{"id":114486,"date":"2020-02-20T00:53:09","date_gmt":"2020-02-20T07:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=114486"},"modified":"2020-02-20T12:13:01","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T19:13:01","slug":"yes-you-can-eat-halal-and-kosher-cooking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2020\/02\/yes-you-can-eat-halal-and-kosher-cooking.html","title":{"rendered":"Yes, You Can Eat Halal Cooking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In a post a couple of months ago, Fr. Z tackles the question of whether Good Catholics can eat halal cooking<\/a>. The occasion of the discussion is that Evil Pope Francis had a banquet for 1500 of Rome\u2019s poor and, like a considerate host, made sure the food was acceptable to the Muslims who came.<\/p>\n

The discussion could have gone in any number of directions. You know:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. . But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.\u201d (Lk 14:12\u201314).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

or (since Fr. Z\u2019s reader is a Pharisee terribly upset that Evil Bergoglio is eating with Muslims):<\/p>\n

And as he sat at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, \u201cWhy does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?\u201d But when he heard it, he said, \u201cThose who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, \u2018I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.\u2019 For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.\u201d (Mt 9:10\u201313).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed, Fr. Z. could have just said, \u201cDude.\u00a0 He\u2019s the pope.\u00a0 Do you really think he\u2019s going worship idols?\u00a0 Chill.\u00a0 He was being considerate.\u00a0 You should try it too\u201d and not written such a lengthy reply.<\/p>\n

But no.\u00a0 Instead, he takes seriously a Muslim-hating bigot\u2019s paranoia that eating some halal food will give a Christian a dose of Muslim cooties and make him guilty of \u201cidol worship\u201d, concluding, \u201cTo be on the strict side, avoid halal meat if possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is what Jesus refers to as \u201ctying up heavy burdens for men\u2019s backs and not lifting a finger to help.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s also a rank case of theological chaos.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the deal: Islam inherits from Judaism the notion of ritually impure foods.\u00a0 Christianity does not.\u00a0 Not that Christians don\u2019t have foods they won\u2019t touch.\u00a0 Every culture does.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t believe me, have a nice heaping bowl of insect larva or a small, tasty glass of your own urine.\u00a0 Neither will do you any harm health-wise, but like most westerners, your revulsion will carry the day.\u00a0 Every culture has an \u201cick\u201d food group.\u00a0 Jews and Muslims have sacralized theirs.\u00a0 So their cultures relate the \u201cick\u201d response to food to their \u201cick\u201d response to sin.\u00a0 Christianity, on Christ\u2019s authority, severed that link (one of the things that made it possible for the Faith to reach a much broader Gentile audience):<\/p>\n

And he said to them, \u201cThen are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a man from outside cannot defile him, since it enters, not his heart but his stomach, and so passes on?\u201d (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, \u201cWhat comes out of a man is what defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man.\u201d (Mk 7:18\u201323).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So Paul remarks:<\/p>\n

For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews; to those under the law I became as one under the law\u2014though not being myself under the law\u2014that I might win those under the law.\u00a0 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law\u2014not being without law toward God but under the law of Christ\u2014that I might win those outside the law.\u00a0 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. (1 Co 9:19\u201322).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is how an evangelist thinks.\u00a0 Paul did not regard himself as bound by the ceremonial rites of Moses any more since he had died to the law in baptism. But when he was with Jews, he respected Jewish custom so as not to give unnecessary scandal.\u00a0 In short, when your neighbor takes off his shoes in his own home, don\u2019t be a jerk.\u00a0 Respect your neighbor\u2019s customs.\u00a0 In the same way, Paul respected the customs of Gentiles and didn\u2019t gripe about their weird menus but thanked them politely for their hospitality instead of trying to force them to eat what he liked.\u00a0 The Church has done the same ever since.\u00a0 It\u2019s why we have Christmas trees, ham at Easter, Easter eggs, and Our Lady of the Amazon statues.<\/p>\n

Likewise, Paul told his flock not to sweat what they ate.\u00a0 This was a scruple for some since lots of the meat you bought at market in Gentile cities came from animals ritually sacrificed in a pagan temple.\u00a0 Some Jewish Christians of tender conscience worried that this made them guilty of participating in the worship of the pagan god.\u00a0 Paul\u2019s advice is \u201cThank God for it and enjoy your steak.\u00a0 You are not participating in the sacrifice by eating it if you thank God for it.\u00a0 God owns all the cows.\u201d His one exception is if somebody of weak conscience might be led to think it is okay to worship the idol to which the sacrifice was offered.\u00a0 And to do him justice, Fr. Z notes all this accurately as he quotes Paul writing to the Corinthians:<\/p>\n

