All Creatures Great and Small

HSUS Reaches Out to Faith Groups to Encourage ‘Compassionate Eating’

Jennifer Merritt
Virginia Correspondent

During the month of October, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is calling upon religious leaders and lay people to sign the “All Creatures Great and Small” Pledge.

The pledge asks people to commit to using free-range or cage-free eggs or to reduce egg consumption and replace them with egg substitutes. Timed to coincide with Yom Kippur, the Feast of St. Francis, and the end of Ramadan, the pledge is part of HSUS’s Animals and Religion Division and an attempt to rally support in the faith based communities for “compassionate eating.”

Most faith traditions have doctrines about food consumption from ritual fasts to dictates on what to eat and when. Jews and Muslims avoid pork, and Hindus hold the cow sacred. Moravians include Lovefeasts in their worship services, and Catholics abstain from eating meat on Friday. How the faithful eat is an integral part of the world’s major religions. HSUS’s Animals and Religion Division seeks to expand these dictates to include concern for the treatment and suffering of animals.

Matthew Halteman, associate professor of philosophy at Calvin College, collaborated with the HSUS to write “Compassionate Eating as Care of Creation.” The booklet, which can be downloaded at no cost from the Animal and Religion Website, offers simple steps he believes leads to more compassionate consumption.

The Animals and Religion Division, operating with an annual budget of $400,000, focuses on encouraging faith communities to make simple choices to ease animal suffering such as using free-range eggs in Sunday’s coffee cake or offering vegetarian entrees at fellowship meals. The division also offers free campaign postcards to share with the faith community or tuck into Sunday bulletins.

Evangelical Christians have hesitated to commit to “animal rights” believing that the term elevates animals to a position equal to humans. Dr. Karen Swallow Prior has a perspective that she believes has historical and Biblical validity. Prior, associate professor of English at Liberty University, is part of a growing group of evangelical Christians making the distinction between animal rights and animal welfare.

“Animal rights suggest animals have an inherent right equal with humans,” Prior said. “Animal welfare makes us responsible stewards. We see to their welfare.”

Prior, who grew up on a small family farm, describes rights versus welfare as “the difference between night and day,” and points out that “people who promote animal rights often don’t know much about animals.” She cites 19th century Evangelicals William Wilberforce and his colleague Hannah More as examples of animal welfare activists. Set against a backdrop of abolitionism, Wilberforce and More stood against barbarism everywhere believing that slavery, bear baiting, and cruelty to animals influenced all aspects of society.

Rather than simply worrying about the victims of barbarism, 19th century Evangelicals also worried about the souls of those committing the acts and society in general and urged compassion.

In addition to evangelical Christianity, HSUS’s Animals and Religion Division collected statements on principle from most of the world’s major religions and compiled them on their Website. The division has also collected signatures of major religious leaders for its “All Creatures Great and Small” Pledge and is working to rally support in the faith based communities for Proposition 2 in California. Up for vote on November 4, Proposition 2 calls for “laying hens, veal calves, and gestating sows to have enough room to turn around and extend their limbs.” Farmers argue that Proposition 2 would put many of them out of business. HSUS argues that it is the least that can be done to ensure humane treatment of animals.

Proposition 2 illustrates the long-standing gap between animal rights groups and farmers. Farmers have come to see animal right activists as people who trespass on private property, drive up the cost of doing business and bog down the courts with invasive lawsuits. The activists themselves accuse “factory farming” operations of being unnecessarily cruel and at best indifferent parties to the suffering of animals. Surprisingly the Christian Evangelical community may have the bridge to cross that gap.

“Compassion in one area,” Prior said, “bleeds over into other areas. Of course God calls us to be good stewards of animals.” As both farmers and animal activists deal with issues like Proposition 2 and HSUS’s Animals and Religion campaign, presumably that is a bridge both parties can cross.