Happy World Vegan Day: A Return to Eden and the Vegan Christ. By Dr Chapman Chen

1. What it is:

World Vegan Day is an annual day of celebration and reflection observed globally on 1 November. It marks not just plant-based living, but a commitment to non-violence (ahimsa), compassion, ecological responsibility, and spiritual integrity.

2. Origins:

World Vegan Day was established in 1994 by Louise Wallis, then Chair of The Vegan Society (UK), to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Society (founded in 1944). Donald Watson, who coined the term “vegan” that same year, defined veganism as a movement to end the exploitation of animals entirely, not merely a diet.

3. Meaning:

World Vegan Day is not a “food festival.” Food is the entry point — but the heart of veganism is ethical and spiritual:

3.1. Animals are not property. They are co-creatures with their own lives, joys, and purposes.

3.2. Violence against the vulnerable corrupts the human soul.

3.3. Peace begins on our plates and radiates outward — to families, societies, and the natural world.

In other words, veganism is a moral stance, not a cuisine.

4. In a theological frame

World Vegan Day is a remembrance of the original peace of Eden, where humans and animals lived without harm (Genesis 1:29–30). It is a calling back to the messianic future foreseen in Isaiah, where “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain” (Isaiah 11:9). It is a quiet protest against the sacrificial cult of domination and slaughter that has scarred human history.

Significantly, it honours Jesus the Vegan Christ, who famously declared, “I desire compassion, NOT sacrifice!” (Matthew 9:13, 12:7). And it continues those early Christian, Jewish, and philosophical traditions that rejected animal sacrifice — Essenes, Ebionites, Nazarenes, Pythagoreans, Buddhist and Jain monastic orders, and many early Christian saints.

5. Why November 1 matters specifically:

Coming immediately after Halloween (Oct 31) and before All Souls & All Saints (Nov 1–2), the date symbolically calls us to move from darkness into reverence, from death and fear to compassion and blessing, and from the old world built on slaughter to a new world rooted in mercy

It is, in a sense, a liturgical hinge from the “old creation” to the “new.”

Full Text: https://www.vegantheology.net/post/happy-world-vegan-day-a-return-to-eden-and-the-vegan-christ-by-dr-chapman-chen