Walking down a road paved with churches, I approach a large building whose bright orange awning beckons me from down the block. The establishment, Sea Town Fish & Meat Market, is staffed by neighborly workers who call me bebecita when I ask them to weigh my tilapia and salmon. I am there on yet another Friday morning to pick up fresh fish for one of my Lenten devotions: eating fish on Fridays.
I initially chose this discipline because I thought it would be a good challenge, as I’ve never practiced any type of strict diet before. I also thought it would require me to be more mindful of my food choices and how they honor God. I was vaguely aware that seafood production tends to have a smaller carbon footprint than terrestrial agriculture, so the practice felt like a way to marry my spiritual devotions with my ethical goal of minimizing my environmental impact. Finally, I figured that if generations of Christians had been undertaking this practice for millennia, then there must be a good reason for it. Why not try it out for myself?
Christians have always been a bit obsessed with fish. Sea life is all over the gospels: In John 6, Jesus feeds 5,000 people with only five loaves of bread and two fish; in Matthew 13, the kingdom of God is described as a fish net cast into the sea; in Mark 1, Jesus calls on his disciples to become “fishers of men.” Then, of course, there’s the ichthys (commonly known as the “Jesus fish”), a symbol used by early believers to communicate with each other to avoid persecution by the Roman Empire.
The practice of eating fish on Fridays can be traced back to the first century CE when Christians, stopped eating the meat of warm-blooded animals on Fridays in observance of Jesus’ crucifixion. Most fish are cold-blooded and were also plentiful along the Mediterranean Sea, so it become the Friday meal of choice for early believers. The modern form of the tradition is less stringent, with observers only adhering to the diet during holy days; this relaxation of the rule was codified for many Christians in 1966 when Pope Paul VI amended the Catholic requirement to only apply during Lent.
In Fish on Friday: Feasting, Fasting, and the Discovery of the New World anthropologist Brian Fagan highlights how throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the church’s tradition of eating fish on holy days “created a vast market for fish that could not be fully satisfied” by the stocks of fish in the Old World. Fishermen began migrating westward, decimating regional fish stocks as they did, until they reached the “New World” and settled permanently. Historically, Christian settlers set a precedent for overfishing that continues today.
Today, one-third of the world’s fisheries are being pushed beyond sustainable levels, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. In April, President Donald Trump issued an executive order opening a large marine protected zone in the Pacific for commercial fishing.
Modern overfishing is often related to “bycatch,” when industrial fisheries unintentionally capture unwanted sea creatures while fishing for different species. These bycatch fish are often discarded by throwing the dead or dying animals back into the sea because they are not commercially viable or are illegal to sell. Bycatch results in the unnecessary and unintentional loss of billions of fish, sea turtles, and other marine life annually. Marine biologists warn that yet another recent executive order by Trump may contribute to the loss of marine life. The order seeks to suspend, revise, or rescind aquaculture-related regulations, which could exacerbate the already immense negative effects of industrial fishing.
Becca Franks, an assistant professor of environmental studies at New York University, spoke with me about bycatch and the current state of the ocean over a Zoom call in April.
“The oceans are really under incredible stress,” she said. Climate change has caused the oceans to warm, and thus lowered their capacity to carry oxygen, leading the fish to “suffocate.” “In some cases, it’s not even clear that wild-caught fish [are] better than farmed fish, because the methods by which they’re catching the fish [cause] so much bycatch.”
When asked if there were actionable steps to balance the Christian dietary practice of eating fish on Fridays with sustainability considerations, she shared a difficult truth.
“We’re going further out into the ocean than we ever have before,” Franks explained. “We’re creating bigger ships than we ever have before. New technology to go deeper than we ever have before. And the global catch has flatlined for the past several decades, despite us throwing more and more and more resources at it. I think the ocean is done with us. We need to back off.”
Franks’ comments highlighted that Christians need to recognize the realities of ecosystem destabilization and the climate catastrophes we have historically contributed to. It seems as though we will need to take more drastic measures than adopting a pescatarian diet in order to address the climate crisis.
In his 2024 article “Eat Lovingly: Christian Ethics for Sustainable and Just Food Systems,” Philip Grabowski offers a framework for considering food choices alongside our faith. Grabowski, who teaches at Taylor University and holds a Ph.D. in community sustainability from Michigan State University, argues that we should consider our Christianity in concert with our food choices and that we should love creation through wise stewardship and respect. Grabowski suggests we enact this principle via stewardship of land and water, limiting food waste, and respecting animals. Unfortunately, the realities of modern agribusiness make it challenging for our individual efforts –– e.g., recycling plastic or buying local produce and seafood –– to have a significant impact on the global ecosystems that are negatively affected.
In an April Zoom interview, Grabowski explained to me the importance of “creation care” and why Christians have a biblical duty to steward the earth, not dominate it.
“It’s something you don’t hear about in church in the United States because environmental issues have been so politicized,” he said.
As individuals, it can seem like our personal choices have minimal impact on the global system of food production, but like all social justice considerations, our attempts can only grow when they start small and local. Drastic changes –– legal, economic, and social –– are needed to stop the multinational corporations that are largely responsible for the destruction of our planet. Those changes won’t happen by accident.
By the end of my Lenten journey, the environmental impact of my diet seemed far murkier than anticipated. I’d assumed my diet change would be a straightforward path toward positive difference, but the intermingling forces involved in the increasingly globalized economy make ethical considerations anything but simple.
Ultimately, our duty as Christians is to do right by each other, and by the planet we cohabitate. In doing so, we honor and love God, our neighbors, and our planet. The endeavor just might be a little more complicated than we expect.
Monique Chinenye Ezeh is a Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary writer and educator from Macon, Ga. Their main areas of creative work are poetry and nonfiction.
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