She spent years as an outspoken anti-abortion activist, and that cause remains dear to her. But these days, Karen Swallow Prior has a new passion: animal welfare.
She wasn’t sure, at first, that advocating for God’s four-legged creatures would go over well on the campus of Liberty University, a fundamentalist Baptist institution founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
Among the Liberty faculty — and conservative evangelicals in general — the animal-rights movement is often disdained as a secular, liberal cause.
But animal activists have been working with increasing intensity to shed that image. They’re lecturing in Quaker meetinghouses and Episcopal churches, setting up Web sites that post Scripture alongside recipes for vegan soup — and using biblical language to promote political initiatives, such as laws mandating bigger cages for pregnant pigs.
On Wednesday, clergy from 20 faith traditions — including Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Pentecostal and Roman Catholic — were to sign a statement declaring a moral duty to treat animals with respect. The Best Friends Animal Society, which brought the interfaith group together, plans to recruit volunteers to bring that message into at least 2,000 congregations.
At Liberty University, meanwhile, Prior took a risk: She wrote an editorial for this month’s university journal declaring animal welfare an evangelical concern. She pointed out that the abolitionist William Wilberforce, an evangelical hero of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, pushed for laws to protect animals from human cruelty. And she cited “ample biblical support” for continuing such activism today.
To Prior’s surprise, she has gotten plenty of praise on and around Liberty’s campus in Lynchburg, Va. Her pastor even has asked her to lecture on the topic at Bible study.
“A lot of these ideas get dismissed out of a view that they fit into a conservative-versus-liberal (split). But there are some issues that transcend that,” said Prior, an English professor.
Animal activists say they’re encouraged by even modest efforts to raise awareness.
“The evangelical community … is expanding its definition of values to include work on poverty and the environment. We hope to insert concern for animal welfare as well,” said Christine Gutleben, who directs the new Animals and Religion Department at the Humane Society of the United States.
That department, funded at $400,000 a year, aims to persuade faith communities to take a series of small steps: Offering a vegetarian entree at a fellowship meal or insisting that the coffee cake set out on Sundays is made with free-range eggs.
The Humane Society also is seeking to enlist religious leaders in its political campaigns. In California, for instance, the group has been pushing a ballot measure to ban certain confinement systems for farm animals. Promotional ads show photos of hens in crowded cages and ask: “Is This Faithful Stewardship of God’s Creatures?”
Some religious traditions have taken aggressive stances in support of animal welfare. The Episcopal Church encourages members to work against “puppy mills and factory farms.” The United Methodist Church advocates supporting farms where animals live as much as possible in their natural environments.
The challenge for animal activists has been in translating those sentiments into concrete codes of behavior for congregations. They also must overcome a lingering distrust, especially on the religious right, where some people claim that the very phrase “animal rights” subverts God’s plan for mankind to exert dominion over the rest of creation.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
