Many people don’t know that animal rights extremist organizations have been working for years to persuade people that eating meat, poultry, dairy and eggs goes against their religious beliefs. In the late 2000s, HSUS launched its “Faith Outreach” division, and over the years has hosted conferences, released videos and conducted various activities in order to “reflect upon the biblical view of responsible dominion and stewardship of animals and examine strategies for expanding humane outreach to faith communities around the country." Interestingly, it appears that HSUS has recently removed information about its Faith Outreach work from its website.

In 2014, PETA launched “Jesus People for Animals,” a program aimed at “redefining ‘dominion over animals’ and helping Christians convert to vegan food and clothing."

While more recently, groups have taken advantage of current events to focus more on the supposed “pandemic potential” of animal agriculture, Lent has brought about several suspiciously similar letters to the editor and other content repeating religious-focused messaging from activist groups. This tends to happen every year around this time, as extremists want to promote animal protein as the best option to give up during Lent (and of course, keep the change going all year long).

I encourage you to keep an eye out for this type of messaging within your community and be ready to push back on myths. While you’re likely already comfortable discussing topics like animal welfare, sustainability and animal protein’s role in a healthy diet, the thought of engaging in a discussion centered on religion might make you rightfully wary, as religion is a personal topic.

A few years ago, the Alliance worked with a few theological experts to examine the topic of animals in religion and the claims from activist groups. These experts worked together to publish a book, “What Would Jesus Really Eat? The Biblical Case for Eating Meat”. The book looks at what the Bible has to say about using and eating animals from several different perspectives. The book tackles topics including the challenges to Christian meat-eating, human exceptionalism and humanity’s dominion over other living creatures. Those experts also helped craft a resource kit to help the animal agriculture community engage on this subject.

If you’d like to request a copy, contact the Alliance at info@animalagalliance.org.

Lent brings renewed focus from extremists on animals, religion

Join for free* to continue reading.