PETA's Religious Outreach
Sometimes it seems the human race has run out of good ideas. The Age of Secularism has contributed three cultural innovations to humanity--extreme feminism, gay rights, and animal rights. One's sillier than the other, with the Animal Rights Movement being the silliest of them all. Of course, "silly" does not mean "harmless." Pym Fortuyn, the Netherlands' leading conservative politician (the word "conservative" does not mean in Holland the same thing it means here), was assassinated by an animal rights activist. And there are always such capers as fire-bombing MacDonald's stands, vandalizing people's homes because they were seen eating meat or wearing fur, and rhetoric that would seem to indicate that more violent activities are on the docket.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the church of the Animal Rights Movement, and Peter Singer is its lawgiver. Singer, professor of Ethics (oh, forsooth!) at Princeton University, is best known as the author of "Animal Liberation" and an enthusiastic advocate of euthanasia, abortion, and infanticide--for humans, not animals.
PETA now has a "religious outreach" program. You can read all about it at http://www.consumerfreedom.com/article_detail.cfm/article/174 (the Center for Consumer Freedom).
Singer, as quoted by Consumer Freedom, admits that Animal Liberation and Christianity are not exactly compatible: "I think in the end we have, reluctantly, to recognizue that the Judeo-Christian religious tradition is our foe."
You got that right, Pete! Our God has always taken a dim view of worshipping animals, which is what PETA does. Singer himself is an atheist, so he would deny that he "worships" animals--but he certainly accords to them rights which he wouldn't dream of according to whole classes of human beings (the unborn, the infirm, the elderly, etc.).
So why does PETA need an "outreach" program aimed at Christians and Jews? Says Singer, "If we are not able to bring the churches, the synagogues, and the mosques [note how inclusive he is--what a guy!] around to the animal rights view, we will never make large-scale progress for animals rights in the United States."
PETA's outreach seems to consist of outlight lies ("Jesus was a vegetarian"), demands that believers ignore religious traditions deemed objectionable by PETA (i.e., abstain from Passover), advertising campaigns that insult Christians by saying farm animals died for mankind's sins, and insult Jews by likening meat-eating to the Nazi Holocaust--and, when all else fails, vague threats of what they'll do to us if we don't change our ways. Seems to me they have a lot to learn about evangelism.
Be on the lookout for any of this PETA material turning up in your church or your child's Sunday school. Meanwhile, keep it in mind as a lesson of where a society winds up when it turns its back on God. We think of it as ancient history, King Jeroboam I "who made Israel to sin" by installing golden calfs as idols in Dan and Bethel (I Kings 12: 26-33)--but surely this same spirit of idolatry is alive and well today.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the church of the Animal Rights Movement, and Peter Singer is its lawgiver. Singer, professor of Ethics (oh, forsooth!) at Princeton University, is best known as the author of "Animal Liberation" and an enthusiastic advocate of euthanasia, abortion, and infanticide--for humans, not animals.
PETA now has a "religious outreach" program. You can read all about it at http://www.consumerfreedom.com/article_detail.cfm/article/174 (the Center for Consumer Freedom).
Singer, as quoted by Consumer Freedom, admits that Animal Liberation and Christianity are not exactly compatible: "I think in the end we have, reluctantly, to recognizue that the Judeo-Christian religious tradition is our foe."
You got that right, Pete! Our God has always taken a dim view of worshipping animals, which is what PETA does. Singer himself is an atheist, so he would deny that he "worships" animals--but he certainly accords to them rights which he wouldn't dream of according to whole classes of human beings (the unborn, the infirm, the elderly, etc.).
So why does PETA need an "outreach" program aimed at Christians and Jews? Says Singer, "If we are not able to bring the churches, the synagogues, and the mosques [note how inclusive he is--what a guy!] around to the animal rights view, we will never make large-scale progress for animals rights in the United States."
PETA's outreach seems to consist of outlight lies ("Jesus was a vegetarian"), demands that believers ignore religious traditions deemed objectionable by PETA (i.e., abstain from Passover), advertising campaigns that insult Christians by saying farm animals died for mankind's sins, and insult Jews by likening meat-eating to the Nazi Holocaust--and, when all else fails, vague threats of what they'll do to us if we don't change our ways. Seems to me they have a lot to learn about evangelism.
Be on the lookout for any of this PETA material turning up in your church or your child's Sunday school. Meanwhile, keep it in mind as a lesson of where a society winds up when it turns its back on God. We think of it as ancient history, King Jeroboam I "who made Israel to sin" by installing golden calfs as idols in Dan and Bethel (I Kings 12: 26-33)--but surely this same spirit of idolatry is alive and well today.
