Early Jewish Christianity was vegetarian, and it was Gentile Christianity which wasn’t. Gentile Christianity was the winning faction which assembled the New Testament. As a Jew, Jesus’ actual teachings were most likely closer to those of the early Jewish Christians.
JON HOCHSCHARTNER: If you were searching for an animal-friendly religion, Christianity probably wouldn’t be your first choice. You’d likely select Jainism, Buddhism or Hinduism. Of course, most people don’t choose a spiritual practice based on the degree it takes nonhumans into ethical consideration. Familiarity is an important factor…
I’m culturally Christian and live in the United States, which is majority Christian. I’d like there to be a more animal-friendly Christianity both for my sake and for the sake of my cause. So I decided to ask some activists, scholars and theologians how they reconciled Christianity and animal ethics.
The Old Testament has some strong passages on the subject. For instance, the Garden of Eden, presumably God’s ideal, is depicted as a vegan paradise, in which everyone eats plants. Similarly, in the Book of Isaiah, God promises a future in which there is no killing, and even carnivorous animals consume straw.
Unfortunately, the gospels canonized in the New Testament have a more anthropocentric focus. It got me thinking. Is Christianity fundamentally limited in what it can offer animals if one believes Jesus was God and ate meat? In other words, does progressive Christian animal ethics either have to concede Jesus was human or insist he didn’t eat meat?…
Stephen Kaufman, chair of the Christian Vegetarian Association, noted there were elements of the New Testament that could be interpreted in an anti-speciesist way, such as Jesus’ opposition to animal sacrifice. Still, Kaufman came across as somewhat conflicted, acknowledging that, in his reading, the canonical gospels didn’t portray Jesus as inordinately concerned with nonhumans…
David Clough is a Methodist lay preacher, a professor of theological ethics at the University of Chester, and is a co-founder of CreatureKind. He didn’t answer my question specifically, but his effort to situate Jesus in a historical moment suggested Clough understood Jesus to be fallible or delivering a message specific to his time…
John Ryder is a retired vicar and spokesperson for Christian Vegetarians and Vegans UK. “Jesus was a good Jew,” he told me. “It can safely be said that what Jesus didn’t contradict or correct about the Jews’ understanding of their own religion, he agreed with. Therefore, he accepted that God created humans to be vegan; the consumption of meat was only allowed, like divorce, to cope with sin.”
Keith Akers wrote a book dealing with the present subject called The Lost Religion of Jesus. Basically, the argument is early Jewish Christianity was vegetarian, and it was Pauline, Gentile Christianity which wasn’t. Pauline, Gentile Christianity was the winning faction which assembled the New Testament, but as a Jew, Jesus’ actual teachings were most likely closer to those of the early Jewish Christians…
After reading Akers’ book, I was curious whether my interviewees thought it would be possible or even desirable to create a modern church inspired by the Ebionites, an early vegetarian Christian sect. Outside of a few quotes preserved in the writing of their critics, the group’s texts were destroyed or lost…
Clough supposed it was possible a new religious movement based on what’s known about the Ebionites could be established, but he would not support any church that made vegetarianism a condition of membership. A modern Ebionite church didn’t appeal to Ryder because the group didn’t view Jesus as God. King was also uninterested in a church that rejected mainstream Christian doctrines, however, he believed creating such a group was potentially feasible…
Akers, on the other hand, would absolutely be interested in a modern Ebionite church. “I don’t think that texts are essential to a community, though having something written down is surely an asset,” he said. “The first followers of Jesus didn’t have written gospels at all for decades after Jesus left the planet. New texts can always be written.” I knew that, historically, some Christians have created alternate versions of the gospels…
For his part, Akers wasn’t opposed to the creation of new texts, but he prioritized the formation of a like-minded spiritual group, among other things. “Online gatherings are better than nothing, but ideally these would be in-person gatherings in our local community,” he said. “The group could then evolve organically, if its members are truly committed and can engage with each other without preconceived notions”. SOURCE…
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