Blame the vegans

Last year a study was done that showed that a quarter of Britons are turned off of veganism because of aggressive vegans.  You can read an article about it here.  I don't really want to talk about the motivation behind the study or its veracity (Although I have questions about both).  Rather I want to talk about people's perception of vegans. 

I have no doubt that some people have run into aggressive vegans somewhere.  They do exist.  But I found that the study left out one important piece of information:  How many vegans do you know?
I would have asked the following follow-up questions:

1. Do you know any vegans personally?
2. Are any of them your friends?
3. Have those vegans ever been aggressive?
4. What do you mean by "aggressive"?

Obviously that would have made the study a bit more complex and the open ended nature of number four would have presented problems in collating the information, but still, they are important questions.

For the first seven or eight years of being vegan I also believed that aggressive vegans were turning people off from being vegan.  So I decided to be the nice, non-judgmental, amiable vegan.  I would only speak when spoken too and try my hardest to eat without people catching on (Which is impossible, but I tried anyway).  Would you believe that people still thought I was a pushy, judgmental vegan?!  Friends would send out anti-vegan memes about pushy vegans even though I knew for a fact I was the only vegan they knew! 

My Christianity is analogous to this situation.  If you ask most serious Christians, they can confirm this for you.  It is something we've been going through our whole lives.  Even though I am not a in-your-face, evangelistic, bible thumping nut; even though I keep to myself, wear no stickers or preachy t-shirts; I still get labeled as "religious".   The times I've been labeled a "fanatic" have been when I've been asked questions about my religion and I've answered kindly and honestly.  I've hardly ever initiated the conversations. But that didn't stop the judgement.

Veganism is only different in that there are far fewer of them, so it is less likely that any one person actually knows one personally.  But if they are to see you not eating meat and find out you are vegan; if they are to ask you a question and you explain your position; if they are to start the argument and you defend yourself and the animals well (i.e., you win), then you are an aggressive vegan.  You are an animal rights fanatic.

Like I said, I am sure this isn't always the case.  Jerks abound (on both sides of the fence).  But I am guessing that if someone is saying they are put off by vegan aggression that:

1. They don't actually know a vegan.
2. They only heard about aggressive vegans or seen them lampooned on t.v.
3. They feel guilty for what they do and are looking for a scapegoat. When it comes down to it, they simply like eating meat.

How's that for judgmental?

When it comes down to it, people are going to label you whether you like it or not.  You could be the nicest person on the planet, and if you disagree with someone, you are an intolerant prig. I finally realized two things.  First, being quiet didn't help.  People were going to label me as soon as I said or did anything.  Second, the situation is too serious to be jovial and fun loving about it.  Innocent creatures are being tortured and killed for the pleasure of those who want to eat them for food. 

You see, that fact is people won't buy something that the person selling doesn't actually believe in.  If you act like the situation isn't dire then the people you interact with won't think it worth their time either.  Why should they take the situation seriously if we don't act like it is a serious situation? 

 I am not advocating that we be jerks.  Being a jerk does turn people off.  What I am advocating is talking to people calmly and with respect but with the seriousness and urgency that the situation demands.  True, they may label you an aggressive vegan activist jerk, but they were probably going to do that anyway, so why worry about it?   

Towards a theology of animal welfare

One of the most difficult groups of people I've ever had to interact with when it comes to animal welfare and animal rights are those of Christians or of a Judaeo-Christian background.  As I am a Christian I can identify easily where they are coming from.  I was once there myself.  But I also have to admit that I've become frustrated with the typical (almost identical) responses I get from others and how to deal with them.  The basic responses I get to the discussion of animal abuse, meat eating and animal rights are along the lines of:

"But that is what God put them on earth for", or,

"Animals aren't equal with humans".

These two responses represent two categories that really need to be dealt with as they relate to the relationship of humans with animals in order for our answers to even be considered acceptable to the Christian (I am speaking here to Christians, but I believe the same thing is true for Jews, Muslims and other religions).

