Halal

Early Christians were regularly admonished not to eat 'food offered to idols'. Here are a few ideas about what this might mean. Starting with 'halal'. We lived opposite a 'halal' butchery. Having had an unpleasant experience with issues over islam, i became wary of all things connected with it. Knowing what 'kosher' meant, i understood that the killing of meat had to be done in such a way that the blood did not remain in the flesh, it needed to be allowed to bleed out of the animal, because 'the life is in the blood', and as a result, the eating of blood was forbidden. Halal follows the same general guideline, with one specific difference. At the slaying, the abbatoir worker faces Mecca and offers the animal as a sacrifice to allah, praying over it that allah is the great god etc. This was confirmed by the halal butchery opposite us. This to me, is offering a sacrifice to an idol, for allah is not the Christian God. Food outlets like Pizza Express, Nandos, KFC, Redhot and Subway are pretty much all halal. They don't advertise this though, unless explicitily asked if you ar eating halal meat. This is pretty offensive. One does not expect halal in the West. Then there is the more specific explanation where the Greek word for 'sacrifices to idols' has been examined by men of learning. One outcome of this is that 'sacrifices to idols' is that which commonly took place in communities at that time, amd still does in some communities today. This is where a meal is partaken in a shrine set up for the dead. The shrine may be large or small, but the theme behind the offering stays the same. Because of the amounts of alcohol consumed at these gatherings, impropriety easily resulted, manifested by sexual immorality among the guests. There is ofcourse always the option of going vegetarian. That solves the 'halal' issue, but does not solve the 'meal to the dead' issue. El Salvador, for instance, honour their dead with a display of flowers. If you believe, God is a God of the living, and we all live before Him, then graveside vigils are unnecessary. It is better to aim for the fullness of the Holy Spirit in this life and hope for eternal life, making love your aim now, while you can.