By The Reverend Professor Andrew Linzey, Director of Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics

first is that all human beings are sinners. ‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,’ writes St Paul.1 None of us can be justified by our works in the sight of God. Our alienation from God and lostness in the world are the perennial themes of Christian preaching. Even the Son of Man appears to accept his own part in the fallenness of the world. ‘Why do you call me good?’ he asks. ‘No one is good except God alone.’2 This perspective, while recognising real degrees of goodness and the possibility of human merit, accepts at the outset that there is no pure land. No human being can live free of evil. In consequence, self-righteousness is not only wrong, but also inappropriate. One of the main thrusts of the ethical teaching of Jesus seems directed against those who are cocksure of their own moral standing. Moral reformation, if it is to be pursued, must begin with ourselves. Such considerations mean simply that zealous campaigning, self-righteous postures, methods of intimidation — and especially violence — must be eschewed. To pursue even good ends by any means risks the increase of moral evil in the world.

There is, of course, a dilemma here for all moral campaigners, whether for human or animal causes. To have moral insight at all frequently requires unusual emotions. Very few can conduct moral struggle without bitterness, acrimony, jealousy or hatred. There is no easy way through all this. Perhaps all crusading causes necessarily involve conflict and with it the inevitable dangers of self-justification, exaggeration and mistrust. J. S. Mill once wrote that ‘Every great movement must experience three stages: ridicule, discussion, adoption’;3 I wish I could persuade myself that it was all so straightforward. At the very least, animal campaigners would do well to endorse George Bernard Shaw’s verdict that those who exploit animals are simply like the rest of us. ‘Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity; and fashion will drive them to acquire any custom.’ Again, ‘Far from enjoying it, they [in particular people who experiment on animals] have simply overcome their natural repugnance and become indifferent to it, as men become indifferent enough to anything they do often enough.’4 At least, animal rightists should acknowledge our common guilt before God. A clean conscience is surely a figment of the imagination or, as Schweitzer describes it, ‘an invention of the devil’.5

The second insight is that with God all things are possible. Doubtless there is a fine line between endorsing every kind of human Utopianism on the one hand, and believing that with God’s Spirit all things can be made new, on the other. Moral visions, however, are characteristic of theology. In some sense all theology is visionary. As Isaiah found out, to have a vision of the holiness of God is to know oneself a sinner. ’Woe is me!’ he cries.

I am lost
for I am a man of unclean lips
and I dwell among a people of unclean lips;
yet with these eyes I have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.6

At its best, the Christian tradition has articulated vision which has sustained moral effort throughout centuries of history. Morality may depend upon theology in the way in which human will relies upon the imagination. If our moral theorising is not to be reduced to utilitarian calculations and accommodating pragmatism, then we need some fundamental vision of how the world should be and how we are to play a part in achieving it. Of course there is some kind of balance to be struck here between, as Keith Ward calls it, ‘Scylla and Charybdis, between a loss of vision and idealism and an intolerant and repressive rule-worship’.7

This needs to be held with the conviction that the Holy Spirit is ever before us, moving creation forward, however mysteriously, to the realization of God’s hope for us and the created world. We can certainly betray God by fantasy and wishful thinking, but we can equally betray God by cutting our own moral notions to serve our own short-term interests. I like the line from Plato, who compares philosophers in a democratic state to those who ‘wrangle over notions of right in the minds of men who have never beheld Justice itself’.8

If these insights are to be taken seriously then Christians need to commit themselves to the work of animal liberation with vision and humility.

Firstly, vision. The goal is nothing less than the establishing of God’s right in creation, and the liberation of non-human creation from the hand of tyranny. Isaiah again has just the right vision to feed our imagination and kindle our will.

