Here’s a good lecture on our relationship to animals from a Christian perspective by Matthew Halteman, a Calvin College philosopher. He also contributes to a blog on these themes here.

Prof. Halteman conceptualizes “compassionate eating” as a Christian discipline, which he defines as a repetitive daily practice undertaken to narrow the gap between who we are and who we should be. In terms of diet, compassionate eating is a holistic approach to eating that is sensitive to human, animal, and environmental concerns. Halteman says that there are a continuum of responses to the issue of factory farming, from eating humanely raised meat, to vegetarianism, to veganism, but the baseline is opposition to a system of food production that causes extreme animal suffering, degrades the environment, and fosters inequity and exploitation. While his own preferred position is a vegan one, there’s no reason that anyone can’t take incremental steps toward more compassionate eating without committing to a wholesale vegan lifestyle. (The talk was originally given on Ash Wednesday, and he suggest restricting animal products during Lent as a start.)

While making more responsible choices doesn’t extricate us from responsibility for all the ills that our system of industrial agriculture contributes to, it can be a “symbolic commitment to seeking authenticity in imitation of Christ as a witness, agent, and evidence of the coming kingdom.” This stance helps us, he thinks, to avoid self-righteousness and a kind of moral utopianism that thinks that we can fix all the ills of a fallen world. That said, he thinks that being more intentional about our food choices can have many practical beneficial effects, like improving our personal health, connecting us with those who produce our food (by, e.g. patronizing farmers’ markets), increasing our sense of compassion for all sentient creatures, etc.