By Susan Hogan*
Jan. 21, 2010 | CHICAGO (UMNS)

After becoming a Christian in the 1970s, something unexpected happened to Fred Hoffman.

His appetite changed. He stopped eating meat.

By the time he became a United Methodist minister in the 1980s, he'd given up dairy products, too. He felt bolstered in his views by John Wesley.

"Wesley advocated a plant-based diet," said Hoffman, 80, of Coxsackie, N.Y. "He knew that animal products made people sick."

Hoffman argues that Wesley was a sporadic vegetarian—a view that doesn't always sit well with other United Methodists. They know Wesley as a great teacher, theologian and evangelist.

What he ate for supper isn't the usual fodder of Sunday school.

Part-time vegetarian

But some United Methodist theologians who've studied the issue say Wesley did forgo meat occasionally for health reasons.

"There's no doubt about it—he followed a vegetarian diet from time to time," said Randy Maddox, a United Methodist theologian and John Wesley specialist at Duke University.

"He never made that a requirement, and it wasn't his consistent practice," Maddox said.

Until the last decade or so, many Americans dismissed vegetarians as faddists.

Now, plant-based diets are widely embraced in the mainstream, according to Dr. Stephen Kaufman, chair of the 6,000-member Christian Vegetarian Association in Ohio. While some people disavow meat for health reasons, many Christians are motivated by their spirituality, Kaufman said.

"They're concerned for the welfare of God's creatures, stewardship of the land and caring for their bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit," said Kaufman, a member of the United Church of Christ.

Where’s the beef?

In rural cattle-rich Mitchell, S.D., home of the "World's Only Corn Palace," the Rev. Donna Hillman McLaird said she's never considered a vegetarian lifestyle.

"My folks raised beef and lamb; that's part of our rural culture," said McLaird, 68, a retired United Methodist pastor. "I remember my grandpa wringing the necks of the chicken."

She plans to continue eating meat for the rest of her days.

The Rev. Rob Hamilton of Glenview United Methodist Church in Illinois said he, too, grew up on a farm.

"I can see the health benefits to being vegetarian," he said. "There's the whole justice issue about how meat is produced in our country, too."

Still, he's only had fleeting thoughts of going vegan.

"I eat meat out of habit," he said. "I like it."

Health benefit

Wesley stopped eating meat at times because it made him feel better, said Charles Wallace, a religion scholar and chaplain at Willamette University in Salem, Ore.

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"He believed that what you eat makes you more or less healthy," Wallace said. "I don't recall him being exercised by that in any direct way."

Hoffman said it wasn't health, but compassion that drove him to become vegan. For the past 12 years, he's called for the compassionate treatment of animals on his Web site, http://www.all-creatures.org.

"We encourage churches to be more sensitive to animals," he said. "We don't want ministers getting into pulpits on Sunday and talk about the deer they shot on Saturday."

Maddox said Wesley ate animals while also crusading for their welfare.

"At one time, if an Anglican priest preached against cock fighting, they were accused of being Methodist," Maddox said.

Wesley also broke from other theologians by arguing for the salvation of animals.

"I don't think every member of The United Methodist Church needs to be a vegetarian," Hoffman said. "I just want them to open their minds to what the founder taught."

*Hogan is a freelance writer based in Chicago.

News media contact: David Briggs, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.  

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John Wesley on Diet and Health

Resources

all-creatures.org

Christian Vegetarian Association

Glenview United Methodist Church