animalvote2012

This page includes articles by John Wesley, founder of the Methodists, General Bramwell Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, Catholic vegetarians including Father Mario Mazzoleni, and Brother James Marcus on their decision to become vegetarians.

John Wesley’s vegetarian diet

Diet and Health: John Wesley founder of the Methodists.
http://www.all-creatures.org

(in v 6 of his collected writings, Wesley is recorded as saying that on the
advice of his physician Dr Cheyne he had become vegetarian)

The Church, collectively, has been strangely silent on the connection between our diet and health, and our physical and spiritual well being. The only major exceptions to this silence, that we are aware of, have been the Seventh Day Adventist Church and the non-affiliated ministry of George H. Malkmus who founded Hallelujah Acres .

Very early in John Wesley’s ministry, he realized that there was a connection between physical and spiritual health. If the body was sick, then the person’s focus would likely be diverted from God. When he came to America in the mid 1700’s, he continued this teaching and was criticized for it by local clergy and the Anglican Bishop of London. Following is an excerpt from John Wesley’s response to the bishop:

By ‘extraordinary strictnesses and severities,’ I presume your Lordship means the abstaining from wine and animal food; which, it is sure, Christianity does not require. But if you do, I fear your Lordship is not thoroughly informed of the matter of fact. I began to do this about twelve years ago, when I had no thought of ‘annoying parochial ministers,’ or of ‘captivating’ any ‘people’ thereby, unless it were the Chicasaw or Choctaw Indians. But I resumed the use of them both, about two years after, for the sake of some who thought I made it a point of conscience; telling them, ‘I will eat flesh while the world standeth’ rather than ‘make my brother to offend.’ Dr. Cheyne advised me to leave them off again, assuring me, ‘Till you do, you will never be free from fevers.’ And since I have taken his advice, I have been free (blessed be God) from all bodily disorders.1

Both John Wesley and his physician knew that the eating of animals and their by-products (eggs and dairy) was injurious to health. Wesley had first hand knowledge of this, as do we, today, yet most people don’t want to hear about it. Why? Because most people don’t want to change their lifestyle, so they resort to trying to silence the prophets of truth, and for a little while they were successful in doing so with John Wesley. However, when his illnesses returned, he resumed being a strict vegetarian and he regained his health. Unfortunately, Wesley was not forceful enough with passing along these truths about diet and health and, as a result, most of these vegetarian dietary truths have been lost in the teachings of the Methodist and other churches among whom he had influence. It is time we reverse this mistake.

We have an obligation to learn about the connections between animal foods and chronic illnesses, and about a proper vegetarian diet. Likewise, we have an obligation to speak forth to our congregations about these things, for to do otherwise promotes violence to their health, to their spiritual well-being, and to their personal finances. Personally, we never found out about these thing in the church. Our education about diet and health came from our own experience and from people and organizations outside the church.

Poor health can be a tremendous drain on personal finances, and when people worry about these things it has an injurious effect on their physical well-being, so that their health is further deteriorated. Thus, our silence on the advantages of a vegetarian (vegan) diet really does violence to people’s health, finances, and well-being.

Jesus is often referred to as the “Great Physician”. It is interesting to note that God’s original intent was for us and our fellow creatures to eat only plant foods (Genesis 1:29-30). The diet of good health and healing was set in motion from the very beginning for all who would receive it.

We have an obligation to learn and speak out.

1. Letter to the Dr. Gibson, Bishop of London, LONDON, June 11, 1747, in The Letters of John Wesley Edited by John Telford — London: Epworth Press, 1931. Available online: http://wesley.nnu.edu/Letters/1747.htm as part of http://wesley.nnu.edu/Letters/

The intent of this series is to wake up and encourage the Church to greater works of love and compassion (John 14:12). It is not to condemn the Church, in general, or any individual, any more than Jesus condemned the woman caught in adultery. Jesus said to her, “…go your way. From now on sin no more.” (John 8:11) And this is our message to the Church: Recognize our sins of the past and go forth seeking to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48), correcting the sins of the past, for that is the only way we can truly show the world that we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, might, and mind, including the whole of creation, which includes our neighbors whom we are to love as ourselves.

Your questions and comments are welcome flh@all-creatures.org

www.all-creatures.org

.

Catholic Vegetarians

GREATER THINGS SHALL YOU DO THAN I HAVE DONE
SAID JESUS CHRIST TO HIS FOLLOWERS:
What you have done to these the least of My brethren you have done unto Me.

