Do Vegans Have A Point? Killing’s Mercy, Provision, and Protection.- Stephen Jordan

****Warning**** The following article deals with death, the killing of the innocent, and is unsettling.

Have you ever wondered if vegans may have a point? Is there any justification for their horror and visceral response to death?

These questions were in my mind as I slowly moved the weapon to my shoulder and clicked off the safety. Finding the animal in the scope, I scanned for the perfect spot. It is, after all, all about shot placement. Time compressed, I exhaled and squeezed the trigger. The animal crumbled and was gone, it was a quick death. How do I feel sending ounces of metal through the air at high velocity to end a life? How should I feel? Is there weight to these moments? Have you ever seen death? Have you ever killed something? Do vegans have a point? 

The first time that I saw death, I was a small child. A neighborhood kid found a bird's nest with baby birds in them and delighted in sadistically smashing them on the ground. I felt sick and tried to help them, but they were already gone. Not long after, I killed for the first time. I also came upon a bird but this one had been mortally wounded by a cat. I quickly picked up the largest boulder my little self could carry and dropped it on the poor creature. I immediately knew there was a profound difference between his killing and my own. His sadistic laugh was a stark contrast to my choking back tears. Since then, I committed to killing for one of three reasons; mercy, provision, and protection.

Mercy:

When I worked as a park ranger in Northern Virginia, we had a very long front road that teenagers loved to drive as fast as they could and animals were often hit. The horrors of those wounded animals is still sharp in my mind. Many had crawled off the road and would be struggling with deep wounds, some covered in maggots. While other employees thought it best to throw them off in the woods, out of sight and out of mind to die which I knew was a slow death. I hated killing them, but I could not let them suffer. Stewardship of this creation compelled me to bring death to those innocent creatures swiftly. Death is sad but it can be mercy.

Provision:

I have been in the woods and outdoors, since before I can remember, fishing and hunting. I have nailed catfish to boards to skin out, run spoons across the scales of wriggling fish, and got yelled at for fish guts in the kitchen sink by Pat Granger, Doug’s mom. It is surprising how even killing a fish can burden. However, hunting is a much weightier form of death. While small animals die quickly, larger animals can take longer. I have seen heart-shot deer run 100 yards away. A loud bang, a sharp pain, and they instinctively run away from both, unaware that it is already dead. I have also brought death to domesticated animals. Over the years, I have killed hogs, chickens, and cows. The hardest was a 2-year-old bottle-fed bull that kept putting its lips around the gun thinking it was lunch. I had to take a minute to process that death. Death is sad but it can be provision.

Protection:

A friend owns around 250 head of cattle. The property has a problem with coyotes and vultures killing calves and sometimes taking Mom with them. As coyotes are invasive, the season in South Carolina is all year long and you are allowed to night hunt. However, night hunting is expensive as it requires thermal scopes and suppressors on AR platforms. It is indescribable seeing a glowing white coyote through a scope in the pitch black and sending a 6.5 Grendel their way. Hunting vultures is a little more difficult. In order to hunt vultures, a very involved and costly permitting process is required and even then, only a limited number of vultures can be taken. Killing a vulture outside of the permit is a major fine ($15k) and possible jail (6 months). They are hardy animals and difficult to take down. After a vulture is killed, they are tied upside down as effigies in hopes of scaring off the rest. Death is sad but it can be protection. 

Animals are innocent and they do not deserve to die. So why then does God command the killing of animals throughout scripture? Well, a simple and practical answer is for sacrifices, clothing, and food. What kind of God do we have? A God that commands the mass killing of animals for sacrifices, clothing, and food? This should be upsetting. God created Adam and Eve as vegans. There was no death. Mom and Dad were naked and unashamed. So why would God make death a utility for mercy, provision, and protection? 

When Adam ate, he killed us all. Mockers often claim that God lied when He told Adam he would die the day he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The first time buck that I shot ran back into the deep woods. I thought I had missed him because he looked fine running off. He made it about 40 yards. There were so many emotions felt that day; excitement, pride, joy, but there was a tinge of sobering sadness at the weight of ending that beautiful animal's life. 

The point is that creation fell in Adam. The fate of animals was tied, by Almighty God, to the fate of those who had dominion over them. And although Adam did not cease to breathe at the moment of eating the fruit, he did get to see death. After God issued the first three curses in Genesis 3, He made mom and dad clothes. Now, we can posit that silkworms were around and that cotton was growing somewhere. And while I have never seen a polyester tree, surely, God could have fashioned them a suit from plants? Yet, our Lord made for them animal skin garments to cover their nakedness. A replacement for their fig robes. It will be interesting to ask them what their fig garment looked like. While artists often depict these garments as quite skimpy, it is more likely that they covered themselves up like a woman in the middle east. They were naked and ashamed. 

This brings many questions that cannot be answered by those who do not handle death. Questions like, How did Adam and Eve feel when they saw blood shed for the first time? What was it like to be wrapped up in the skin of that dead beast? Why did Abel keep flocks? Was he reenacting the first sacrifice? If animals were only used for sacrifice and clothing before the flood, was Abel a tailor or a priest? Why didn’t we eat animals before the flood? Why did God command Noah to begin eating animals after the flood? How hard was it for him to eat the first animal? Did he feel the same way we feel when killing something? What did Israel feel when they sacrificed as a central part of the covenantal worship of God? What did Abraham feel as he cut into the ram that God had provided for the sacrifice after releasing his son from the altar?

More importantly, what did Jesus feel about death when He walked this broken, fallen, cursed, and dead world? What did Jesus feel every year when He went to the temple with His lamb? When did His divinity reveal to His humanity that the lamb was Him? When did He realize what He was born to do? VEGANS ARE RIGHT, DEATH IS SAD!!! SO WHY WOULD THE GOD OF HEAVEN AND EARTH COMMAND US TO KILL ANIMALS?

“For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” (Hebrews 10:1-4, ESV)

What if death is upsetting by God’s design? What if that is why God has had men consume and clothe themselves in dead animals? What if the feet that carry the good news are wrapped in animal hide and death for a reason? What if the death and the consumption of animals is a reminder to Adam’s children of the death that Adam brought upon us? What if the spilling of blood is the perfect reminder of our deep need for Christ? What if supermarkets have robbed us by insulating us from death with their saran-wrapped meat and flash-frozen chicken? Death is horrible, but we rob ourselves of a great lesson in our avoidance. The letter to the Roman Church famously tells us that the wages of sin is death. Killing animals is a reminder of the fall. The weight of killing ought to drive us to a deeper understanding of what Christ did for us. Brothers and sisters, God’s sights were, rightfully, aimed at us, for in our sin we deserve death. But God, in His grand mercy, stepped into our place. Christ shed His blood and took away the weight of death. For it is in Christ’s precious blood that the burden of death is lifted. 

“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:19-25, ESV)

In Christ’s death, He brings mercy, provision, and protection to His children. He turns away the wrath of God, He clothes us in His righteousness, feeds us, and protects us from the wrath to come. In the grace of God, we are surrounded by death, clothed by it, and sustained by it. In obedience acting out the work of merchants of death can be a troublesome business. We would do well to ponder what vegans get right, namely that death is sad. Though the conclusion ought not to cause us to close our eyes and think we can wash our hands of this messy business by personal avoidance. We must get our hands dirty and handle death so that God’s purposes may be brought to mind. 

For in the experience, we shall seek the one who is our mercy, provision, and protection…Christ Jesus.