As I’ve touched on before, in the past several years a growing number of misleading messages about modern animal agriculture have been presented by animal rights activist groups to church and religious leaders or in religious forums, under the guise of religion and compassion.

Unfortunately, activist groups like HSUS and PETA are using religion as yet another way to influence public policy to eliminate individual food choices — just as they’ve done through legislation and ballot initiatives. Targeting individuals who have a spiritual sense, but may not fully engage in reading or understanding biblical scriptures or other religious doctrines, by appealing to their sense of compassion and guilt is just one more way to further their goals of advancing animal rights and ending meat consumption.

Many people are understandingly incredulous that this is a real thing, but HSUS’ “Faith Outreach” efforts are easy to find on its website — videos, a “Faith Advisory Council” … there’s even a Bible study course for children titled “Caring for God’s Creation: The Stewardship of Animals.” While we can all agree that being responsible stewards of animals is important, a group like HSUS that’s opposed to eating animals at all clearly has a different definition of what that means.

Here at the Alliance we frequently get questions from people in the animal ag industry about how they can push back on this. After all, most of us aren’t well-versed in the specifics of theology, and religion can be a personal subject to discuss. That’s why I’m glad to share that we helped fund a new book that will soon be available that dives into this exact issue.

The book, "What Would Jesus Eat? The Biblical Case for Eating Meat", looks at what the Bible has to say about using and eating animals from several different perspectives, including chapters from various experts on topics including the challenges to Christian meat-eating, human exceptionalism and humanity’s dominion over other living creatures.

The book will help arm farmers and ranchers and others in the animal agriculture industry with the information they need to have informed conversations about the complex subject of religion and eating meat.

If you’re engaged in your local religious community, keep your eye out for references to animal welfare or eating less meat to save the environment. Your expertise may be needed to balance out other messages that religious leaders are hearing.

New book gives “biblical case for eating meat”

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