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Clearly, animal-rights proponents are serious—and dangerous. Charles Oliver of Reason magazine puts it well: "By placing chickens and Jews on the same ethical plane," as Newkirk does, "animal rights activists may inadvertently make it easier for a future Hitler to herd millions of humans into gas chambers."

Oliver is right. The philosophy behind the animal-rights agenda is an assault on human dignity. As Christians, we have a moral duty to respect the animal world as God's handiwork, treating animals with "the mercy of our Maker," as Christian writer Matthew Scully writes in his excellent new book, Dominion.

But mercy and respect for animals are completely different from rights for animals—and we should never confuse the two.

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A ready-to-download Bible Study on this article is available at ChristianBibleStudies.com. These unique Bible studies use articles from current issues of Christianity Today to prompt thought-provoking discussions in adult Sunday school classes or small groups.

Matthew Scully's Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy is available at Amazon.com, as is Peter Singer's Animal Liberation.

Articles referenced above include:

An Animal's Place—Michael Pollen, The New York Times Magazine (Nov. 10, 2002)

Exposing animal-rights terrorism—Wesley J. Smith, National Review Online (Oct. 2, 2002)

Liberation Zoology—Charles Oliver, Reason Magazine (June 1990)

Recent Charles Colson columns for Christianity Today include:

Faith vs. Statistics | Beware of doing ethics by crunching numbers. (Jan. 28, 2003)

Just War in Iraq | Sometimes going to war is the charitable thing to do. (Dec. 10, 2002)

A Clan of One's Own | Hacking through the jungle of identity politics. (Oct. 9, 2002)

Undaunted | Bioethics challenges are huge. But so is God. (July 31, 2002)

The Wages of Secularism | New laws won't prevent another Enron. (June 4, 2002)

More Doctrine, Not Less | We need to proclaim truth to a truth-impaired generation. (April 15, 2001)

Post-Truth Society | The recent trend of lying is no accident. (March 4, 2002)

Drawing the Battle Lines | We need to be informed and discerning about the Islamic worldview. (Jan. 9, 2002)

Wake-up Call | If September 11 was a divine warning, it's God's people who are being warned. (Nov. 5, 2001)

The New Tyranny | Biotechnology threatens to turn humanity into raw material. (Oct. 5, 2001)

Merchants of Cool | We should be angry that the media hawks violence and that parents allow it. (June 6, 2001)

Slouching into Sloth | The XFL is but the latest sign of the coarsening of our culture. (Apr. 17, 2001)

Checks and (out of) Balance | Moral truth is in jeopardy when the courts enter the business of making law. (Feb. 27, 2001)

Pander Politics | Poll-driven elections turn voters into self-seeking consumers.(Jan. 3, 2001)

Neighborhood Outpost | Changing a culture takes more than politics. (Nov.8, 2000)

MAD No More | In this post-Cold War era, it's time to rethink our nation's defensive strategy. (Sept. 27, 2000)

Salad-Bar Christianity | Too many believers pick and choose their own truths. (Aug. 8, 2000)

A Healthy 'Cult' | A lively response by one unusual audience shows how God's power transforms culture. (June 12, 2000)

Previous Breakpoint commentaries on animal-rights activists include:

Caring for the Creation | By Charles Colson, April 3, 2003

Are Pigs People Too? | By Charles Colson, November 20, 2002

On Boundless Webzine, Anne Morse wrote on this subject in "Murder Most Fowl."

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April 2003, Vol. 47, No. 4