The Power of Powerlessness: Tough Guys, Weaklings, Patriarchy, Plants, and Meat
“In her 1990 classic, The Sexual Politics of Meat, Carol J. Adams connects the oppression of women to the oppression of non-human animals by examining the cultural roles and meaning of meat. She first identifies the association between meat and masculinity, noting how men consume the lion’s share of meat while women, due to various social pressures, consume less meat or forgo it entirely. This inequality also bleeds into racism, with meat consumption historically associated with the superiority of the white race and “coarser foods,” such as grain and vegetables, considered suitable only for “savages” and people of color. Connecting the eating of animals with yet another human vice, Adams implicates meat consumption in the waging of war, noting how the brutality behind the production of meat inclines entire societies to accept the brutality of war. While soldiers receive extra rations of meat, men who choose to forgo meat are seen as effeminate, solidifying the connections between masculinity, meat-eating, and violence. She next describes the inequalities of meat-eating societies, with societies relying more heavily on plant protein exhibiting greater equality between the sexes. From all the foregoing, Adams ultimately concludes that meat is both a symbol and instrument of the male patriarchy, elevating the status of men while denigrating the status of women and non-human animals.”
The above quote comes from a review of the book, The Sexual Politics of Meat, written by Carol Adams. I’m embarrassed to admit that I’m just now learning about Adams’ work, but I’m thoroughly enthralled in it now and grateful to be aware of her. Interestingly, according to her Wikipedia page, I also learned that Adams studied with Mary Daly in Boston, who is another feminist writer and theologian I really appreciate.
Adams came across my radar recently after having watched a sneak preview of the soon to be released documentary, Christpiracy, which explores the ethical impacts of raising 70 billion animals per year to be slaughtered and how this ties into religion. I hate to spoil the film and ruin their marketing scheme before it comes out but the film’s “big secret” is not really as big of a secret as the creators would want us to believe; it is still, however, extremely important! In the movie the two film makers, Kip Andersen and Kameron Waters, investigate what else Jesus did in the temple (shortly before being crucified) besides flipping over tables. Hint: he released non-human animals being treated as commodities who were destined to be sacrificially slaughtered and then eaten. The film makers interview legit biblical scholars and theologians like Andrew Linzey, Keith Akers, and James Tabor, as well as Adams, but they don’t stop with Christianity. To their credit the two filmmakers (one Buddhist, one Christian) travel around the world “hopping from Rome to Jerusalem, Oxford to India—interviewing everyone from renowned theologians and archeologists to Christian farmers and Indigenous shamans.” The film will most likely be dismissed by most people (religious people in particular) as radical-vegan-propaganda-bullshit but I for one applaud the effort of Waters and Anderson to take on this project and make the important work of folks like Adams and Lindzey more visible to a wider audience; their work deserves and needs to be wrestled with.
Reading about how meat eating is associated with supremacism and patriarchy in the Adams book review led me think of the controversy in the early church regarding food (all of which is covered in detail in Christpiracy btw). The controversy, outlined in Romans 14, 1 Corinthians 8-10, and Galatian 2, indicates that vegetarianism was a hot topic in the early church. Specifically, for our purposes here in this post, consider what Paul says in Romans:
“The weak man eats only vegetables.” Romans 14:3
Many scholars interpret this as Paul describing his opponents as ‘weak in faith’ (not necessarily physically weak) because they don’t believe (as Paul does) that it is perfectly all right to eat meat, particularly in this case meat that has been sacrificed to pagan idols. In 1 Corinthians 10:25 Paul says this:
“Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience.” 1 Corinthians 10:25
Anything sold in the meat market, huh? Isn’t that how Covid started? GTFO! LOL
As Keith Akers observes, “Paul would not have raised this issue unless someone was eating only vegetables, and was raising questions of conscience about buying from the meat market. Paul’s statement indicates something more, though. Paul’s most likely audience was the wealthy Corinthians who could afford to eat meat on a regular basis.”
Now things really start to come into focus, don’t they? It’s completely obvious that Paul, a Roman citizen and evangelizer to the gentiles, doesn’t want to disaffect the wealthy well-to-do Corinthians from the fledgling Christian movement, even if the crazy vegetarian Nazarenes in Jerusalem (like James, the brother of Jesus) think that Jesus was serious about the ‘no kill‘ commandment also being applicable to non-human animals. Akers goes on:
“The ancient Roman world was highly unequal and most people lived at subsistence level. Most people in the ancient Mediterranean world were mostly vegan most of the time; that’s all they could afford (see Andrew McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists, pp. 35-45). Meat-eating, or access to any animal products like cheese or eggs, would have been a casual expectation only for the rich. These were the people who could afford this sort of luxury on a regular basis.”
Akers and Adams appear to be on the same page here. There are many people who dislike Pauline theology and this is just another reason to add to the list of why that is; Paul making an omission for rich, patriarchal, tough-guy meat-eaters to continue oppressing non-human animals (which connects with the oppression of women) falls very short of the Kingdom of God that Jesus preached. Weak we may be, but as John Caputo reminds us, “The power of God is not pagan violence, brute power, or vulgar magic; it is the power of powerlessness, the power of the call, the power of protest that rises up from innocent suffering and calls out against it, the power that says no to unjust suffering, and finally, the power to suffer-with (sym-pathos) innocent suffering, which is perhaps the central Christian symbol.”
May we all hear that call of innocent suffering on this day and become Nazarenes in our hearts. Amen.
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