Then the wolf shall live with the sheep,
and the leopard lie down with the kid;
the calf and the young lion shall grow up together,
and a little child shall lead them;
the cow and the bear shall be friends,
and their young shall lie down together.
The lion shall eat straw like cattle;
the infant shall play over the hole of the cobra,
and the young child dance over the viper’s nest.
They shall not hurt or destroy all in my holy mountain;
for as the waters fill the sea,
so shall the land be filled with the knowledge of the Lord.9

This is surely a daunting prospect, describing as it does both cosmic redemption and universal peace. Cynics may deride the very possibility, but I do not think Christians are free to do so. It needs to be held together with the realisation that God’s hope for creation is not simply presented before it as a future state, but a realisable possibility through the Holy Spirit. The groaning and travailing of creation awaits the inspired children of God. In this way we can see that the God who demands is also the God who enables, or put more theologically, that what is given by God the Father is reconciled by God the Son and being redeemed by God the Spirit.

Secondly, humility. Christians do well to stop and pause before the mysterious workings of such a God. But having seen the vision, the task is to co-operate with its completion. Humanity is set within creation with the almost impossible commission to make peace, respect life, and affirm God as the centre and goal of all existence. But because God’s right will ultimately vanquish all wrong, humanity’s almost impossible task is made possible by the very power which sustains humanity in existence. Therefore, all conscientious openness to the Spirit and every attempt, however trivial, to disengage ourselves from violence has spiritual meaning and purpose. No effort, however small, is lost within the divine economy.

But the question may be posed: How far do we take all this? The answer is obvious: As far as we are enabled by the Spirit. The creation waits — according to St Paul — with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. And who are these? They are, simply put, Spirit-led individuals who will make possible a new order of existence; who will show by their life the possibility of newness of life. Quite practically the task required of us is to recognise God’s own rights in creation, rights for animals to be themselves as God intends: to live; to be free; and to live without suffering, distress and injury. Doubtless the vision cannot be realised at once. What God’s time scale is we do not know. We can only trust and hope, taking one step at a time. I propose progressive disengagement from exploitation. Not all stages will be immediately possible. Some may appear more visionary than others; some more pragmatic than others. From where each of us stands, we see differently. What is overridingly important is that we all move as far as is possible. We have no alternative but to trust that the Spirit will do the rest.

The biblical tradition appears to give us two contrasting insights concerning the morality of eating meat. On one hand, humans as well as animals are commanded to be vegetarian. ‘I give you all plants that bear seed everywhere on earth, and every tree bearing fruit which yields seed: they shall be yours for food’.10 This command is reinforced by the messianic prophecies which specifically envisage a world at peace where ‘They shall not hurt, nor destroy in all my holy mountain’.11 On the other hand, after the Fall and the Flood God commands a new relationship whereby ‘Every creature that lives and moves shall be food for you; I give you them all, as once I gave you all green plants.’12 This ‘necessary evil,’ as it is described by Anthony Phillips,13 has been justified throughout much of Christian history — we may suppose — because the Prince of Peace was himself not a thorough-going vegetarian. He possibly ate meat and almost certainly ate fish.

And yet, are these two traditions incompatible? The second command carried with it a puzzling condition — ‘But you must not eat the flesh with the life, which is the blood, still in it.’14 ‘The Hebrews recognised’, comments Phillips, ‘that death occurred through loss of breath or blood, and since God was responsible for creation, both must belong to him.’15 Thus even within this permissive tradition, human beings are not given an entirely free hand. They do not have absolute rights over the lives of animals. Even the animal about to be eaten does not belong to its intending consumer. In this way the Priestly tradition, while accepting the necessity of killing, refuses to accept that humans can appropriate the life of an animal. In short: according to the permissive tradition, the fact that humans kill is a necessary consequence of sin but the act of killing itself must not misappropriate the Creator’s gift.

A Christian case for avoiding meat can therefore claim to have two justifications, even within the biblical tradition which apparently sanctions it. 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, or are, some situations in which meat-eating was and is essential in order to survive. Geographical considerations alone make it difficult to envisage 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. Karl Barth to his credit gives full weight to this point. What we do to animals in killing them is ‘very close to homicide’; that it can be justified is never ‘self-evident’ and slaughter must never become a ‘normal element’ in out thinking.16

The second point is that misappropriation occurs when humans do not recognise 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. In the institutionalised and mass destruction of billions of farm animals every year, we see more clearly than anywhere else the predominant philosophy of animals as ‘things’ in our regard. In increasing secular societies, farm animals have become merely ends-to-human-means.

