Christian Vegetarian Association Blog - Bringing Restoration to God’s Creation


	CVA BLOG

Bringing Restoration to God’s Creation
June 3, 2013

Welcome to the weekly CVA blog! In it you will find famous quotes, news and commentaries.

Poultry Plants Using Poisonous Chemicals

Famous Quote: Arthur Conan Doyle

Eating Meat Has Consequences

Bible verse: Mark 7:18-19

Caring for God’s Creation

This Week’s Video: UN / Unsustainable Development & Climate Change

1. Poultry Plants Using Poisonous Chemicals

Toxic, bacteria-killing chemicals in poultry plants are a growing concern. These chemicals are hazardous and sometimes fatal to humans as seemingly was the case of federal poultry inspector, Jose Navarro, who died two years after starting his job.

Please visit At chicken plants, chemicals blamed for health ailments are poised to proliferate:
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-04-25/politics/38803667_1_poultry-plants-amanda-hitt-chemicals

When we cause misery to God’s animals, we cause misery to ourselves as well. The demand for poultry products has turned the human-animal bond into a mockery. What should be based on reverence, respect, love, joy and harmony has turned into a relationship based on exploitation, suffering, disease and death. We can turn this around and restore our relationship with God’s animals once we realize that hurting them might be hurting us even more; and that in setting them free we bring healing and reconciliation to God’s Creation.

2. This Week’s Famous Quote

At the moment our human world is based on the suffering and destruction of millions of non-humans. To perceive this and to do something to change it in personal and public ways is to undergo a change of perception akin to a religious conversion. Nothing can ever be seen in quite the same way again because once you have admitted the terror and pain of other species you will, unless you resist conversion, be always aware of the endless permutations of suffering that support our society.

― Arthur Conan Doyle

3. Eating Meat Has Consequences

The meat industry contributes to more greenhouse gases than the whole transportation sector. Therefore, it seems logical that in order to control climate change or reduce global warming, our first step should be to reduce or to stop all together our consumption of meat products.

Please visit http://www.salon.com/2013/05/02/would_we_give_up_burgers_to_stop_climate_change/

As stewards of God’s Creation we are called to actively participate in the restoration of the environment, in which all creatures live and depend on. If we avoid this simple fact, our lack of action actually sides with those who bring devastation; and in turn, we are harming ourselves even more by diminishing our nurturing and joyful hearts, compassionate souls, and peaceful intentions.

4. This Week’s Bible Verse

Whatever one eats does not defile him (Mark 7:18-19). This passage reads, “And he [Jesus] said to them, ‘Do you not see that whatever goes into a man from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach and so passes on?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean.)”

This section actually relates to eating with unwashed “defiled” hands (Mark 7:1-5). Jesus then explained that the Pharisees were only concerned with what went into their mouths, but what really defiles a person are evil thoughts from the heart within.

5. Caring for God’s Creation

Eating animals is a waste of energy, resources and of course very cruel. When we eat meat, eggs and dairy we are wasting loads of perfectly edible food because we are funneling much grain into animals, who then use it to grow parts we don’t eat. Moreover, raising animals for food is very polluting and contributes to global warming more than the transportation sector; and it also requires much more land than growing plant-based food for people.

Please visit Eating As Though the Environment Mattered:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-friedrich/meat-consumption-impact-environment_b_3274251.html

Indeed, raising God’s animals for food contributes to environmental devastation, poverty, hunger, disease and hardness of heart. Christians need to be at the forefront of caring for God’s Creation, which undoubtedly should involve transitioning to a plant-based diet.

6. This Weeks Video: UN / Unsustainable Development & Climate Change

Watch this short video where the Director of the Earth Institute, Jeffrey Sachs, tells a meeting on sustainable development and climate change that 21 years after the signing of the of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, "we haven't even begun to change direction." He added that in the United States, "politics has found a way" to keep the subject off the agenda.

Please visit UN / Unsustainable Development & Climate Change:
http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/unifeed/2013/05/un-sustainable-development-climate-change/

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