Animal Padre's
Christians Against All Animal Abuse
"Christ’s redemption is for the whole of creation!"

Newsletters
Summer 2014

Christ's Words Today

“Woe to you scribes and Pharisees! You pick out gnats while you swallow camels whole.”

Yes, such were the words of Jesus Of Nazareth to the religious leaders during His earthly ministry. Their moral priorities were truly topsy-turvy; but sadly human nature over two millennia forward has not changed and Christ’s words are as applicable to most religious leaders today as they were then. Think, for example, of the Spanish past cardinals with their own seats reserved within certain Spanish bullrings.

Yes, think of the prominence given during so called Catholc Feast Days in Latin countries when animals are barbarically exploited as an expression of so called sport: live goats thrown out of church towers as on the photo below.

animal sacrifice

Yes, and live birds are frequently encased in pots to be bayoneted - during festivals commemorating saints! - by blind folded young thugs. And other animals are goaded and prodded through the streets until they drop exhausted and are then mutilated.

Ah yes, all this in countries where a worn out mother who finds herself once again pregnant, is denounced and sorely rebuked if in the confessional she admits to using or condoning contraception aids. And if – due to loyalty to such a churches teaching - she were to find herself pregnant with complications and both the life of herself and of her unborn in serious danger, such a church then states that she must be willing to die in order to save her latest. Well, I ask, how far removed from its teaching can a church remove its teaching from that compassionate teaching of Jesus as revealed in the four accounts of the gospel?

Indeed, that such a branch of Christendom should have the audacity to consider itself the most authentic one just reveals how far its evolving doctrines have parted from the simple message of New Testament scripture in which all the apostles – apart from Paul – were married; and he, being a past rabbi of prominence was most probably a widower! What is more, this branch of Christendom, which so vocally denounces the abortion of a foetus, has equally down the years emphasised that a life that has not received valid baptism can never enter Heaven! Well, if this is so; then why are they so determined to oppose abortion? Their reasoning – or to use theological terms: apologetics! – is not at all consistent. Indeed, such a branch of Christendom is the victim of its own boasted ‘semper eadem’.(always the same)

However, the opposite extreme of so-called Christian expression is surely little better?. I refer to the various ‘post reformation’ Protestant examples as they exist today. Indeed, none could be more dogmatic than those of the Calvinistic slant. And one that very much comes to mind is that of Dr Ian Paisley’s creation: his own ‘Free Presbyterian Church Of Ulster’. He is, indeed, one with whom our paths have sometimes crossed - and though as straight as a die! - such a theologian’s views concerning the animals having a soul, are as off key as that of any Roman opponent!

Yes, indeed, modern Puritanical expressions of Protestantism are as bigoted and, seemingly, immovable as that of the flimsy rock of Catholicism. For both of them: animals appear to exist on this planet, mostly, in order that humans may eat them. Consequently, frail little lambs, rather than touch the heartstrings, appear to touch the taste buds of the palate! Their appearance, rather than moisturizing the eyes with tears of compassion, awakens the moisture in the mouth in anticipation of a so-called carnivorous delicacy!

Well, need one wonder that the majority of these ‘humans’ are on a downward slope, through desensitisation, that leads to hell? Yes, and all bolstered up by chosen expressions of religion which are as far removed from the teaching of Jesus as the moon is from cheese! Yes, expressions moulded by viewing all the Old Testament scriptures as being as infallible as assumed Popes!

Indeed, on one extreme we have within Christendom the dogmatism and ‘assumed’ inerrancy of a leader while speaking ‘ex.cathedra’; while to the other extreme, we have the dogmatism and ‘assumed’ inerrancy of a Bible. Yet the latter is not one book but a volume; and, indeed, its concepts of God vary and evolve from one book to the next, for it is not something that has come down to us from Heaven – as the assumed Koran or the book of Mormon – but, largely, a compilation of records and histories of a past Judaism’s quest for God; influenced by priests, sages; and not least: their prophets!

Consequently, the morals of one period of the Old Testament are sometimes at loggerheads with those of another, and to deny this is to frequently find ones self, reading one part of scripture which contradicts another. For two single examples – from a host of countless more! -: Genesis 1:29-30 implies that humans should be vegetarian whereas Genesis 9:3-5 affirms that humans should be carnivorous. Yes, and Genesis 8: 20-21 implies that ritual slaughter and animal sacrifice is pleasing to God while Micah 6:6-8 implies it is abhorrent, as do countless other scriptures.

Thankfully, more recent Christian evangelists, from the time of the Wesleyan Revivals of the early nineteenth century - while not approving of past Jewish ritual slaughter of animals as approving to God – did use Christ’s agonising death upon the cross as a true and willing substitutionary sacrifice of His sinless self to atone for all our sins considered worthy of our own death!

In an age of dogmatic sects, each with a neat, cut and dried interpretation of the Bible, insecure folk can so easily be drawn in to either a church claiming absolute infallibility or some opposite equally dogmatic sect or fellowship in which - once entered - you are encouraged to believe that you hold the truth with the rest of them, and that all outside have erred or are in spiritual darkness. Hence, to be pitied and prayed for!

Indeed, in such narrow and dogmatic atmospheres ‘where to stray is to lose not only the fellowship and favours of the group, but to possibly damn ones destiny’; there is, obviously, no room to discuss or favour the passing destiny of ‘dumb’ animals! ‘Life is short and eternity is long.’ Consequently, human salvation is about all that matters to those attending such groups. That is if one is to avoid years in Purgatory or eternity in Hell, rather than playing a harp in Heaven!

Indeed, such self-centred expressions of Faith make the term ‘Christianity’ stink every bit as much today as it did centuries previous when it tortured heretics during Catholic Inquisitions, and later burned witches through even a more enlightened Protestant Commonwealth!

Go on to Why Are Churches so ineffective and nonchalant concerning Animal cruelty?
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