Thus even within the permissive tradition that sometimes accepts the need to kill for food, there is still ample justification for vegetarianism, whether based on calculation of animal or human interests. Here are four currently canvassed arguments:

(i) Humane slaughter is frequently a contradiction in terms. It is ironical that the religious communities that keep literally to the biblical notion of draining blood prior to slaughter (without prior stunning) arguably practise what is now one of the most inhumane methods of slaughter. This at least is the view of the British Government’s Farm Animal Welfare Council, which concluded that animals which have their throats cut while still conscious can suffer an agonizing period of fourteen to thirty-five seconds before complete unconsciousness.17 Despite the thoroughness of the Report, most of the Jewish and Muslim communities in Britain have resisted the practice of stunning prior to slaughter. Some Jews, to be fair, find all slaughter abhorrent and in obedience to what they regard as the primary biblical command have founded the International Jewish Vegetarian Society.18 It would certainly not be possible to absolve Gentile methods of slaughter from inhumanity. The conveyor-belt method of destruction for poultry, where birds are stunned prior to throat-slitting, can cause prolonged suffering if the technology is faulty and even the captive bolt system utilised for cattle and sheep crucially depends for its effectiveness upon the skill of the operator. Those who prefer to avoid sanctioning animal suffering would do well to live independently of the primary products of slaughter. It is said of St Richard of Wyche that ‘when he saw poultry or young animals being conveyed to his kitchen [he never ate meat himself] he would say half-sadly, half-humorously, “Poor, innocent little creatures: if you were reasoning beings and could speak you would curse us. For we are the cause of your death, and what have you done to deserve it?”19 The fact is that almost all slaughter is achieved at some cost in terms of animal suffering.

(ii) Most meat is the product of intensive systems of farming. While it is true that not all meat comes from intensively farmed animals, individuals who want to free themselves from all such systems would need to exclude many primary products from their diet, including pork, veal and chicken. The only way of guaranteeing freedom from factory farmed produce is by not eating primary animal products and some by-products too. Karl Barth, it appears, endorsed vegetarianism as a ‘protest’ against the excesses of farming.20 Even if our concern is solely for the suffering that animals have to undergo in the process of farming, vegetarianism can be well justified as a practical gesture of conscientious objection.

(iii) ‘Live more simply so that all of us may simply live.’ This is the motto of the Lifestyle Movement, which suggests that individuals eat ‘less grain-fed meat, reduce their meat consumption or become vegetarians.’ The welfare of animals is only part of the Lifestyle concern, which extends to ‘avoid[ing] wasteful use of resources and show[ing] care for the environment’.21 Personal asceticism is therefore recommended as a gesture towards a fairer, more caring world. The line from Edmund Burke is commended: ‘Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.’22 Simplicity of diet has strong monastic support of course: ‘Except the sick who are very weak’, maintains the Rule of St Benedict, ‘let all abstain entirely from the flesh of four-footed animals.’23

(iv) ‘One man’s meat is another man/woman/child’s hunger.’ The slogan is part of the ‘Enough’ campaign, with its aim of reducing meat consumption. The Campaign highlights the waste of resources involved in feeding grain to animals. ‘Every minute 18 children die from starvation, yet 40% of the world’s grain is get to animals for meat.’24 Vegetarianism for a trial period is advocated to ‘help the hungry, improve the environment’ and ‘stop untold animal suffering.’25 Vegetarianism is also commended on health grounds, and it is true that research into the diet of vegans in particular showed some significant health advantages.26

Without wishing to disparage these arguments, it seems to me that the strongest argument for leaving flesh foods to one side is of a different sort. It begins by taking seriously the notion that the life of an animal does not belong to human beings but to God. What the biblical narratives are expressing is that nothing less than that God’s right is involved in the business of killing for food. While under situations of clear necessity, given the sinful world as it is, meat-eating may sometimes be justified, it cannot be uniformly accepted as such. In other words, our mistake in interpreting Genesis has been to suppose that one exception can establish a permanent rule. Since God’s world is a changing and dynamic creation we have to be open to the possibility of moral change. This means quite simply that what was once thought to be right can subsequently be thought to be morally wrong and vice versa. What precisely may have been the moral freedom of our forebears is not easy to determine. In many instances we do not know enough about our past to make clear, unequivocal judgements. But one thing of which we can be relatively certain is that for most people living today in Western society, dependence upon primary animal products is not essential to fullness of life.

