Barefoot Vegan Mag Jan_Feb 2017

Tell us about yourself and how you came
to be vegan?
I think the first time I heard the word “vegan” was when
my brother took me to a restaurant he really loved in
Eugene, Oregon. It was all vegan and totally delicious. I
survived on junk: a lot of fast food and super processed
groceries, so this all-vegetable restaurant was like an
explosion of actual flavour, and I didn’t feel like garbage
after I ate there. There was a booklet on the table that a
local activist group had left and I read it while I was
waiting. It talked about factory farming, routine
mutilations and other abuses of animals, the resource
inefficiency of raising and killing animals for food, and
the health implications of a vegan diet. I was stunned. I
loved animals, I had always loved animals, but I never
thought of them when I ate meat. I never thought of
meat as an animal. And I had no idea what modern
farming looked like or the damage it was doing. So, I
resolved to go vegan. And then my resolve broke. So I
resolved again. And broke again…but one of those times,
my resolve stuck!
When talking to other Christians about
animals and veganism, what are the
biggest challenges you deal with?
I find, in this regard, that there isn’t a big difference
between Christians and others. A lot of people, Christian
BAREFOOTVegan | 74
or not, hold the same misconceptions that I did about how
animals are raised and killed for food, what those
processes look like. Once the truth about industrial
farming is exposed, many people (again, Christian or not)
feel at a bit of a loss for how to go about making more
compassionate choices. Eating is a deeply complex act for
many of us and food is so tied up in our family and social
traditions that the thought of making a drastic change can
be overwhelming for people. “What do I do now?” and
“How do I talk to my family and friends about this
change?” are the most common questions we see.
The first book of the Bible – Genesis –
explains that God has given humans
‘dominion’ over the animals. All
theologians agree on this, but what are the
main sticking points that come when
defining ‘dominion’?
The vast majority of people I’ve encountered agree that
dominion can’t be interpreted to mean, “do whatever you
want, with impunity.” I’ve talked to a very few individuals
who would argue that, but they do not represent the
majority of Christians. I think the trouble comes in
understanding that when we interpret dominion to mean
“use for food,” that comes with a host of consequences
now that couldn’t have been seen thousands of years ago.
So, we have to ask what dominion now looks like, and