{"id":32935,"date":"2022-09-10T16:29:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T21:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/protestant-pastors-support-but-rarely-preach-animal-welfare\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T16:29:00","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T21:29:00","slug":"protestant-pastors-support-but-rarely-preach-animal-welfare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/protestant-pastors-support-but-rarely-preach-animal-welfare\/","title":{"rendered":"Protestant Pastors Support, but Rarely Preach, Animal Welfare"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By Lisa Cannon Green<\/em><\/p>\n

Protestant pastors overwhelmingly agree humanity has a God-given duty to care for animals.<\/p>\n

They just don\u2019t mention it much from the pulpit.<\/p>\n

In a survey of 1,000 Protestant pastors, sponsored by Every Living Thing, a national campaign for the Evangelical Statement on Responsible Care for Animals, Lifeway Research finds a distance between pastors\u2019 beliefs about animal welfare and their church activities.<\/p>\n

Two-thirds of pastors never preach about the treatment of animals or haven\u2019t brought it up for more than a year. More than 4 in 5 say their churches aren\u2019t involved in animal welfare issues in the community.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Nevertheless, 89 percent of Protestant pastors say Christians have a responsibility to speak out against animal cruelty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe disparity between pastors\u2019 beliefs and church sermons and actions is worth exploring\u2014there\u2019s a noteworthy gap,\u201d said Scott McConnell, vice president of Lifeway Research.<\/p>\n

Responsible care for animals is rooted in the Bible, 94 percent of Protestant pastors say. Ninety-five percent believe God\u2019s command for humans to steward all living creatures still applies today.<\/p>\n

Only 12 percent think God is indifferent to people\u2019s behavior toward animals.<\/p>\n

Some pastors are not certain there\u2019s a connection between caring for animals and caring about human beings. Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) see a link, but 24 percent disagree.<\/p>\n

Tension also emerges around how the church should respond. Eighty-eight percent of pastors say Christians need to work for protection of animals without neglecting vital human concerns, but only 16 percent say their church personally tackles local animal welfare issues.<\/p>\n

Nearly 4 in 10 pastors (39 percent) say they have never addressed the treatment of animals in a sermon.<\/p>\n

\u201cPastors have not said their congregations are disrespectful of animals, but there is little advocacy regarding the mistreatment of animals,\u201d McConnell said.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
See also  Most Open to Spiritual Conversations, Few Christians Speaking<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Mainline issues<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mainline Protestant pastors are more involved with animal welfare issues than evangelical pastors, the survey shows.<\/p>\n

Mainline pastors (79 percent) are more likely than evangelical pastors (70 percent) to believe the way people treat animals reflects their care for human beings. Accordingly, mainline pastors more often report their local church is involved with animal welfare issues (22 percent) than do evangelical pastors (13 percent).<\/p>\n

Lifeway Research also found differences by education level.<\/p>\n

Pastors with master\u2019s or doctoral degrees are more likely than those with bachelor\u2019s degrees to believe Christians have a duty to speak out about animal cruelty and to work to protect animals. They are also more likely to agree with the statement: \u201cThe way we treat animals is an indicator of our care for other human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lisa Cannon Green is senior writer for <\/em>Facts & Trends magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n

Methodology<\/strong>
The phone survey of Protestant pastors was conducted Sept. 8-21, 2015. The calling list was a stratified random sample drawn from a list of all Protestant churches in America. Each interview was conducted with the senior pastor, minister, or priest of the church called. Responses were weighted by region to more accurately reflect the population. The completed sample is 1,000 surveys. The sample provides 95 percent confidence that the sampling error does not exceed plus or minus 3.2 percent. Margins of error are higher in sub-groups.<\/em><\/p>\n

Download the research<\/p>\n

\n

Related posts:<\/h3>\n
Churches Still Recovering From Pandemic Losses Most Pastors See Racial Diversity in the Church as a Goal but Not Reality 22 Vital Stats for Ministry in 2022 3 Ways to Reach Non-Religious People in Your Community <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lisa Cannon Green Protestant pastors overwhelmingly agree humanity has a God-given duty to care for animals. They just don\u2019t mention it much from the pulpit. In a survey of 1,000 Protestant pastors, sponsored by Every Living Thing, a national campaign for the Evangelical Statement on Responsible Care for Animals, Lifeway Research finds a distance … Continue reading “Protestant Pastors Support, but Rarely Preach, Animal Welfare”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}