In 1926 Dean Inge, in an otherwise perceptive essay on the ‘Rights of Animals’, argued that we could not give up flesh, because ‘we must eat someing.’27 What Inge obviously did not appreciate, as many are only now beginning to grasp, is that we do not need to kill for food in order to eat well or to sustain healthy lives. Once this has been realised, it is difficult intellectually to find a route back. For if luxury rather than necessity can justify killing, where will it all end? ‘Honourable men may honourably disagree about some details of human treatment of the non-human,’ argues Stephen Clark, ‘but vegetarianism is now as necessary a pledge of moral devotion as was the refusal of emperor-worship in the early Church.’ Eating animals, says Clark, is ‘empty gluttony.’ ‘Those who still eat flesh when they could do otherwise have no claim to be serious moralists.’28 Clark’s final comment goes further than I would want to go. Given the confusing interrelationship of light and darkness, blessing and curse, it is difficult to hold out for any truths so self-evident that people who fail to see them are somehow morally culpable. That said, Clark’s conclusion has real force and its power has yet to be sufficiently appreciated by fellow Christians. Far from seeing the possibility of widespread vegetarianism as a threat to Old Testament norms, Christians should rather welcome the fact that the Spirit is enabling us to make decisions so that we may more properly conform to the original Genesis picture of living in peace with creation.

The Christian argument for vegetarianism then is simple: since animals belong to God, have value to God and live for God, then their needless destruction is sinful. In short: animals have some right to their life, all circumstances being equal. That it has taken Christians so long to grasp this need not worry us. There were doubtless good reasons, partly theological, partly cultural and partly economic, why Christians in the past have found vegetarianism unfeasible. We do well not to judge too hastily, if at all. We cannot relive others’ lives, or think their thoughts, or enter their consciences. But what we can be sure about is that living without what Clark calls ‘avoidable ill’29 has a strong moral claim upon us now.

Some will surely question the limits of the vegetarian world here envisaged. Will large-scale vegetarianism work in practice? Can animal farming really be turned to the growing of crops, grains, nuts and lentils? Will a vegetarian world not mean fewer farm animals? These are questions to which we do not have sufficient answers. I confess that I an agnostic, surely legitimately, about the possibility of a world-transforming vegetarianism. But clairvoyance is not an essential prerequisite of the vegetarian option, and what the future may hold, and its consequences, cannot easily be determined from any perspective. What I think is important to hold on to is the notion that the God who provides moral opportunities is the same God who enables the world, slowly but surely, to respond to them. From a theological perspective no moral endeavour is wasted so long as it coheres with God’s purpose for the cosmos.

Some vegetarians press their case to the exclusion of all by-products of the slaughter-house, including not only dairy produce but also the wearing of leather shoes or woollen clothes. They argue that it is not sufficient to be a ‘vegetarian’ in the general sense (one who abstains from meat), or a lacto-vegetarian (one who abstains from fish, flesh and fowl), but that one should become a vegan (one who abstains from all meat and dairy produce completely). Not without justification, they point to the exploitation of animals for the dairy, as well as the meat, industry. ‘The modern dairy cow leads a life of hell,’ according to the New Scientist. ‘Each year, hopefully, she produces a calf which means that for nine months of the year she is pregnant. And for nine months of the year she is milked twice a day. For six months she is both pregnant and lactating.’30 In addition, the frequent separation of the calf from its mother within a period of days after its birth is a less than joyful experience. Indeed the British Government’s Brambell Committee as early as 1965 reported that this practice ‘undoubtedly inflicts anguish on both,’ since cattle are ‘highly intelligent’ and the ‘attachment between the calf and the mother is particularly strong.’31 Egg production, too, is not immune from criticism, since it invariably involves the slaughter of male birds and unproductive hens which are deemed surplus to requirements.

