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The relationship between Christianity and vegetarianism is complex and long-standing. On the one hand, vegetarianism has never been a significant part of Christian theology or practice, especially in the West, and most Christians today think of their dietary choices as nonethical decisions that are largely irrelevant to their faith. To the extent they address the issue at all, Christians typically defend meat consumption by noting that God gave humans “dominion” over the rest of creation (Gen 1:28), that he created humans but not animals in “his image” (Gen 1:27), and that humans have souls while animals do not. In other words, man is understood to be morally superior to the rest of creation in a way that gives him permission to eat nonhuman animals more or less as he chooses. Historically, this point of view has been supported by most Christian theologians and ethicists, including leading...
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Bruton, S.V. (2014). Christian Ethics and Vegetarianism. In: Thompson, P., Kaplan, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6167-4_319-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6167-4_319-2
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