專欄

Both Christianity and Buddhism are vegetarian/vegan faiths. Jehovah suffers in all suffering creatures; Buddha has great compassion for all as one. Both the Holy Bible and Buddhist sutras emphasize empathy with all sentient beings, including animals, forbid the killing of any of them, and condemn meat-eating. Both Jesus and former incarnations of Buddha died for rescuing animals.

Summary: According to Genesis 4, God rejected Cain’s pure, bloodless, vegan oblation but accepted Abel’s violent, gory, animal sacrifice. This alleged act on the part of God goes against the essential Christian notion of “God is love”. Moreover, throughout the Bible, God time and again condemns animal sacrifice (e.g. Isaiah 1:12, Isaiah 22:12-14, Isaiah 66:2-3, Jeremiah 6:20, Psalm 50:7-14, Ezekiel 34:1-10, Hosea 6:6, 8:11-13, Micah 6:6-8, Matthew 9:13). And in Hebrews 11:4, Abel righteously presented to God “gifts,” the plural form of which implies that it was various fruits of the ground rather than one kind of gift — the fat portions of the firstborn.

“Dominion” in Genesis 1:28 KJV means not domination or despotism but “stewardship” (Linzey 2016) and “protection” (Halteman 2007), because 1. In Gen. 1:29, humans were given a vegan diet; 2. In Gen. 2:15 NIV, humans were instructed by God to “take care of” the Garden with all the animals in it; 3. God made His covenant with not only humans (Noah and his descendants) but also animals (Gen. 9:8-17); 4. God has compassion for all creatures (Psalm 145: 9). 5. Animals are our folk (Gen. 1:30). 6. Christ always sided with the marginalized (Matthew 25:40 NIV); 7. Jesus died at least partly for animal liberation. (Mark 11:18); 8. Via Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection, God reconciled himself to all groaning creatures and offered them hope of redemption (Colossians 1:19-20).

Jesus said he came “not” “to be served, but to serve” (Matthew 20:28 NIV), and he told us to be “servant of all” (Mark 9:35 NIV). No wonder English theologian Revd. Prof. Andrew Linzey (1995) argues that Jesus wants us to be “the servant species”. The recipients of our Christ-like service must include both animals and humans, because 1. God suffers in all suffering creatures; 2. Christ always sided with the marginalized; 3. Jesus died at least partly for animal liberation; 4. What Jesus experienced as an individual on the cross represents “incarnation of God’s ubiquitous presence in the psyches of all creatures victimized by predation, injustice, or despair” (Peters 2018), and via His resurrection, all the groaning creatures are offered hope of redemption.