A question that needs a better answer

In the current issue of Best Friends magazine, Best Friends Animal Society executive director Paul Berry asks a question I asked in this blog a year and a half ago: "Why don't churches preach compassion for animals?" The answer of course, isn't that obscure: To do so would require church members to oppose factory farming, change their diets, spay and neuter their pets, and take a close look at the use of laboratory animals. That would make them "extremists" or "crazy" as those of us involved in animal liberation are called on a daily basis.

Says Berry, "...the churches continue to treat concern for animals as a non-issue. Worse yet, the world of animal "rights" is often shunned by the evangelical movement as being "liberal"--even atheistic."

Berry also mentions Matthew Scully, George W. Bush's former speechwriters, who wrote Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy. What a pity that this book isn't a vital part of church study groups.