Perspective

Animal Rights Sound Bites for

Conversations With Religious Christians

Perspective

Number of Christians in the U.S:........................................................ 230,000,000

Number of Vegetarians in the U.S:....................................................... 4,800,000

Number attending a typical NASCAR race .......................................... 100,000

Number attending the national Animal Rights Conference

in Washington, DC.............................................................................. 1,200

There is great sadness and great hope in these numbers. The great sadness is that the vast majority of religious Christians condone torture and killing of God's creatures for pleasure (taste). The great hope is that the huge number of Christians in the US is virtually an untapped resource of compassion. We in the animal rights community need to start pointing fingers at ourselves and recognize that this condition exists because we have not truly engaged religious communities regarding animal rights. How many organizations have actually engaged religious communities regarding animal rights? PeTA has with their JesusVeg.com website; several very good books have been written including “The Dominion of Love,” by Norm Phelps, “God’s Covenant with Animals,” by J.R. Hyland, and “The Lost Religion of Jesus,” by Keith Akers; and some very good web sites are starting to pop-up including www.SERV-Online.org, www.HumaneReligion.org, and www.ChristianVeg.com, but we “compassionate Christians” who believe in animal rights have not organized ourselves and have not truly “gone after” the Christian community. We need to go after spiritual leaders and the Christian community the same way PeTA goes after fast food restaurants and Steve Hindi goes after rodeo abusers. Every time a friend, a relative, or a spiritual leader uses the bible to justify torture, abuse, and killing of God’s creatures, we need to confront them with biblical passages, logical reasoning, and compassionate interpretations of the bible. Norm Phelps, author of “The Dominion of Love” said it best when he asked "Why should Biblical verses that show divine approval of animal abuse set an everlasting precedent while passages showing divine approval of the murder of men, woman, and children do not? We cannot justify animal atrocities on the authority of the Bible unless we are also willing to justify human atrocities on the same basis."

One of the major reasons why the Christian community does not support Animal Rights is because there are passages in the bible that have been interpreted to mean that animal exploitation is not only permissible, it is what God intended. Christians generally do not challenge those interpretations because it is easier to blame God for our exploitation of animals than it is ourselves. Although Christians generally consider themselves to be among the most compassionate people in our society, they do not even take a leading role in farm animal welfare. If they did, they would have to admit that a meat based diet today can only be described as selfish and primitive and is the root cause of farm animal suffering. The fact is that we do not need to eat the flesh of God’s creatures for nutrition. We can live a more healthy life by eating a balanced diet of vegetables, fruits, legumes, and grains. We eat flesh only for selfish pleasure (taste). We enjoy the primitive practice of putting dead animal body parts in our mouths and are too selfish to consider the suffering and killing that occurs as a consequence of our primitive diet.

Primitive man who lived during the times in the bible did not have tractors, refrigeration, mass-storage, or the ability to efficiently transport food to the masses. Non-human animals may have very well been provided by God as a nutrition bridge to the future; to a time when it is no longer necessary to exploit animals for nutrition. Today, non-human animals serve only as a test of our compassion.

Abraham Lincoln said “I think not much of a man’s religion whose animals are not better off for it.” It is time for the animal rights community to embrace that concept and challenge cruel, selfish, and exploitive interpretations of the bible. The good part is that you do not have to be a bible scholar to effectively discuss animal rights issues with religious Christians. Here is suggested preparation prior to discussing animal rights issues with religious Christians.

Suggested Preparation:

1) Read and memorize as many “Animal Rights Sound Bites” as possible.

2) Obtain and listen to a copy of Veganism in a Nutshell by Bruce Friedrich

3) Go to JesusVeg.com and read the FAQs

4) Purchase and read “The Dominion of Love,” by Norm Phelps

5) Visit the web sites on the “Recommended Reading & Links” page

Once you have done that, you are ready to engage religious Christians regarding animal rights. Remember, religious dogma can get very complicated and cloudy so try to stick to sound bites rather than long detailed explanations. Attempt to be kind and compassionate during your conversations. Pick and choose the topics that you feel most comfortable discussing. It’s OK to use notes, books, or downloaded web pages during your discussions. You could even hand them the audio tape "Veganism in a Nutshell" by Bruce Friedrich. If they cannot generally agree in principal to whats on that tape, then you know that the person has allowed their desire to eat meat cloud their sense of ethics and morals. When you do not have an answer, rely on answers like 1) “I think Jesus would want me to be compassionate,” 2) “The bible provided instructions for primitive man to survive, we do not need to torture and kill for nutrition today;” 3) “I just think we should protect and preserve life at every opportunity.”

Again I’ll quote Norm Phelps, "The sacred flame of the Animal Rights community is compassion. The sacred flame of the religious community is compassion. The two communities need to recognize that our sacred flames are one." One day the religious community will be one of our strongest allies; we just need to keep tapping that compassion hour-glass to make sure it happens sooner rather than later.

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