Help write the Charter for Compassion

I just read about this—I love the idea of people finding common ground in their faith. As a Christian, I think compassion and understanding is often missing from the life of the church (sadly, because it's often missing in our personal lives as well.) If we can seek to understand each other first, recognize shared points of view instead of finger-pointing and tearing one another down, imagine what might happen.

posted by Kristen on 11/18/2008 10:44 am

Biblical compassion must include the animals, i.e., embrace animal rights.

According to the Bible, God intended the entire human race to follow a vegetarian diet (Genesis 1:29). Paradise is vegetarian. Rashi (Rabbi Solomon von Isaac, 1030-1105), the famous Jewish Bible commentator, taught that "God did not permit Adam and his wife to kill a creature and to eat its flesh. Only every green herb shall they all eat together." Ibn Ezra and other Jewish biblical commentators agree.

According to the Talmud, "Adam and many generations that followed him were strict flesh-abstainers; flesh-foods were rejected as repulsive for human consumption." Although man was made in God's image and given dominion over all creation (Genesis 1:26-28), these verses do not justify humans killing animals and devouring them, because God immediately proclaims He created the plants for human consumption. (Genesis 1:29)

In a letter to Pope John Paul II, challenging him on the issue of animal experimentation, Dr. Michael Fox of the Humane Society argued that the word "dominion" is derived from the original Hebrew word "rahe" which refers to compassionate stewardship, instead of power and control. Parents have dominion over their children; they do not have a license to kill, torment or abuse them. The Talmud (Shabbat 119; Sanhedrin 7) interprets "dominion" to mean animals may be used for labor.

Man was made in God's image (Genesis 1:26) and told to be vegetarian (Genesis 1:29). "And God saw all that He had made and saw that it was very good." (Genesis 1:31) Complete and perfect harmony. Everything in the beginning was the way God wanted it. Vegetarianism was part of God's initial plan for the world.

"It appears that the first intention of the Maker was to have men live on a strictly vegetarian diet," writes Rabbi Simon Glazer, in his 1971 Guide to Judaism. "The very earliest periods of Jewish history are marked with humanitarian conduct towards the lower animal kingdom...It is clearly established that the ancient Hebrews knew, and perhaps were the first among men to know, that animals feel and suffer pain."

After the Flood, God revised His commandment against flesh-eating. Human beings, since eating of the forbidden fruit, seemed incapable of obedience on this issue. One Jewish writer comments, "Only after man had proven unfit for the high moral standard given at the beginning, was meat made a part of the humans' diet."

A Jewish legend says Moses was found to be righteous by God through his shepherding. While Moses was tending his sheep of Jethro in the Midian wilderness, a young kid ran away from the flock. Moses ran after it until he found the kid drinking by a pool of water. Moses approached the kid and said, "I did not know that you ran away because you were thirsty; now, you must be tired." So Moses placed the animal on his shoulders and carried him back to the flock. God said, "Because thou has shown mercy in leading the flock, thou will surely tend My flock, Israel."

In their book, The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism, Dennis Prager and Rabbi Telushkin explain: "Keeping kosher is Judaism's compromise with its ideal vegetarianism. Ideally, according to Judaism, man would confine his eating to fruits and vegetables and not kill animals for food."

In his excellent A Guide to the Misled, Rabbi Shmuel Golding explains the orthodox Jewish position concerning animal sacrifices: "When G-d gave our ancestors permission to make sacrifices to Him, it was a concession, just as when He allowed us to have a king (I Samuel 8), but He gave us a whole set of rules and regulations concerning sacrifice that, when followed, would be superior to and distinct from the sacrificial system of the heathens."

Some biblical passages denounce animal sacrifice (Isaiah 1:11,15; Amos 5:21-25). Other passages state that animal sacrifices, not necessarily incurring God's wrath, are unnecessary (I Kings 15:22; Jeremiah 7:21-22; Hosea 6:6; Hosea 8:13; Micah 6:6-8; Psalm 50:1-14; Psalm 40:6; Proverbs 21:3; Ecclesiastes 5:1).

Sometimes Christians cite Isaiah 1:11, where God says, "I am full of the burnt offerings..." They say the word "full" implies God accepted the sacrifices. However, in Isaiah 43:23-24, God says: "You have not honored Me with your sacrifices...rather you have burdened Me with your sins, you have wearied Me with your iniquities." This suggests, as Moses Maimonides taught and Rabbi Shmuel Golding confirms above, that "the sacrifices were a concession to barbarism."

