A Sea Of Red

From an LA Times story ...

Posted on Fri, Nov. 16, 2007 10:15 PM

Evangelicals are embracing animal rights as a cause that goes beyond the secular agenda

By STEPHANIE SIMON
Los Angeles Times



S he spent years as an outspoken opponent of abortion, and that cause remains dear to her.

But these days Karen Swallow Prior has a new passion: animal welfare.

She wasn’t sure at first that advocating for God’s four-legged creatures would go over well on the campus of Liberty University, a fundamentalist Baptist institution founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, Va.

Among the Liberty faculty — and conservative evangelicals in general — the animal rights movement is often disdained as a secular, liberal cause.

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i had a girl in my speech class give a speech on why we should all be vegan.
i walked out wanting a steak.

the way I see it, the more vegetarians/vegans there are, the more steak is available for me

I don't have a problem with animal activism as long as they don't go overboard...there is nothing wrong with making sure people don't torture animals....its just doesn't seem to ever end there....

as for vegetarians and vegans and such...they can live however they want...I get so annoyed when they try to say everybody needs to live that way...I know plenty of people that are vegetarians or vegans and they don't get on others for eating meat, it is just a way of life they have chose...though I don't think veganism is that healthy...but thats another story i suppose

I can see where, before Noah, that vegetarianism would be Biblical...but after Noah...anything goes. As He said to Peter...in Actos 9 and 10...
"The voice spoke to him a second time, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean."

“The evangelical community … is expanding its definition of values to include work on poverty and the environment,” Gutleben said.

Good to see we're finally turning our eyes toward poverty.

El Scorcho wrote:

“The evangelical community … is expanding its definition of values to include work on poverty and the environment,” Gutleben said.

Good to see we're finally turning our eyes toward poverty.

there have been some involvement with Christian groups and poverty..but the church as a whole has done a poor job helping the poor in my opinion....it has been in recent years that this has started to change, but much of that has to do with the secular society was kicking our butt's and some younger Christians finally saw this and decided that this needs to change...like i said though, its hasn't been the entire church, but a large group....I would say from what I can tell TRBC and Liberty University has always done a great job caring for the poor both here in the United States and the world...

thepostman wrote:

El Scorcho wrote:

“The evangelical community … is expanding its definition of values to include work on poverty and the environment,” Gutleben said.

Good to see we're finally turning our eyes toward poverty.

there have been some involvement with Christian groups and poverty..but the church as a whole has done a poor job helping the poor in my opinion....it has been in recent years that this has started to change, but much of that has to do with the secular society was kicking our butt's and some younger Christians finally saw this and decided that this needs to change...like i said though, its hasn't been the entire church, but a large group....I would say from what I can tell TRBC and Liberty University has always done a great job caring for the poor both here in the United States and the world...

Oh I agree that the collective church has done a poor job. However, he specifically cited evangelicals in his statement. I can't speak for everyone else's churches, but the Baptist churches I grew up in always operated the largest food/clothing banks in the areas they served. We always made that one of our primary focuses. It just seems foreign to me to hear evangelicals called out on this, but I suppose it could be a larger problem than I'm aware of.

Here is a link to Dr. Prior's original article, as it appeared in the The Liberty Journal:

http://www.liberty.edu/libertyjournal/i ... 8&artid=13

The spotlight shone by the Michael Vick case on the issue of dogfighting and other forms of animal abuse has bemused many conservatives and Christians, leaving them to wonder where to place this barbarism on the scale of evils plaguing society today. But our Evangelical ancestors in the reform movements of 18th- and 19th-century England would not have been so baffled, for even in the midst of their fight against slavery and other ills, they viewed animal cruelty as one of the most important moral issues of their day. By fighting barbarism in all its forms, these Christians sought to cultivate universal benevolence throughout all of society.

From its beginnings, then, the animal welfare movement was led by moral, Christian reformers who understood the link between one form of barbarism and another. Therefore, conservative, compassionate, pro-life Christians might be heartened by the widespread outrage against Michael Vick’s cruelty. While some conservative leaders have expressed concern that heightened compassion for animals diminishes value for human life, such compassion may, in fact, cultivate similar empathy for other helpless victims of human depravity — perhaps even the victims of abortion.

Dr. Prior and I teach in the same department and go to the same church. And you might be surprised to know that her husband is an avid deer hunter.

If you want to read an interesting discussion of animals and Christians - check out the last chapter of C.S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain - the last chapter deals with the significance of the suffering of animals - remember they suffer because of the Fall - not due to any fault of their own. Lewis was a vegetarian or a vegan but he was a great lover of animals.

Did you also know that William Wilberforce who led the attack on the slave trade in Great Britain also was one of the founders of the SPCA? This was just one of the many causes - anti-poverty efforts among them - in which this great Christian (British Methodist) was involved. The SPCA as a private group made sure that animals were being treated humanely even in the slaughter houses. John Wesley also has much to say about animal welfare - and he was no slouch when it came to caring for the poor, the imprisoned and orphans.

I will close this post with a quote from Proverbs 12:10

"The upright has compassion on his animals, but the heart of the wicked is ruthless."