Thirteen Theses on Food Ethics

Since this has recently been pushed to the forefront of debate in Moscow circles, and is something my wife and I have been thinking about a lot ourselves, I decided to try to crystallize some thoughts in these thirteen theses.  They are not very eloquent or gripping, I'm afraid, but that's what happens when you're trying to cover all the bases.

As I believe Martin Luther showed us well, the point of posting theses is to get people to have at it.  So, if you have a desire to debate any of these, please do so:

1. Since God created us with bodies designed to work in certain ways and eat certain foods but not others, we have a duty before God to exercise good stewardship over our bodies, so that we can use them and our resources effectively in his service, rather than becoming weak or expending enormous resources on treating preventable diseases.  This means that we have a responsibility to eat food that will benefit, rather than destroy, our bodies.
   
2. Since God created food and drink in such a way as to give us great pleasure and enjoyment, we ought to gratefully accept and enjoy these gifts, rejoicing before him with each bite we eat and each sip we drink, and not scorning the great pleasures he has so kindly given us.  
3. In God’s providence, these two duties work together, rather than against one another.  That which is a blessing to our body should also be a joy to partake of, and that which is harmful to us should be unpleasant.  However, in a fallen world, we find that what is harmful to us seems at first sweet and pleasant, though it proves otherwise at the end, and what is good for us is often difficult at first--this is true in many areas of our lives, food included.  Nevertheless, as in the rest of our lives (sex, literature, exercise, etc.), diligent effort and training will move us beyond a childish appreciation of more shallow pleasures and help us to enjoy more richly and deeply that which is truly wholesome for us.  Therefore, we can expect that we will indeed find that our duty to rejoice in God’s good gifts of food will be best fulfilled by eating that which he designed for our nourishment.
4. Because food is no small matter, but is the very source of our life and health, the means by which we commune with one another, and, in the Sacrament, with God, we ought not to be careless with it, but ought to seek to understand what it is that we eat and drink, so that we may pursue responsibility to be well-informed about what we’re eating, so that we may enjoy it better and nourish ourselves better.
5. Of course every responsibility we have in life must be balanced with all others.  It is impossible for any man to successfully fulfill every godly demand on his time and attention.  Therefore, in pursuing these godly responsibilities regarding eating good food, no one should exalt them to the point of neglecting other responsibilities.  Therefore, it may well prove that due to other pressing demands on our time and money, we will have to compromise the pursuit of health and excellence in our food, and this being unavoidable, it is also above reproach when accompanied by a godly attitude. 
6. Eating well does not mean always eating the healthiest possible food, but pursuing, on the whole, a lifestyle of healthy and joyful eating.  Again, other areas of life can provide good analogies--the pursuit of excellence in art does not mean that every book we read or music we listen to must be a preeminent example of great art, but it does mean that we should not make the baser examples our daily fare.  
7. In addition to the responsibility we have to eat healthily, we have a responsibility not to purchase food products that have been produced in blatantly sinful ways.  Just as we should not buy cars from a used-car salesmen whom we know to have stolen the cars from old ladies, neither should we buy meat from farmers or corporations who abuse their animals (which is the case with the vast majority of meat in the US today), or coffee from farmers who have been oppressed or cheated.
8. In many cases (e.g., the exploitation of coffee farmers), there will be just cause for debate as to whether or not actual injustice has dominated the production process, but where there is not reasonable doubt about this, neither is their reasonable doubt regarding our responsibility.  
9. St. Paul’s statements about food and the indifference of what one eats are made in a very specific context of discouraging Pharisaic insistence on certain religious laws concerning food that divided a Christian community no longer bound by such laws.  To apply these very specific remarks to modern debates over whether or not to eat artificial, unethically-produced, or genetically-modified foods, as if Paul meant to say no ordinary criteria of prudence or ethical judgment applied in the realm of food, is careless and absurd.   
10. While learning to eat well and ethically is certainly a virtue, this does not mean that the failure to do so is in itself a sin.  Lack of time and resources, ignorance, and a different understanding of one’s duties before God are all legitimate reasons for failure to pursue excellence in this area.   Sin enters the picture when one freely, knowingly and willfully chooses to consistently eat food that is unhealthy and/or unethically produced, or when one remains willfully ignorant about the food one eats, for fear of having to change.
11. Therefore, the pursuit of eating well, and the encouraging of others in that pursuit, is not legalism, as many have charged.  It would be legalism to insist that every failure to do so is sin, or to draw artificial lines in the sand about what constituted righteous and unrighteous eating.  However, the cultivation of healthy attitudes and practices, the discouragement of unhealthy ones, and the condemnation of blatant indifference, sloth and irresponsibility is no legalism, but a godly quest for virtue.  
12. Even this, of course, may be done with an arrogant, judgmental, and legalistic attitude, and this should be condemned.  But one can take a certain position with a legalistic attitude, without thereby making that position legalistic.  
13. The quest for virtue in this area must be a communal undertaking, rather than mere individualistic moralizing, if it is not to become a source of strife, arrogance, and division.