The Question of Climate Change is Secondary to the Need for Creation Care

Actually the real issue is are we going to let our freedoms and standard of living be stolen based on the false assumption of climate change...formerly known as the artist called global warming.

Because the things that the global warming crowd wants to force down our throats destroys our economy. Things like $7 per gallon gas, cap and and trade, light bulb taxes etc. When the economy suffers the poor suffer as well as the rest of us.

Do you know why the people of the United States of America do more to help the poor around the world than any other nation. It's because of our freedom to create wealth for individuals who then give it away.

So the question becomes why would we unnecessarily destroy our economy and way of giving based on hyped,flawed,and manipulated science. Especially when the Bible already tells us the future of this earth.

"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven." Let's see, which environmentalist was it that said that?

The so-called ClimateGate is a manufactured scandal. 3 errors or cases of changed data in a thousand (the actual proportion) does not a scandal make. And that was just in one climatology organization. The data is overwhelming. It was overt deception when some climate change denier bloggers focused on those three pieces of data and ignored the other 997 that didn't agree with their preconceived notions.

Translation:

Because the emperor has been revealed to be nude...let's change the subject. That way, we don't have to talk about the decades of deceit, the billions (trillions?) wasted..we can just stamp Jesus on it.

Am I wrong?

ckgmail writes:

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven." Let's see, which environmentalist was it that said that?

The Green Bible could say it better than I!

According to the Bible, God intended the entire human race to follow a vegetarian diet (Genesis 1:29). Paradise is vegetarian. Rashi (Rabbi Solomon von Isaac, 1030-1105), the famous Jewish Bible commentator, taught that "God did not permit Adam and his wife to kill a creature and to eat its flesh. Only every green herb shall they all eat together." Ibn Ezra and other Jewish biblical commentators agree.

According to the Talmud, "Adam and many generations that followed him were strict flesh-abstainers; flesh-foods were rejected as repulsive for human consumption." Although man was made in God's image and given dominion over all creation (Genesis 1:26-28), these verses do not justify humans killing animals and devouring them, because God immediately proclaims He created the plants for human consumption. (Genesis 1:29)

In a letter to Pope John Paul II, challenging him on the issue of animal experimentation, Dr. Michael Fox of the Humane Society argued that the word "dominion" is derived from the original Hebrew word "rahe" which refers to compassionate stewardship, instead of power and control. Parents have dominion over their children; they do not have a license to kill, torment or abuse them. The Talmud (Shabbat 119; Sanhedrin 7) interprets "dominion" to mean animals may be used for labor.

Man was made in God's image (Genesis 1:26) and told to be vegetarian (Genesis 1:29). "And God saw all that He had made and saw that it was very good." (Genesis 1:31) Complete and perfect harmony. Everything in the beginning was the way God wanted it. Vegetarianism was part of God's initial plan for the world.

"It appears that the first intention of the Maker was to have men live on a strictly vegetarian diet," writes Rabbi Simon Glazer, in his 1971 Guide to Judaism. "The very earliest periods of Jewish history are marked with humanitarian conduct towards the lower animal kingdom...It is clearly established that the ancient Hebrews knew, and perhaps were the first among men to know, that animals feel and suffer pain."

After the Flood, God revised His commandment against flesh-eating. Human beings, since eating of the forbidden fruit, seemed incapable of obedience on this issue. One Jewish writer comments, "Only after man had proven unfit for the high moral standard given at the beginning, was meat made a part of the humans' diet."

It is important to note that before the Flood, when humans were vegetarian, lifespans were measured in terms of centuries. Adam, for example, lived to be 930 years old. Seth (Adam's son) lived to 912. Enoch (Seth's son) to at least 905. Kenan (Enoch's son) lived to 910, all the way up to Methuselah, who lived for 969 years. After the Flood, when flesh-eating was permitted, human lifespans were reduced to decades. Abraham, for example, lived to be only 175. Genesis 1:29-31 was a blessing; Genesis 9:2-4, a curse.

A Jewish legend says Moses was found to be righteous by God through his shepherding. While Moses was tending his sheep of Jethro in the Midian wilderness, a young kid ran away from the flock. Moses ran after it until he found the kid drinking by a pool of water. Moses approached the kid and said, "I did not know that you ran away because you were thirsty; now, you must be tired." So Moses placed the animal on his shoulders and carried him back to the flock. God said, "Because thou has shown mercy in leading the flock, thou will surely tend My flock, Israel."

In his essay, "The Dietary Prohibitions of the Hebrews," Jean Soler finds in the Bible at lest two times when an attempt was made to try the Israelites out on a vegetarian diet. During the period of exodus from Egypt, the Hebrews lived entirely on manna. They had large flocks which they brought with them, but never touched.

The Israelites were told that manna "is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat." (Exodus 16:5) For forty years in the desert, the Israelites lived on manna (Nehemiah 9:15,21). The apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon (16:20) calls manna the food of the angels. Manna is described as a vegetable food, like "coriander seed" (Numbers 11:7), tasting like wafers and honey (Exodus 16:31).

On two separate occasions, however, the men rebelled against Moses because they wanted meat. The meat-hungry Hebrews lamented, "Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots." God ended this first "experiment in vegetarianism" through the miracle of the quails.

A second "experiment in vegetarianism" is suggested in the Book of Numbers, when the Hebrews lament once again, "O that we had meat to eat." (Numbers 11:4) God repeated the miracle of the quails, but this time with a vengeance: "And while the flesh was between their teeth, before it was even chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and He struck them down with a great plague." (Numbers 11:33)

The site where the deaths took place was named "The Graves of Lust." (Numbers 11:34; Deuteronomy 12:20) The quail meat was called "basar ta'avah," or "meat of lust." The Talmud (Chulin 84a) comments that: "The Torah teaches a lesson in moral conduct, that mean shall not eat meat unless he has a special craving for it, and shall eat it only occasionally and sparingly." Here, according to Soler, as in the story of the Flood, "meat is given a negative connotation. It is a concession God makes to man's imperfection."

In his excellent A Guide to the Misled, Rabbi Shmuel Golding explains the orthodox Jewish position concerning animal sacrifices: "When G-d gave our ancestors permission to make sacrifices to Him, it was a concession, just as when He allowed us to have a king (I Samuel 8), but He gave us a whole set of rules and regulations concerning sacrifice that, when followed, would be superior to and distinct from the sacrificial system of the heathens."

Some biblical passages denounce animal sacrifice (Isaiah 1:11,15; Amos 5:21-25). Other passages state that animal sacrifices, not necessarily incurring God's wrath, are unnecessary (I Kings 15:22; Jeremiah 7:21-22; Hosea 6:6; Hosea 8:13; Micah 6:6-8; Psalm 50:1-14; Psalm 40:6; Proverbs 21:3; Ecclesiastes 5:1).

