God Lovers Are All Vegan – Interview with the Reverend Father John Ryder (vegan), Part 1 of 2

“I am a Christian, therefore I am vegan.” – this powerful statement was coined by the Reverend Father John Ryder, a retired parish priest of All Saints church, in Godshill, Isle of Wight, England. The respected Father is also a spokesperson for Christian Vegetarians & Vegans UK, an organization that defends vegan Christians for their benevolent plant-based diet, inspires other spiritual people to follow suite, as well as sets shining examples to the world that true followers of Jesus are always vegan at heart.

“If you take the whole Bible completely, one starts at the beginning with God creating man and giving him a totally fruitarian diet. Since we’ve been given the Holy Spirit, we are capable of living without that (meat and animal sacrifices) and therefore we should be following the diet given to us at the beginning of Genesis and which was predicted to be, through Isaiah, the diet of Heaven, where no killing is ever continence.”

“If you consider God wants us to be lords of the Earth, we should follow His example. He is our Lord. He doesn't kill us or eat us. He loves us and sacrificed Himself for us. If we are going to be masters of the Earth, lords of the Earth, we should be honoring God by following His example and be willing to sacrifice ourselves for their sake (animal-people), not the other way around.”

“If we believe God to be a God of love, and no God of love would want harm or hurt or fear; there cannot be a life, a world without hurt, fear and death if we kill to eat. Unfortunately, far too many people put humans on far too high a pedestal. We may be the highest animal but we are a fellow animal, and we need to look at that - that the other animals have the same capacity for fear, for feeling, for pain that we do. If we cannot love them, who we can see, how can we love God who we cannot see?”

“(Animal-people are meant) to be our companions, and there are many references throughout the Bible to animals being there to help to show us the glory of God and to praise God with us.”