St Francis of Assisi, St Clare, stigmatist St Therese Neumann, St. Martin de Porres, St John Chrysostom, St Anthony of Padua who preached to fishes when humans would not listen.. St Nicholas of Tolentino* believed they were following the example of Jesus in not eating His animals. Trappists, Cistercians, Benedictines, Franciscans all have had a tradition of vegetarian diet, to which many still adhere. The pretzel was says George Cornell former AP religion writer a Lenten bread, symbolizing arms folded in prayer.. Lentils were named as such because they were a Lenten vegetarian alternative to animal flesh. Meatless Fridays were the last vestige of early Christian abstinence from meat in following
Christ’s example. A papal bull once excommunicated anyone who attended a bullfight because the barbaric cruelty in them. This was later amended to excommunicate only priests who blessed bullfighting.
BIBLICAL ORIGINS
Genesis 1: 29, Isaiah 65, Daniel 1 Exodus 26: 34 are some of the thousands of quotes in the Bible on vegetarian diet. The command to feed the hungry, given by Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount, implies vegetarianism since the flesh of animals yields 100 to 1000 lbs an acre, dairy products around 10,000 lbs. an acre, some vegetables, 81,000 lbs. an acre, and fruits from centenarian fruit trees 450,000 or more lbs. an acre. Therefore Genesis fruit trees yield 450 times what slaughterhouses yield. Daniel O’Steen, of National Right To Life, felt he must be consistent in his prolife stance and so many years ago became a vegetarian.Clare Obis, mother of 6 boys, created a successful media campaign when Mike Royko refused to allow her vegetarian gluten ribs in his cooking contest. Fr. Ron Lengwin of KDKA Radio in Pittsburgh believes that the apple Adam ate was the first heart of a butchered animal. Rep Dennis Kucinich (Democrat Cleveland) is a vegan who has worked for the rights of blue collar laborers, for the
environment, and for peace. Vegetarian monasteries in Massachusetts, New York, Kentucky, Ohio serve only meatless meals.. Ron Pickarsky, former Catholic brother, now married,
has worked with commercial establishments helping them to transition http://www.eco-cuisine.com
JB exec of an Ohio corporation, rings a bell for the Knights of Columbus in public places, and has in the past inquired where he could get vegan no feather sleeping bags to be consistent in his vegetarian diet. D. Marshall, New York homeless shelter worker, is a vegetarian who does not proselytize the poor who come in to his welcoming inn. Catholic colleges such as Georgetown have responded to the growing number of their vegan students by providing options. Thomas Merton, author of Seven Story Mountain and Trappist monk, was a vegetarian, and activist for interfaith cooperation. For this he may have been murdered. EL, New York environmentalist, poet, and mystic, originally became vegetarian for economic reasons, while one of his teachers, Fr. Daniel Berrigan, eats no meat. CW, Catholic nurse, was nursing her child one day when a mosquito landed on her arm. She decided to nurse him too. One Catholic seminarian experimented with pot once.. and his perceptions slowed down. The chicken leg he was gnawing on became the leg of a chicken. That day he stopped eating meat and stopped smoking pot. A Catholic secretary for Cleveland Amory’s Fund For Animals became vegan. K Fromer Blanc, Brooklyn nun, is a vegetarian as are millions of other Catholics. Father Mario Mazzoleni, now deceased, wrote on his decision to become vegetarian. His book is translated
by a Notre Dame professor.The temptation to eat meat is chemical in nature, as the uric acid in meat is more addictive than caffein since it is trioxypurine or 3 oxypurines while caffein is dioxypurine or 2. Exodus 26: 34 is a command not to kill. Governor Jesse Ventura in reference to the death penalty (for animals too) has said that that command is not asterisked with exceptions. St Thomas in the Thomasine Gospel
has many references to the fruiteating of Christ. Thomas, the skeptical apostle, went to Madras India where even today are millions of Catholic descendants of his preaching.
Cesar Chavez, the saintly activist for the rights of farm workers, continued the tradition of nonviolence in his labor organizing as well as his diet. He and Gandhi looked to Leo Tolstoy, Russian Catholic, who wrote The Kingdom of God is Within You.
Albert of Michigan, a Catholic paraplegic, has spent much time researching Catholic vegetarianism in history. He says that the word ‘opsarian’ means ‘pickled fish’ and is the Greek word for the fish Jesus created, meaning that Jesus did not materialize freshly suffocated fish but materialized processed fish. http://www.nofishing.net
Francisco Martin, Madrid Spain secretary of the IVU http://www.ivu.org is a Catholic vegan activist. Colman McCarthy, former Trappist and syndicated columnist, lectures around the world on peace studies and has long been mostly fruitarian. Bruce Friedrich, Catholic of PETA, ran their Jesus Was Vegetarian campaign.
