{"id":16991,"date":"2026-06-05T10:31:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T05:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/why-evangelicals-should-oppose-the-new-farm-bills-save-our-bacon-act\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T10:31:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T05:01:59","slug":"why-evangelicals-should-oppose-the-new-farm-bills-save-our-bacon-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/why-evangelicals-should-oppose-the-new-farm-bills-save-our-bacon-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Why evangelicals should oppose the new farm bill&#8217;s Save Our Bacon Act"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<p><iframe title=\"Everlit Audio Player\" src=\"https:\/\/everlit.audio\/embeds\/artl_6PEgDS8Y1qK?ui_title_intro=Listen+now%3A&amp;client=wp&amp;client_version=3.1.5\" width=\"100%\" height=\"136px\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(RNS) \u2014 Christians should care about cruelty to animals, even, perhaps especially, the animals we eat.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Bible is filled with principles that govern the ways in which animals are to be <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/biblestudyforyou.com\/bible-verses-about-caring-for-animals\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">cared<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/biblerepository.com\/bible-verses-about-animal-slaughter\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">slaughtered, eaten and sacrificed<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Laws and regulations in our own government today that eliminate or reduce unnecessarily cruel and inhumane conditions for animals simply reflect biblical wisdom regarding the good stewardship of God\u2019s creation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Christians should know, then, that the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/119th-congress\/house-bill\/7567\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2026 Farm Bill<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in April and is expected to go before the Senate this month, departs from this biblical wisdom. The bill contains a provision, referred to as the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.govtrack.us\/congress\/bills\/119\/hr4673\/text\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Save Our Bacon Act<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, directed at <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bing.com\/ck\/a?!&amp;&amp;p=a79f20f192e2550da5df4c6459c5a229fec057f7c59c30a834d8b9df51a3706bJmltdHM9MTc4MDQ0NDgwMA&amp;ptn=3&amp;ver=2&amp;hsh=4&amp;fclid=30e4d9ea-4ab4-601d-3565-cf4a4b3f6106&amp;psq=save+our+bacon+act+california&amp;u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubXNuLmNvbS9lbi11cy9uZXdzL3VzL2Zhcm0tYW5pbWFsLXdlbGZhcmUtcnVsZXMtbWlnaHQtYmUtcm9sbGVkLWJhY2stYnktY29uZ3Jlc3MvYXItQUEyNEtzdTc_b2NpZD1CaW5nTmV3c1NlcnA\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">overriding<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> some <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/politics\/articles\/u-farm-bill-could-override-090111576.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">state<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> laws against animal cruelty. The act <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenewlede.org\/2026\/05\/farm-bill-save-our-bacon-livestock-cafos\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">specifically<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> targets legislation in California and Massachusetts (passed by voter approval) requiring \u201cthat hogs, calves and chickens that are on confined farms or sold in the states are raised with adequate room to turn around, lie down and extend their limbs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To be very clear: The proposed change will nullify the basic requirement that living, breathing, sentient creatures created by God have room to move and rest throughout the short duration of their lives. Requiring such minimum comfort \u201chardly seems an unreasonable request for a modern, enlightened society,\u201d as <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2026\/05\/29\/farm-bill-save-our-bacon-act-would-hurt-animal-welfare-state-rights\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kathleen Parker recently mused<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Indeed, such cruelty directly counters Scriptures in both the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/deuteronomy\/25-4.htm\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Old<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/1_timothy\/5-18.htm\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">New<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Testaments that command us not to muzzle an ox while it is threshing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As some <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/chicago\/news\/small-farmers-form-coalition-to-push-back-against-2026-farm-bill\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">critics<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> point out, the provision not only removes animal welfare protections, but will also <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kttc.com\/2026\/06\/01\/save-our-bacon-protest-occurs-outside-dfl-convention\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">hurt small-scale farmers<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Moreover, a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/animal.law.harvard.edu\/news-article\/legislative-analysis-of-hr4673\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">report<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> from Harvard Law School finds that the act could have unintended effects on hundreds of local and state laws and regulations \u201crelated to livestock production and livestock products that are intended to protect public health, farmers, and consumers, such as vaccination and food safety requirements.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ultimately, while it may feel impossible to untangle all the layers of competing needs and interests entailed in the bill, Christians have an ethical, God-ordained duty to care well for all of creation by supporting practices that are humane and healthy for both people and animals. Opposing cruelty is foundational to any system of Christian ethics, but it is also essential to our mere humanity.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<hr\/>\n<div id=\"attachment_4262478\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 750px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-4262478\" src=\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-William_Hogarth-1-and-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"750\" height=\"445\" srcset=\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-William_Hogarth-1-and-2.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-William_Hogarth-1-and-2-427x254.jpg 427w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-William_Hogarth-1-and-2-807x479.jpg 807w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-William_Hogarth-1-and-2-768x456.jpg 768w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-William_Hogarth-1-and-2-1536x912.