Religious leaders and scientists have been coming together in recent months over the issue of global climate change. Now they have another cause for common ground: animal experimentation.
The National Research Council, the Dalai Lama, and even Pepsi and Coke are all taking action to end cruel experimentation on animals.
The Dalai Lama, in a recent address, pleaded for an end to cruelty toward animals. He also encouraged that his followers embrace vegetarianism in order to resist cruelty.
In addition, Coke and Pepsi are refusing to put any more money into animal testing of their products. The NRC reported that it is much more cost-efficient to perform the same research with specialized databases, not with direct testing on animals.
I neglected in the last two posts to introduce myself.
My name is Matthew, and I have just finished my MTS degree in Ethics at Harvard Divinity School.
My Beatitudes Society fellowship this summer is at Faith In Public Life, a resource center in Washington, DC. FPL has been a great place for me to explore the responsible interaction between religion and politics and learn the tools of media communication and grassroots organizing.
In the fall I will begin teaching history at my alma mater, Central Catholic High School in Pittsburgh, PA.
Today in Washington, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) is rallying outside the Capitol to demand an end to torture, secret prisons, and the indefinite holding of terror suspects without charge. These religious organizers believe that torture is a moral issue and that its practice is abhorrent to the belief in the dignity of each human life.
I asked Jeanne Herrick-Stare from NRCAT how religious leaders are responding to the apparent use of torture by the US. She replied,
"They are preaching, in the language of each of their faiths and religious beliefs ...
They are educating others about the facts that lie behind the political rhetoric ...
Last week at my Beatitudes Society fellowship at Faith In Public Life , I participated in the unveiling of an online database that is really a first of its kind. FPL has been compiling this list of 3000 religious communities for over a year. The database Mapping Faith is meant to organize religious communities in all fifty states around common good issues: poverty, environment, civil rights, immigration reform, etc.
I had the opportunity to talk to several reporters all over the country last week as we prepared for our Thursday press teleconference regarding the Map. The reporters I spoke to were extremely enthusiastic about one principle fact that our data revealed: there is a resurgence of progressive religious organizing!
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