(http://www.jesusveg.com) St Blaize’s throat protection is not necessary if one stops
eating innocent fishes, suffocated and smothered, with their eyes and throats ripped out by vicious hooks. http://www.nofishing.net The countries with the most
fish consumption have the most stomach cancer. Many members of the Catholic Worker community as their founder Dorothy Day follow vegetarian diet
in Matthew 25 and many other homes. http://www.catholicworker.org
http://www.paxchristiusa.org Dr. Virginia Bourquardez, who once
hitchhiked for the first time at the age of 77 when her ride dematerialized,
worked her entire life for animals, and became a vegetarian in her 70’s.
Malcolm Muggeridge the British intellectual abstained from meat in later years..
Helen Jones of the National Catholic Soc. For Animal Welfare worked with her
sister Ruth out of their Clark Summit Pennsylvania home. Leonardo Da Vinci,
a Catholic, was also a fruitarian. Danny DeVito protects insect life as well
as mammals.
Christian vegetarian sites
http://www.egroups.c…ges/catholicveg http://www.jesusveg.com
http://www.compassionatespirit.com http://www.all-creatures.org
http://www.hacres.com http://www.egroups.c…ages/salvarmy/2
Others
http://www.pcrm.org http://www.notmilk.c…w.madcowboy.com http://www.ivu.org http//www.acorn.net/fruitarian
http://www.meatout.com http://www.wfad.org http://www.animalsagenda.org
tp://www.peta.net http://www.hsus.org
http://groups.msn.com/bioterror
http://www.egroups.c…catholicveg/118
http://groups.msn.com/stopmowing
Fr. Mario Mazzoleni on his decision to become vegetarian (after 3 years as a strict vegetarian, Fr. Mario Mazzoleni speaks of a desire for meat. * see above
the addictive trioxypurine in meat) I would be a hypocrite if I led the reader to believe that I was strong enough to be perfectly faithful to my Lenten resolution. ..I
hadn’t yet completely resolved my desire for meat – and so the repressed desire
was floating to the surface. It is a fact that the minute I would sit down to meditate, the most succulent meals would pass in front of my mind, full of fragrant roasted chickens and various sausages. What to do? If I was going to ruin all my meditations for a
roast chicken, it would be better to eliminate the problem by facing it head on. And so after 3 years of strict vegetarianism, I decided to get rid of the desire once and for all by satiating myself with a meat dinner. After all, I told myself to quiet my sense of guilt, “It isn’t a crime to eat meat, and I can’t say that because I’m vegetarian I’m better than many people who are carnivorous.” It was almost a traumatic experience. I remembered an analogous experience of Gandhi’s that he recounted in his autobiography. Convinced by a friend that India could be liberated only by the grit
of someone who ate meat, he hid himself on a river bank to consume some barbecued baby goat meat, and the next night he could feel bleating in his chest. Instead of enjoying the coveted snack in peace, the minute this little faithbreaker set his teeth into the cruel repast* (* a reference to Dante’s Inferno.. in which
meat is described as a cruel repast in XXXIII.1) he was himself bitten by remorse and anxiety. I kept seeing the animal alive in front of me, and this inhibited the desire that was so enticing when it was simply mental. I immediately noticed some other effects, physical as well as psychic. My intestines held that food much longer than they kept vegetables,and my sense of smell, made sensitive by several years of vegetarianism,
was able to detect the odor of the cooked animal on my skin. It was a disagreeable sensation. As for my psyche, I noticed that my mind, which during my 3 year “Lent” was no longer seriously agitated by unwanted thoughts, suffered a set back from that carne-vale (meat festival); polluting throughts started to enter again in triumph. It
was a lesson. As always it is experience more than words that has the
greater power of persuasion. The decision to adopt a vegetarian diet
was motivated also by a religious actor. I knew that I was going to a sacred place.
quoted from Don Mario Mazzoleni’s book, published by Leela Press of Faber, Virginia USA
Genesis 1: 29 Behold I have given you herbyielding seed.
To you it shall be for meat. (The fruitarian Garden of Eden)
Methusaleh.. the oldest man in the Bible, achieved 969
orbits of the sun.
Exodus: 26: 34 Thou Shalt Not Kill (not asterisked with
exceptions)
Jesus: Ye are whited sepulchres (Greek sarcophagi sarx flesh ..phagi eater)
Jesus threw the butchers out of the temple. Daniel was vegetarian
in the lions’ den and therefore was
not harmed. Daniel was in jail 10 days and his
condition as a vegetarian was better than those who
were not.
Paul: If your flesheating offends your brother, forego it.
Jesus: Feed the hungry (450 times as many people per acre
can be fed tree products in comparison to slaughterhouse
products)
Many Catholics are praying that the Holy Father who takes such a strong stand
in preventing the violence of war and execution, will withdraw his
endorsement of the cruelty of lab research. Many Catholic churches have blessing of the animals ceremonies.

