Pigs and Piety: A Theocentric Perspective on Food Animals

Theological discussions can be abstract and hard to apply, but I do not want this one to be. The reason is that I want to convince you to adopt a specific stance toward food animals. The best way for me to do this is by telling you my story. I am a Mennonite, and we, typically, are rural folk. I do not know whether every other Christian sect or denomination has more farmers per capita than we do, but I would be surprised if Presbyterians or Catholics had a higher ratio. Mennonites aspire to live simply and peacefully, and those who farm try to farm in a way that returns to the land as much as we take out of the land. In Story County, Iowa, where I live, the simplest and most sustainable way to farm is called family farming, where you raise grains in summer and feed them to livestock in winter. You use the manure to supply nitrogen fertilizer to your pastures and fields, and you sell your pigs and cows at auction when they are fat. On family, or mixed, farms, the rearing and selling oflivestock is the raison d'etre of the operation, and the operation is, in the current jargon, sustainable, ecologically balanced, and consistent with principles of Christian stewardship. Three initial confessions. I am not a farmer; my theological convictions are informed as much by the Reformed tradition as by the Anabaptist; and I am not nearly as virtuous as William Hedgepeth's paean to hogsurrounded Iowans would lead you to believe. I know something about the way mixed farms operate, and I know something about the way Mennonites think. I know, too, that Hedgepeth is right; there are eight times as many pigs in my state as people. But, contrary to what my mother thinks, I am not a moral virtuoso. Neither am I interested in defending received traditions about family farms, or sectarian theology, or the supposed angelic effects of boars and sows on people. I am interested in drawing on the wisdom invested in the practice of family farming and the reasoning of theologians and philosophers in order to answer this question: Is it in God's will to raise and eat pigs? In the conclusion to a book called Is There A Moral Obligation to Save the Family Farm?, I argued in 1987 that mixed farms are the most politically viable institution for meeting obligations concerning food