Sometimes meat-eating Christians cite Isaiah 1:11, where God says, "I am full of the burnt offerings..." They say the word "full" implies God accepted the sacrifices. However, in Isaiah 43:23-24, God says: "You have not honored Me with your sacrifices...rather you have burdened Me with your sins, you have wearied Me with your iniquities." This suggests, as Moses Maimonides taught and Rabbi Shmuel Golding confirms above, that "the sacrifices were a concession to barbarism."

In the Talmud (Eruvin 100b), Rabbi Yochanon teaches, "Even if we had not been given the Torah, we still would have learned modesty from the cat, honesty from the ant, chastity from the dove, and good manners from the rooster. Thus, the animals should be honored."

According to the Talmud (Shabbat 77b), the entire creation is to be respected: "Thou thinkest that flies, fleas, mosquitos are superfluous, but they have their purpose in creation as a means of a final outcome...Of all that the Holy One, Blessed be He, created in His world, he did not create a single thing without purpose."

The Talmud (Avodah Zorah 18b) also forbids association with hunters. Rabbi Ezekiel Landau (1713-93) was once asked by a man if he could hunt on his large estate. The rabbi replied:

"In the Torah the sport of hunting is imputed only to fierce characters like Nimrod and Esau, never to any of the patriarchs and their descendants...I cannot comprehend how a Jew could even dream of killing animals merely for the pleasure of hunting...When the act of killing is prompted by that of sport, it is downright cruelty."

The Talmud (Gittin 62a) further teaches that one should not own a domestic or wild animal or even a bird if he cannot properly care for it. Although there is no general rule forbidding animal cruelty, so many commandments call for humane treatment, the talmudic rabbis explicitly declared compassion for animals to be biblical law (Shabbat 128b).

According to the Talmud (Shabbat 151b), "He who has mercy on his fellow creatures obtains mercy for himself." The first century Jewish historian Josephus described mercy as the underlying principle of all Jewish laws. These laws, he says, do not ignore the animals: "Ill treatment of a brute beast is with us a capital crime."

There is considerable evidence within the Bible suggesting God's plan is to restore His Kingdom on earth and return mankind to vegetarianism. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the Chief Rabbi of prestate Israel, wrote: "It is inconceivable that the Creator who had planned a world of harmony and a perfect way for man to live should, many thousands of years later, find that this plan was wrong."

Rabbi Kook believed the concession to eat meat (Genesis 9:3) was never intended to be a permanent condition. In his essay, "A Vision of Peace and Vegetarianism," he asked: "...how can it be that such a noble and enlightened moral position (Genesis 1:29) should pass away after it once has been brought into existence?"

Rabbi Kook cited the messianic prophecies (Isaiah 11:6-9), in which the world is again restored to a vegetarian paradise. The Bible thus begins and ends in a Kingdom where slaughter is unknown, and identifies the one anointed by God to bring about this Kingdom as "Mashiach," or the Messiah. Humanity's very beginning in Paradise and destiny in the age of the Messiah are vividly depicted as vegetarian. "In that future state," taught Rabbi Kook, "people's lives will no longer be supported at the expense of the animals." Isaiah (65:25) repeats his prophecy again. This is God's plan.

Rabbi Kook taught that because humans had an insatiable desire to kill animals and eat their flesh, they could not yet be returned to a moral standard which calls for vegetarianism. Kook regarded Deuteronomy 12:15,20 ("Thou mayest slaughter and eat...after all the desire of thy soul,") as poetically misleading. He translated this Torah verse as: "because you lust after eating meat...then you may slaughter and eat."

In his book Judaism and Vegetarianism, Dr. Richard H. Schwartz notes that God's blessings to man throughout the Bible are almost entirely vegetarian: products of the soil, seeds, sun and rain. (e.g., Deuteronomy 8:7-9; Isaiah 30:20,23; Nehemiah 9:25)

In their book, The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism, Dennis Prager and Rabbi Telushkin explain: "Keeping kosher is Judaism's compromise with its ideal vegetarianism. Ideally, according to Judaism, man would confine his eating to fruits and vegetables and not kill animals for food."

Along with the concession to eat meat, many laws and restrictions were given. Rabbi Kook taught that the reprimand implied by these regulations is an elaborate apparatus designed to keep alive a sense of reverence for life, with the aim of eventually leading people away from their meat-eating habit. This idea is echoed by Jewish Bible commentator Solomon Efraim Lunchitz, author of K'lee Yakar:

"What was the necessity for the entire procedure of ritual slaughter? For the sake of self-discipline. It is far more appropriate for man not to eat meat; only if he has a strong desire for meat does the Torah permit it, and even this only after the trouble and inconvenience necessary to satisfy his desire. Perhaps because of the bother and annoyance of the whole procedure, he will be restrained from such a strong and uncontrollable desire for meat."

A similar statement was made by a modern rabbi, Pinchas Peli:

"Accordingly, the laws of kashrut come to teach us that a Jew's first preference should be a vegetarian meal. If however, one cannot control a craving for meat, it should be kosher meat which would serve as a reminder that the animal being eaten is a creature of God, that the death of such a creature cannot be taken lightly, that hunting for sport is forbidden, that we cannot treat any living thing callously, and that we are responsible for what happens to other beings (human or animal) even if we did not personally come into contact with them."

In the face of cultural assimilation, Rabbi Robert Gordis does not believe the dietary laws will be maintained by Jews today in their present form. He suggests that vegetarianism, a logical conclusion of Jewish teaching, would effectively protect the kosher tradition: "Vegetarianism offers an ideal mode for preserving the religious and ethical values which kashrut was designed to concretize in human life."

In his 1987 book, Food For the Spirit: Vegetarianism and the World Religions, writer Steven Rosen makes a well-reasoned case for Jewish vegetarianism, concluding:

"...even if one considers the process of koshering to be legitimate, it is an obvious burden placed upon the Jewish people, perhaps in the hope that they will give up flesh-foods altogether. If eating meat is such a detailed, long, and drawn-out process, why not give it up entirely?"

The late Rabbi Isaac ha-Levi Herzog once predicted that "Jews will move increasingly to vegetarianism out of their own deepening knowledge of what their tradition commands...Man's carnivorous nature is not taken for granted or praised in the fundamental teachings of Judaism...A whole galaxy of central rabbinic and spiritual leaders...has been affirming vegetarianism as the ultimate meaning of Jewish moral teaching."

