{"id":851,"date":"2013-04-11T15:39:47","date_gmt":"2013-04-11T15:39:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.all-creatures.org\/blog\/?p=851"},"modified":"2013-04-20T20:59:51","modified_gmt":"2013-04-20T20:59:51","slug":"challenging-church-compassion-14-chased-away-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.all-creatures.org\/blog\/challenging-church-compassion-14-chased-away-a\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenging Church Compassion \u2013 14: Chased Away \u201cA\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Challenging Church Compassion \u2013 14: Chased Away \u201cA\u201d<\/h2>\n
\"Lamb<\/a>
Lamb of God<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We recently received a very sad but interesting email from \u201cA\u201d that shows the harm that churches are doing because of their hardness of heart; thus, we believe that this is another reason for challenging church compassion.<\/p>\n

From \u201cA\u2019s\u201d perspective, the church is too interested in killing and eating animals, and from the perspective of those who are vegan and don\u2019t eat animals, they want nothing to do with the church or God, because of the church\u2019s indifference to the suffering of animals.<\/p>\n

\u201cA\u201d wrote: \u201cThank you for this site.\u00a0 I am a Christian vegan who has no friends, mainly because I can’t stand the hedonism I see every day.\u00a0 I have been vegan for over seven years, Christian for about three.\u00a0 The two don’t mix.\u00a0 From Christian singles groups that hold pig roasts to vegans who hate God because of the rampant cruelty inflicted upon animals, I don’t know where to turn.\u201d<\/p>\n

For several decades we have heard the churches complain about losing members, and at the same time they don\u2019t want to give up their hardness of heart toward animals\u00a0that is chasing the people away. Unselfish church compassion is missing.\u00a0They are like the people whom Paul wrote to in Ephesians 4:17-20.<\/p>\n

17. This I say therefore, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind,<\/p>\n

18. being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart;<\/p>\n

19. and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.
\nNASB<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the callousness, sensuality, and greediness of the church and its members for flesh, and their indifference to the suffering of the animals that hardens their hearts and chases loving and compassion people who care about animals and don\u2019t eat them away from the church and God.<\/p>\n

The church needs to wake up to the suffering they are causing to both animals and the human beings who care about them.<\/p>\n

They need to return to being the loving, compassionate, and peacemaking children of God that Jesus calls us to be, who work to free creation from its present corruption and stop contributing to it; and in the process, they will begin to bring people back into the church.<\/p>\n

Go on to: Challenging Church Compassion \u2013 15: Chasing Away \u201cS\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

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