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Feelings of Aloneness
By people of compassion
- The Church is Chasing People Away -

Response by Roger Kimble
27 May 2001

Dear Frank,

You and your posting have been much on my mind since reading it.   I want you to know I am sorry for the lack of response you received and for the hurt you yourself must have felt.  It is a sad situation. When those who have made it their life's work to spread the Word and teachings of God are so callous and hard hearted, it has come to a sorry state.  Again, I empathize with you on the coldness shown towards you and your question to them.

Being a Christian and having concern and compassion for animals obviously is not synonymous.  The question then naturally follows: Is someone a true Christian if they have no compassion for other living creatures?  Question a hundred people and you will probably get a hundred different answers.  My personal answer is no, without compassion for all of God's creatures, you have missed the mark.  I do not presume to give God's answer to this question, just my own as I see it.  As I grew up, it seems
to me that most sermons on sin concerned themselves with three things; drinking alcoholic beverages, gambling, and adultery or fornication.  Not much was said about gossip, stealing - be it from your employer, or if you were the employer, stealing from your employees in money and under paying them.
The sin of pride was almost absent from the minister's repertoire, and kindness to animals was never mentioned. so I am hurt but not surprised at the response you received from the pastors and the lady who, evidentially, is basing her salvation on the Methodist Book of Discipline.

It seems to me, for all the words uttered on and in the media, we as a nation are becoming more and more cold hearted and set in our own ways.  Technology has literally jumped forward, but alas, our hearts and minds have not kept stride.  So the question of whether or not animals have souls becomes irrelevant as we make our way to Burger King and the local super market to stock up on the meat sale they so colorfully advertise. There is a local lady with whom I have been sharing some of the writings of this list, as well as the write-ups of the horrors of factory farming.  She, three days ago, told me never to share any more with her.  She doesn't want to know, as she blithely hosts another cook out of hamburgers, steaks, what have you.  The facts are there.  She chooses not to read them, therefore they don't exist for her.  That is the only answer I can surmise.

Frank, you cannot pound it into their (the pastors) heads, although this looks like an attractive alternative, and one I personally would like to use.  There is a king of this world, and it's not Christ. This is a temporary situation, and will be remedied.   In the meantime, you, myself, and the others will just have to keep doing what we can, with God's help.  The epidemic proportions of hard heartedness will run it's course, to be stopped by the real King.  Then Christ will utter the chilling words, "Depart from me. I never knew you."

I wish you the best in the future, and I have to tell you your web site is just marvelous and has probably done more good than you will ever realize.

God Bless,
Roger K.

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