What Would Jesus REALLY Eat?: The Biblical Case for Eating Meat

by Wes Jamison, Paul Copan, Dr Walter Kaiser

"Until relatively recently, vegetarianism was a dietary alternative for Christians—a mere option or perhaps, for some, a conviction. But the biblical tradition recognized that a plant-based diet isn’t more spiritual or moral than eating meat. Meat-eating is legitimate for humans; it is not prohibited and is even blessed by God. Increasingly, secular organizations and activists have been pressuring Christians to turn their freedom into bondage and to adopt false commandments based on activist convictions. Voices from inside the church have joined the chorus. This group of scholars have applied their expertise in biblical studies, theology, philosophy, resource management, communication, and generational pig farming to write an accessible response for Christians who rightly believe that meat-eating is a gift from God. This book responds to leading challenges from animal activism outside the church—offering important biblical and practical correctives to a growing but misguided compassion.”

136 pages, Paperback

Published June 14, 2019

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried to have an open mind about this book, but wasn't left with much to chew on (pun intended). Wes Jamison is very upset that secular organizations like PETA and the Humane Society embrace religious arguments to persuade people of their convictions, but doesn't see the irony in editing a book defending meat-eating that is sponsored by the (secular) Animal Agricultural Alliance!

A lot was said, but very little shown or deeply argued for. Besides one or two footnotes, the authors ignored the big players among Christian ethicists arguing for animal rights/liberation/welfare such as Andrew Linzey, David Clough, Stephen Webb etc. Rather they opposed radical secular philosophers that many pro-animal Christian ethicists would also disagree with. Timothy Hsaio's two philosophical chapters on the morality of meat-eating and human exceptionalism took a natural law approach, completely ignoring the Bible...hardly a "biblical case for eating meat" then. Hsaio re-hashed tired arguments that animals can't be objects of moral concern because they aren't rational. Most of the authors produced a lot of straw-men and ad hominem attacks which was disappointing.

My biggest critique though was that a number of the authors agree that humans need to "consider the needs of the animal" (Jamison) and "[humanity's] unique status doesn't entail permission to abuse animals" (Copan) because "God's creatures are not junk" (Kaiser). However, not once do the authors consider that contemporary CAFO/Factory farming and the industrial agricultural systems of our time might be cruel! They--astoundingly--never connect the dots with where the bacon (that Jesus declares clean) comes from! That is, except for the final chapter --written by pig farmers-- who try to convince us that pigs are actually living happier and better lives in factory farms ("they have accommodations that are superior to millions of humans") than the pigs of a hundred years ago who actually got to feel the sunshine and walk on grass before becoming bacon.

Ultimately this is not a serious work of Christian ethics, but a paid piece of propaganda brought to you by Animal Agricultural Alliance.

[Thomas Beck]

To me the hairiest aspect of this debate is not that we kill and eat animals, but that in the process we sometimes cause them pain. Timothy Hsiao responds to this critique on pg. 54:

“While it is true that our pain experiences have moral significance, we cannot infer from this that pain itself is morally significant for merely any creature that experiences pain. Simply because an entity's well-being or proper functioning has been disrupted, this by itself isn't morally significant. Consider this: it is disruptive to a tree's proper function ("bad") that I cut it down and turn it into a chair. Those actions harm the integrity of the tree and diminish its well-being. Of course, the tree is totally incapable of feeling pain, but there are plenty of other ways in which something
"bad" can befall it. This is true of other things as well. If your computer becomes infected with a virus, then something "bad" has happened to it. If your car's engine overheats and breaks down, then something "bad" has happened to your car. In none of these cases does the mere presence of a measure of harm or disruption ("badness") confer any kind of moral status to the entities in question. So the mere capacity to feel pain cannot have inherent moral significance for animals simply because it represents a measure of well-being. That is, whatever interrupts an entity's proper function doesn't thereby translate to moral badness; otherwise, trees, computers, and cars would also have moral status and rights.”

I’m not so sure I agree with this. I see pain as a uniquely grave impediment to the well-being of animals, in a way that is not analogous to the kinds of bad things that can happen to, say, trees, computers, and cars. And I’d argue that Hsiao implicitly admits this when he rightly points out, later in the same section, that animal abuse/torture is immoral. He only wants to say that there are limits to the kinds of pain we can subject animals to, but I think by doing so, he undermines his own assertion that pain is in no significant way different from any other kind of bad thing that can befall a non-human entity.