Keith Akers notes that "Compassion for animals is firmly rooted in Judaism," and concludes in his chapter on the Jewish tradition in A Vegetarian Sourcebook (1983): "Judaism does not unequivocally condemn meat eating as a sin. But a strong case can be made that Judaism does revere vegetarianism as an ethical ideal. All Jews are enjoined to have respect and compassion for animals...Jews would have absolutely no problem in becoming vegetarians, while still remaining loyal to their religion."

In the July/August 1997 issue of Humane Religion, in an article entitled "Jews, Christians and Hunting", the late Reverend J.R. ("Regina") Hyland, writes:

"Aside from the identity of the promised Messiah, Christian interpretations of the Hebrew scriptures rely heavily on Jewish sources. The biblical heroes of Judaism are the heroes of Christendom; the enemies of the Chosen People are seen as the enemies of God by Christians as well as Jews. And the historical background, as well as the significance of specific scriptures expounded by Jewish scholars, is accepted by their Christian counterparts.

"But there is a glaring exception to this reliance on Jewish sources and commentaries. When it comes to the matter of hunting, there is a wide divergence between Jewish and Christian tradition.

"The traditional Jewish abhorrence of hunting begins with commentaries on the man called Nimrod...The rabbis castigated him for this activity, and linked it to the general degeneracy of his character...(Jewish) commentators who castigate Nimrod have little use for that other biblical hunter, Esau, who ate the animals that he killed...But this ongoing, pervasive condemnation of hunting within Jewish tradition had no parallel among Christians. In fact, Christianity had increasingly supported the cruelty which vented itself in hunting...And because the churches and their clerics coveted...support...they blessed this slaughter of the innocent.

"The Christian voices that were raised in protest against the wanton murder of animal beings were ignored. Even the repugnance towards hunting and hunters that was encoded in Catholic Canon Law, was ignored. "Esau was a hunter because he was a sinner; and in the Holy scriptures we do not find a single holy man being a hunter." (from the Corpus Juris Canonici. Rome, 1582.)

Jesus taught his disciples to pray for the coming of God's kingdom (Matthew 6:9-10), the kingdom of peace, in which the entire world is restored to a vegetarian paradise (Genesis 1:29; Isaiah 11:6-9). Recalling Psalm 37:11, he blessed the meek, saying they would inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5) The kingdom of God belongs to the gentle and kind (Matthew 5:7-9) Christians are to "Be merciful, just as your Father is also merciful." (Luke 6:36) Those who take up the sword must perish by the sword. (Matthew 26:52)

Jesus repeatedly spoke of God's tender care for the nonhuman creation (Matthew 6:26-30, 10:29-31; Luke 12:6-7, 24-28). Jesus taught that God desires "mercy and not sacrifice." (Matthew 9:10-13, 12:6-7; Mark 2:15-17; Luke 5:29-32) The epistle to the Hebrews 10:5-10 suggests that Jesus did not come to abolish the Law and the prophets (which Paul, and not Jesus, regarded as "so much garbage"), but only the institution of animal sacrifice, as does Jesus' cleansing the Temple of those who were buying and selling animals for sacrifice and his overturning the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple. (Matthew 21:12-14; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46; John 2:14-17)

Jesus not only repeatedly upheld Mosaic Law (Matthew 5:17-19; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 16:17), he justified his healing on the Sabbath by referring to commandments calling for the humane treatment of animals.

When teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, Jesus healed a woman who had been ill for eighteen years. He justified his healing work on the Sabbath by referring to biblical passages calling for the humane treatment of animals as well as their rest on the Sabbath. "So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham...be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?" Jesus asked. (Luke 13:10-16)

On another occasion, Jesus again referred to Torah teaching on "tsa'ar ba'alei chayim" or compassion for animals to justify healing on the Sabbath. "Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?" (Luke 14:1-5)

Jesus compared saving sinners who had gone astray from God's kingdom to rescuing lost sheep. He recalled a Jewish legend about Moses' compassion as a shepherd for his flock.

"For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost. What do you think? Who among you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?

"And when he has found it," Jesus continued, "he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'

"I say to you, likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance...there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." (Matthew 18:11-13; Luke 15:3-7,10)

"The compassionate, sensitive heart for animals is inseparable from the proclamation of the Christian gospel," writes the Reverend Andrew Linzey in Love the Animals. "We have lived so long with the gospel stories of Jesus that we frequently fail to see how his life and ministry identified with animals at almost every point.

"His birth, if tradition is to be believed, takes place in the home of sheep and oxen. His ministry begins, according to St. Mark, in the wilderness 'with the wild beasts' (1:13). His triumphal entry into Jerusalem involves riding on a 'humble' ass (Matthew 21). According to Jesus, it is lawful to 'do good' on the Sabbath, which includes the rescuing of an animal fallen into a pit (Matthew 12). Even the sparrows, literally sold for a few pennies in his day, are not 'forgotten before God.' God's providence extends to the entire created order, and the glory of Solomon and all his works cannot be compared to that of the lilies of the field (Luke 12:27).

"God so cares for His creation that even 'foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.' (Luke 9:58) It is 'the merciful' who are 'blessed' in God's sight and what we do to 'the least' of all we do to him. (Matthew 5:7, 25:45-46) Jesus literally overturns the already questionable practice of animal sacrifice. Those who sell pigeons have their tables overturned and are put out of the Temple (Mark 11:15-16). It is the scribe who sees the spiritual bankruptcy of animal sacrifice and the supremacy of sacrificial love that Jesus commends as being 'not far from the Kingdom of God.' (Mark 12:32-34)

"It is a loving heart which is required by God, and not the needless bloodletting of God's creatures," concludes Reverend Linzey. "We can see the same prophetic and radical challenge to tradition in Jesus' remarks about the 'good shepherd' who, unlike many in his day, 'lays down his life for the sheep.' (John 10:11)"

In Christianity and the Rights of Animals, Reverend Linzey finds two justifications for a Christian case for vegetarianism:

"The first is that killing is a morally significant matter. While justifiable in principle, it can only be practically justified where there is real need for human nourishment. Christian vegetarians do not have to claim that it is always and absolutely wrong to kill in order to eat. It could well be that there were, and are, some situations n which meat-eating was and is essential in order to survive. Geographical considerations alone make it difficult to envisiage life in Palestine at the time of Christ without some primitive fishing industry. But the crucial point is that where we are free to do otherwise the killing of Spirit-filled individuals requires moral justification. It may be justifiable, but only when human nourishment clearly requires it, and even then it remains an inevitable consequence of sin.

"The second point," Linzey explains, "is that misappropriation occurs when humans do not recognize that the life of an animal belongs to God, not to them. Here it seems to me that Christian vegetarianism is well-founded. For while it may have been possible in the past to rear animals with personal care and consideration for their well-being and to dispatch them with the humble and scrupulous recognition that their life should only be taken in times of necessity, such conditions are abnormal today."

