A vegetarian mainstream Christian denomination

Thande

Donor
OTL, as far as I know only minor Christian sects like the Cathars practiced vegetarianism. However, could it reasonably have become associated with a large, important denomination? Probably not the Catholic Church, but perhaps one of the Protestant ones? (I believe there was a movement among some early Protestants to return to the Jewish dietary code, so this could be seen as an extension of this).
 
I could see smaller sects adopting it, but not mainstream. One of the main problems is so much doctrinal precedence for eating meat, with few (if any) restrictions. From the New Testament on, Peter's vision in Acts kind of kills a lot of argument for that possibility.
 
Depending on how you define "mainstream", the Seventh-Day Adventists may already meet this criterion. Vegetarianism (well, lacto-ovo-vegetarianism) is strongly encouraged, and some of the Old Testament restrictions on clean and unclean meats apply. (Pork is forbidden, for instance, although they don't follow anything like full kosher rules).

Granted, SDAs aren't exactly the largest of Christian denominations, but at 15 million members or so, they aren't exactly negligible either.
 
How about in an non-Black Plague Europe the population pressure gets to make beef, pork, etc. so expensive it becomes a nobility exclusive making for the Church to strongly support vegatarianism?

Or some kind of mouth-foot decease or kruezfeld-jacobs running rampant in European cattle (if that would be possible) making for taboo on eating meat...
 
Isaiah talks about wolves and lions eating grass and straw when God creates the new heavens and new earth. If lions and wolves are vegetarians in heaven, it must imply that eating meat is a behavior that God would wish to be rid of. Therefore, humans should not eat meat, in order to be that much closer to God.

Now let's just conveniently forget all that burning of sacrificial lambs to offer a pleasing aroma to the LORD.
 
How about in an non-Black Plague Europe the population pressure gets to make beef, pork, etc. so expensive it becomes a nobility exclusive making for the Church to strongly support vegatarianism?

Or some kind of mouth-foot decease or kruezfeld-jacobs running rampant in European cattle (if that would be possible) making for taboo on eating meat...
Please excuse me, but what would be the connection between an increase in the cost of meat, and the church begining to mandate such behavior? If meat becomes a delicacy of the nobility and wealthy, those are the two classes who would have the most sway with the church, and they would certianly not want to give it up.

Some sort of pandemic meat borne illness might do the trick though.

Isaiah talks about wolves and lions eating grass and straw when God creates the new heavens and new earth. If lions and wolves are vegetarians in heaven, it must imply that eating meat is a behavior that God would wish to be rid of. Therefore, humans should not eat meat, in order to be that much closer to God.

Now let's just conveniently forget all that burning of sacrificial lambs to offer a pleasing aroma to the LORD.
True, but Isaiah is OT = Law of Moses = no longer applicable with Christ. Same with the sacrificial lambs.
Besides, the vast majority of scholars agree that Isaiah's vision implies no more violence, rather than vegetarianism. Granted, it is kind of tough to eat meat with out killing something...
 
What about a rival going in the opposite direction? If Islam develops without the prohibitions on pork, kosher rules are going to start looking a lot better to European Christians who want to reinforce that they're the true believers in the Abrahamic God.

Kosher's not vegetarian, of course, so you're going to need something to take care of chickens and cows (and the rest.)

Alternately, following along with the price of meat rising - if there was an extreme shortage of meat so that it was only the provence of the nobility, it could easily become a point of anger between peasants and the Pope: some preacher's going to draw the comparison between carne and carnal and condemn the whole Vatican system. But can you get that without the nobles signing on and giving up their own meat-eating?
 
Alternately, following along with the price of meat rising - if there was an extreme shortage of meat so that it was only the provence of the nobility, it could easily become a point of anger between peasants and the Pope: some preacher's going to draw the comparison between carne and carnal and condemn the whole Vatican system. But can you get that without the nobles signing on and giving up their own meat-eating?
Possibly, they were able to buy indulgences for just about anything else they wanted to do. So making the eating of meat into something one needs to buy indulgences for would make meat eating basically into a wealthy exclusive thing.
 
