vegan christian

Did you know that there is a Christian Vegetarian Society? They publish a pamphlet that A and I read while at Lotus vegan restaurant in Perth, Australia. The owner only had one copy of it so made a copy on his fax machine for us while we chatted. This morning, a discussion prompted me to find it online.

From their website, www.all-creatures.org:

"Jesus  preached, “For I was hungry and you gave me food.… [A]s you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Matt. 25:35, 40 RSV). Yet, while tens of millions of people die annually from starvation--related causes and close to a billion suffer from malnutrition, 37 percent of the world’s harvested grain is fed to animals being raised for slaughter; in the United States, the figure is 66 percent.

Only a fraction of what chickens, pigs, and other animals eat makes them grow edible flesh—most is needed to simply keep them alive or to grow body parts that people don’t eat. Consequently, farmed animals consume much more food than they produce. Converting plant foods to meat wastes 67–90 percent of the protein, up to 96 percent of the calories, and all of the fiber. Because land, water, and other resources are limited, the world can support many more vegetarians than meat eaters. As worldwide demand for meat has grown, the net effect is that the world’s poor have become increasingly unable to afford food of any kind."

"In Genesis 2:15, God instructed Adam to “till” and “keep” the Garden of Eden, and by analogy we may see caring for God’s Creation as our sacred task. The typical meat eater’s diet can require up to 14 times more water and 20 times more energy than that of a vegetarian. Indeed, current use of land, water, and energy is not sustainable; resource depletion threatens to cause hardships for humankind this century.

"The Bible depicts vegetarianism as God’s ideal, and the diet conforms to the central biblical principle of steward-ship. In Eden, all creatures lived peacefully, and God told both humans and animals to consume only plant foods (Gen. 1:29–31). Several prophecies, such as Isaiah 11:6–9, foresee a return to this vegetarian world, where the wolf, lamb, lion, cow, bear, snake, and little child all coexist peacefully. Christian vegetarians, while acknowledging human sinfulness, believe we should strive toward the harmonious world Isaiah envisioned—to try to live in accordance with the prayer that Jesus taught us, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10)."

These are just a few of their key points. The website is concise and informative for you to check out. Where are my converts?