Call to Compassion: Religious Perspectives on Animal Advocacy from a Range of Religious Perspectives
Call to Compassion: Religious Perspectives on Animal Advocacy
Paperback – March 1, 2011 by Lisa Kemmerer (Editor), Anthony J. Nocella II (Editor)Primate People: Saving Nonhuman Primates through Education, Advocacy, and Sanctuary
Paperback – Illustrated, May 31, 2012 by Lisa Kemmerer (Editor), Marc Bekoff (Foreword)
The Animal Liberation Front
Kindle Edition by Steven Best (Author), Anthony J. Nocella II (Author) 6/01/2011
Covering doctrine and the lived experience of the world’s religious practitioners, Call to Compassion is a collection of stirring and passionate essays on the place of animals within the philosophical, cultural, and everyday milieus of spiritual practices both ancient and modern. From Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism, through the Abrahamic traditions, to contemporary Wiccan and Native American spirituality, Call to Compassion charts the complex ways we interact with the world around us.
1 - Table of Contents
Call to Compassion: Religious Perspectives on Animal Advocacy
Anthony J. Nocella, II, Lisa Kemmerer
Foreword by Steven M. Wise
Preface: The Time Has Come by Stephen R. L. Clark
Acknowledgments
Introduction by Lisa KemmererPART I: Religions of Asia
Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, and Daoist Traditions1. Indic Traditions and Animals: Imitation, Reincarnation, and Compassion
Christopher Key Chapple
2. Vaishnava Hinduism: Ahimsa and Vegetarianism
Steven J. Rosen
3. International Society for Krishna Consciousness: Lord Krishna and the Animals
Krishna Kripa Dasa and Peter Alan Medley (Sarvabhauma Das)
4. The Jain Center of Southern California: Theory and Practice across Continents
Charlotte Laws
5. Buddhism and Animal Liberation: A Family of Sentient Beings
Norm Phelps
6. Buddhist Reflections on Animal Advocacy: Intention and Liberation
Matthew J. Walton
7. Daoism: From Meat Avoidance to Compassion-Based Vegetarianism
Louis KomjathyPART II: Abrahamic Traditions
Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Traditions8. Judaism: Global Warming, Animal Products, and the Vegan Mandate
Richard H. Schwartz
9. Catholic Exemplars: Recent Popes, Medieval Saints, and Animal Liberation
Judith Barad
10. Christian Mysticism: Unity and Love for All
Andrew Fitz-Gibbon
11. A Society of Friends (Quaker-Christian) View: Prophets and the Hidden Paradise
Gracia Fay Bouwman Ellwood
12. Christianity and Scapegoating: Understanding and Responding to Oppression
Stephen R. Kaufman
13. Islam: Muhammad, Sacred Writings, and Animal Liberation
Lisa Kemmerer
14. Al-Hafiz B. A. Masri: Muslim, Scholar, Activist—Rebel with a Just Cause
Nadeem HaquePART III: Ancient Indigenous Religious Traditions and Modern Wicca
15. Indigenous Peoples: Kinship and Killing
Lisa Kemmerer
16. Mother Earth and All Her Children
Linda G. Fisher
17. Wiccan Spirituality and Animal Advocacy: Perfect Love and Perfect Trust
Dianne Sylvan
18. Wicca, Ecofeminism, and Animal Advocacy: The Earth Path Less Traveled
FireweedAppendix: Factory Farming and Fishing
Lisa KemmererNotes
Bibliography
About the ContributorsAt the crossroads where humanity now stands, this book will help us consider the effects of what human activities are doing to ourselves, other animals, and to Earth. As we are increasingly faced with the global consequences humans have created, ancient wisdom from these traditions can serve as an inspiration and guide for compassion and activism for animals that, in the long run, will affect everything.—Julie Andrzejewski, Department of Human Relations and Multicultural Education, St. Cloud State University
In a time such as our own, when religion is commonly used to legitimate war and terror, Call to Compassion importantly gestures to how world religions might variously find common cause in their work for peace between the species. A liberation theology for the animals such as this has never been more necessary.—Richard Kahn, Core Faculty at Antioch University Los Angeles
This book will shed much-needed light on the intersecting beliefs of animal advocates and religious groups, and will be an insightful and indispensible tool for animal activists in helping bridge the narrow gap between their work and the compassionate message at the core of all faiths.—Nick Cooney, author, Change of Heart
A classic in the making, the book offers a unique examination of animal rights in other cultures through the perspective of world religions, demonstrating compassion isn't the exclusive purview of any one culture or species. A must read for students and activists in our era of globalization!—John Asimakopoulos, Director, Transformative Studies Institute
