“So much equity, that all flesh would experience salvation”
An interview with pastor & organizer Aline Silva
To wrap up our MEAT issue, we’re featuring an interview with Aline (Ah-lee-nee) Silva — an organizer, pastor, preacher, and life coach writing to us from the unceded lands of the Tequesta, Taino, and Seminole peoples, namely South Florida, USA.
I connected with Aline two years ago for a research project on faith-based approaches to fighting ‘Big Meat’, i.e., industrial animal agriculture. At that time, she was the executive director of a farmed animal welfare organization where she founded and led an intensive and selective fellowship for environmentalists, Christian animal advocates, food/seed/land sovereignty activists, and food security advocates seeking to care for the well-being of animals farmed as food.
I was deeply inspired by our conversation; long-time FFJ readers will know that I grew up in a culturally Jewish yet spiritually ambivalent household, and the links between theology and human and non-human animal liberation were not something that had previously been on my radar. It’s so easy to get stuck in our own bubbles, and speaking to Aline reminded me of the power of faith to inspire communities to walk new and different paths together.
We’re thrilled to feature an interview with Aline on plant-based eating, intersectionality, and faith. Aline shares herself as a queer, Black & Indigenous immigrant of Brasil to the US, and chooses not to eat non-human animals, whom she considers her fellow worshippers of God. – Isabela
Aline, it’s so wonderful to reconnect. Can you tell us about your background and work?
I was born in Sao Paulo, Brasil to a Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) and Roman Catholic (RC) family and grew up between the cities of Cotia and Itapevi, just on the outskirts of the city of Sao Paulo. They taught me everything about religious eating, caring for animals, and loving the natural world. While my SDA family taught me about vegetarianism for health reasons, my RC family taught me about fasting and eating salted cod on Holy Fridays.
In my experience, Christian leadership and ministry have taken many forms. But perhaps the most significant has taken place on my plate and in my work centering non-human animals. I have found that honestly thinking about my plate as Christian praxis in a world of disordered eating, food insecurity, and climate change is an integral part of doing church ministry that is relevant for this time and place. I have taken as a spiritual practice to abstain from eating animals or commodifying any fruits of their labour. As such I have fasted and I have been plant-based since 2010 when I suddenly became aware of our current industrial agriculture practices and how they prevent non-human creatures from worshiping the Creator while at the same time oppressing humans who work in the industry, polluting communities with desecrating operations, and exacerbating food insecurity and apartheid. As I will further unpack, the farming of animals has permeated many areas of my and my community's lives due to colonization and a theology of domination.
What does being plant-based mean to you?
As a first-generation immigrant from Brasil to the United States, boycotting Big Meat, Big Ag, and Big Dairy is a way for me to take loving action for my community with every meal. Most field workers are people of colour living in rural, low-income communities. Around 75% of field workers come from south of the US border and have either obtained a visa or are undocumented.1 These beloved siblings of mine are responsible for feeding people in North America and all over the world. They work in harsh conditions and are unable to demand safety because of their vulnerable, marginalized status. In the US, we can name numerous examples of this — one being the Immigration Customs Enforcement raid of a Mississippi chicken plant after migrant workers filed a sexual harassment complaint against their supervisor.
Similarly, in my native land of Brasil, COVID-19 cases can be traced to the meatpacking industry, which is mostly staffed by Indigenous persons who are also disproportionately affected by this virus and other disparities. Additionally, we know that as the largest producer of livestock in the Americas and the second-largest producer in the world, Brasil is responsible for the deforestation of the Amazon and Pantanal, the displacement of millions of Indigenous peoples, and the endangerment of many protected wild animal species. Notably, Big Ag in Brazil, with the support of 300 out of 500 congresspersons, is attempting to override the Supreme Court’s decision to support Indigenous land rights.
Writers and thinkers like Astra and Sunaura Taylor have noted the links between gender-based oppression and the subordination of non-human animals. How do these links come to life for you?
As a Woman of Colour, especially of African and Native American descent born in Brasil, being plant-based and advocating for the welfare of animals farmed as food means caring for my sisters here and all over the world. Black and Indigenous women are the foundation of the church and the over-explored2 world’s agricultural economy. But we receive only a fraction of the land, training, and economic support that white cis heterosexual men. Women comprise 43% of agricultural labour worldwide (75% in Africa) and produce more than 80% of the foods required in food-insecure households and regions.3 Additionally, female animals farmed as food are the ones continuously impregnated for their milk while at the same time having their offspring kidnapped. Female animals are continuously measured and groped for larger breasts, thicker thighs, and efficient reproductive organs, while their male counterparts are either discarded or raised in total isolation. It is also interesting to note that the standards for good quality meat — including breast size — are set by wealthy, cis heterosexual, white men, and the industries they fund.4
Some insightful articles came out this year about the links between queerness and plant-based eating. What connections do you see between Queer lives and politics and industrial animal agriculture?