Abba in the name of Jesus thank You that You are now ending all violence to people, animals, and all beings on Your planet now and forever.

Editor’s note: General Booth treated alcoholism with vegetarian diet.. and found that this treatment severed the meat-alcohol chemical marriage. His success spread the SA
around the world. )
General Bramwell Booth of the Salvation Army on Vegetarian Diet

These passages are taken from a pamphlet written by General Bramwell Booth, former director General of the Salvation Army, and a son of founder General William Booth.

“Here are some of my reasons for doing so (becoming vegetarian):
1. Because I have myself tried a vegetarian diet with the greatest benefit having been for more than 10 years at l time a strict vegetarian.
2. Because according to the Bible God originally intended the food for humans to be vegetarian. (here he quotes Genesis 1:29 “Behold I have given
you herb yielding seed. To you it shall be for food.”)
3. Because a vegetarian diet is favourable to purity, to chastity,and to
perfect control of the appetites and passions which are often a source of great temptation, especially to the young. (http://www.notmilk.com)
4. Because a vegetarian diet is favourable to robust health and strength. With very few exceptions, and these only confirmed invalids, I believe the people would be stronger….
http://www.pcrm.org
5. Because tens of thousands of our poor people (could save money)…http://www.ivu.org
6. Because a vegetarian diet of wheat, oatmeal and other grains, lentils, peas, beans, nuts and similr food is more than ten times as economical as a flesh diet. Meat contains half its weight in water which has to be paid for as though it were meat. A vegetarian diet, even if we allow cheese, butter and milk will only cost about a quarter as much as a mixed diet of flesh and vegetables.
7. Because a vegetarian diet would stop the enormous waste of all kinds of animal food.
http://www.acorn.net/fruitarian
8. Because a vegetarian diet is a great protection against our drinking
(this belief of General Booth has been upheld by modern biochemistry research about the relationship of meat and alcohol)….
9. Because a vegetarian diet is favorable to industry and hard work…
10. Because it is proved that life, health, and happiness are all favoroued by a vegetarian diet.**
11. I favour a vegetarian diet because the digestive organs of humans are not well adapted to the use of flesh….
12. Because it is very difficult.. especially in hot weather and warm
climates to keep flesh food sweet long enough to cool and eat it and
a great deal of meat is eaten after it has begun to decay…
13. Because a great deal of the flesh meat which is supplied for human food is already diseased, and because it is nearly impossible to be sure than any flesh is quite free from the germs of disease. Much
common meat, which is often that of old animals, is well known to be sold to the butchers because the animals are sick, or unhealthy. http://www.egroups.c…ages/kyvegans/9
And the best meat is nearly always the flesh meat of young animals who are fattened and killed before the germs of many diseases have had time to develop so as to show themselves. So that many animals re killed, which though believed to be healthy, are really diseased.
This is especially the case with calves for veal, young bullocks for beef and with lambs and young pigs.
14. Because I believe that the great increase in consumption and cancer during the last hundred years has been caused by the great increase in the use of animal food, and that a strict vegetarian
diet would greatly help to ward off these most terrible and ‘incurable’ diseases.
15. Because I believe that a flesh diet brings on many very painful diseases, which though not perhaps immediately dangerous to life cause much suffering and loss. I mean such complaints as eczema, constipation, piles, worms, dysentery, severe heaches and the like. A vegetarian would do much to relieve if not cure them.
16 Because of the awful cruelty and terror to which tens of thousands (now billions)of animals killed for human food are subjected in
traveling long distance by ship and rail and road to the slaughterhouses of the world. God disapproves of all cruelty whether to man or beast.
17.Because of the terrible cruelties practised for killing animals in many slaughter houses. The whole busines of killing is cruel.. even when it is done with care, and we know that in the case of millions of creatures it is done with very little care. Ten thousand pigs are
killed for food every hour in Europe alone. (Now Oscar Mayer kills 1100 pigs an hour at their Madison Wisconsin plant.)
18. Because the occupation of slaughtering animals is brutalising to those who are required to do the work. “The highest sentiments of humane
men” says a certain writer, and I agree with him, “revolt at the cruelty, the degrading sights, the distressing cries, the perpetual
bloodshed, and all the attendant horrors which must surround the transit and slaughter of suffering creatures.” *
19. Because a flesh diet is not necessary to hard work. A great part of the work of the world is done by animals which subsist on vegetable food..
namely, horses, mules, camels, oxen, etc.
I believe this matter is well worthy the serious consideration of Christian leaders. It has an important bearing not only on their own
health and happiness but upon their influence among the people, as men and women who are free from the bondage of that selfish gratification which so often afflicts the professed servants of Christ. Let us remember the Apostle’s direction: ‘Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.’ ”
(published by the LVS 53 Marloes Rd. Kensington London UK W8)
(We copied from an old pamphlet.. to have the full text write or webvisit the London Vegetarian Society)