\u201cAll things are lawful,\u201d but not all things are helpful. \u201cAll things are lawful,\u201d but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.\u00a0Eat whatever is sold in the meat market\u00a0[including meat sacrificed to false idols]\u00a0without raising any question on the ground of conscience<\/strong>. For \u201cthe earth is the Lord\u2019s, and everything in it.\u201d\u00a0 If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience.\u00a0 (But if some one says to you, \u201cThis has been offered in sacrifice,\u201d then out of consideration for the man who informed you, and for conscience\u2019 sake\u2014 I mean his conscience, not yours\u2014do not eat it.<\/strong>) For why should my liberty be determined by another man\u2019s scruples? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But then, weirdly, he decides to credit the bogus notion that Muslims worship a \u201cfalse god\u201d, something directly denied by the Church:<\/p>\n

CCC 841: \u201cThe plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and\u00a0together with us they adore the one, merciful God<\/b>, mankind\u2019s judge on the last day.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I know, I know, I\u2019ve heard the bunk denying this.\u00a0 Some Reactionaries zero in on \u201cthese profess\u201d to try to say Muslims only \u201cclaim\u201d to worship the God of Abraham.\u00a0 That\u2019s why I bold the Church\u2019s own language to make clear the Church accepts the claim that they do worship the God of Abraham \u201ctogether with us\u201d.<\/p>\n

At this point the Reactionary reply is to say, \u201cYeah.\u00a0 But that\u2019s just post-Vatican II modernism.\u00a0 Back in the day, Catholics knew better.\u201d<\/p>\n

You mean back in 1076, when\u00a0Pope St. Gregory VII, wrote to the Muslim Sultan of Bougie in North Africa to say:<\/p>\n

For there is nothing which Almighty God, who wishes that all men should be saved and that no man should perish, more approves in our conduct than that a man should first love God and then his fellow men \u2026 Most certainly you and we ought to love each other in this way more than other races of men,\u00a0because we believe and confess one God, albeit in different ways<\/strong>, whom each day we praise and reverence as the creator of all ages and the governor of this world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You may believe that St. Gregory is a modernist worshiper of false gods, but I find that a tough sell.<\/p>\n

Reactionaries (typically westerners in the Latin rite who get their theology from FOX and whack job Protestant Fundamentalists by means of rumor and osmosis) love to claim that \u201cAllah\u201d is a \u201cfalse god\u201d because they hate Muslims and know nothing of their own Church\u2019s history.\u00a0 \u201cAllah\u201d is just the Arabic for God, just as \u201cGod\u201d is just the English transmogrification of \u201cGott\u201d which was just the translation of the Latin \u201cDeus\u201d which is just the Latin word which referred to the One God of Israel, the God of Abraham.\u00a0 Arabic-speaking Christians in the Middle East were worshiping Allah in the Divine Liturgy when Mohammed was a gleam in his great-grandfather\u2019s eye.\u00a0 They still worship Allah in the Maronite rite of the Catholic Church.\u00a0 Try telling Maronite Catholics they worship a false god.<\/p>\n

What really drives the whole \u201cMuslims worship a false god\u201d narrative is ignorant bigotry.\u00a0 It is the same ignorant bigotry that drives some Reactionary anti-semites to claim that Jews likewise worship a false god. (I\u2019ve actually seen claims from one Reactionary kook that you have to \u201cexorcise\u201d Jewish kosher dishes.) And it is false for the same reason.\u00a0 Jews and Muslims both worship the one God of Abraham, albeit without the perfecting revelation that comes through Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Some Muslim-haters insist that because Muslims don\u2019t believe in Jesus\u2019 divinity, they worship a false god.\u00a0 Among this subculture there are two smaller subcultures: those who refuse to face the fact that they also mean Jews worship a false god and those who eagerly embrace that lie since they hate Jews too.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, back in the Catholic Church there is a difference between worshiping what is not God (such as the sun or a beetle or a cat) and worshiping what is God imperfectly.<\/p>\n

All this means one thing as far as Fr. Z\u2019s reader goes: if one eats halal (or kosher) food one is not eating something sacrificed to a false god.\u00a0 If you think there is some imminent danger that eating shish kabob or a knish is really likely to lead your date at the Iranian restaurant or the deli into apostasy and conversion to Islam or Judaism, I would suggest that you dial back on the caffeine.\u00a0 I would also suggest that your bigotry against Muslims and Jews is probably far more like to repel people away from your Christianity than it is likely to make them convert to either religion.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, eat what you like and thank God for it through Christ our Lord.\u00a0 Also, avoid Fortress Catholicism, which gives not a thought to being a pleasant and considerate host to poor people in its obsessive need to find any excuse, no matter how silly, to attack the Holy Father.\u00a0 Instead, go out into the highways and byways and invite the poor to come and eat out of fearless Christian generosity and don\u2019t be afraid of cooties. It\u2019s what comes out of the heart, not what goes into the belly, that matters.<\/p>\n

For the kingdom of God does not mean food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. (Ro 14:16\u201317).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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