Jesus insisted upon the moral standards given by God in the beginning (Matthew 5:31-32, 19:3-9; Mark 10:2-12; Luke 16:18), and this did not go unnoticed by early church fathers such as St. Jerome.

St. Jerome (AD 340-420) wrote to a monk in Milan who had abandoned vegetarianism:

"As to the argument that in God's second blessing (Genesis 9:3) permission was given to eat flesh-a permission not given in the first blessing (Genesis 1:29)-let him know that just as permission to put away a wife was, according to the words of the Saviour, not given from the beginning, but was granted to the human race by Moses because of the hardness of our hearts (Matthew 19:1-12), so also in like manner the eating of flesh was unknown until the Flood, but after the Flood, just as quails were given to the people when they murmured in the desert, so have sinews and the offensiveness been given to our teeth.

"The Apostle, writing to the Ephesians, teaches us that God had purposed that in the fullness of time he would restore all things, and would draw to their beginning, even to Christ Jesus, all things that are in heaven or that are on earth. Whence also, the Saviour Himself in the Apocalypse of John says, 'I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.' From the beginning of human nature, we neither fed upon flesh nor did we put away our wives, nor were our foreskins taken away from us for a sign. We kept on this course until we arrived at the Flood.

"But after the Flood, together with the giving of the Law, which no man could fulfill, the eating of flesh was brought in, and the putting away of wives was conceded to hardness of heart...But now that Christ has come in the end of time, and has turned back Omega to Alpha...neither is it permitted to us to put away our wives, nor are we circumcised, nor do we eat flesh."

St. Jerome was responsible for the Vulgate, or Latin version of the Bible, still in use today. He felt a vegetarian diet was best for those devoted to the pursuit of wisdom. He once wrote that he was not a follower of Pythagoras or Empodocles "who do not eat any living creature," but concluded, "And so I too say to you: if you wish to be perfect, it is good not to drink wine and eat flesh."

I don't know. Jesus repeatedly upheld Mosaic Law (e.g., Matthew 5:17-19; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 16:17) as did the original apostles (Acts 10; Acts 15; Acts 21), whereas Paul disregarded it...except to tell women to keep silent in the churches!

Secular scholar Keith Akers says if Paul's view prevails over Jesus, then the Old Testament becomes irrelevant. My friend Albert (a Catholic vegetarian in Michigan) disagrees, saying the Old Testament is "a foundation for orthodoxy."

My friend Maria (an ex-Catholic turned Quaker) disagreed on slightly different grounds. Quoting Paul, "By no means!" she said the Old Testament shows us how we "got to where we are."

The Protestant Bibles omit many books which Catholics consider sacred. On the other hand, Luther wanted to throw out the epistle of James, because James, the brother of Jesus, asserts that "faith without works is dead," and this contradicted Luther's entire doctrine of salvation by faith alone. The Protestant Reformation was based almost entirely on the epistles of Paul.

Keith Akers writes that Paul "downgraded" the Law of Moses for the gentiles; perhaps we can do the same with Paul's epistles for Christianity today?

What, then, do we "do" with Paul?

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John,

You ask: "What, then, do we 'do'with Paul?"

I don't know. Jesus repeatedly upheld Mosaic Law
(e.g., Matthew 5:17-19; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 16:17)
as did the original apostles (Acts 10; Acts 15; Acts 21),
whereas Paul disregarded it...except to tell women to
keep silent in the churches!

Secular scholar Keith Akers says if Paul's view prevails
over Jesus, then the Old Testament becomes irrelevant.
My friend Albert (a Catholic vegetarian in Michigan)
disagrees, saying the Old Testament is "a foundation for
orthodoxy."

My friend Maria (an ex-Catholic turned Quaker) disagreed
on slightly different grounds. Quoting Paul, "By no means!"
she said the Old Testament shows us how we "got to
where we are."

The Protestant Bibles omit many books which Catholics
consider sacred. On the other hand, Luther wanted to
throw out the epistle of James, because James, the
brother of Jesus, asserts that "faith without works is dead,"
and this contradicted Luther's entire doctrine of salvation
by faith alone. The Protestant Reformation was based
almost entirely on the epistles of Paul.

Keith Akers writes that Paul "downgraded" the Law of
Moses for the gentiles; perhaps we can do the same
with Paul's epistles for Christianity today?

So...if Paul is neither an apostle nor authoritative...why use him to plead your case?

From history, too, we learn that the earliest Christians were vegetarians as well as pacifists. For example, Clemens Prudentius, the first Christian hymn writer, in one of his hymns exhorts his fellow Christians not to pollute their hands and hearts by the slaughter of innocent cows and sheep, and points to the variety of nourishing and pleasant foods obtainable without blood-shedding.

A stumbling block for some Christians is the apostle Paul's having referred to his vegetarian brethren as "weak." Paul taught that it is best to abstain from meat or from food offered to idols so as not to offend the "weaker" brethren. Paul repeatedly attacked idolatry. (Romans 1:23; I Corinthians 6:9-10; II Corinthians 6:16; Galatians 5:19-21) He recognized the immorality of accepting food offered to idols and pagan gods: "that which they sacrifice they are offering to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons." (I Corinthians 10:20) Yet Paul then proceeded to give his followers permission to eat food offered to pagan idols! "You may eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience: for the earth is the Lord's and everything in it." (I Corinthians 10:14-33)

Paul told his followers they need only abstain from such foods if it offends their "weaker" brethren. "For if someone sees you...sitting at the table in an idol temple, will not his conscience weak as it is, encourage him to eat food offered to idols?...If my eating causes my brother to stumble, I shall eat no meat forever, so that my brother will not be made to fall into sin." (I Corinthians 8:1-13)

Not only does this contradict the Apostles' decree concerning gentile converts to Christianity (Acts 15), it contradicts the teachings of Jesus himself. In Revelations 2:14-16,20, the resurrected Jesus specifically instructs John to write to two churches that they not eat food offered to idols.

