On our way from Michigan to Indiana on the first day of the tour, Rob and I read through a couple of articles and several letters that appeared last year in The Banner, the magazine of the Christian Reformed Church. Rev. Leonard Vander Zee's "...Also Many Animals" explored Christian responsibility related to animals who are raised for dairy, egg and meat, sparking a slew of response letters, as well as an article by farmer Malcom DeKryger ("A Farmer's Perspective").
It seemed to us that what both of the article writers wanted, as well as many of the people who wrote in, was a closer, better relationship between eaters and the sources of their food. The detrimental effects of poor factory farming practices on animals and humans and land should certainly be concerning to all Christians. However, many farmers felt misrepresented by Rev. Vander Zee's article and continue to feel unfairly pigeonholed by the agendas of various conscious eating movements.
Our suspicion is that even if Rev. Vander Zee and Malcolm DeKryger sat down to talk about these issues over coffee, they'd still arrive at different conclusions. The defenses of factory farming in the Banner letters, while genuinely concerned with the welfare of the animals, seem to be representing a highly scientific approach to the lives of animals. I couldn't help but think of the world in Lois Lowry's The Giver as a human parallel to sanitized, climate-controlled hog confinements--it's a world that's safe, clean, orderly and predictable, and yet doesn't fully honor the created nature of the beings contained in it. So while there may be concern for the welfare of the animals all around, there may be differences of opinion on the best way to work out that concern. And yet, I think it's still worth face-to-face conversations, farm visits and other points of connection that help us see each other as thoughtful, caring people, rather than potential converts in the path of an agenda.
The Church seems uniquely positioned to help make these life-giving connections, most powerfully symbolized in communion as we share the same loaf and the same cup in remembrance of the most central story of our faith. My best hope is that such connections might lead to fruitful dialogue and creative, faithful collaboration on solutions that are life-giving for farmers, animals and eaters at all stages of production and consumption.
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