http://michaelcreedfg.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/grant-aided-meat-processors-failing-to-create-irish-jobs/The link goes to a website encouraging people to give up meat on Mondays. Pretty self explanatory. It caught my eye, because being vegetarian is something I've played with over time.
In seminary, one of my good friends wrote her thesis explaining why pacifists ought to be vegetarian-long story short, the science suggests that animals can feel pain, they are biologically relatives, and the structures of factory farms in our country are horrifying (Upton Sinclare's Jungle is still out there). It was an interesting argument. I went vegetarian for Lent on her behalf in the spring for 2007.
It didn't quite take, because I quite buy the theological argument-our world is pretty fully structured on the basis of animals eating one another. We are all tomorrow's food, as the saying goes, but I like this idea of meatless Mondays for three reasons-
1) I believe in discipline. Practices, whatever they look like, are worth developing.
2) I believe in awareness. Taking one day off a week from meat is a way of reminding ourselves that our diets are meat heavy from a nutritional and environmental perspective (there are more carbon emissions from cows than cars).
3) I believe in education-imagine how many interesting conversations you could have with friends and family if you took this up!
I haven't run it by the spouse yet, but I'm intrigued.
I've always considered what we eat to be a moral choice, but one that is on a continuum. It's "more" moral to eat lower on the food chain, for a number of reasons (from environmental impact to resource usage to pain/suffering of the thing being eaten). On the other hand, there is some environmental impact no matter what we do, so it's all a matter of finding the place on the line that God is calling you to.
ReplyDeleteIn some ways I think about all of life like this-
ReplyDeletewhen we think about sin, we usually think about it in binary terms, but really, everything we do can be measured as lacking in relationship to the fullness of God's kingdom, and everything we do can be measured as better than total depravity. Even for a pacifist, something like 'don't kill' can be seen on a range from saving starving orphans through non-violent living through self defense or accidental manslaughter towards intentional genocide.