Pork-Eating In Christianity: A Religio-Historical Perspective

By Sumit Paul, New Age Islam 13 July 2023 All three Semitic or Abrahamic faiths, viz, Judaism, Christianity and Islam have lots of similarities. That's why the followers of these faiths are collectively called 'Ahle-Kitab' (People of the Book). Yet, it's interesting to observe that while pork is prohibited in Judaism and Islam, it's integral to the dietary menu and milieu of Christianity. X-mas feasts are incomplete without roasted turkey and pork. Why didn't Christianity also give up pork despite being chronologically sandwiched between Judaism and Islam? At the same time, it must be mentioned that Christianity has no dietary bindings like Kosher and Halal. Even a devout Christian will eat any kind of meat prepared by Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Zoroastrians (all these faiths not following Halal or Kosher), but a Jew or Muslim will refrain from eating meat which is not cooked according to their ritualistic parameters. This was mentioned by the late Edward W Said in a long article that appeared in the NYT. Readers may be aware that pristine Christianity also followed the concept of Halal and not eating pork (early Christians believed that Jesus never ate pork). But of all the three Semitic faiths, Christianity has always been much more open to 'acculturation process'. It adapted itself to the cultures of the new places and assimilated their practices in order to spread the faith (Christianity). Historically, Christianity came to India in 52 AD, though it has been proven that Jesus' one of the twelve apostles Thomas of ' the doubting Thomas fame' didn't bring it to India's southern belt. He never visited India. Missionaries and Christian traders were already active two millennia ago in evangelization. Judaism had an almost negligible presence on the sub-continent and Islam was yet to come into existence. The non-pork eating Christians two millennia ago mingled with the meat-eating sub-continental Hindus and Buddhists, two liberal meat-eating communities with no restrictions on meat of any animal. Edward W Said and Professor Hamilton Gibb opined that missionaries were very shrewd people and they knew that they'd not be able to break the certain patterns and habits of lifestyle of the people who lived there since time immemorial. The missionaries didn't hurt those beliefs of the natives. Rather they adopted many! The interaction with the people of the sub-continent resulted in Christianity giving up its rigid stand on Halal and pork. Pork has been very common in Buddhist community right from its inception over 2500 years ago. It's worthwhile to state that Buddha died from eating undercooked pork. Missionaries found it very convenient to start eating pork and project themselves as a part of early Buddhism with a view to eventually converting them to Christianity. They (missionaries) also spread a canard that their Jesus came to the sub-continent (Kashmir) after resurrection, just to confuse the Muslims and take the credit that their Christ was the first mystic and the father of Islamic mysticism. They still try to prove that the 'resurrected' Jesus had a tomb near Anantnag in Kashmir. Needless to say, this is all balderdash. Just to convert more and more sub-continental people, the early Judaistic Christianity allowed many changes to occur and interpolations to get accrued to its corpus. Eating pork was one of those 'additions'. ---- A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several languages including Persian. URL: https://newageislam.com/interfaith-dialogue/pork-christianity-religio-historical-perspective/d/130200 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism