Animals: Tradition - Philosophy - Religion Article from All-Creatures.org

A CreatureKind Lectionary for All Creation: For Animals, Peoples and the Earth

From Karla Mendoza Arana and Aline Silva, CreatureKind
April 2024

The CreatureKind Lectionary is a free resource for the Church with a labor of love for Animals, Peoples, and the Earth. We hope this lectionary provides you with connection, questions, and maybe even a new perspective.

Industrial Agriculture is evil, valuing profit over God’s beloved CreatureKind. It destroys all standing in its way, impacting animals farmed for food, workers employed by the industry, communities surrounding these operations, and the earth itself. So, what would it look like to center animals farmed food in our church services? In our reading of the Bible? In our small group meetings? In our daily meditations?

• This Lectionary is meant to connect us to the heart of God for non-human and human Creations alike, however we have placed our attention on animals farmed for food because we know they are often forgotten in the narrative of how loved they are by Creator.
• This resource is made to help Christians implement concern for animals and food into our corporate and individual spiritual practice by developing liturgical resources following the Christian calendar—including Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and Ordinary Time.
• The CreatureKind Lectionary is sufficiently broad to be easily adapted to a variety of denominational contexts, but that consistently and specifically highlights farmed animals and food justice.
• CreatureKind welcomes, affirms, and encourages all BIPOC folks, GNC folks, and LGBTQIA+ folks in all our programs. As such, this project contains gender-neutral, justice-centered, liberatory language. As we invite others to expand their definition of neighbor to nonhuman animals, we invite the reader to generous, curious, and critical theology.

The CreatureKind Lectionary is a free resource for the Church with a labor of love for Animals, Peoples, and the Earth. We hope this lectionary provides you with connection, questions, and maybe even a new perspective.

To be CreatureKind means to change the way we see ourselves and other creatures. We see that we are one among many of God’s beloved creatures. Just as we are aware of our vulnerability as human creatures, and the vulnerability of the humans we love, so we become aware of the vulnerability of the creatures around us, many of whose lives are even more fragile than our own. We become aware of the power we exercise over these other creatures: how our lives impact theirs.

By adopting DefaultVeg for our meals, and especially in community or group settings, we can significantly improve the wellbeing of animals, and witness to the possibility of a more peaceful co-existence with God's other creatures.

When we gather for fellowship and food, we can love our neighbors well by committing to food policy and diet changes to provide benefits for:

 

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