V. A. Holmes-Gore

Vincent Arthur Holmes-Gore (1909 – 8 September 1952) was an English clergyman and writer best known for his advocacy of Christian vegetarianism.

Career

Holmes-Gore obtained a B.A. from Keble College, Oxford in 1931 and studied at Cuddesdon Theological College. He was ordained in 1933 at Exeter Cathedral as a deacon. In 1941 he became Rector of Doddiscombsleigh.

Beliefs

Marriage

Holmes-Gore defended the Christian idea of marriage and rejected Pauline ascetic pronouncements on marriage as non-Christian and Manichean. He believed that divorce was allowed in certain circumstances. His views on marriage are expressed in his book New Morals for Old, published in 1938. He was the author of Christ or Paul? which was described as an expansion of the work of the Tübingen School which highlighted a serious conflict of ideas between Paul and the other disciples of Jesus. He was a speaker at meetings of the Gloucester Vegetarian Society. He authored an article in the autumn 1947 issue of The Vegetarian World Forum, "Was the Master a Vegetarian?" which argued that verses in the New Testament that mention meat were mistranslated from the original Greek. According to Holmes-Gore an accurate translation for the word meat meant "the act of eating food" and not the flesh of animals. He argued that Jesus was a vegetarian, commenting that "the idea of the blessed Master giving his sanction to the barbaric habit of flesh eating is a tragic delusion foisted upon the Church by those who never knew Him."

Personal life

Holmes-Gore was married and had no children.

Death

Holmes-Gore had a nervous breakdown after resigning from his job due to ill health.

Selected publications

[With Geoffrey L. Rudd] [First edition, published in 1941]