The Devil's Work?
By Trent LoosRecently, I was on a panel discussing the future of food production in the United States. One of the other panel members was a representative of the United Methodist Church, of which I happen to be a member, and she said, "Modern agriculture is the devil’s work."
That is not the first time I have been faced with that. This is a growing sentiment across our land. Even more startling is how frequently I see the Animal Rights community and Christian religious groups teaming up. Ironically, when I attend an Animal Rights convention, I would have to say that it is the largest group of evolution-believing, anti-Christians I have ever been around.
I was pondering the concept that because modern animal agriculture is not identified in the Bible that it must be the work of the Devil when I read an op-ed by Matthew Scully, former speech writer for President Bush, in the Dallas News.
Scully, a long time vegetarian, is traveling the country trying to sell his book about modern food production. In this article, Scully attempted to use the comments of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, leader of the Catholic Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Ratzinger, was asked recently to weigh in on these very questions. “Certainly, a sort of industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as to produce as large a liver as possible, or hens live so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible."
Scully went on to add his own comments.
“News reports following each new "mad-cow" scare – of calves fed a swill of blood and excrement, of downed animals unable even to walk to their death – give the merest glimpse of all the moral shortcuts and man-made miseries of the factory farm. Moral concern has surrendered entirely to economic calculation, leaving no limit to the hurt and privation that "growers" are willing to inflict upon animals to keep costs down and profits up.”
I see all the above as a great challenge to those of us in agriculture. What used to be considered left wing extremist has made its way into the thought process of people who are considered conservative. Now I only point that out to illustrate the fact that this in not a left versus right issue.
As some of us read this and wonder where it came from, we need to be reminded this is not a new line of rhetoric. In the late 1870’s when a gentlemen named Joseph Glidden invented barb wire, religious groups called it "the work of the devil," or "The Devil's Rope" and demanded its removal. Today, there are over 530 patented barbed wires, approximately 2,000 variations and over 2,000 patented barbed wire tools to collect as well wire cut medicine bottles and other wire related items.
I can find no reference in the Bible to vaccines, computers, cell phones, automobiles, refrigerators and on and on and….. so does that mean those modern conveniences are all contrary to the will of God? Yet most of us use them on a daily basis. Think about vaccines for a minute. Was it God’s will that those of us who are susceptible to disease should die off, but humans intervened and created an unnatural way to manipulate life. I don’t believe that for a minute.
I believe God gave humans the intelligence to improve our lives. I believe, as the bible says, that God gave us dominion over animals to provide for their well being and they in turn provide for ours. The concept of the radicals is to suggest that the treatment of animals today is not adequate. They frequently say, “The animals cannot speak so we must speak for them”. That statement alone is proof that their understanding of animal behavior is limited if it exists at all. Animals have been speaking loudly for generations. Performance data clearly indicates that today’s facilities can provide the best environment that animal agriculture has ever witnessed.
Now that you have the facts, how does it set with you that a portion of the money you put in the collection plate on Sunday is working against you on a national level?