Since Paul refers to Christians who abstain not just from meat, but from food offered to pagan idols as "weak," would his definition of "weak" not have included the resurrected Jesus (Revelations 2:14-16,20) as well? Paul's use of the word "weak" has been debated. According to Christian theologian Dr. Upton Clary Ewing, Paul used the word "weak" with a positive connotation. According to Paul, "God has chosen the weak things in the world to shame the strong." (I Corinthians 1:27)

Describing his tribulations for the cause of Christ, being caught up in the heavenly sphres, and a revelation from Jesus, Paul wrote:

"If I must boast, I shall boast of matters that show my weakness...I will boast, but not about myself--unless it be about my weakness...the Lord...he told me, 'my strength comes to perfection where there is weakness.' Therefore," Paul concluded, "I am happy to boast in my weaknesses...I delight, then, in weaknesses...for when I am weak, then I am strong." (II Corinthians 11:30, 12:1-10)

Paul wrote further that Jesus "was crucified out of weakness, yet he lives through divine power, and we, too, are weak in him, but we shall live with him for your benefit through the power of God...We are happy to be weak when you are strong." (II Corinthians 13:4,9)

Taken in this context, the word "weak" suggests complete dependence upon God.

Admittedly, even if Paul did use the word "weak" with a positive connotation, it would not necessarily mean that it's wrong to eat meat (Genesis 9:3), but just that it's better to be a vegetarian (Genesis 1:29; Isaiah 11:6-9)

The Reverend J. Todd Ferrier, founder of the Order of the Cross, wrote in 1903:

"But Paul, great and noble man as he was, never was one of the recognized heads at Jerusalem. He had been a Pharisee of the Pharisees...He strove to be all things to all men that he might gain some. And we admire him for his strenuous endeavors to win the world for Christ. But no one could be all things to all men without running the great risks of most disastrous results...

"But here as a further thought in connection with the teaching of the great Apostle an important question is forced upon our attention, which one of these days must receive the due consideration from biblical scholars that it deserves. It is this:

"How is it that the gospel of Paul is more to many people than the gospel of those privileged souls who sat at the feet of Jesus and heard His secrets in the Upper Room?"

Christian theologian Dr. Upton Clary Ewing writes:

"With all due respect for the integrity of Paul, he was not one of the Twelve Apostles

"...garbage dumps are in impoverished neighborhoods? That in Chicago, the only two coal fired power plants in the city itself are both in minority neighborhoods?"

Concern for the environment is good, but there the methods you use to solve them may make problems worse. Look at these two examples. They're both government actions that ignore property rights. Then look at Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit that buys land and makes it private property, not state-owned. Anyone can pollute state-owned property, but no one can pollute Nature Conservancy's property. Private property is the best protections for the environment.

"That my electronic waste still ends up in the hands of Ghana's children or India's poor?"

Now that is a legitmate state concern. Why aren't the governments of those nations protecting the health of their children?

"Do you know why the people of the United States of America do more to help the poor around the world than any other nation. It's because of our freedom to create wealth for individuals who then give it away. "

You are right on the money with this comment! Unfortunately, you are posting it on a site where most bloggers view that concept (and the U.S. for that matter) as evil, mean-spirited, the root cause of global warming, etc, etc, etc.

C'mon VasuMurti! These are too long for the comment section. If you want to write an article, contact Sojourners.

Translation:

Because the emperor has been revealed to be nude...let's change the subject. That way, we don't have to talk about the decades of deceit, the billions (trillions?) wasted..we can just stamp Jesus on it.

Am I wrong?

ckgmail writes:

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven." Let's see, which environmentalist was it that said that?

The Green Bible could say it better than I!

According to the Bible, God intended the entire human race to follow a vegetarian diet (Genesis 1:29). Paradise is vegetarian. Rashi (Rabbi Solomon von Isaac, 1030-1105), the famous Jewish Bible commentator, taught that "God did not permit Adam and his wife to kill a creature and to eat its flesh. Only every green herb shall they all eat together." Ibn Ezra and other Jewish biblical commentators agree.

According to the Talmud, "Adam and many generations that followed him were strict flesh-abstainers; flesh-foods were rejected as repulsive for human consumption." Although man was made in God's image and given dominion over all creation (Genesis 1:26-28), these verses do not justify humans killing animals and devouring them, because God immediately proclaims He created the plants for human consumption. (Genesis 1:29)

In a letter to Pope John Paul II, challenging him on the issue of animal experimentation, Dr. Michael Fox of the Humane Society argued that the word "dominion" is derived from the original Hebrew word "rahe" which refers to compassionate stewardship, instead of power and control. Parents have dominion over their children; they do not have a license to kill, torment or abuse them. The Talmud (Shabbat 119; Sanhedrin 7) interprets "dominion" to mean animals may be used for labor.

Man was made in God's image (Genesis 1:26) and told to be vegetarian (Genesis 1:29). "And God saw all that He had made and saw that it was very good." (Genesis 1:31) Complete and perfect harmony. Everything in the beginning was the way God wanted it. Vegetarianism was part of God's initial plan for the world.

"It appears that the first intention of the Maker was to have men live on a strictly vegetarian diet," writes Rabbi Simon Glazer, in his 1971 Guide to Judaism. "The very earliest periods of Jewish history are marked with humanitarian conduct towards the lower animal kingdom...It is clearly established that the ancient Hebrews knew, and perhaps were the first among men to know, that animals feel and suffer pain."

After the Flood, God revised His commandment against flesh-eating. Human beings, since eating of the forbidden fruit, seemed incapable of obedience on this issue. One Jewish writer comments, "Only after man had proven unfit for the high moral standard given at the beginning, was meat made a part of the humans' diet."

It is important to note that before the Flood, when humans were vegetarian, lifespans were measured in terms of centuries. Adam, for example, lived to be 930 years old. Seth (Adam's son) lived to 912. Enoch (Seth's son) to at least 905. Kenan (Enoch's son) lived to 910, all the way up to Methuselah, who lived for 969 years. After the Flood, when flesh-eating was permitted, human lifespans were reduced to decades. Abraham, for example, lived to be only 175. Genesis 1:29-31 was a blessing; Genesis 9:2-4, a curse.

A Jewish legend says Moses was found to be righteous by God through his shepherding. While Moses was tending his sheep of Jethro in the Midian wilderness, a young kid ran away from the flock. Moses ran after it until he found the kid drinking by a pool of water. Moses approached the kid and said, "I did not know that you ran away because you were thirsty; now, you must be tired." So Moses placed the animal on his shoulders and carried him back to the flock. God said, "Because thou has shown mercy in leading the flock, thou will surely tend My flock, Israel."

In his essay, "The Dietary Prohibitions of the Hebrews," Jean Soler finds in the Bible at lest two times when an attempt was made to try the Israelites out on a vegetarian diet. During the period of exodus from Egypt, the Hebrews lived entirely on manna. They had large flocks which they brought with them, but never touched.

The Israelites were told that manna "is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat." (Exodus 16:5) For forty years in the desert, the Israelites lived on manna (Nehemiah 9:15,21). The apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon (16:20) calls manna the food of the angels. Manna is described as a vegetable food, like "coriander seed" (Numbers 11:7), tasting like wafers and honey (Exodus 16:31).

