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Animals on the Agenda begins with an examination of Scripture.1 J. W. Rogerson situates animal sacrifices between the vegetarian paradise of Eden and the prophetic hope for a peaceable kingdom for humans and animals alike. Christians have always had trouble interpreting animal sacrifices, and the future of Jewish-Christian dialogue depends on a better understanding of the ancient Jewish practices that Christianity rejected or transformed. Rogerson concludes, provocatively, that "for some priests at least, the system of animal sacrifice symbolized the failure of humanity as represented by Israel to live in the world as God intended." Animal sacrifices, then, are an interim practice, never intended to displace the fundamental Hebrew vision of God's peaceful intentions for the world.
Walter Houston discusses the difficult problem of interpreting the biblical classification of animals into clean and unclean, which still governs the diet of orthodox Jews. He notes that the result of this system is to restrict the eating of meat. "So the dietary laws mediate the contradiction between the ideal of a non-violent world and the fact of unrestrained violence against animals." Meat eating is severely limited by the kosher rules that dictate what animals can be eaten and how animals are to be killed.
The dietary code also separated the Jews from their neighbors, and it was this aspect of Judaism that the early Christians were anxious to put behind them, as evidenced by Peter's dream (Acts 10). Paul especially did not want dietary restrictions to hinder his mission to present the gospel message to Gentiles. Indeed, hospitality through shared meals was an important means for the spreading of Christianity.
Today, however, Christians need to rethink the issue of whether we should eat like everyone else. I don't mean to suggest that Christians should imitate the scrupulous and self-righteous vegetarianism (often vegan) of animal rightists. Nevertheless, why is it that when I (a vegetarian) attend church potlucks, invariably there is much more meat served than at any potluck I attend with my unchurched friends? Likewise, when I am invited to dinner with my unchurched friends, I am much more likely to be given a vegetarian option than when I dine with my Christian friends.2 Might Christians today think about voluntary abstention from eating animals raised under the horrendous conditions of factory farming as an affirmation rather than a contradiction of God's free grace?
Richard Bauckham contributes two essays on Jesus and animals. In the first, Bauckham makes the case that Jesus fits into the general framework of Jewish compassion for animals. When Jesus taught that God loves the birds (Matt. 6:29 and Luke 12:24), this "is not, as some modern readers tend to assume, just a picturesque illustration of Jesus' point, as though the point could stand without the illustration." Moreover, when Jesus used the argument from the lesser to the greater, comparing our worth to God's love for the sparrows, he did not thereby put humans on an altogether separate plane from animals. On the contrary, he used an argumentative form common in rabbinic rhetoric that presupposes the intrinsic value of animals.
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