Weekly Newsletter from Christian Vegetarian Association CVA - March 19, 2024
From Christian Vegetarian Association (CVA)

  1. Activist Feedback
  2. Toward the Beloved Community: Challenges of Contemporary Society
  3. All-Creatures.Org Ministry

1. Activist Feedback

Rick Hershey writes:

I handed out 2500 CVA booklets at Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, SC to a friendly crowd in warm weather for Winter Jam today. Most of the booklets went to kids.

2. Toward the Beloved Community: Challenges of Contemporary Society

Prior essays looked at contemporary challenges to the human community raised by threats to freedom of speech, the independence of the judiciary, and the general problem of discerning fact from fiction. Our minds, designed to deal with the challenges of living on the savannas of Africa, are poorly equipped to handle rapid cultural changes and to process the massive amount of information needed to navigate contemporary living. Failure to adapt to contemporary challenges makes us vulnerable to pernicious forces and undermines our efforts to emulate Jesus. In these and forthcoming essays, I will consider the problems and then offer suggestions.

Regarding social change, it seems that each generation has markedly different values, ideals, and practices than the preceding generation. Parents “not understanding” their children is a perennial complaint, but until recently the “generation gap” related more to cultural preferences in music and other arts than in general social outlook. During the past few generations, young people have demonstrated markedly different worldviews from their elders. The degree of divergence has, as best I can tell, has been increasing rapidly during the last few generations. To me, Generation Z almost seems like a different species. I’m not sure why this has happened, though I suspect several factors.

The disruption of the nuclear family has made it difficult for young people to find a firm foundation for values and mores. Children frequently move away from their parents on account of work, and their children often have limited interaction with their grandparents. Frequently, children grow up with both parents out of the home most of the day and the grandparents are irregular visitors, at best. Meanwhile, busy parents have limited time to form the social bonds with neighbors that would otherwise result in a network of family and friends participating in raising children. Instead, children spend most of their time in school and in structured activities, where there is limited development of social and other life skills and there is limited ability to appreciate the merits of traditional values. Instead, thanks to social media, progressive educators, and children’s natural tendency to question their parents’ worldviews, they get a disproportionate dose of the shortcomings of traditional values.

Today, many young people turn toward social media for moral and cultural guidance. However, social media is rife with bad actors, including individuals and corporations seeking financial gain, interest groups that use the power of social media to silence those who dissent from their views, political groups who create false narratives about reality, and enemies of our democracy such as Russia, who promote divisiveness between people and spread fake news with bots and trolls who cleverly impersonate honest people.

Stephen R. Kaufman, MD

3. From All-Creatures.Org Ministry

All-Creatures.org Newsletter, March 20, 2024:

Easter Lambs and Easter Chicks — 20 years of ADI rescuing animals — Jane Goodall’s selected quotes [book] — first ever Coyote Awareness Week — Secrets of the Octopus [book] — protesting animal rights forum speaker — 10 dangerous antibiotics fed to farmed Animals — zoo Elephants Mikki and Punch going to the Elephant Sanctuary — Laco Kuc, former Animal Liberation prisoner — Barons: corruption of America’s food industry [book] — and more…

Do you have things that you would like to see included in future newsletters? Then send it to us at veda@all-creatures.org. 

In the Love of the Lord,
Frank L Hoffman
All-Creatures.org

and

Kindness,
Tams Nicholson
Executive Directress
All-Creatures.org 

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