Open Your Mouth for the Voiceless. By Dr Chapman Chen

“Open your mouth for the speechless, in the cause of all who are appointed to die” (Proverbs 31:8). For sure, this applies to political dissidents imprisoned in dungeons, tortured, and organ-harvested by dictatorial regimes. Nonetheless, it also applies to animals crammed into small cages in dark factory farms, and throat-cut, scalded, cut open, and skinned alive in slaughterhouses and laboratories. These helpless, terrified creatures cannot speak for themselves. They have no legal rights at all, for they are regarded as property in law. As their co-creatures and co-covenant partners, we have the duty to speak out for them.

Jesus set a good example for us by giving His life in His mission to liberate animals from the Temple-turned-butcher-shop (Mark 11:15–18; Akers 2000, 117–118). Today, Zoe Rosenberg is facing up to five years’ imprisonment for rescuing four sick chickens from a poultry plant. Tash Peterson has been arrested and charged numerous times for her peaceful protests against animal abuse, and has even been barred from licensed venues across Western Australia. Speaking out for voiceless animals is also the mission of Anonymous for the Voiceless, which organises regular outreach events across the world.

Ephesians 5:11 commands believers to both avoid and expose the sinful actions of others: “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (KJV). As Desmond Tutu said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” (Tutu, 1984 anti-apartheid address; also cited in The Book of Forgiving, 2014). Similarly, John Stuart Mill stated in 1867: “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” (Mill, “Inaugural Address at St Andrews,” 1867).

When we are not vegan, we are accomplices of animal abuse. Three trillion innocent voiceless creatures of God are murdered by humans for food, for clothing, for entertainment, for labour, for experimentation, for real estate development, etc. every year. If we remain silent about this “largest holocaust in history” (to borrow Tash Peterson’s [2021] words), we have chosen darkness instead of the true light of Christ (John 1:9). #VeganGod #VeganChrist #VeganTheology  #VeganChurch

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