There’s a reason to talk about the term of the veganism on the eve of the Lent.

On the surface it seems that there are no antilogy between christianity and veganism.

On one hand, veganism (the lifestyle of eating only food not derived from animals and typically of avoiding the use of other animal products) is ruled by ethical motives. According to vegans, it’s not ethical to kill animals for food, clothes or other needs.

Basically, this logic is understandable. But in opposition to vegetarians (people who just give up eating meat for not to kill animals), vegans go ahead — most of them demand to give up any «exploitation» of the representatives of wildlife. They balk products for which animals are actually even not killed: like milk, wool, also animal experimentation, pet care and so on.

In vegan’s opinion, the human is guilty in wildlife’s suffering. In some measure, it’s true. According to the Church doctrine, both the death, and the murder (including animals) came into our world after the original sin of our first parents, and they will stop only in renovated world after the Second Coming of Christ. But at this time one animal eats another animal killing each-other in our fallen world. In the same way people eat animals or use them for different purposes. Thus, on the ground of biology it would be strange to demand human not to eat animals letting them do this.

Of course, christians also deny themselves eating animal food (totally or partly, temporary or for the whole life). But unlike vegans, christians have another purpose: it’s not an ideal attempt to change the biological rules of the fallen world, but it’s a particular ascetical practice. By doing this, we strict ourselves in animal food for the period of fasting to conquer our own passions. Although, the fasting is not only about meat restriction. The fasting is the time for conversion, strong prayer, and it’s time for careful attitude to neighbors. And here is the difference between christian fasting and veganism.

With all their selfless love to animals vegans do not really love their neighbors much. A famous vegan activist in USA Gary Yourofsky says about people who don’t follow him: «I truly hope that oppression, torture and murder return to each uncaring human tenfold! I hope that sons accidentally shoot their fathers on hunting excursions, while carnivores suffer heart attacks that kill them slowly. Every woman ensconced in fur should endure a rape so vicious that it scars them forever…

And, lastly, may irony shine its esoteric head in the form of animal researchers catching debilitating diseases and painfully withering away because research dollars that could have been used to treat them was wasted on the barbaric, unscientific practice of vivisection.» And it’s not some individual outpouring. All it takes is to read vegan’s forums and publics throughout the Internet to understand that for vegans this mindset is a matter of course.

But then again, it’s interesting to note that the majority of vegans follow all radical antichristian movements: for sexual minority, for new gender ideology etc.

Of course, caring about animals is not bad: every real christian cares about all created being. But christians who is interested in a new fashioned ideology should ask themselves whether this ideology obey the voice of love or not: both actions and words. And if this «love» gives rise to hate, it means that this ideology is not from God.

Recorded by Natalia Goroshkova