Halal meat

[yeutter]

My favorite Indian restaurant in East Lansing now advertises that their meat is Halal. Some of my Christian friends will not join me there for lunch; saying we should treat Halal meat like meat offered to idols. In Thailand and Burma many of my Christian friends only buy Halal meat for sanitation reasons. What should our attitude be towards Halal meat?

 

[SolaScriptura]

Your attitude should be: if you like the way it tastes, why not?



That said, a more accurate analogy for Halal food would not be to compare it to food offered to idols, but to instead compare it to Kosher food - "clean" food meant to keep one from being defiled. And the NT clearly speaks about how we should consider the Kosher dietary laws of the Old Covenant.

 

[Edward]

Some of my Christian friends will not join me there for lunch; saying we should treat Halal meat like meat offered to idols.

Tell them to go through their pantry and give you everything with a circled U or a K that's been certified Kosher.

On the few airplane flights that still have meal service, if you order a Kosher meal or a Halal meal, you're going to get the same meal (and frequently if you order vegetarian).

Yes, there are some differences between Kosher and Halal, but there is a large overlap.

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

This is a contentious issue in Europe and the UK:

Europe Goes Halal :: Gatestone Institute

Supermarkets selling halal meat without clear labelling | News | The Christian Institute

 

[Stephen L Smith]

It seems to me that 1 Cor 9 is even "stricter" on the use of Christian liberty than Rom 14
10 For if someone sees you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols? 11 For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died. 12 And so, by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble.

 

[PhilA]

This is a contentious issue in Europe and the UK:

Europe Goes Halal :: Gatestone Institute

Supermarkets selling halal meat without clear labelling | News | The Christian Institute

Steve

So far as I am aware halal meat has not been a contentious issue in the UK. Now clear labelling....now your talking! Top news item today on TV and most on-line news outlets. "Enquiry into horsemeat in burgers".

 

[Curt]

I try to avoid halal meats (although I'm not interested in searching through my kitchen cabinets). I admit that my reasons are not Biblical.

 

[smhbbag]

I try to avoid halal meats (although I'm not interested in searching through my kitchen cabinets). I admit that my reasons are not Biblical.

I also avoid them, and totally apart from the meat sacrificed to idols issue.

I don't want any expression of Islamic religion or culture to become commonplace in my country. Islam is from the pit of hell (a pit even deeper than our many current evils). And Americans have a strange way of finding such things alluring or using them to scratch their itches for 'diversity' or multiculturalism. I could easily see the image of Islam being softened and spread even by such seemingly small things as halal food offerings. No thanks.

 

[Pergamum]

Sacred cows make tasty hamburgers.

 

[earl40]

Sacred cows make tasty hamburgers.

 

[Curt]

Sacred cows make tasty hamburgers

Cheeseburgers!

 

[arapahoepark]

Sacred cows make tasty hamburgers

Cheeseburgers!

Speaking of which...I had this the other day: http://www.rockbottom.com/media/k2/items/cache/a42a2aa6c7440291c38ba9adc5892a56_XL.jpg

 

[Raj]

We don't eat Halal meat or any other production, if we know that it is that, not for health reason but for the cause of a recitation of muslim kalma on it.

 

[Pergamum]

Can you explain Raj?

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

I think the Muslim prayer goes like this (with some variation depending on translation): "In the name of Allah; Allah is the greatest [or most merciful]"

Researching this a little, it seems that both Kosher and Halal slaughter are identical, save that in the Kosher only one prayer is said over the first animal (and some sources include the last), while in Halal it should be said over every animal; also the Jews will only consider the front part of the animal (with cattle or sheep), while the Muslims the whole animal. Also the Jews will remove certain veins and nerves, and soak the dead animal in salt water to remove all blood, and Halal skips these. But the physical slaughtering seems to be the same, i.e., without stunning (although some do stun).

See: http://www.animalhandling.org (caveat: in this linked secular article, they say that the God / Allah of the Christians, Jews, and Muslims is the same God, but this is decidedly not true, for the Allah of Islam is revealed through the Koran, and the spirit revealed is not of the true God; with regard to the 'G-d' of Judaism, Messiah Yeshua – Jesus in English – said that those who denied Him denied His Father, and did not know God; so the god of Messiah-denying Jews is also not the true God.)

Phil A: check the link above to the Christian Institute (and other articles they link to) to see the contention. Perhaps you are just not aware of it. The CI is a great source for 'intelligence' on spiritual developments in the UK.

 

[Philip]

If I'm not causing my brother to stumble in my consumption of halal food, then I will eat it and thank God for it.