleased to try my faith and obedience by teaching me that I ought
no longer to partake of anything that had life.
The “Quaker poet” and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-92), wrote:
“The sooner we recognize the fact that the mercy of the Almighty extends to
every creature endowed with life, the better it will be for us as men and
Christians.”
One of the most respected English theologians of the 18th century, William
Paley (1743-1805), taught that killing animals for food was unjustifiable.
Paley called the excuses used to justify killing animals “extremely lame,”
and even refuted the rationalizations concerning fishing.
The founder and first secretary of the Royal Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) was an Anglican priest, the Reverend Arthur
Broome. The RSPCA was originally founded as a Christian society “entirely
based on the Christian Faith, and on Christian Principles,” and sponsoring
sermons on humane education in churches in London. The Society formed in
1824, and its first “Prospectus” spoke of the need to extend Christian
charity and benevolence to the animals:
“Our country is distinguished by the number and variety of its benevolent
institutions...all breathing the pure spirit of Christian charity...But
shall we stop here? Is the moral circle perfect so long as any power of
doing good remains? Or can the infliction of cruelty on any being which the
Almighty has endued with feelings of pain and pleasure consist with genuine
and true benevolence?”
This Prospectus was signed by many leading 19th century Christians including
William Wilberforce, Richard Martin, G.A. Hatch, J. Bonner, and Dr. Heslop.
The Bible Christian Church was a 19th century movement teaching
vegetarianism, abstinence from intoxication, and compassion for animals. The
church began in England in 1800, requiring all its members to take vows of
abstinence from meat and wine. One of its first converts, William Metcalfe
(1788-1862), immigrated to Philadelphia in 1817 with forty-one followers to
establish a church in America. Metcalfe cited numerous biblical references
to support his thesis that humans were meant to follow a vegetarian diet for
reasons of health and compassion for animals.
German composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883) believed flesh-eating to be
responsible for the downfall of man. He felt vegetarianism could help
mankind return to Paradise. He wrote: “Plant life instead of animal life is
the keystone of regeneration. Jesus used bread in place of flesh and wine in
place of blood at the Lord’s Supper.”
General William Booth (1829-1912), founder of the Salvation Army, practiced
and advocated vegetarianism. Booth never officially condemned flesh-eating
as either cruelty or gluttony, but taught that abstinence from luxury is
helpful to the cause of Christian charity. “It is a great delusion to
suppose that flesh of any kind is essential to health,” he insisted.
“The moral evils of a flesh diet are not less marked than are the physical
ills,” wrote Ellen White, founder of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church.
“Flesh food is injurious to health, and whatever affects the body has a
corresponding effect on the mind and soul.”
Although Seventh-Day Adventists strongly recommend vegetarianism for reasons
of health and nutrition, White also espoused the belief that kindness to
animals should be a Christian duty. In Ministry of Healing, she urged the
faithful to:
“Think of the cruelty that meat eating involves, and its effect on those who
inflict and those who behold it. How it destroys the tenderness with which
we should regard these creatures of God!”
In Patriarchs and Prophets, White referred to numerous passages in the Bible
calling for kindness to animals, and concluded that humans will be judged
according to how they fulfill their moral obligations to animals:
"It is because of man’s sin that ‘the whole creation groaneth and travaileth
together in pain’ (Romans 8:22). Surely, then, it becomes man to seek to
lighten, instead of increasing, the weight of suffering which his
transgression has brought upon God’s creatures. He who will abuse animals
because he has them in his power is both a coward and a tyrant. A
disposition to cause pain, whether to our fellow men or to the brute
creation is satanic.
“Many do not realize that their cruelty will ever be known because the poor
dumb animals cannot reveal it. But could the eyes of these men be opened, as
were those of Balaam, they would see an angel of God standing as a witness
to testify against them in the courts above.
“A record goes up to heaven, and a day is coming when judgement will be
pronounced against those who abuse God’s creatures.”