On two separate occasions, however, the men rebelled against Moses because they wanted meat. The meat-hungry Hebrews lamented, "Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots." God ended this first "experiment in vegetarianism" through the miracle of the quails.

A second "experiment in vegetarianism" is suggested in the Book of Numbers, when the Hebrews lament once again, "O that we had meat to eat." (Numbers 11:4) God repeated the miracle of the quails, but this time with a vengeance: "And while the flesh was between their teeth, before it was even chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and He struck them down with a great plague." (Numbers 11:33)

The site where the deaths took place was named "The Graves of Lust." (Numbers 11:34; Deuteronomy 12:20) The quail meat was called "basar ta'avah," or "meat of lust." The Talmud (Chulin 84a) comments that: "The Torah teaches a lesson in moral conduct, that mean shall not eat meat unless he has a special craving for it, and shall eat it only occasionally and sparingly." Here, according to Soler, as in the story of the Flood, "meat is given a negative connotation. It is a concession God makes to man's imperfection."

In his excellent A Guide to the Misled, Rabbi Shmuel Golding explains the orthodox Jewish position concerning animal sacrifices: "When G-d gave our ancestors permission to make sacrifices to Him, it was a concession, just as when He allowed us to have a king (I Samuel 8), but He gave us a whole set of rules and regulations concerning sacrifice that, when followed, would be superior to and distinct from the sacrificial system of the heathens."

Some biblical passages denounce animal sacrifice (Isaiah 1:11,15; Amos 5:21-25). Other passages state that animal sacrifices, not necessarily incurring God's wrath, are unnecessary (I Kings 15:22; Jeremiah 7:21-22; Hosea 6:6; Hosea 8:13; Micah 6:6-8; Psalm 50:1-14; Psalm 40:6; Proverbs 21:3; Ecclesiastes 5:1).

Sometimes meat-eating Christians cite Isaiah 1:11, where God says, "I am full of the burnt offerings..." They say the word "full" implies God accepted the sacrifices. However, in Isaiah 43:23-24, God says: "You have not honored Me with your sacrifices...rather you have burdened Me with your sins, you have wearied Me with your iniquities." This suggests, as Moses Maimonides taught and Rabbi Shmuel Golding confirms above, that "the sacrifices were a concession to barbarism."

In the Talmud (Eruvin 100b), Rabbi Yochanon teaches, "Even if we had not been given the Torah, we still would have learned modesty from the cat, honesty from the ant, chastity from the dove, and good manners from the rooster. Thus, the animals should be honored."

According to the Talmud (Shabbat 77b), the entire creation is to be respected: "Thou thinkest that flies, fleas, mosquitos are superfluous, but they have their purpose in creation as a means of a final outcome...Of all that the Holy One, Blessed be He, created in His world, he did not create a single thing without purpose."

The Talmud (Avodah Zorah 18b) also forbids association with hunters. Rabbi Ezekiel Landau (1713-93) was once asked by a man if he could hunt on his large estate. The rabbi replied:

"In the Torah the sport of hunting is imputed only to fierce characters like Nimrod and Esau, never to any of the patriarchs and their descendants...I cannot comprehend how a Jew could even dream of killing animals merely for the pleasure of hunting...When the act of killing is prompted by that of sport, it is downright cruelty."

The Talmud (Gittin 62a) further teaches that one should not own a domestic or wild animal or even a bird if he cannot properly care for it. Although there is no general rule forbidding animal cruelty, so many commandments call for humane treatment, the talmudic rabbis explicitly declared compassion for animals to be biblical law (Shabbat 128b).

According to the Talmud (Shabbat 151b), "He who has mercy on his fellow creatures obtains mercy for himself." The first century Jewish historian Josephus described mercy as the underlying principle of all Jewish laws. These laws, he says, do not ignore the animals: "Ill treatment of a brute beast is with us a capital crime."

There is considerable evidence within the Bible suggesting God's plan is to restore His Kingdom on earth and return mankind to vegetarianism. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the Chief Rabbi of prestate Israel, wrote: "It is inconceivable that the Creator who had planned a world of harmony and a perfect way for man to live should, many thousands of years later, find that this plan was wrong."

Rabbi Kook believed the concession to eat meat (Genesis 9:3) was never intended to be a permanent condition. In his essay, "A Vision of Peace and Vegetarianism," he asked: "...how can it be that such a noble and enlightened moral position (Genesis 1:29) should pass away after it once has been brought into existence?"

Rabbi Kook cited the messianic prophecies (Isaiah 11:6-9), in which the world is again restored to a vegetarian paradise. The Bible thus begins and ends in a Kingdom where slaughter is unknown, and identifies the one anointed by God to bring about this Kingdom as "Mashiach," or the Messiah. Humanity's very beginning in Paradise and destiny in the age of the Messiah are vividly depicted as vegetarian. "In that future state," taught Rabbi Kook, "people's lives will no longer be supported at the expense of the animals." Isaiah (65:25) repeats his prophecy again. This is God's plan.

Rabbi Kook taught that because humans had an insatiable desire to kill animals and eat their flesh, they could not yet be returned to a moral standard which calls for vegetarianism. Kook regarded Deuteronomy 12:15,20 ("Thou mayest slaughter and eat...after all the desire of thy soul,") as poetically misleading. He translated this Torah verse as: "because you lust after eating meat...then you may slaughter and eat."

In his book Judaism and Vegetarianism, Dr. Richard H. Schwartz notes that God's blessings to man throughout the Bible are almost entirely vegetarian: products of the soil, seeds, sun and rain. (e.g., Deuteronomy 8:7-9; Isaiah 30:20,23; Nehemiah 9:25)

In their book, The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism, Dennis Prager and Rabbi Telushkin explain: "Keeping kosher is Judaism's compromise with its ideal vegetarianism. Ideally, according to Judaism, man would confine his eating to fruits and vegetables and not kill animals for food."

Along with the concession to eat meat, many laws and restrictions were given. Rabbi Kook taught that the reprimand implied by these regulations is an elaborate apparatus designed to keep alive a sense of reverence for life, with the aim of eventually leading people away from their meat-eating habit. This idea is echoed by Jewish Bible commentator Solomon Efraim Lunchitz, author of K'lee Yakar:

"What was the necessity for the entire procedure of ritual slaughter? For the sake of self-discipline. It is far more appropriate for man not to eat meat; only if he has a strong desire for meat does the Torah permit it, and even this only after the trouble and inconvenience necessary to satisfy his desire. Perhaps because of the bother and annoyance of the whole procedure, he will be restrained from such a strong and uncontrollable desire for meat."