Jesus taught his disciples to pray for the coming of God's kingdom (Matthew 6:9-10), the kingdom of peace, in which the entire world is restored to a vegetarian paradise (Genesis 1:29; Isaiah 11:6-9). Recalling Psalm 37:11, he blessed the meek, saying they would inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5) The kingdom of God belongs to the gentle and kind (Matthew 5:7-9) Christians are to "Be merciful, just as your Father is also merciful." (Luke 6:36) Those who take up the sword must perish by the sword. (Matthew 26:52)

Jesus repeatedly spoke of God's tender care for the nonhuman creation (Matthew 6:26-30, 10:29-31; Luke 12:6-7, 24-28). Jesus taught that God desires "mercy and not sacrifice." (Matthew 9:10-13, 12:6-7; Mark 2:15-17; Luke 5:29-32) The epistle to the Hebrews 10:5-10 suggests that Jesus did not come to abolish the Law and the prophets (which Paul regarded as "so much garbage"), but only the institution of animal sacrifice, as does Jesus' cleansing the Temple of those who were buying and selling animals for sacrifice and his overturning the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple. (Matthew 21:12-14; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46; John 2:14-17)

Jesus not only repeatedly upheld Mosaic Law (Matthew 5:17-19; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 16:17), he justified his healing on the Sabbath by referring to commandments calling for the humane treatment of animals.

When teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, Jesus healed a woman who had been ill for eighteen years. He justified his healing work on the Sabbath by referring to biblical passages calling for the humane treatment of animals as well as their rest on the Sabbath. "So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham...be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?" Jesus asked. (Luke 13:10-16)

On another occasion, Jesus again referred to Torah teaching on "tsa'ar ba'alei chayim" or compassion for animals to justify healing on the Sabbath. "Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?" (Luke 14:1-5)

Jesus compared saving sinners who had gone astray from God's kingdom to rescuing lost sheep. He recalled a Jewish legend about Moses' compassion as a shepherd for his flock.

"For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost. What do you think? Who among you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?

"And when he has found it," Jesus continued, "he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'

"I say to you, likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance...there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." (Matthew 18:11-13; Luke 15:3-7,10)

Jesus insisted upon the moral standards given by God in the beginning (Matthew 5:31-32, 19:3-9; Mark 10:2-12; Luke 16:18), and this did not go unnoticed by early church fathers such as St. Jerome.

From history, too, we learn that the earliest Christians were vegetarians as well as pacifists. For example, Clemens Prudentius, the first Christian hymn writer, in one of his hymns exhorts his fellow Christians not to pollute their hands and hearts by the slaughter of innocent cows and sheep, and points to the variety of nourishing and pleasant foods obtainable without blood-shedding.

Some of the most distinguished figures in the history of Christianity have been vegetarian. A partial list includes: St. James, St. Matthew, Clemens Prudentius, Origen, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, St. Basil, St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, St. Benedict, Aegidius, Boniface, St. Richard of Wyche, St. Columba, St. Filipo Neri, John Wray, Thomas Tryon, John Wesley, Joshua Evans, William Metcalfe, General William Booth, Ellen White, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, and Reverend V.A. Holmes-Gore.

Reverend Marc Wessels of the International Network for Religion and Animals (INRA) writes:

"The most important teaching which Jesus shared was the need for people to love God with their whole self and to love their neighbor as they loved themselves. Jesus expanded the concept of neighbor to include those who were normally excluded, and it is therefore not too farfetched for us to consider the animals as our neighbors.

"To think about animals as our brothers and sisters is not a new or radical idea. By extending the idea of neighbor, the love of neighbor includes love of, compassion for, and advocacy of animals. There are many historical examples of Christians who thought along those lines, besides the familiar illustration of St. Francis. An abbreviated listing of some of those individuals worthy of study and emulation includes Saint Blaise, Saint Comgall, Saint Cuthbert, Saint Gerasimus, Saint Giles, and Saint Jerome, to name but a few."

According to contemporary Benedictine monk, Brother David Steindl-Rast:

"...the survival of our planet depends on our sense of belonging---to all other humans, to dolphins caught in dragnets, to pigs and chickens and calves raised in animal concentration camps, to redwoods and rainforests, to kelp beds in our oceans, and to the ozone layer."

In a sermon preached in York Minster, September 28, 1986, John Austin Baker, the Bishop of Salisbury, England, attacked the overcrowded confinement methods of raising and killing animals for food ("factory farming"), choosing as his example, the treatment of chickens:

"Is there any credit balance for the battery hen, denied almost all natural functioning, all normal environment, lapsing steadily into deformity and disease, for the whole of her existence?" he asked. "It is in the battery shed and the broiler house, not in the wild, that we find the true parallel to Auschwitz. Auschwitz is a purely human invention."

Rick Dunkerly of Christ Lutheran Church says:

"The Bible-believing Christian, should, of all people, be on the frontline in the struggle for animal welfare and rights. We who are Christians should be treating the animal creation now as it will be treated then, at Christ's second coming. It will not now be perfect, but it must be substantial, otherwise we have missed our calling, and we grieve the One we call 'Lord,' who was born in a stable surrounded by animals simply because He chose it that way."

Rose Evans, editor and publisher of Harmony: Voices for a Just Future, a "consistent-ethic" periodical on the religious Left, says there are more Christian vegetarians than Jewish vegetarians. Yet some people still react to the idea of Christian vegetarianism as though it were an oxymoron.

