ordained minister and spokesperson for industrial animal agriculture
As mentioned when we began dialoguing with Christian dominionist and wildlife damage management expert Stephen Vantassel, there are brothers and sisters in Christ who disagree strongly and sometimes vocally with a thorough Christian concern for animals. Wes Jamison is another of those voices who I wanted to introduce to you, and an influential one among both mainstream and Christian animal agriculturalists. Though Wes declined to participate in an online Q&A, I wanted to share some of his work and areas of communication with you.
Wes is an associate professor of communication at Palm Beach Atlantic University, a Christian liberal arts school in West Palm Beach. He's previously taught public relations, political and social science, as well as agriculture politics and history. He has also served as the director of the Agriculture Stewardship Center at Dordt College, a Reformed Christian school in Sioux Center, Iowa. A previous version of Wes' PBA biography mentioned that he is also an ordained Southern Baptist Minister, and has recently served as a pastor in the Gainesville area.
Aside from teaching, Wes is president of a public relations and consulting firm. He holds one PhD for which he studied interest group activism, and is currently doing research toward another on "theories of public relations as they relate to activist communications and urban-rural conflict." He has focused much of his study and professional work on the activism of animal rights and welfare advocates, which you can catch a glimpse of in his co-authored article "Every Sparrow That Falls: Understanding Animal Rights Activism as Functional Religion":
The tradition we know as mainline western Christianity takes its instruction about life from the constant refrain in Genesis (New Jerusalem Bible), “And God saw that it was good.” The theocentric doctrine posits humans as the pinnacle of creation - often interpreted as, “humans alone really matter.” However, our informants spoke of the goodness of nature but not people. To our informants, nature acquires normative value and is the repository of nobility and virtue, while humans acquire negative and even evil attributes (Dizard, 1994; Chase, 1995). (pg. 315)
Such a perspective has certainly been present in the animal rights community, and needs to be graciously challenged from a Christian perspective. However, what I struggle to understand and defend about much of Wes' work involves his research and advocacy in defense of industrial animal agriculture. We've often spoken out about the many grossly inhumane realities of factory farming, and how contrary they run to basic morality and a biblical model of compassionate animal husbandry. Even so, Wes is a respected and in-demand spokesperson on behalf of industrial agricultural interest groups such as the American Meat Institute, which "is dedicated to increasing the efficiency, profitability and safety of meat and poultry trade worldwide."
The Animal Agriculture Alliance also invited Wes to speak at a recent Annual Stakeholders Summit on research which they cosponsored with the Nebraska Farm Bureau Federation "to learn more about how activists are using religion to influence public opinion." The summit preview mentions that Wes is an expert in this subject, including the work of groups such as the Humane Society's Faith Outreach, and that he would be presenting focus-group tested advice "to help agricultural stakeholders take back the issues and reframe them to also connect with people of faith and the general public."
Here's part of a presentation Wes gave at a First Farmers Bank & Trust Ag Client Seminar in 2009 (thanks to Matt Halteman for sharing):
Wes says, "American agriculture exists in a context with consumers that cannot and do not and will not understand what you do. We have a profound difficulty communicating who we are and what we do to our consuming public." Wes goes on to make some interesting and perhaps valid points about why this general disconnect exist. But could it be that a big part of the problem is that Americans and other Westerners simply aren't comfortable with the stark realities of industrial animal farming, and for good reason?
Wes says that concern for animal welfare has nothing to do with science or economics, and that a majority of "consumers believe that farm animals should be treated the same as pet animals." But my question in return would be, what does factory farming have to do with compassionate husbandry or stewardship of God's creatures in the most basic capacities? Wes goes on to say, "We've tried to solve our problems through increasing productivity, to get more out of less. We've always tried to get more production out of less input, that's what we've tried to do." But the bottom line was never meant to drive our stewardship of any dimension of God's world, let alone sentient beings. And the consequences of this trend have been staggeringly degrading for animals, our environment and resources, the laborers involved in the factory farm industries, and for our own health. I would even suggest they've been more detrimental to our spiritual health than we might be aware.
Wes, I'm not sure if you will see this post, but I first want to thank you for your time and graciousness in personal dialogue with me. But a couple of questions regarding this aspect of your work keep coming to mind, and I wonder if perhaps you could address them at some point more publically. Knowing you to have both theological and pastoral concerns, do you feel comfortable completely aligning your defense of industrial animal agriculture with a Christian view of creation and creature stewardship? And knowing what you do of the institutionalized realities of factory farming, do you feel comfortable offering that same defense to the broader Christian community beyond just industry insiders (perhaps you already have)?
You can read more about Wes at Hoosier Ag Today's "Happiness is a Dead Animal," JournalStar's "Ag Professor: Animal Rights Advocates Using Religion," Lancaster Farming's "Animal Producers from Mars, Animal Lovers from Venus?" and much more at ZoomInfo.com.
(photo courtesy Farm Sanctuary)
June 1, 2010
Reader Comments (8)
Thanks for sharing this Ben.
Often, when one has nothing nice to say, it's best to say nothing at all.
And since Dr Jamison is a brother in Christ, I'll leave it at that..
Well said, Valerie, I tried to let Wes' work largely speak for itself on my own end - Ben
Jamison has mentioned in most of his talks that animal ag needs to give "permission" to consumers to be hypocrites. This advice coming from a "religious" leader reveals that the industry has absolutely no moral grounding. I really think this person is more of a liability to their cause than an asset... Let's hope they keep him on - Down ever faster goes their sinking ship! ;)
Thanks for the note, Bea, industrial animal ag seems to want consumers to feel better about their animal products without giving the facts about how they are produced, because they are a natural turn-off. I heartily agree that this is a matter of tremendous breakdown in consistency and conscience, which Christians should not participate in (though I wonder if some Christian farmers are genuinely in a place of tension with respect to this dilemma), let alone advocate for - Ben
Just viewed this video and I hardly know what to say. That this an ordained minister talking is fairly staggering, particularly since he seems to suggest that the most important thing farmers should be worried about is making money. He has also nicely set up a false dichotomy between treating farm animals as pets and treating them as commodities. They are, of course, neither, and there are a host of behaviors on the spectrum between these two extremes that would allow better treatment of farm animals. Not, however, if all we need to worry about is getting the most out of a cash crop.
Well said, Lois, I agree. I was also disappointed by the manufactured global panic at the end. As if not factory farming is what will cause world hunger to overtake us here in the US. I think the distribution of resources actually works very much the other way around - Ben
I so agree with all the above comments. I find that the church ( mine is Anglican ) has very little to say about animal rights, in fact yours is the only website I have found that supports it. Keep up the good work Ben, and God Bless you.
Thank you very much, Jenny, that means a lot - Ben