In Counsels on Diet and Foods, White referred to the Garden of Eden, a Holy
Sanctuary of God, where nothing would ever die, as the perfect example of
humans in their natural state:
“God gave our first parents the food He designed that the race should eat.
It was contrary to His plan to have the life of any creature taken. There
was to be no death in Eden. The fruit of the tree in the garden was the food
man’s wants required.”
“Tenderness accompanies all the might imparted by Spirit,” wrote Mary Baker
Eddy, founder of Christian Science, in Science and Health with Key to the
Scriptures. “The individuality created by God is not carnivorous, as witness
the millenial estate pictured by Isaiah (11:6-9). All of God’s creatures,
moving in the harmony of Science, are harmless, useful, indestructible. A
realization of this grand verity was a source of strength to the ancient
worthies. It supports Christian healing, and enables its possessor to
emulate the example of Jesus. ‘And God saw that it was good.’”
Congregational minister Frederic Marvin preached a Christmas Eve sermon in
1899 entitled, “Christ Among the Cattle.” Marvin regarded Jesus’ birth in
the manger as that of God incarnate teaching humanity by dramatic example.
Birth among the cattle was a sign for people all over the world to follow—a
lesson teaching the need to show compassion towards the animals.
In his 1923 work, The Natural Diet of Man, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg observed:
“The attitude of the Bible writers toward flesh-eating is the same as toward
polygamy. Polygamy as well as flesh-eating was tolerated under the social
and religious systems of the old Hebrews and even during the early centuries
of the Christian era; but the first man, Adam, in his pristine state in the
Garden of Eden was both a monogamist and a flesh-abstainer. If the Bible
supports flesh-eating, it equally supports polygamy; for all the patriarchs
had plural wives as well as concubines. Christian ethics enjoin a return to
the Edenic example in matters matrimonial. Physiologic science as well as
human experience call for a like return to Eden in matters dietetic.”
An essay on “The Rights of Animals” by Dean William Ralph Inge (1860-1954)
can be found in his 1926 book, Lay Thoughts of a Dean. It reads in part:
“Our ancestors sinned in ignorance; they were taught (as I deeply regret to
say one great Christian Church still teaches) that the world, with all that
it contains, was made for man, and that the lower orders of creation have no
claims upon us. But we no longer have the excuse of saying that we do not
know; we do know that organic life on this planet is all woven of one stuff,
and if we are children of our Heavenly Father, it must be true, as Christ
told us, that no sparrow falls to the ground without His care. The new
knowledge has revolutionized our ideas of our relations to the other living
creatures who share the world with us, and it is our duty to consider
seriously what this knowledge should mean for us in matters of conduct.”
Dean Inge is reported to have said, “Whether animals believe in a god I do
not know, but I do know that they believe in a devil—the devil which is
man.”
“The day is surely dawning,” wrote the Reverend V.A. Holmes-Gore, M.A.,
“when it will become clear that the idea of the Blessed Master giving His
sanction to the barbaric habit of flesh-eating, is a tragic delusion,
foisted upon the Church by those who never knew Him.”
Reverend Holmes-Gore called vegetarianism “absolutely necessary for the
redemption of the planet. Indeed we cannot hope to rid the world of war,
disease and a hundred other evils until we learn to show compassion to the
creatures and refrain from taking their lives for food, clothing or
pleasure."
Perhaps alluding to the twin doctrines of karma and reincarnation, Reverend
Holmes-Gore explained:
“The Church is powerless to free mankind from such evils as war, oppression
and disease, because it does nothing to stop man’s oppression of victimizing
living creatures...Every evil action, whether it be done to a man, a woman,
a child, or an animal will one day have its effect upon the transgressor.
The rule that we reap what we sow is a Divine Law from which there is no
escape.
