I read about a pastor who says he “would qualify as a vegan” but
will never call himself a vegan because he immediately and always
loses his audience. He said that he was “pressured out of the
vegetarian lifestyle” in churches: the first time in a church he was
attending and the second time in a church where he served as pastor.
He says that he has “led dozens of people into a plant-based diet
based on the health advantages.” He believes that people “become more
sympathetic to the animals’ plight when it isn’t forced on them….”
Reading this, I began to wonder if fear of criticism isn’t the real
reason some people avoid telling the truth about why they eat a
plant-based diet. I also wonder if it isn’t being cowardly and dishonest
to be silent about the suffering that animals endure. This hiding of the
truth plays right into the hands of the exploiters and prolongs the
suffering.
Over the years we have observed that people lose respect for those
who buckle under to the pressures of the animal abusing industries and
their customers. For whatever reason, many people are misled into
believing lies about farmed animals: you know – happy cows, smiling
pigs, non-existent idyllic farmlands, etc. But those who live their
ideals without compromise, refusing to hide the truth, gain and retain
their respect.
We try as far as possible to “tell it the way it is” and have found
that there are many who appreciate this honesty. The number of hits our
website receives, 5,600,000 hits just last week, proves this; and every
week we are seeing dozens of people changing to a compassionate
lifestyle.
I will end this Blog with something I wrote on 29 January 2001:
True joy and peace result from a life lived with the knowledge that
we are using our God-given abilities to further His kingdom. Pretending
to not know in order to escape responsibility is dishonest. Turning our
backs on injustice and pretending it doesn’t exist corrodes our
conscience and undermines our true peace with God.
When God exposes the truth of animal exploitation to us, we should
thank Him for revealing it to us and then use whatever resources He has
given us to do something positive for His kingdom. We should not attack
the messengers, from whatever source, because we don’t want to hear the
message.
For the complete text, see:
http://all-creatures.org/heart/29jan2001.html
See also:
http://www.all-creatures.org/anex/index.html
Here’s an afterthought:
No doubt if a person were to be asked “Would you torture an animal?”
they would respond emphatically with something like “Of course not!”
Then why do they pay to have someone else do it? After all, that’s
exactly what they’re doing when they use animal-derived products.