The first statement really has to do with creation and God's relationship to man, not really man's relationship to animals per se.  The answer will definitely effect our relationship to animals, but that isn't the primary basis for an answer to this statement.  We need to be able to answer (or ask questions) about God's relationship to man and the initial creation of man and his world and once that is done we will be better able to answer or ask questions about man's relationship to the animals.

The second statement concerns anthropology.  On the surface it looks like it is talking about animals.  But it is not. It is talking about humans. That is, who is man to God and how does that effect animals.  I realize that my atheist friend might wish to start an answer based on whether or not animals are equal with man, but with a Christian such an argument probably isn't going to go very far (covered in the last section).  With any argument it is always important to know your audience and interact in a way they will understand and respond to, having accurate knowledge of both what you are trying to say and confidence that you are understanding the questions they are trying to ask.

One final note.  This post is not  about how to twist a Christian's arm into becoming an animal welfare activist or a vegan or what have you. It is about understanding.  Understand where others are coming from, understanding how to ask real questions and give real answers and, probably more than anything, helping me to understand the theological ramifications of what I believe. And like any interaction with humans, things are going to be in flux as ideas are thrown in, turned over, looked at and rejected or accepted.  In other words, what is said here is not the final word on the subject.  Not even close.

"But that is what God put them on earth for"

Let me first start by pointing out in answer to this particular statement, most Christians haven't a clue why they are saying this.  They know that somewhere the Bible must say this, but they don't know where and they certainly are likely not to know why it is said if it does say such a thing.  The fact is, the Bible does say such a thing.  I won't list all of the biblical passages where this is formulated, but the most important would be Genesis 9:3:

Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant." (NASB)

It really is difficult to argue against this passage.  I've heard attempts at it, but all of them appear to me to be anemic.  The passage says what it says and there is no reason to believe it means anything other than what it means.

However, to understand this passage I think it is important that we look at everything that came before it.  This passage says "...as I gave the green plant".  If we read the first couple chapters of Genesis we discover that man didn't start out eating animals.  In Genesis 2:15-16 we see that man's job was to tend the garden and that he may eat of any try except one. No where in these two chapters that deal with humans, creation and God are we told they may eat animals.  In fact, it s commonly held that man and woman were vegans at the beginning of creation.

[As a quick side note, some might argue for a mythological-poetic reading of the first few chapters of Genesis whereas I've taken a  more literal approach.  I am not taking one side or the other here as I believe either reading will end with the same conclusion I've here stated. That is, that humankind started out, according to the Bible and the Christian religion, consuming a plant based diet.]

So when it comes to answering questions about why animals were created, we have to point out that it wasn't for food.  Or, more importantly, they were not required for food.

Another interesting development are verses 18-25 in chapter two.  It first tells us that God didn't think it was good for man to be alone.  So he tries to find him a companion.  First God turns to the animals.  He creates all of the animals and basically says, "What do you think?".  But neither God nor man finds a companion suitable to the man and so God gives it another whirl and creates woman.  Here, myth or not, the overall meaning is God created woman to be a co-companion with man.  Period.  But I think it interesting that God doesn't simply jump to creating woman.  He first creates all of the animals and lets man interact with them, looking for that one companion.  I don't believe we should gloss over the fact that God's first mention of animals besides humans had to do with human companionship and not food or potential sacrificial substitutions.  This may not directly tell us what animals were for, but it certainly tells us two things they were not for: a substitute for human companionship and food.  The first point I can't deal with in this post, but the second point is exactly what this post is aiming for.

Some might argue that the point of mentioning animals in the first place, while searching for a companion for man, is to demonstrate unequivocally that animals cannot be a proper companion to man.  In fact, all of Scripture seems to bare this out as there is no mention of human to animal companionship in the way we understand it today. But I tend to read this passage as saying human companionship offers a fullness that cannot be gotten from animals.  If it were forbidding animal companionship I think Scripture would have made this more clear.  Besides zoophilia, which is condemned, Scripture is silent on this matter.  That and the fact that people do find a wonderful amount of companionship from animals, I believe my reading is closer to the intent.

