God Prefers the Veggieburger

What does the Bible say about animals and diet? The biblical story begins and ends with a peaceful creation, but in between, God explicitly permits meat-eating after the flood, Jesus eats fish, and Paul criticizes vegetarian Christians for being weak and superstitious (Romans 14-15). Can there be a consistent biblical position on this issue?

Certainly no Christian theologian can argue that the Bible absolutely condemns all meat-eating. However, there is a good case to be made that vegetarianism is a valid and valuable way of anticipating the kingdom of God by practicing what God most intends for the world. It is a sign of our trust in God's intentions for the world and our hope in God's plan for the world's ultimate redemption.

The biblical narrative is about people who are all too human, full of sin and greed, and dependent on the mercies of God. Their stories are framed by an account of peaceful beginnings in Genesis and the restoration of the world in a new creation in Revelation.

In between is the decisive manifestation of God in the life of Jesus Christ, the second Adam who comes to begin the restoration of the world to God's original purposes. Those original purposes did not include meat-eating, yet after the flood God did allow Noah and his descendants to eat meat, just as he later let the Israelites conduct their worship services around animal sacrifices.

The Hebrew prophets, however, often criticized these animal sacrifices, and when they talked about the end times when God's purposes would no longer be thwarted by human sin, they portrayed the world in the same harmonious terms that describe the paradise of Eden in Genesis. It seems clear to me, then, that God allows for meat-eating as something far below the ideals that God originally conceived for humankind. A carnivorous diet is a concession to human sin, not a model for what God always wanted from humanity.

There is an analogy for this in our own lives. Parents often let their children do things that are less than what is best for them. Parents let children watch too much television and eat more junk food than is good for them. All parents know that they have to pick their battles with their kids by ordering priorities and setting realistic goals. Parents know that it takes years for children to internalize and fully understand what the family standards are. Maturation is a process, and what children teach parents most is the virtue of patience.

Continued on page 2: »