Well from what I understand eating meat in the Middle Ages was rare for the common man. Only nobility, Kings, and highly ranked priests would get a regular diet of meat.

So you could have some kind of quasi-vegetarianism thing come out of the Church trying to reign in the excess of high ranked priests and nobles. For example eating meat is only acceptable on holy days (as in thanks to God for the bounty of the earth type deal), although fish may be consumed on Fridays by anyone, etc. Although there would probably be exemptions for things like eggs, children, etc. It'd probably be something very similar to how Lent is supposed to be done now.
 
Please excuse me, but what would be the connection between an increase in the cost of meat, and the church begining to mandate such behavior? If meat becomes a delicacy of the nobility and wealthy, those are the two classes who would have the most sway with the church, and they would certianly not want to give it up.

My perception was that, and here a differing of perceptions of the diet of middle ages peoples occur, if the prices of meats rose because of scarcity the general populace would need guidance as to their choice of diet to avert roits due to rising prices.
With the Church a major landowner, pillar of society and trusted source of information for the common man such action would of course be undertaken by the Church.
Just a far fetched thought.
 
True, but Isaiah is OT = Law of Moses = no longer applicable with Christ. Same with the sacrificial lambs.
Besides, the vast majority of scholars agree that Isaiah's vision implies no more violence, rather than vegetarianism. Granted, it is kind of tough to eat meat with out killing something...

If that were true, they wouldn't bind the useless Old Testament to the solely important New Testament in all those Bibles.
Besides, this is one of those "End Times" things, so it's about something that hasn't happened yet, and therefore it is still applicable anyway. People constantly refer to the Lion lying down with the lamb, (even though no such verse exists) so it is obviously still relevant in the Christian world today.

So anyway, let's say at some point Church leaders decide that violence should only be used as necessary. Later, they use this verse to show that killing animals is violence. Later still, they come up with a good enough set of substitute foods that meat is no longer necessary, and therefore the violence required to obtain meat should be put to an end.
 
True, but Isaiah is OT = Law of Moses = no longer applicable with Christ. Same with the sacrificial lambs.

Hmm, I wonder if there could be a Protestant denomination out there (and don't bring up Seventh-Day Adventists or Messianic Jews for this) that would negate that would interpret what Jesus said when he said that he "did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it" as following some (but not necessarily all) aspects of Mosaic Law.
 
Vegetarianism (or rather, a humble and hence meatless diet) was always highly regarded in the Christian tradition, especially in the early days. All monastic orders subject to the Benedictine rule technically are still bound to eat meatless, though this is very much a technicality for most of them. the problem of making this a requirement is twofold:

- non-animal protein is not that easy to come by in Europe. A meatless diet that does not include fish (not easy away from large bodies of water) and/or copious amounts of legumes (nothing as useful to that purpose as soy is available) will actually hurt you. This requirement might end up tying Christianity to the Mediterranean with its year-round supply of seafood.

- meat is a status food in most Indo-European traditions, and especially in the Germanic world. Thus, Christianity would be asking its new members to renounce a centrally important part of their social identity.

This is far from impossible, but it would most probably not end up being a successful branch of Christianity.
 
Hey - what about a vegetarian monastic order (An alt-Jesuits) who become actively engaged in missionary work in the Americas or Africa? They don't go to work convincing the Pope or the princes of Europe that vegetarianism is the way to go, but their work wins converts.

Could we have vegetarian Catholics as a dominant force in Brazil, or Mexico?
 
Hey - what about a vegetarian monastic order (An alt-Jesuits) who become actively engaged in missionary work in the Americas or Africa? They don't go to work convincing the Pope or the princes of Europe that vegetarianism is the way to go, but their work wins converts.

Could we have vegetarian Catholics as a dominant force in Brazil, or Mexico?

All monastic orders are (technically) vegetarian. The problem is getting the obligation to be general.
 
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