Harmony with nature and respect and compassion for all life forms were original tenets of geographically separated but spiritually connected movements. Recognizing the importance of these religious movements to the development of the major ethical and philosophical ideas shaping human thought can only give one pause in imagining a present quite different from the global market and technological culture we now inhabit, based as it is on the deaths of approximately 55 billion land animals alone killed annually for food worldwide. This book fills that pause with the knowledge and wisdom we need to move forward in imagining, and acting on, a different present and future based on that original harmony.—Carol Gigliotti, Emily Carr University, Media and Critical and Cultural Studies, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Kemmerer and Nocella should be praised for compiling a pivotal book that will have profound influence on how animals are viewed in society.—Sarat Colling, VIVA, Canada
Religion has an important role to play in animal rights and this book takes a major step to making the case for a theology of animal liberation. An urgent book for urgent times.—Peter McLaren, UCLA, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies
Truly a pivotal book that challenges what it means to be ethical. Call to Compassion is a powerful book with an amazing list of outstanding contributors. Read now!—Richard White, Editor, Journal for Critical Animal Studies
This book is influential in impacting the way people reconstruct the internal logic of their religion. The first of its kind to help change what has been viewed as right and wrong.—Justin Hand, F.A.C.T.
At a time when the animal rights movement has been repeatedly smeared as extremist, or even “terrorist,” this volume shows that, in fact, its core values stem from a long history of nonviolent teachings in all of the world's major religions.—Will Potter, GreenIsTheNewRed.com
Finally, a book that connects animal advocacy with the profound spiritual resources of world faiths. This landmark collection of learned and impassioned essays will doubtlessly be widely read and admired.—Uri Gordon, author, Anarchy Alive!
We live in a time in which humanity's need for spiritual healing through compassion is unparalleled. We have pushed the boundaries of our destructive capabilities with nuclear weaponry, genocide, factory farming, and vivisection. Call to Compassion is an immensely important and timely contribution to a world that yearns for rebirth.—Adam Wilson, CEO, Downbound
Covering doctrine and the lived experience of the world’s religious practitioners, Call to Compassion is a collection of stirring and passionate essays on the place of animals within the philosophical, cultural, and everyday milieus of spiritual practices both ancient and modern. From Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism, through the Abrahamic traditions, to contemporary Wiccan and Native American spirituality, Call to Compassion charts the complex ways we interact with the world around us.
Anthony J. Nocella II is a pacifist and Quaker who provides nonviolent and conflict transformation workshops to community centers, schools, universities, law enforcement, and in prisons. He works with American Friends Services Committee and the Alternatives to Violence Project. He is working on his Ph.D. in Social Science and a Masters in Education at Syracuse University. He has established three academic journals, assisted in establishing dozens of NGOs around the Americas, and has published more than two-dozen articles and co-edited Igniting a Revolution: Voices in Defense of the Earth (AK Press 2006) with Steve Best.
See all titles by this authorLisa Kemmerer (B.A. in international studies, Reed College; M.T.S. in comparative religions, Harvard Divinity School; Ph.D. in philosophy, University of Glasgow, Scotland) is a philosopher-activist, artist, and lover of wild places, who has hiked, biked, kayaked, backpacked, and traveled widely. She is the author of In Search of Consistency: Ethics and Animals (Brill 2006) and Religion and Animals: Rightful Relations (Oxford 2011), and (in addition to co-editing this volume) the editor of Sister Species: Women, Animals, and Social Justice (University of Illinois Press, 2011) and Primate People: Personal Stories of Advocacy and Adventure (University of Utah Press, 2011). She is currently editing three other anthologies (Women as Animal Advocates and Activists: International Insights from the Front Lines; Links of Life: Earth and Animal Liberation; and an untitled anthology on activism on behalf of bears). She has published a dozen chapters in books and encyclopedias, and has nearly thirty articles in print. Kemmerer is currently associate professor of philosophy and religions at Montana State University, Billings.