“God is ever merciful, but He is also righteous, and if cruel men and women
will learn compassion in no other way, then they will have to learn through
suffering, even if it means suffering the same tortures that they have
themselves inflicted. God is perfect Love, and He is never vengeful or
vindictive, but the Divine Law of mercy and compassion cannot be broken
without bringing tremendous repercussions upon the transgressor.”
Reverend Holmes-Gore acknowledged that a great deal of social progress has
been made, but injustices continue to flourish:
“...we have made many great reforms, but there remains much to be done. We
have improved the lot of children, of prisoners, and of the poor beyond all
recognition in the last hundred years. We have done something to mitigate
the cruelties inflicted upon the creatures. But though some of the worst
forms of torture have been made illegal, the welter of animal blood is
greater than ever, and their sufferings are still appalling.
“What we need is not a reform of existing evils,” concluded Reverend
Holmes-Gore, “but a revolution in thought that will move Christians to show
real compassion to all God’s creatures. Many people claim to be lovers of
animals who are very far from being so. For a flesh-eater to claim to love
animals is as if a cannibal expressed his devotion to the missionaries he
consigns to the seething cauldron.”
“Dear God,” began the childhood prayers of Dr. Albert Schweitzer
(1875-1965), “please protect and bless all living things. Keep them from
evil and let them sleep in peace.” This noted Protestant French theologian,
music scholar, philosopher and missionary doctor in Africa won the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1952.
Schweitzer preached an ethic of reverence for life: “Not until we extend the
circle of compassion to include all living things shall we ourselves know
peace.” When a man questioned his philosophy, saying God created animals for
man to eat, Schweitzer replied, “Not at all.”
Schweitzer reflected, “How much effort it will take for us to get men to
understand the words of Jesus, ‘Blessed are the merciful,’ and to bring them
to the realization that their responsibility includes all creatures. But we
must struggle with courage.” According to Schweitzer, “We need a boundless
ethics which will include the animals also.”
Schweitzer founded the Lambarene Hospital in French Equatorial Africa in
1913, managing it for many years. “I never go to a menagerie,” he once
wrote, “because I cannot endure the sight of the misery of the captive
animals. The exhibiting of trained animals I abhor. What an amount of
suffering and cruel punishment the poor creatures have to endure to give a
few minutes of pleasure to men devoid of all thought and feeling for them.”
Schweitzer taught compassionate stewardship towards the animal kingdom:
“We...are compelled by the commandment of love contained in our hearts and
thoughts, and proclaimed by Jesus, to give rein to our natural sympathy to
animals,” he explained. “We are also compelled to help them and spare
suffering as far as it is in our power.”
In a sermon preached in Bath Abbey, the Reverend E.E. Bromwich, M.A.,
taught: “Our love of God should be extended as far as possible to all God’s
creatures, to our fellow human beings and to animals...In His love, God
caused them all to exist, to express His feelings for beauty and order, and
not merely to provide food and companionship for man. They are part of God’s
creation and it is God’s will that they should be happy, quite as much as it
is His will that we should be happy. The Christian ought to be bitterly
ashamed for the unnecessary suffering that men still cause their animal
brothers.”
According to the Reverend Lloyd Putman: “In the beautiful story of creation
in Genesis, God is pictured as the Creator of all Life—not just of man. To
be sure, man is given ‘dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl
of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth,’ but far
from being a brutal dominion, man is to view the animal world with a sense
of stewardship and responsibility. If man lives recklessly and selfishly
with no regard for animals, he is denying that God is to be seen as the
creator of all life, and he is forgetting that God beheld not only man, but
all creation and said that 'it was very good.' He is omitting the Biblical
emphasis on man and animals sharing a common creation.”
On June 5, 1958, the Reverend Norman Vincent Peale stated, “I do not believe
a person can be a true Christian, and at the same time engage in cruel or
inconsiderate treatment of animals.”