Given present farming practice, the case against dairy produce, appears strong. But unlike meat-eating the issue is surely less direct. It can be possible to produce milk from non-intensively farmed goats and cattle, and it can be possible to obtain eggs from free-range hens without slaughtering their male partners. But it is sadly a sign of how endemic our exploitation of animals has become that almost everywhere even that possibly legitimate use of animals has been turned into abuse.

How practicable is the vegan world, where only plant foods are grown and few animals are utilised directly in farming? ‘No-one — whether nutritionist, physician, sociologist or layman — can rebut the veganic argument in any important respect,’ argues Jon Wynne-Tyson. And yet, despite his eloquent advocacy of veganism, even he admits of limitations. ‘I am not yet a fully practising vegan,’ he writes, ‘although I would like to be.’ The reason? ‘The pressures on most of us not to go the whole way are tremendous and, in many a family, sadly divisive.’32 The fact is that it is amazingly difficult to free ourselves completely from the by-products of slaughter — and remain a member of ordinary society at least. A plausible case can be made for boycotting Australian wool in the light of the barbaric practices employed in the Australian wool industry,33 but even if we decide to wear non-animal derived shoes rather than leather ones, we still face the difficulty that many man-made substances are tested for their toxicity on animals. Even licking postage stamps may be problematic since most glues have their origin in the offal that results from the slaughter house. In short: although the ‘logic’ of the vegan case may be ‘absolute,’ its practical ramifications are currently beyond at least some of us.

That does not mean, of course, that we should not go on trying to reduce our dependence upon all kinds of animal products. The production of animal-free cosmetics is a striking example of how individual initiative and business acumen can provide us with a most welcome choice. There are important signs that some business concerns are going out of their way to produce animal-free toiletries with ‘no animal products/testing’ labels. In a whole host of ways active, conscientious consumers can make their wishes known and press for different kinds of products. All moves in this direction towards the non-utilisation of animal products need to be strenuously supported by those concerned for animal rights.

But at the same time we need to dispel the myth of absolute consistency or ‘pure land’ theology. ‘Western society is so bound up with the use and abuse of animals in so many fields of human endeavour,’ I have argued elsewhere, ‘that it is impossible for anyone to claim that they are not party, directly or indirectly, to this exploitation either through the products they buy, the food they eat, or the taxes they pay.’34 Vegans are right to prick the consciences of those who find some recourse to animal by-products inevitable, but they can mislead us if they claim some absolutely pure land which only they inhabit. Self-righteousness can be a killer not only of moral sense but also of moral encouragement.

We return in this way to our opening remarks concerning the need for humility as well as vision. What we need is progressive disengagement from injury to animals. The urgent and essential task is to invite, encourage, support and welcome those who want to take some steps along the road to a more peaceful world with the non-human creation. We do not all have to agree upon the most vital steps, or indeed the most practical ones. What is important is that we all move some way on, if only by one step at a time, however falteringly. If someone is prepared to boycott factory-farmed foods, at least they have made a start. If that is all the humanity that person can muster at least some creatures have been saved from suffering. If someone is prepared to give up only red meat, at least some animals will suffer and die less as a consequence. If someone is prepared to abandon just meat and fish, at least some other creatures have a chance of living in peace. The enemy of progress is the view that everything must be changed before some real gains can be secured. There can be areas of genuine disagreement even among those who are committed to a new world of animal rights. But what is essential for this new world to emerge is the sense that each of us can change our individual worlds, however slightly, to live more peaceably with our non-human neighbours.

‘I could not but feel with a sympathy full of regret all the pain that I saw around me, not only that of men, but that of the whole creation,’ wrote Schweitzer in a telling passage in his autobiography. ‘From this community of suffering, I have never tried to withdraw myself.’ He concluded: ‘It seemed to me a matter of course that we should all take our share of the burden of suffering which lies upon the world.’35 The vision of Christ-like lordship over the non-human is practically costly. Our moral choices inevitably entail sacrifice and pain. In this way we anticipate, if not actually realise, the future joy of all God’s creatures.

Notes

Revised extract from Andrew Linzey, Christianity and the Rights of Animals (London: SPCK 1987, and New York: Crossroad, 1989), pp. 101-104, 141-149.