Barefoot Vegan Mag Jan_Feb 2017

How has your faith and relationship with
God, helped you be a better advocate for
animals and humans?
Faith and animal advocacy is actually a two-way street for
me! My advocacy has reminded me over and over again
that compassion is a choice we make and that applies to
humans (including ourselves) as well as animals.
Advocacy for animals helped open up the depth and
breadth of God’s promises to the created world in a way I
hadn’t understood before. My faith helps me to remember
to extend grace to people and situations when it’s hard for
me to feel like it. But perhaps most importantly, my faith
is a constant reminder that I am part of a much larger
story, a story that started long before I was born and will
continue long after I die.
During the time that you’ve been vegan
and advocating for animals, what positive
changes have you noticed in the church’s
opinion/stance towards animals?
Oh my gosh, when I first went vegan I felt like I was
totally alone in the church world. Now, literally
everywhere I go… every conference, every church, every
school, every organisation… there’s at least one other
“animal person.” Denominations are passing resolutions
about animal welfare. A huge group of evangelical
Christians signed a document called “Every Living Thing”
last year that named animals as a topic of moral and
practical concern for Christians. Pope Francis’ climate
encyclical was full of thoughts about animals. The
CreatureKind project that I help run with UK theologian
David Clough, was founded in part because enough
Christians care about animals and want to advocate on
their behalf that there’s now a need for church-based
organisations to equip them with the tools to do so.
You wrote and had published two books
on Christianity and veganism/animals
that were released last year. Can you tell
us about them and what inspired you to
write them?
The first book I wrote is called Animals Are Not Ours (No,
Really, They’re Not): An Evangelical Animal Liberation
Theology (Cascade Books, 2016). I was inspired to write it
“This prayer, written by Bishop Ken Untener of
Saginaw in honour of Oscar Romero, is one that I
return to again and again, and helps keep my
place in this difficult work in perspective”.
Archbishop Oscar Romero Prayer: A Step
Along The Way
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a
long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is
even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny
fraction of the magnificent
enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is
complete, which is a way of
saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes
everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that
they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further
development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our
capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of
liberation in realising that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it
very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step
along the way, an
opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do
the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the
difference between the master
builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers,
not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
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