One of the leading Protestant thinkers of the 20th century, Karl Barth
(1886-1968), wrote in The Doctrine of Creation (1961):
“If there is a freedom of man to kill animals, this signifies in any case
the adoption of a qualified and in some sense enhanced responsibility. If
that of his lordship over the living beast is serious enough, it takes on a
new gravity when he sees himself compelled to suppress his lordship by
depriving it of its life. He obviously cannot do this except under the
pressure of necessity.
“Far less than all the other things which he dares to do in relation to
animals, may this be ventured unthinkingly and as though it were
self-evident. He must never treat this need for defensive and offensive
action against the animal world as a natural one, nor include it as a normal
element in his thinking or conduct. He must always shrink from this
possibility even when he makes use of it.
“It always contains the sharp counter-question: who are you, man, to claim
that you must venture this to maintain, support, enrich and beautify your
own life? What is there in your life that you feel compelled to take this
aggressive step in its favor? We cannot but be reminded of the perversion
from which the whole historical existence of the creature suffers and the
guilt which does not really reside in the beast but ultimately in man
himself.”
Responding to a question about the Kingdom of Peace, Donald Soper of the
Church of England was of the opinion that Jesus, unlike his brother James,
was neither a teetotaler nor a vegetarian, but, “I think probably, if He
were here today, He would be both.” In a 1963 article on “The Question of
Vivisection,” Soper concluded: “...let me suggest that Dr. Schweitzer’s
great claim that all life should be based on respect for personality has
been too narrowly interpreted as being confined entirely to the personality
of human beings. I believe that this creed ‘respect for personality’ must be
applied to the whole of creation. I shouldn’t be surprised if the Buddhists
are nearer to an understanding of it than we are.
“When we apply this principle, we shall be facing innumerable problems, but
I believe we shall be on the right track which leads finally to the end of
violence and the achievement of a just social order which will leave none of
God’s creatures out of that Kingdom which it is our Father’s good pleasure
to give us.”
In 1977, at an annual meeting in London of the Royal Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), Dr. Donald Coggan, the Archbishop
of Canterbury, said: “Animals, as part of God’s creation, have rights which
must be respected. It behooves us always to be sensitive to their needs and
to the reality of their pain.”
“Honourable men may honourably disagree about some details of human
treatment of the non-human,” wrote Stephen Clark in his 1977 book, The Moral
Status of Animals, “but vegetarianism is now as necessary a pledge of moral
devotion as was the refusal of emperor-worship in the early church.”
According to Clark, eating animal flesh is “gluttony,” and “Those who still
eat flesh when they could do otherwise have no claim to be serious
moralists.”
“Clark’s conclusion has real force and its power has yet to be sufficiently
appreciated by fellow Christians,” says the Reverend Andrew Linzey. “Far
from seeing the possibility of widespread vegetarianism as a threat to Old
Testament norms, Christians should rather welcome the fact that the Spirit
is enabling us to make decisions so that we may more properly conform to the
original Genesis picture of living in peace with creation.”
The contemporary Christian attitude towards vegetarianism is perhaps best
expressed by Kenneth Rose, in a 1984 essay entitled “The Lion Shall Eat
Straw Like the Ox: The Bible and Vegetarianism.”
“At present,” Rose acknowledges, “vegetarianism among those who base their
lives on the Bible is quite rare. Nevertheless, vegetarianism remains God’s
ultimate will. Since, according to the Bible, the goal of history is the
transformation of the predatory principle in the principle of universal
love, it seems reasonable to suppose that people who take the Bible
seriously should strive to bring their lives into accordance with the
righteousness and nonviolence that will prevail in God’s kingdom. Surely we
can’t in this life fully escape the consequences of the Fall, but we can
try, with God’s grace, to live in accordance with God’s perfect will.
“...no rational or scriptural reason can be discovered,” Rose observes,
“that would prohibit the teacher of Christian truth from encouraging
believers to go beyond the concession to human weakness granted in Genesis
9:3 so that, even now, before the full dawning of God’s kingdom of peace,
they may begin living according to the ethics of that kingdom. To live in
this way must be considered as part of God’s ultimate intention for
humanity, for how else can one account for the fact that the Bible both
begins and ends in a kingdom where the sound of slaughter is unknown?
