Suggestions for Letters to the Editor

Your first sentence should tie your letter to a recent news report, editorial, or an upcoming holiday. Your letter should not exceed 200 words, and 150 or less is preferable. Usually, letters focus on a specific issue, such as the harmfulness of animal foods for the environment, our health, or animals. Many Internet sources can provide the specific facts you will need, including our booklet Honoring God's Creation. [highlight Honoring God's Creation and link to our page Honoring God's Creation]. If your letter is aiming to present a Christian case for vegetarianism, we suggest the following:

Stress that Christians are called to be loving, compassionate, and respectful of God's Creation. Modern factory is cruel and destructive and therefore incompatible with core Christian values.

Inform readers that the vast majority of animals raised for food in the U.S. lead pain-filled, miserable lives in factory farms.

It is often good to say something like, "Few people are aware of how the badly factory farms abuse animals, harm the environment, and damage our health." This reduces defensiveness, because the writer is not accusing readers of being callous or mean; instead, the writer is suggesting that lack of information explains most people's support of animal agriculture.

Do not try to argue that Jesus was a vegetarian. Even if you believe that biblical or other sources lead to this conclusion, we do not think that Jesus' diet 2000 years ago is critical to answering the question what would Jesus eat today? And, many people will read the Bible (e.g., Luke 24:43) to clearly describe Jesus as eating fish.

We do not think that you should say something like "Christians should be vegetarians." The reason is that some people, for health or financial reasons, have little choice but to eat animal products. Therefore, we suggest something like, "Christianity encourages vegetarianism today" or "Christians with access to healthful plant-based foods should choose a vegetarian diet."