The World Health Organisation has classified red meat as a possible cause for cancer. The Minister of Health has held a media briefing to assure us that "Yes you can eat ham for Christmas."
It amazes me that the very food that the Messiah condemned has become the gourmet on the celebration of his birth. In Matthew 7:6 he states: "Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces."
And in Peter 2:22 it is stated very clearly why the pig is abhorrent: "A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire (filth)."
The real injunction, however, which condemns the eating of pork can be found in Deuteronomy 14:8. "And the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, it is unclean unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcass."
Is it not a mockery that in the celebration of Jesus' birth, we call for the consumption of the very food that he condemns on the basis of Biblical teachings?
Imaam Iqbal Hydal,
Felicity