Unfortunately things didn't remain so idyllic.  Humankind decided that, as so often they do, they would be better off doing things there own way and telling God to go take a hike.  This introduced sin into the world.  Sin is simply the word for the concept of humans not doing what they were created for. Or, humans going against their original God-intended nature.  It is a missing of the mark.  And the punishment for that decision was death.  But God didn't want humankind to die.  He loved them.  So God allowed another innocent being to die in their place.  Animals.  We read in chapter four that Able sacrificed an animal to God and Cain offered plants. But God accepted Able's gift and not Cain's.  So, in true human fashion, Cain murdered his brother Able.  But here is where things get sticky.  Why did animals have to die in the place of man?  Why did God accept one and not the other? Why does blood have to be shed in order for sins to be forgiven (Hebrews 9:22)?  Why must people forgive other people without any shedding of blood, yet God demands it in order for him to forgive people?  Etc.

These are all excellent questions, but ones I am not prepared to answer.  I am not prepared to answer them because I don't know the answers.   The only answer I can offer has to do with the New Covenant over the Old.  This is where Christianity has something over other religions. Things didn't remain stagnant.  God sent his only son to be that once-for-all innocent sacrifice for man's sins. Animals took the place of humans, Jesus took the place of the animals on behalf of humans.  No more animals would have to die.  God was restoring man's relationship to himself and, in a way, rolling back all of time to that moment in the garden before mankind had gone their own separate way.  This is where I believe most Christians fail to see one serious effect of the New Covenant: There is no more Old Covenant.  It seems simple enough, but it gets missed all the time.

The old covenant stipulated that a rebellious son was to be stoned, with his parents casting the first stone. It also called for the death of an adulterous woman, witches and homosexuals. It called for the sacrifice of innocent animals for the benefit of man.  And it gave man permission to eat the animals.

Animals were not put here to die for us.  They were put here as co-creations with us, not for food, but for other reasons not stipulated in the creation story.  The sacrifices and food angle did not come about until AFTER man rebelled against God.  And now that Jesus, the once-for-all sacrifice for man, died and rose from the grave, man is restored (or in the process of being restored) to what he was BEFORE the fall.

Am I saying that people are sinning when they eat meat?  No.  But for a Christian I wonder why they would justify eating meat when they certainly wouldn't justify sacrificing animals for their sins, killing homosexuals, adulterous women and witches?  I wonder why they would argue against a plant based diet when that is what humankind ate before the fall?  I wonder why they would insist that God made animals for food when, in fact, it is clear that he did not originally make them for that and that animals as food and sacrificial substitutes only came about after the fall?  In short, the statement "That is what God made them for" is, at worse, a very halfhearted response that is lacking in any real substance and is really only serving as a sort of justification for a behavior that one does not want to change.  At best it should, and does, raise more questions than it answers, as already demonstrated.

Finally, whenever I hear that response my first reaction is to ask them if they know what it is they are saying?   I like to reformulate their statement as such: "God made animals for us to torture, abuse and slaughter so that we can fill our already overstuffed bellies with food we don't even need to survive".  And then I ask them if that is what they mean?

"Animals are not equal to humans"

This is a more difficult statement to deal with.  Mostly because it is thrown out as a statement of fact that, I suppose, is expected to end the discussion.  "Oh, you are right.  Animals aren't equal to humans. I am so glad you reminded me of that, now pass the steak".  But I think it is important that we push back on this one.  Again, like the previous statement, it won't do for us to say, "Yes they are" and move on.  That would be taking the same route as the person giving the above statement.  The fact is, according to the Bible and the Christian faith, they are right.

