With alternatives to conventional meat receiving more research and media attention, philosophical issues related to animal life and the morality of eating meat might be prompted to one's attention more frequently or in different ways than they would have been in past generations. As with so many things, what Christianity teaches on the matter would offend many political conservatives and liberals alike who mistake politics for the center of reality rather than the necessary truths of logic, God (the uncaused cause), and any actual moral obligations that exist. What are the key obligations here if Christianity is true? Deuteronomy 12:15 and 20-22 say that people are invited to eat kosher meat like that of the deer or gazelle when they crave it, as long as they do not eat the blood (Deuteronomy 12:16, 23-25, 15:21-23, Leviticus 17:10-14, 19:26, Genesis 9:4).
In Deuteronomy 12, the Bible allows humans the consumption of meat from certain creatures in response to what the text calls a craving for meat, though the separate verses addressing what kinds of animals should not ever be eaten [1] (Leviticus 11:1-23, Deuteronomy 14:1-21) permit some kinds of meat as it is. Similarly, the repeated command in Mosaic Law to not eat meat with blood does not condemn having meat itself (and Deuteronomy 4:2 and 12:32 are of course relevant here). Genesis 9:1-4 also sees God explicitly invite people to eat meat after the flood given that they do not consume blood, though the prior verses of Genesis 7:1-3 and 8-9 clarify that the distinctions between clean and unclean animals tied to the dietary commands of Mosaic Law were already present and were not ignored (see also Leviticus 20:25). God's nature does not change (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17) and thus the dietary obligations rooted in his nature would not have differed just because Mosaic Law had not been formally revealed by the time of the great flood.
What does this not necessitate? For one thing, God does not say that people have to eat meat. Because humans have the image of God moreso than other animals (Genesis 1:26-27, 5:1-2), for humans are animals and any animal consciousness would make a biological creature like God in that respect, this is not evil when done so that humans can continue living. It is up to them to abstain if they wish, though there is nothing inherently immoral about killing and eating kosher animals for the sake of human survival. For another thing, however, since Deuteronomy 12 and verses elsewhere do not prescribe the killing of animals for meat, as it is only permitted, it does not logically preclude replacing natural meat with lab-grown or synthetic meat under the right technological circumstances. In fact, this is what would be morally obligatory in light of the doctrines other passages of the Bible—more specifically, the Torah, as usual—teach.
Genesis 1:20-25, 31, 7:15, and 21-23 collectively teach that the first animals (nothing about Genesis in itself conflicts with theistic evolution!) are living creations of Yahweh, that they are very good like the rest of creation left to itself (Genesis 1:31), and that they, like humans (Genesis 2:7), have the breath of life. They are conscious, and they have moral value. To kill them needlessly is to mistreat them and sin against their creator. Yes, killing them for food, given that they are not in the prohibited categories of animals, is not sinful on its own, but what of when artificial meat that is both no less healthy than the natural kind while also being plant-based is available? Or what if the meat is grown in a laboratory from animal cells as with cultivated meat, but without the killing of the animal? With the additional factor of it being affordably priced, it would obviously be morally right on the Christian worldview to choose synthetic meat over that which an animal must die for.
At that point, killing an animal would become needless since it can be sidestepped to obtain an economically accessible and nutritious meat substitute. It would no longer be actual meat, but this would be for the best. Even the consumption of plants involves the killing of a living thing as far as all sensory observation suggests. There would accordingly be no such thing as avoiding the death of a living thing by becoming vegan. With synthetic or cultivated meat becoming more normalized, it would follow logically from other ideas in Christianity that they would be not just the better choice, but also the obligatory choice by Biblical standards (if accessible/affordable and equivalently nutritious) wherever they are a substitute for meat derived from the killing of animals. There is nothing sinful about craving meat either way, because eating meat is not automatically, universally sinful and because involuntary desires cannot be immoral. Eating meat is not Biblically evil. Needless killing of animals or cruel treatment for the sake of obtaining meat would be.
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