Why aren't mainstream churches at the forefront of the animal liberation movement?

Few things are as cruel--evil, actually--as factory farming, one of America's largest industries. Laboratory animal testing is also unbelievably cruel. Though many of us are opposed to any exploitation of non-human animals (as well as human animals), our consumer society makes such exploitation hard to avoid. From the jelly you eat to the wine you drink to the capsules you take--unless you are 100% vegan, which is difficult in most communities and in most cases-- animals were exploited to make the products.

Even for those who are comfortable with eating meat and who support some animal lab testing, it would seem crucial that the meat be from free-range animals and that the testing be done under the most humane standards imaginable (very rare in the U.S.). But the only ones who advocate for an end to the horrible cruelty are animal rights activists.

Why are mainstream churches not part of this movement? While physical and psychological suffering of billions of animals goes on every day, the churches' response, as a rule, is to have another factory farm-driven church supper and pray for peace. Bruce Friedrich writes:

One would be hard pressed to find a political race or cause in the U.S., other than the animal movement, that does not get significant support from, especially, progressive Jewish and Christian organizations and people.

Marianne Arbogast writes that there is hope, that some church members and clergy are taking the lead in awakening the consciousness of religious America to the horrors of institutionalized cruelty. I hope she is right. We expect nothing of churches who exist to suppress women and gays, but the rest of the denominations--the ones whose mission is not bigotry--need to look at the suffering of billions of creatures who have no voice, and who desperately need peace-loving humans to demand that the suffering end.