“For those of us who take the Bible seriously,” Rose concludes, “our
obedience to God will then become greater as it aspires to live out the
vision of the peaceable kingdom the Bible points to. To the degree that we
stop slaughtering innocent creatures for food, to that degree we will
nullify the predatory principle, a principle that structures the injustices
characteristic of this fallen age. And seeing all creatures with equal
vision, we will enter more deeply into the kingdom of God."
In 1986, Dale and Judith Ostrander, ministers in the United Church of
Christ, a pro-choice Protestant denomination, issued a biblical call for
stewardship, in which they concluded: “For Christians the Scriptures contain
the Word of God. And there is a particular conviction about Jesus Christ
being the normative Word through whom all scriptural words are
interpreted—the central meaning of Love and reconciliation of all creation.
Therefore, all other biblical themes and all specific pieces of Scripture
become authoritative for the Christian insofar as they affirm or are
consistent with God’s reconciling purpose.
“The role of Christians is to help God’s reconciling purpose become a
reality. This means, among other things, living out our calling to care for
God’s creation. It means taking seriously the interconnectedness of all life
and our kinship with all living things. If Christians accept God’s loving
dominion, then, created in God’s likeness, we are called to exercise our
given ‘dominion’ over creation with the same kind of love. And if the great
commandment is to love God, we must love God also through the complex
ecological relationship of all living things.
“To misuse our delegated authority over the creation in exploitative,
abusive, cruel or wasteful ways is to live as if we did not love God. We are
led, therefore, as Christians to raise questions about our attitudes toward
and treatment of animals. A growing number of ‘voices crying in the
wilderness’ are calling us to take more seriously the ways in which we are
despoiling the Earth and threatening its ability to sustain and support
life. These voices are calling us to rethink our attitudes and our treatment
of animals as we consider anew what it means to be faithful stewards of
creation.”
In 1987, the Reverend Carolyn J. Michael Riley declared Unity Church in
Huntington, N.Y. a fur-free zone. Reverend Riley, a vegetarian since 1982,
remains committed to her position. “I really do believe,” she says, “that
everyone is able that much more to feel the Spirit, because there are no
longer vibrations of death.” Reverend Riley says she wants to “help raise
the consciousness of the suffering going on in the animal kingdom.”
According to the Reverend James Caroll, an Episcopal priest in Van Nuys,
California, “A committed Christian, who knows what his religion is about,
will never kill an animal needlessly. Above all, he will do his utmost to
put a stop to any kind of cruelty to any animal. A Christian who
participates in or gives consent to cruelty to animals had better reexamine
his religion or else drop the name Christian.”
In 1992, members of Los Angeles’ First Unitarian Church agreed to serve
vegetarian meals at the church’s weekly Sunday lunch. This decision was made
as a protest against animal cruelty and the environmental damage caused by
the livestock industry.
Vegetarianism and ethical concern for animals are consistent with Protestant
Christianity:
“It is not a question of palate, of custom, of expediency, but of right,”
wrote the Reverend J. Tyssul-Davies, B.A., on the subject of vegetarianism.
“As a mere Christian Minister, I have had to make my decision. My palate was
on the side of custom; my intellect argued for the expedient; but my higher
reason and conscience left me no alternative. Our Lord came to give life,
and we do not follow Him by taking life needlessly. So, I was compelled,
against myself, to eschew carnivorism.”
The Reverend George Laughton taught that: “The practice of kindness towards
dumb creatures is a sign of development to the higher reaches of
intelligence and sympathy. For, mark you, in every place there are those who
are giving of their time and thought and energy to the work of protecting
from cruelty and needless suffering the beasts of the field and streets.
These are the people who make the earth clean and sweet and more like what
God intended it to be.”
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