Peeking at animal cruelty
24 Jul 2008
Karen writes… I grew up on a gentleman’s farm in rural Maine, the daughter of the daughter of folks who lived—literally—off the land. My father being a white collar businessman, we raised animals for food and companionship by choice rather than necessity. But we executed that choice knowledgably, responsibly, and—I think—biblically.
Though I tended then (and still do today) toward a romantic and sentimental affection for all of the animals we raised, I also knew the facts of life. I knew that Billy, the kid goat which came with the mother goat we purchased for milking would eventually reach our dinner table. I knew that the little baby chicks we brought home as eggs would wind up in our freezer–even Peeper, the little rooster I hatched myself by breaking little pieces from his shell over the course of days when he was too weak to do so himself (he gained his name from the fact that we “peeped” at each other through the entire process).
Despite the fact that I was imprinted as his surrogate mother and that he would, throughout his later chickhood in the coop, fly up to me and sit on my head or shoulder when he saw me did not prevent him from growing eventually into a cocky, aggressive rooster whose fate was the same as his brethren: his neck under my mother’s axe and his carcass in a pot of boiling water.
While my understanding of scripture leads me to view meat-eating as a result of the Fall (not until then was the first animal slaughtered, albeit for its skin not its flesh), I struggle to find and even more to adhere to that balance between prelapsarian idealism and postlapsarian realism. While, clearly, meat eating is not forbidden in scripture, I need to consider whether it is profitable (to my health, to my economy, to the natural order, to the world’s economy). I believe the answer is a qualified “yes” — a “yes” qualified by the scripture’s admonition toward moderation. Yet, factory farming and slaughtering practices are nothing if not immoderate.
Like many other “younger evangelicals,” these are issues that have been gradually gaining importance in my attempt to live out a more seamless biblical faith. I confess that I am still at the consciousness-raising phase and not yet sure how to answer these concerns realistically, consistently, holistically, and biblically.
My consciousness about animal welfare, though something I am cognizant of from my youngest years, has been heightened in recent years because of the community in which I now live. Making my home in a rural region that includes many conscientious and responsible farmers and animal owners, I also often encounter here—ironically, in the buckle of the Bible belt—a mentality that deems animals as commodities, possessions, or mere ornamentation.
This is, after all, the land that bore, raised and lionized as a national athletic hero the notorious dog fighter, Michael Vick. But in living here, I have heard the “Macedonian call” to “come and help” the animals, as well as their God-ordained stewards, by exemplifying and exhorting a more biblical and humane attitude toward animals.
Yet, I recognize that there are many Macedonias and many calls. During another period of my life, I lived in a very different sort of community, one peopled by those with more enlightened views toward animals, but with far less humane attitudes toward unborn humans. Making my home in an area plagued by many abortion centers, I heard a similar call to speak out about the defenseless unborn humans being slaughtered on a daily basis in my own neighborhood.
In answering both of these categorically distinct but not unrelated calls, I have experienced similar responses from the church and the larger community. Many prefer the comforts of the status quo and blissful ignorance over change—whether small or radical.
On the other hand, it is easy for those who have heard the call to “come and help” the animals—or for that matter, the environment, the impoverished, the unsaved, or the unborn—to turn passion into pride and urgency into arrogance.
I remember and understand the outrage that passersby would express when they saw our graphic anti-abortion signs outside the clinics: just as they did not want to face the truth about the violence of the abortion procedure, I too want to close my eyes to the torture and cruelty done to animals in the name of cheap meat.
While abortion is an issue I can approach from a detached, intellectual and biblical perspective, I respond to cruelty to animals on a much more visceral, emotional level. I can imagine but not fully face what they experience at the hands of an impatient electrocuter or a soulless Michael Vick. Yet, still I find myself buying and eating that meat sacrificed to the modern day idols of convenience, efficiency, and greed.
Yes, I want to shut my eyes. But peek. How about you?
Karen Swallow Prior
Tagged: Animals, Creation, karen prior, speciesism
11 comments
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Comment by Kevin
2.05 am on 24 Jul 2008
Karen,
Very nice! Abortion, I think, is a more complicated matter than animal cruelty, in several respects. What is clear, though, is that non-human animals enjoy consciousness and some even emotions and language. The sorts of cruelty to which they are subjected by human persons says a lot about us and the sort of culture we’re creating. And what it says is not pretty. Thanks for your thoughtfulness on this topic!
Comment by Karen Swallow Prior
2.46 am on 24 Jul 2008
Thanks, Kevin, for the encouraging response. As I indicated, this area of biblical application and activism is relatively new for me, so I appreciate the post. Thanks for reading and responding!
Comment by The Vegucator
3.27 am on 24 Jul 2008
Hi Karen,
Our mutual friend Kevin put me onto your blog and I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your thoughtful post on these important, though often underemphasized, issues. I’ve struggled a lot with the animal question myself in the last several years, and I recently wrote a little booklet on the topic that is available for free download here. I’d love to hear what you think. :) Thanks again for such a stimulating post!
Best,
Matt
Comment by Karen Swallow Prior
11.14 pm on 25 Jul 2008
Thanks, Matt. I will print out your booklet the first chance I get. It looks very interesting.
Comment by Kevin
3.40 am on 24 Jul 2008
If you don’t mind I’d like to put a plug in for my colleague, Matt Halteman. He’s written a good deal on creation care and would be a good resource for anyone interested in these important issues.
Comment by Ben DeVries
3.59 am on 24 Jul 2008
Kevin, I’ve actually had the pleasure of knowing Matt Halteman for the past half year, and I had even asked if he might contribute to this discussion week, but he was a bit taken up with the baby on the way and philosophical papers this Summer! His Humane Society booklet which you referred to, “Compassionate Eating as Care of Creation” (http://www.hsus.org/religion/resources/compassionate_eating_as_care_.html) is an excellent resource, and we’ll be mentioning it again at the end of the week as a resource for further study. I hope to be more involved in the coming extraVEGANza week at Calvin this January, and perhaps I’ll have the opportunity to meet you then. Thanks for your notes.
sincerely,
Ben DeVries
Comment by Ben DeVries
1.05 am on 25 Jul 2008
See Karen’s excellent article “Animals and Evangelicals” if you get the chance, a brief but enlightening resource with several historical references (http://www.liberty.edu/libertyjournal/index.cfm?PID=16046&artid=13).
Comment by Paul
12.01 pm on 25 Jul 2008
I find it disturbing that in with the good intentions of mass farming and cheaper products to feed a hungry world we often take short cuts with animals. Feeding animals to each other, transporting them long distances in cramped conditions, pumping them full of drugs to maximise their bodies is just not healthy.
Which is why diseases like mad cow’s etc have happened with all the mass culling that it entails.
Meat is becoming for me a luxory product. I am pleased supermakets have cottoned onto this value of knowing the farm where the meat comes from and doing more for the ethical treatment of the animal but that comes at higher price. In fact the more ethical the meat and the higher the level of consumer information on where the meat was sourced the higher the cost.
At times like with rising costs all around me the temptation to buy cheeper meat is back with a vengance. When it comes to the total on the till i also find myself closing my eyes and peeking.
Comment by Shirley Swallow
3.07 am on 30 Jul 2008
Hi Kaaren, this is your MOM. I find that I learn a lot about the family that I do not remember by reading your writings.
You are doing a great job and we both are proud of you.
Love Mom and Dad
Comment by Karen Swallow Prior
12.07 pm on 30 Jul 2008
Thaks, Mom!
Comment by Karen Swallow Prior
3.06 am on 31 Jul 2008
By which I meant (of course), Thanks, Mom.
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