A similar statement was made by a modern rabbi, Pinchas Peli:

"Accordingly, the laws of kashrut come to teach us that a Jew's first preference should be a vegetarian meal. If however, one cannot control a craving for meat, it should be kosher meat which would serve as a reminder that the animal being eaten is a creature of God, that the death of such a creature cannot be taken lightly, that hunting for sport is forbidden, that we cannot treat any living thing callously, and that we are responsible for what happens to other beings (human or animal) even if we did not personally come into contact with them."

In the face of cultural assimilation, Rabbi Robert Gordis does not believe the dietary laws will be maintained by Jews today in their present form. He suggests that vegetarianism, a logical conclusion of Jewish teaching, would effectively protect the kosher tradition: "Vegetarianism offers an ideal mode for preserving the religious and ethical values which kashrut was designed to concretize in human life."

In his 1987 book, Food For the Spirit: Vegetarianism and the World Religions, writer Steven Rosen makes a well-reasoned case for Jewish vegetarianism, concluding:

"...even if one considers the process of koshering to be legitimate, it is an obvious burden placed upon the Jewish people, perhaps in the hope that they will give up flesh-foods altogether. If eating meat is such a detailed, long, and drawn-out process, why not give it up entirely?"

The late Rabbi Isaac ha-Levi Herzog once predicted that "Jews will move increasingly to vegetarianism out of their own deepening knowledge of what their tradition commands...Man's carnivorous nature is not taken for granted or praised in the fundamental teachings of Judaism...A whole galaxy of central rabbinic and spiritual leaders...has been affirming vegetarianism as the ultimate meaning of Jewish moral teaching."

Keith Akers notes that "Compassion for animals is firmly rooted in Judaism," and concludes in his chapter on the Jewish tradition in A Vegetarian Sourcebook (1983): "Judaism does not unequivocally condemn meat eating as a sin. But a strong case can be made that Judaism does revere vegetarianism as an ethical ideal. All Jews are enjoined to have respect and compassion for animals...Jews would have absolutely no problem in becoming vegetarians, while still remaining loyal to their religion."

In the July/August 1997 issue of Humane Religion, in an article entitled "Jews, Christians and Hunting", the late Reverend J.R. ("Regina") Hyland, writes:

"Aside from the identity of the promised Messiah, Christian interpretations of the Hebrew scriptures rely heavily on Jewish sources. The biblical heroes of Judaism are the heroes of Christendom; the enemies of the Chosen People are seen as the enemies of God by Christians as well as Jews. And the historical background, as well as the significance of specific scriptures expounded by Jewish scholars, is accepted by their Christian counterparts.

"But there is a glaring exception to this reliance on Jewish sources and commentaries. When it comes to the matter of hunting, there is a wide divergence between Jewish and Christian tradition.

"The traditional Jewish abhorrence of hunting begins with commentaries on the man called Nimrod...The rabbis castigated him for this activity, and linked it to the general degeneracy of his character...(Jewish) commentators who castigate Nimrod have little use for that other biblical hunter, Esau, who ate the animals that he killed...But this ongoing, pervasive condemnation of hunting within Jewish tradition had no parallel among Christians. In fact, Christianity had increasingly supported the cruelty which vented itself in hunting...And because the churches and their clerics coveted...support...they blessed this slaughter of the innocent.

"The Christian voices that were raised in protest against the wanton murder of animal beings were ignored. Even the repugnance towards hunting and hunters that was encoded in Catholic Canon Law, was ignored. "Esau was a hunter because he was a sinner; and in the Holy scriptures we do not find a single holy man being a hunter." (from the Corpus Juris Canonici. Rome, 1582.)

Jesus taught his disciples to pray for the coming of God's kingdom (Matthew 6:9-10), the kingdom of peace, in which the entire world is restored to a vegetarian paradise (Genesis 1:29; Isaiah 11:6-9). Recalling Psalm 37:11, he blessed the meek, saying they would inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5) The kingdom of God belongs to the gentle and kind (Matthew 5:7-9) Christians are to "Be merciful, just as your Father is also merciful." (Luke 6:36) Those who take up the sword must perish by the sword. (Matthew 26:52)

Jesus repeatedly spoke of God's tender care for the nonhuman creation (Matthew 6:26-30, 10:29-31; Luke 12:6-7, 24-28). Jesus taught that God desires "mercy and not sacrifice." (Matthew 9:10-13, 12:6-7; Mark 2:15-17; Luke 5:29-32) The epistle to the Hebrews 10:5-10 suggests that Jesus did not come to abolish the Law and the prophets (which Paul, and not Jesus, regarded as "so much garbage"), but only the institution of animal sacrifice, as does Jesus' cleansing the Temple of those who were buying and selling animals for sacrifice and his overturning the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple. (Matthew 21:12-14; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46; John 2:14-17)

Jesus not only repeatedly upheld Mosaic Law (Matthew 5:17-19; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 16:17), he justified his healing on the Sabbath by referring to commandments calling for the humane treatment of animals.

When teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, Jesus healed a woman who had been ill for eighteen years. He justified his healing work on the Sabbath by referring to biblical passages calling for the humane treatment of animals as well as their rest on the Sabbath. "So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham...be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?" Jesus asked. (Luke 13:10-16)

On another occasion, Jesus again referred to Torah teaching on "tsa'ar ba'alei chayim" or compassion for animals to justify healing on the Sabbath. "Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?" (Luke 14:1-5)

Jesus compared saving sinners who had gone astray from God's kingdom to rescuing lost sheep. He recalled a Jewish legend about Moses' compassion as a shepherd for his flock.

"For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost. What do you think? Who among you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?

"And when he has found it," Jesus continued, "he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'

"I say to you, likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance...there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." (Matthew 18:11-13; Luke 15:3-7,10)

"The compassionate, sensitive heart for animals is inseparable from the proclamation of the Christian gospel," writes the Reverend Andrew Linzey in Love the Animals. "We have lived so long with the gospel stories of Jesus that we frequently fail to see how his life and ministry identified with animals at almost every point.

"His birth, if tradition is to be believed, takes place in the home of sheep and oxen. His ministry begins, according to St. Mark, in the wilderness 'with the wild beasts' (1:13). His triumphal entry into Jerusalem involves riding on a 'humble' ass (Matthew 21). According to Jesus, it is lawful to 'do good' on the Sabbath, which includes the rescuing of an animal fallen into a pit (Matthew 12). Even the sparrows, literally sold for a few pennies in his day, are not 'forgotten before God.' God's providence extends to the entire created order, and the glory of Solomon and all his works cannot be compared to that of the lilies of the field (Luke 12:27).

