All major world religions contain teachings relevant to animal welfare. Finding these teachings and amplifying them creates powerful allies for animal advocacy in faith communities.
Religious communities represent an underutilized resource for animal welfare advocacy. Most major faith traditions contain teachings that, honestly applied, would support significantly stronger animal welfare commitments. The challenge is that these teachings have often been interpreted minimally — prohibiting overt cruelty while permitting factory farming conditions that would have been unrecognizable to the founders of these traditions. Faith-based animal advocates who speak from within their traditions — interpreting stewardship theology, ahimsa, or compassion for all beings in ways that challenge industrial animal use — reach audiences that secular advocacy cannot access. The potential for faith-based animal advocacy to accelerate behavior change at scale is significant and largely unrealized.