Vegetarian Friends

Vegetarian Friends.net is the publisher of the monthly journal The Peaceable Table. We are dedicated to providing inspiration and support for Quakers and other people of faith in the practice of love for animals and a vegetarian diet. This journal is a project of the Animal Kinship Commitee of Orange Grove Friends Meeting.

The August Peaceable Table is Now Online

 

Dear Animal Kin,

 

In this issue of The Peaceable Table

  • The Guest Editorial by psychologist Rachel MacNair explores the likelihood that slaughterhouse workers and others who kill animals may suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
  • One of the Gems, a quotation from The Threepenny Opera, comments on the bad behavior that results when folk do not get their familiar food.
  • In his Letter, Gerald Niles reflects on his experience with our predecessor The Friendly Vegetarian and some of its staff members.
  • The Glimpse of the Peaceable Kingdom shows us a blind dog and her devoted seeing-eye cat.
  • In one of the NewsNotes we hear that of all countries, Spain--infamous for its bullfights--is granting rights to Great Apes.
  • Every Creature a Word of God, an inspiring book by two remarkable scholars/activists, is one of those reviewed.
  • The Recipes includes a frozen berry-cream treat for canine friends that may tempt any nearby human to take a lick.
  • In My Pilgrimage we hear from musician Moby, who has been vegan since his teens.
  • Our Pioneer is Alex Hershaft, survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto and founder of the abolitionist organization FARM.
  • The narrator of the Poem, "Nostalgia," (by Joan Gilbert) ponders the mystery that she has nostalgia for things she never knew, things experienced by animals.
We hope you will take a little time to reply to any of these materials, perhaps suggest topics for future issues, or write your own Pilgrimage account.


In the Light that is Love,

Gracia Fay Ellwood
Editor

 



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Links to other valuable web sites

Following are links to other web sites concerned with the wellbeing of animals.

www.vegetarianhome.com Vegetarian Web Directory. A good place to start your search for all things vegetarian on the Web.

HIPPO, Help International Plant Protein Organization, aids third-world peoples to help themselves by developing plant-based agriculture. See www.ivu.org/articles/net/hippo.html

quaker-animals.org.uk Quaker Concern for Animals, an association of British Friends, first titled Friends Anti-Vivisection Association, was founded in 1891. It continues to be active today seeking justice for animals in several areas of life.

www.equuseditorial.com/index.html Connie, founding editor of EquusEditorial, an online collaboration inspired by the horse!

www.christianveg.com The Christian Vegetarian Association is a rapidly growing network of Christians, largely Protestant and evangelical, who advocate a plant-based diet as beneficial for human health, the environment, the world's poor and hungry, and animals.

www.farmsanctuary.org Farm Sanctuary is the largest farm animal rescue and protection organization in the United States.

www.circleofcompassion.org Circle of Compassion is a prayer network with particular focus on compassion for animals.

www.cok.net Compassion over Killing is a non-profit animal-advocacy organization, working to end animal abuse in agriculture and promoting a vegetarian diet as a way to build a kinder world for both humans and non-humans.

www.theoservice.org The Theosophical Order of Service is a network of individuals demonstrating practical and humanitarian actions in a theosophical spirit.

www.animalsvoice.com The Animals Voice is the premiere online resource network for animal activists.

jewishveg.com/schwartz More than one hundred vegetarian essays with environmental emphasis, by leading Jewish activist Richard Schwartz.

www.peta.org People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is the largest organization dedicated to establishing and protecting the rights for all animals on factory farms, in labroratories, in the fur trade, and in entertainmant.

www.pcrm.org Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is an organization of physicians and supporters conducting diet-linked health research and promoting a plant-based diet.

www.farmusa.org Farm Animal Reform Movement is an educational organization advocating a plant-based diet and humane treatment of farmed animals.

www.veganoutreach.org Vegan Outreach promotes a plant-based diet chiefly by distributing literature to young people.

Links to informative essays


"Is There Gospel Good News For The Animals?" Read the survey of some of the literature concerning Christianity and animals, by Elizabeth Farians, Ph.D., pioneer woman theologian. See www.ape-connections.org/gospel_good_news.htm

To read about C.S. Lewis's theology of animals in an essay Andrew Linzey from the Anglican Theological Review, visit www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3818/is_199801/ai_n8802633

Tom Regan, philosopher, ethicist and animal rights activist, is convinced that those Christians who are concerned with the exploitation and mistreatment of animals, are faced with a choice: to continue supporting the hypocrisy or to actively participate in correcting the wrongs and the religious institutions which support them. To read the full essay visit http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2326

In an ongoing essay series, Dr. Stephen Kaufman of the Christian Vegetarian Association applies the concepts of cultural anthropologist Rene Girard to Christianity and animals. Girard has argued that rivalries lead to scapegoating violence. A main theme of the Bible is that God cares about all creation and does not want victimization. See www.all-creatures.org/living/cphv.html

In a narrative essay that reads like a Tolstoy story, John Robbins tells what he learned about the depths of the human heart from his encounter with a hard and even frightening pig farmer.

Click here for a report on the findings of Bristol University scientists regarding the complex friendships, anxieties, grudges and enthusiasms of farmed animals.

For a short essay on the spiritual effects of violence against animals, and the changes resulting from a shift to ahimsa in diet, click here.