As a member of the queer community, I stand against all forms of oppression and violence. This includes abstaining from consuming products from large meat, agriculture, and dairy companies, and advocating for the well-being of farm and food workers as well as animals raised as food. By doing so, one thing I am doing is showing care for animals that are often mistreated and disposed of shortly after birth for not conforming to societal gender norms. Another thing I also do is challenge the industry's widespread use of hormones and antibiotics, which are readily available for cents on the dollar for the mass production of 74+ billion land animals annually, while necessary healthcare like hormone therapy for transgender individuals and universal healthcare for all remain inaccessible.
You’re a pastor. How do you bring your liberatory politics into your faith work?
I believe that my salvation and liberation from the evils of this world are interconnected with the salvation and liberation of others. This means that my well-being and ability to flourish, love myself and Creator are tied to others' ability to do the same. Looking at this through a power analysis, it's clear that Jesus deeply cared for those at the bottom of the social hierarchy of his time, and so were others when we examine the biblical narrative through a decolonial, anti-oppressive, pro-liberation lens. For example, Amos prophesied good news to the agrarian and the land, the lowest castes of his time. Similarly, the author of Luke, aware of the misuse of power and the ruling class's connection to the prevailing Empire, emphasized the need for repentance and the establishment of an equitable society. So much equity, that all created flesh would experience salvation (Luke 3:1-6).
While I don't read the Bible literally, this narrative excites me because it suggests that even the creatures on the bottom of God’s overfished seas, or the baby shrimps in the pet stores locked up behind plastic tanks, or the billions of animals we slaughter for food each year while creating a massively inequitable food growing, harvesting, distribution, and access system — even they and the land itself, will experience salvation and liberation from oppression when we build an equitable society.
There is an urgent need for the liberation of both animals and the people who work with them, as well as those who live in areas where these animals are overfished, raised in horrific conditions, improperly fed, mishandled, and subjected to inhumane transportation and slaughter. The environment is also desecrated in the process. This liberation is crucial for our survival and the well-being of current and future generations. Because of its urgency, I am focused on ministering to the care of animals, people, and the entirety of God's creation. If the Gospel is truly Good News, then it must be beneficial for everybody. As such, I enjoy engaging with the community to discern how our following of Jesus can inform the way we care for animals, the environment, and each other, particularly those affected by the actions of large-scale meat, dairy, and agriculture industries, here and all over the world. Together, we can dismantle oppressive systems so that the flesh can start to experience liberation, even now as we strive for an equitable society.
Aline Silva is the Senior Director of Environmental Justice & Policy and Housing Specialist at CARE, America’s first national Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Animal Welfare organization. She graduated from the University of Kansas and Central Baptist Theological Seminary, in Kansas, where she earned her BA in religious studies and MDiv respectively. In 2010 she earned the Outstanding Woman Student in Community Service Award from the University of Kansas. In 2017, she was the keynote speaker at Graduate Students Program and Convocation at Central Philippine University, Iloilo. Most recently, she was named one of Seven Spiritual Radicals to Follow Now by Spirituality and Health Magazine, 2021. When she is not at work you can find her dancing, and sharing life at the beach with her service animal, Paçoca (pa-saw-kah), and new rescue, Panda.
A Story of Impact: NIOSH Pesticide Poisoning Monitoring Program Protects Farmworkers.” Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Retrieved 3/3/2013 from http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2012-108/pdfs/2012-108.pdf.
I use the term “over-explored” rather than the commonly used phrases “developing world” and “third-world” because those are colonizer terms used to describe the very places and peoples colonizers have over-explored, over-extracted, and displaced.
Christopher Carter in the Society of Christian Ethics, Food Ethics in Practice, a joint presentation for JIFA and CreatureKind, Winter 2020.
A key example is Jeffrey Bezos, billionaire entrepreneur, and founder and executive chairman of Amazon, which also owns the influential grocery chain, Whole Foods. His fortune has funded such projects as a recent trip beyond Earth’s atmosphere on his private rocket. He is commonly under ethical scrutiny, as in this recent article: https://medium.com/the-interlude/another-reason-not-to-do-prime-day-the-whole-foods-ceo-has-no-understanding-of-food-justice-6f0fe7fa770b.