If you’re near Grand Rapids, Mich. on January 22-23 and want to start the new calendar year off with a new outlook drop by Calvin College for the annual Wake Up Weekend for nonhuman animal awareness and advocacy.
This year, the featured guest will be Vegan Soul Kitchen eco-chef and bestselling cookbook author Bryant Terry. Other [...]

Police in riot gear brandishing pepper-spray. Protesters arrested without provocation. Handcuffed bodies sitting on cold concrete streets. Physical abuse on caged human beings. Deliberate humiliation and the denial of so-called “basic rights.”
These are the kinds of mementos thousands of eco-activists will take home after vigorously protesting the failed Cop-enhagen talks on what I like to [...]

I wrote this reflection (sans a few minor edits) and tacked it onto my bulletin board at work shortly before Thanksgiving in 2008. It was later posted over at the Young Anabaptist Radicals site.
Thanksgiving makes me nervous.
For years, I’ve gotten a sinking feeling in my stomach as the month of November draws to a close [...]

In 200,000 years on Earth, humanity has upset the balance of the planet, established by nearly four billion years of evolution. The price to pay is high, but it’s too late to be a pessimist: humanity has barely ten years to reverse the trend, become aware of the full extent of its spoliation of the [...]

Last week, John Zerzan hosted folk musician, Christian, and anarchist Seth Martin on his Anarchy Radio show. In addition to performing three of his songs live, Seth shared his perspectives on anarchism, Christianity and anarcho-primitivism and the ways in which he has come to hold them together. Seth reflects on his own journey to [...]

The Gathering Around the Un-hewn Stone conference is right around the corner (October 16-18) and it looks like it is shaping up to be an event filled with great topics, speakers and music. Circle of Hope, Croatan Studio and In the Land of the Living have pulled together a detailed schedule so folks know what [...]

This past spring we helped to organize a small informational gathering on veganism at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, called “peaceable eating.” Mercy for Animals gave a presentation on the egg industry showing that not only regular eggs but also “free range” eggs are part of an industrial system that treats the chickens very poorly in many ways. We then showed a video called “Wegman’s Cruelty” which makes the point very well through images.

The response after the presentation and the video by one of our AMBS professors has had me thinking for quite a while about the use of video and imagery in making a case for veganism. This particular professor told me that everybody can agree that the way the animals are treated is just aweful and something ought to be done to make sure they are treated well. But he could not agree that using nonhuman animals for food is in itself a problem. It is the treatment that is the problem, not our use of nonhuman animals for our own purposes.

I have wondered whether the video (and perhaps the initial presentation) did not reinforce that presumption in this friend and professor.

Our friends at the Ekklesia Project had another excellent gathering in Chicago this year with speakers engaging issues around how the household that is Christ’s Body might faithfully engage economics: What is God’s household management (or home economics) style? How does God care for creation? And how do we who are invited to [...]

Recently, The Progressive Radio Show had a great interview with Bruce Friedrich, vice president for policy and government affairs at PETA. During the conversation, Friedrich responded to several challenging questions about PETA’s tactics, drew connections between his Christian faith, his veganism and his activism on behalf of nonhuman animals, and discussed his book The [...]

If you are a hyper-recycler that hates to throw things out and has managed to collect several piles of unusable but non-recyclable stuff, then this might be your chance to rid yourselves of at least one kind of item. National Geographic is working with Cotton from Blue to Green to collect tons and tons of [...]