The Heifer Project
A Bad Approach to Solving World Hunger Problems
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The Heifer Project

Biblical Perspectives that Oppose the Heifer Project
(Prepared by Rev. Linda McDaniel, UM minister)

The context of this verse is

God commanding Israel to reject idolatry.

God’s moral demand upon Covenant People

[Our idolatry may be self-absorption to the extent it hurts the earth, the creatures (us and animals), and God.]

[The consequence of idolatry for Israel was the Exile.  How are we now in exile?]

3. Pursue Peace (Peace with Justice Sunday in the UMC)

Quotes from The Reverend Andrew Linzey*

Having seen the Vision, the task is to cooperate with its completion. Our commission is to make peace, respect life, and affirm God as center and goal of all existence. Almost impossible, except that the Spirit sustains us.

Therefore, all conscious openness to the Spirit and every attempt, however trivial, to disengage ourselves from violence has spiritual meaning and purpose. No effort, however small, is lost within the divine economy.

"The creation waits in eager longing for the revealing of the Sons of God." (Rom. 8) These "sons" are Spirit-led individuals who will show by their life the possibility of a new order of existence. Quite practically, the task required of us is to recognize God’s rights in God’s creation, rights for animals to be themselves as God intends, to live, to be free, and to live without suffering, distress and injury.

God elects humans and animals into fellowship and unity (our moral covenant). To breed and rear creatures for gratuitous destruction is …a reversal of divine purpose. Animals are not made simply for human use & pleasure but for God’s glory.

Animals can experience suffering (which is more than pain [a specific physical sensation]). This means they have a mental life; they experience fear, foreboding, anxiety, stress, discomfort, boredom…, and all these reactions differ only in degree from those which are experienced by human beings.

In farming animals, they are taken to be means-to-ends, viewed primarily not in terms of their own value but in terms of human utility. The become commodities to be bought and sold.

It is difficult to "prove" that animals suffer (continuous painful stimuli) (not depravation) to those who are skeptical. For Lindzey, the only satisfactory basis on which we can oppose systems of close confinements is theos-rights: Animals have a God-given right to be animals. The natural life of a Spirit-filled creature is a gift from God. When we take over the life of an animal to the extent of distorting its natural life for no other purpose than our own gain, we fall into sin. There is no clearer blasphemy before God than the perversion of God’s creatures.

The urgent and essential task is to invite, encourage, support and welcome those who want to take some steps along the road to a more peaceful world with the non-human creation. We do not all have to agree upon the most vital steps, or indeed the most practical ones. What is important is that we all move some way on, if only by one step at a time, however falteringly.

Unless God is really indifferent to the creation, these beings whose lives are filled with his Spirit have special value and therefore require special protection. Man is to commit himself, argues Edward Carpenter, to the divine task of lifting up creation, redeeming those orders of which he forms part, and directing them toward their end.

*All of the above is from Christianity and the Rights of Animals, by Andrew Linzey Crossroad Press, 1987

Other reasons for opposing HPI: Fiscal difficulties

Support of HPI’s buying and shipping of animals feeds into extremely negative economic effects for individuals and governments.

Animal agriculture and consequent animal-centered diets are linked to killer diseases which

Result in soaring medical costs which

Result in growing national debt which

Impinges on schools, hospitals, social welfare facilities, crime prevention, and parks.

As Christians, we must take one first small step and withdraw our support for one small part of this System which is bound to displease God because of the harm it does to animals and humans and the planet.

The photos on these page is from Farm Sanctuary and with our thanks.

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