http://www.christianveg.com
http://www.worldanimalnet.org 6000 links
http://www.highvibra…rchive3/veg.htm
http://www.highvibra…rchive3/veg.htm online book
http://www.jesusveg.com
http://www.hacres.com
http://www.all-creatures.org
http://www.notmilk.com
http://www.ivu.org/recipes
http://www.pcrm.org 7000 vegan MD’s
http://www.madcowboy.com
http://www.acorn.net/fruitarian
http://www.vrg.org/recipes
http://www.vrg.org/recipes
http://www.goveg.com/meetmeat.html
http://www.hogwatch.org
http://www.hogwatchmanitoba.org
http://www.vegansociety.org
http://www.peta.net
http://www.meatout.com
http://www.farmusa.org
http://www.egroups.c…ages/nomow108/1
http://www.vegweb.com/food
http://www.vegdining.com

originally reprinted by the London Vegetarian Society
Most Biblical scholars believe Jesus was vegetarian
Bible quotes on vegetarian diet

1. Thou Shalt Not Kill (not asterisked with exceptions)
(kill no animal.. eat no animal)
2. Feed The Hungry (an orchard yields 450 times as much food
per acre as a cruel slaughterhouse)
3. Isaiah: I delight not in your blood sacrifices
4. Genesis 1 29 Behold I have given you herb yielding seed..
to you it shall be for food
5. Daniel 1 Daniel was a vegetarian and his health was better than that of nonvegetarians
6. Isaiah 65: The lion shall lie down with the lamb.. they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord.
* British juries for a time would not allow
butchers to sit in judgment of others. It was
felt their jobs brutalized them.
** Now some life insurance companies give discounts
to vegetarians.. based on fewer incidences of
heart disease, cancer, food poisoning, diabetes,
kidney dysfunction, etc.

(It is believed by some that George
Bernard Shaw ghostwrote While
England Slept for General Wm Booth.
Shaw’s admiration for the Salvation
Army is evident in the play Major
Barbara)

Spiritual Diet

by Brother James Marcus

It has been my habit since 1994 to practice a vegetarian diet. It is not necessary for me to take life to sustain my own. I believe that all life is sacred from the house fly to the human. God is the Creator of all Life. In the beginning God created all life vegetarian, both human and animal. It was not until after the flood that living beings began to eat meat. I do not preach that it is sin to eat flesh but I will say in this day and age it is unwise. God’s original design was a vegetarian diet until sin entered the world and death by sin. I choose to honor God’s original design with my diet. I do not have the ability to eat animals. I cannot do this in good conscience. I have offered my diet to God as a perpetual fast. I have chosen to honor His original diet and to reverence the life He created. In order to eat an animal she must first be dead. It is not wise to devour death.