Man was created in the image of God (Read Genesis 1 and 2 again).  No where are we told that animals were created in God's image.  There is no point in trying to argue differently.  Man holds a very special place in God's universe.  This is God goes to such great lengths to save him from himself.  This is why Jesus came as a human.  This is why animals were sacrificed for humans.  This is why humans were given permission to eat animals and to have dominion over them.  If we are going to enter into this discussion within a Christian framework, we are going to have to deal with those facts as facts and not as optional beliefs.  Anything other than those being facts will change Christianity into something other than what it is and make any sort continuing argument useless.

But my answer to this is simple.  So what?   O.K., so animals are not equal to humans.  So what? Maybe it means that if we have the choice to save a human or an animal, we choose to save the human.  Maybe it means that you focus on the needs of humans first and then animals.  But how does this translate to a universal permission to torture, kill, eat and experiment on them?  Experimentation rarely needs to be done (I won't say never, but it is certainly very rare in this day and age).  We've already established that they are not needed for food, at least not in any industrialized nation.  They certainly are not needed as sacrifice for human sin. Jesus took care of that. So what is the point of making such a statement?

Some would argue for meat eating using aborigines living in the desert where human eatable vegetation is hard to come by. But since the person asking the question is probably not such an aborigine, what is the point?

Some would argue asking, "If you knew that sacrificing an animal would cure cancer, would you do it?".  But as this very unlikely, what is the point?

Some would ask, "If you were stranded on a desert island with only animals, would you eat one?  But we aren't stranded on such an island, so what is the point?  I always want to ask such a person, "If you lived in a land where eatable plants were in abundance, would you stop eating meat?"  Or, answer as my daughter once did, "I would just eat the food the animals were eating".

The "point" really is a red herring.  I realize there is somewhat a point in that if you were willing to eat meat in these circumstances, why not eat meat all the other times.  But this is just a justification on the part of the inquisitor. And an "all or nothing" answer is just another logical fallacy along with that of a red herring. We aren't on a dessert island.  We aren't living in a desert.  We don't have the cure for cancer.  But we do have lots of plants.  We do live in a land of plenty.  We don't need to eat animals.  So really the point is no point at all.  Just like the statement, "Animals aren't equal to humans".

However, I like to reformulate this statement as well.  I think it is being stated incorrectly.  I don't believe "equals" is the right word.  Of course animals and humans are not equal (again, no point).  The word should be changed to the phrase "same as", because that is really what is being said.  Humans aren't the same as animals.  But this goes without saying.  Maybe humans are a type of animal.  But they aren't the same animal any more than a fish is the same as a bear or a giraffe is the same as a bird. It should go without saying (even though some feel the need to say it in defense of their diet).

Perhaps the phrase is meant to convey the idea that animals do not deserve or require equal consideration with humans.  But that is a presumption.  Scriptures certainly doesn't say this.  And even if it did, "equal" is still the wrong word.  "Same" would be better and that still begs the question: "your point?".  To say animals deserve the right to vote along with humans is to state nonsense.  This would be like stating that men deserve the right to an abortion.  But all this is not to say that animals do not deserve equal consideration as humans when it comes to areas of similarity to both their natures.  I.e., not to suffer, happiness, health, etc. 

Yes, man was created in God's image and animals were not.  So what?  If anything this should inform our actions towards the animals much differently than what they are.  Instead of eating them, torturing them, abusing them, we should, as creatures bearing the image of God, look for ways to love them, save them, help them.  Instead of reading the passages in the Bible that give us permission to eat meat (not commanded, but permissive - some meat eaters seem to be confused on this point)  we should instead look for those passages that tell us animals are no longer needed for food or to give up their lives in place of ours.  That would seem to me to be more in keeping with the image of God.  But it shouldn't be surprising that humankind's propensity towards overt and horrific violence towards fellow humans and innocent creatures, all in the name of God, would win out most of the time.  It has been this way from the beginning.

I realize that much of what I have written is a bit scattered and I hope to firm up some of my views on this matter in other posts.  But for now, hopefully it gives you something to think about.