"God so cares for His creation that even 'foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.' (Luke 9:58) It is 'the merciful' who are 'blessed' in God's sight and what we do to 'the least' of all we do to him. (Matthew 5:7, 25:45-46) Jesus literally overturns the already questionable practice of animal sacrifice. Those who sell pigeons have their tables overturned and are put out of the Temple (Mark 11:15-16). It is the scribe who sees the spiritual bankruptcy of animal sacrifice and the supremacy of sacrificial love that Jesus commends as being 'not far from the Kingdom of God.' (Mark 12:32-34)

"It is a loving heart which is required by God, and not the needless bloodletting of God's creatures," concludes Reverend Linzey. "We can see the same prophetic and radical challenge to tradition in Jesus' remarks about the 'good shepherd' who, unlike many in his day, 'lays down his life for the sheep.' (John 10:11)"

In Christianity and the Rights of Animals, Reverend Linzey finds two justifications for a Christian case for vegetarianism:

"The first is that killing is a morally significant matter. While justifiable in principle, it can only be practically justified where there is real need for human nourishment. Christian vegetarians do not have to claim that it is always and absolutely wrong to kill in order to eat. It could well be that there were, and are, some situations n which meat-eating was and is essential in order to survive. Geographical considerations alone make it difficult to envisiage life in Palestine at the time of Christ without some primitive fishing industry. But the crucial point is that where we are free to do otherwise the killing of Spirit-filled individuals requires moral justification. It may be justifiable, but only when human nourishment clearly requires it, and even then it remains an inevitable consequence of sin.

"The second point," Linzey explains, "is that misappropriation occurs when humans do not recognize that the life of an animal belongs to God, not to them. Here it seems to me that Christian vegetarianism is well-founded. For while it may have been possible in the past to rear animals with personal care and consideration for their well-being and to dispatch them with the humble and scrupulous recognition that their life should only be taken in times of necessity, such conditions are abnormal today."

Jesus insisted upon the moral standards given by God in the beginning (Matthew 5:31-32, 19:3-9; Mark 10:2-12; Luke 16:18), and this did not go unnoticed by early church fathers such as St. Jerome.

St. Jerome (AD 340-420) wrote to a monk in Milan who had abandoned vegetarianism:

"As to the argument that in God's second blessing (Genesis 9:3) permission was given to eat flesh-a permission not given in the first blessing (Genesis 1:29)-let him know that just as permission to put away a wife was, according to the words of the Saviour, not given from the beginning, but was granted to the human race by Moses because of the hardness of our hearts (Matthew 19:1-12), so also in like manner the eating of flesh was unknown until the Flood, but after the Flood, just as quails were given to the people when they murmured in the desert, so have sinews and the offensiveness been given to our teeth.

"The Apostle, writing to the Ephesians, teaches us that God had purposed that in the fullness of time he would restore all things, and would draw to their beginning, even to Christ Jesus, all things that are in heaven or that are on earth. Whence also, the Saviour Himself in the Apocalypse of John says, 'I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.' From the beginning of human nature, we neither fed upon flesh nor did we put away our wives, nor were our foreskins taken away from us for a sign. We kept on this course until we arrived at the Flood.

"But after the Flood, together with the giving of the Law, which no man could fulfill, the eating of flesh was brought in, and the putting away of wives was conceded to hardness of heart...But now that Christ has come in the end of time, and has turned back Omega to Alpha...neither is it permitted to us to put away our wives, nor are we circumcised, nor do we eat flesh."

St. Jerome was responsible for the Vulgate, or Latin version of the Bible, still in use today. He felt a vegetarian diet was best for those devoted to the pursuit of wisdom. He once wrote that he was not a follower of Pythagoras or Empodocles "who do not eat any living creature," but concluded, "And so I too say to you: if you wish to be perfect, it is good not to drink wine and eat flesh."

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I apologize for the length of my 'comments'! However,
I disagree with your assertion that the subject matter is
"only tangentially related." The subject at hand is climate
care and creation care, and in this regard, veganism is
direct action. Reverend Wallis, Sojourners, and the
religious Left in general should take up the cause of
animal rights.

Since the mid-'90s, I've noticed that many on the
religious Left (Rose Evans, Ruth Enero, Carol
Crossed, Rachel MacNair, Brian Brackney, Al Fecko,
Mary Krane Derr, Mary Rider, Bill Samuel, etc.) are
already doing so...the Left is open to animal rights,
whereas the right is not!

The number of animals killed for food in the United
States is 70 times larger than the number of animals
killed in laboratories, 30 times larger than the number
killed by hunters and trappers, and 500 times larger
than the number of animals killed in animal pounds.

A pamphlet put out by Compassion Over Killing says
raising animals for food is one of the leading causes
of both pollution and resource depletion today.
According to a recent United Nations report: "Livestock's
Long Shadow," raising chickens, turkeys, pigs, and other
animals for food causes more greenhouse gas emissions
than all the cars, trucks and other forms of transportation
combined.

Researchers from the University of Chicago similarly
concluded that a vegetarian diet is the most energy
efficient, and the average American does more to
reduce global warming emissions by not eating
animal products than by switching to a hybrid car."If you want to make a statement, ride your bike to
the farmer's market. If you want to reduce greenhouse
gases, become a vegetarian," says James McWilliams,
the author of Just Food, and an associate professor
of history at Texas State University.

The Bible supports the vegetarian way of life.

Re the snow in Northern Hemisphere, it has not been cooler in my part of the world. I would be very cautious about declaring the concept of AGW a myth. You cannot keep having record or close to record highs yet again without questioning. Climate does not listen to popular spin.

I don't know. Jesus repeatedly upheld Mosaic Law (e.g., Matthew 5:17-19; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 16:17) as did the original apostles (Acts 10; Acts 15; Acts 21), whereas Paul disregarded it...except to tell women to keep silent in the churches!

Secular scholar Keith Akers says if Paul's view prevails over Jesus, then the Old Testament becomes irrelevant. My friend Albert (a Catholic vegetarian in Michigan) disagrees, saying the Old Testament is "a foundation for orthodoxy."

My friend Maria (an ex-Catholic turned Quaker) disagreed on slightly different grounds. Quoting Paul, "By no means!" she said the Old Testament shows us how we "got to where we are."

The Protestant Bibles omit many books which Catholics consider sacred. On the other hand, Luther wanted to throw out the epistle of James, because James, the brother of Jesus, asserts that "faith without works is dead," and this contradicted Luther's entire doctrine of salvation by faith alone. The Protestant Reformation was based almost entirely on the epistles of Paul.

Keith Akers writes that Paul "downgraded" the Law of Moses for the gentiles; perhaps we can do the same with Paul's epistles for Christianity today?

What, then, do we "do" with Paul?