"Every year," says Reverend Andrew Linzey, author of Christianity and the Rights of Animals, "I receive hundreds of anguished letters from Christians who are so distressed by the insensitivity to animals shown by mainstream churches that they have left them or are on the verge of doing so...The time is long overdue to take the issue of animal rights to the churches...

"I derive hope from the Gospel preaching that the same God who draws us to such affinity and intimacy with suffering creatures declared that reality on a Cross in Calvary. Unless all Christian preaching has been utterly mistaken, the God who becomes incarnate and crucified is the one who has taken the side of the oppressed and the suffering of the world--however the churches may actually behave."

posted by vasumurti on 11/18/2008 5:34 pm

It is wonderful to see the 3 abrahamic traditions come together and realize their similarities more than their differences. I am happy to see these groups lose some of their self-interest, and hopefully their own "agendas" and see how their moral leadership can guide people.

I think what is right and good for people must be religiously neutral or agree with all religions in order for us to have peace on this world. It is time for us to look deeply, understand meaning and see what the other is doing, rather than being pedantic. It is time for us to have courage to stand up for what the difficult decision. Apathy must stop. Not asking the hard questions and just following words and things that feel wrong all must end.

I understand that targeting the Abrahamic faiths was a strategic move for reconciliation among them. However, this world has many religions, and many kinds of religious followers (ardent, practicing, hypocritical, questioning, following but not understanding their religion) and non followers (atheists, agnostics, those who were never exposed to religion). This Charter for Compassion should also include other religions in this world and all those in the spiritual spectrum in order for the Charter to have any enduring effect.

posted by meldy on 11/18/2008 10:14 pm

Why is it thought that the Abrahamic traditions are the only ones who can contribute to a Charter for Compassion? Do you thinks that we Humanists, Atheists, etc. are not or cannot be compassionate? Why are you being so exclusive? A Charter for Compassion is useless and meaning less unless it is all inclusive!

posted by humanist7117 on 11/19/2008 1:46 am

I agree with humanist7117, there cannot be a Charter for Compassion without all participating. Will Wiccan people be allowed to speak to this? After all they hold the Rede, First Do No Harm. Will women who have sought the Goddess in their lives be asked to speak? They have found a non-patriarchial image who brings them to the living, breathing Divine Feminine. Perhaps the Charter should begin by seeking clear intent on what it is that is being called forth. The next step might be to simply listen to humans speak. What is compassion? And from all perspectives to gain a thread of what motivates us to be filled with kindness and deep compassion for all of life. We are fast approaching a time when the nature of our interactions and even our thoughts will be changing. To create a Charter for Compassion could be a hallmark of our initial work that would help to encourage more. It could, if it is not stamped again with only the hands of Abraham, be what brings us further into the Light.

posted by jjstewart on 11/19/2008 10:02 am

Compassion is about addressing the humanity in each one of us and has to grow from a respect for the nature of all living things. Regardless of ethnic origin or religious beliefs, we are part of the same humanity. As we walk on our individual paths and embrace the unique experiences of our journey we come to understand the decisions that others have made to protect their homeland, their culture, their name, their family, their lives, not only in an attempt to personally survive, but to honor the struggles and successes of their ancestors and of their cultural heritage. Only when we are able to trust the divine power of love that exist within us will we be able to access the depth of compassion and forgiveness that grows from that love. We may hate the deed, but no good will ever come from hating the man. It's when we are asking the one that is omnipresent for us, for the strength to overcome our own weaknessess that we will find the love and strength to overcome the condemnation of others. I have been practicing meditation in Surat Shabd Yoga for nearly 30 years and I beieve there is always a cause and effect. Two wrongs will never make a right. If decisions and actions are driven by a fear of loss, then war and the need to control will continue to grow like a dark cloud of locust willing to devour everything in it's path to take control of that which is more vulnerable. Greed and attachment to material things stem from the lowest forms of consciousness and are often the most visible acts from the few in power. Our responses can often give their smallness the greatest ability to destroy the trust and generosity that has been planted by the masses working for acceptance and peace. While we can not allow ourselves to be intimidated or attacked, neither can we reach to intimidate and attack to find a solution. By building idiologies and preying on the differences those idiologies create, politics are the initiator while religion is often staged as the aggressor. Yes, we look and dress differently, but these outer differences are geographical and cultural. By acknowledging the existeness of a greater power that lives within each of us in divine light, the differences disappear and we can begin celebrating our sameness. In this way we become greater blessed and naturally responsibile for each other as sister and brother. It can't be their child that we are allowing to starve, it is our children that we are killing. The grief and the suffering of any parent with the loss of a child, a son, a sister, a brother, wife or husband has to be felt around the world as our own. We have to be touched by the hurt to feel compassion. We have to feel the pain in our hearts to want to be healed and see the whole world healed with with genuine acts of kindness and love. I am my brother's keeper has nothing to do with a name, it has everything to do with being humane.

posted by bfreeartist on 11/23/2008 9:47 pm

There is no greater virtue or weapon than FORGIVENESS. This must be a vital ingredient of the Charter.

posted by jimhandy on 12/ 9/2008 10:20 am

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