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-William_Hogarth-1-and-2-300x178.jpg 300w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-William_Hogarth-1-and-2-600x356.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\"\/> <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text edd-enabled\"><span class=\"caption\">William Hogarth\u2019s \u201cThe First Stage of Cruelty: Children Torturing Animals,\u201d left, and \u201cThe Second Stage of Cruelty: Coachman Beating a Fallen Horse.\u201d (Images courtesy of Wikimedia\/Creative Commons)<\/span><span class=\"credit\"\/><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is not a new idea, of course, but it is one that gained new currency in the early modern period when urbanization and industrialization severed old ties between humans and the natural world. It was in the midst of this great shift that the English painter William Hogarth produced a series of prints titled \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.princeton.edu\/~graphicarts\/2008\/12\/the_four_stages_of_cruelty.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Four Stages of Cruelty<\/span><\/a>\u201c<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (1751), which vividly portrays the natural course of cruelty for the one who practices it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The series depicts a character, aptly named Tom <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/allthatsinteresting.com\/emperor-nero-death\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nero<\/span><\/a>,<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> over the course of a life characterized by acts of heartless cruelty \u2014 first acts committed by him, but ultimately upon him. The first print shows Tom sadistically torturing a dog on a city street with another boy while others commit abuses on other animals nearby. Only one boy seems to be pleading for them to stop.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The second print depicts Tom grown and working as a coachman. His horse has collapsed from exhaustion, and Tom is wielding the stick with which he has mercilessly beaten the horse, surrounded by other men heaping abuses on other creatures on the city street.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the third print, we see Tom in the moments after he has murdered his pregnant lover, details of the event described in a letter written by his lover, included in the scene. Tom\u2019s pockets are full of stolen goods and weaponry.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4262488\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 750px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-4262488\" src=\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-William_Hogarth-3-and-4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"750\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-William_Hogarth-3-and-4.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-William_Hogarth-3-and-4-427x256.jpg 427w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-William_Hogarth-3-and-4-807x484.jpg 807w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-William_Hogarth-3-and-4-768x460.jpg 768w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-William_Hogarth-3-and-4-1536x921.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-William_Hogarth-3-and-4-300x180.jpg 300w, https:\/\/religionnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/webRNS-William_Hogarth-3-and-4-600x360.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\"\/> <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text edd-enabled\"><span class=\"caption\">William Hogarth\u2019s \u201cThe Third Stage of Cruelty: Cruelty in Perfection,\u201d left, and \u201cThe Fourth Stage of Cruelty: The Reward of Cruelty.\u201d (Images courtesy of Wikimedia\/Creative Commons)<\/span><span class=\"credit\"\/><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The fourth and final in the series conveys the moral lesson with the inevitable consequences for such a life: Tom has been executed by hanging, his body is being dissected by heartless operators and bears signs and symbols that reflect all the cruelties he has committed over the course of his life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hogarth\u2019s series brings starkly to life the truth that cruelty begets cruelty and ultimately consumes the one who is cruel. This is a truth that was embraced by the earliest evangelical reformers, whose broad reforms during the 18th and 19th centuries changed the world in ways we take for granted today.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hogarth\u2019s work was produced during the decades when evangelicalism was growing as a movement in England and the Colonies. Within a few decades of this series, a generation of evangelical leaders would rise up who would see with new eyes the various forms of cruelty that were all around in everyday life and challenge them: slavery, the inhumane working conditions of the poor, the injustice of the system of criminal law and animal cruelty.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These evangelicals \u2014 including <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Fierce-Convictions-Extraordinary-Reformer-Abolitionist\/dp\/1400258286\/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">John Newton, William Wilberforce and Hannah More<\/span><\/a> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014 successfully advocated for reforms in all of these areas. While they were fighting to abolish the slave trade \u2014 fueled by the virtue of benevolence and in recognition of the demoralizing and coarsening effects all forms of cruelty have on all those who participate in it \u2014 these evangelicals also advocated for animal welfare. In fact, in 1824 Wilberforce helped <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.indcatholicnews.com\/news\/10718\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">found<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. This is a legacy that, sadly, has been largely forgotten by evangelicals today. But it is a legacy worth remembering and keeping today.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Industrialization and bureaucracy bring greater distances between us and the animals we eat, and it\u2019s easy to feel removed from the practices by which living, breathing, sentient animals become the products we consume \u2014 because we are so greatly removed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But that distance does not remove our ethical and moral responsibility to fulfill the stewardship mandate God gave us in a way that reflects the nature of his goodness and care. It is good and right to care well for the lives of the creatures who aid and sustain human life.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<hr\/>\n<p><!-- CONTENT END 1 -->\n        <\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/2026\/06\/04\/why-evangelicals-should-oppose-the-new-farm-bills-save-our-bacon-act\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(RNS) \u2014 Christians should care about cruelty to animals, even, perhaps especially, the animals we eat. The Bible is filled with principles that govern the ways in which animals are to be cared for, slaughtered, eaten and sacrificed. Laws and regulations in our own government today that eliminate or reduce unnecessarily cruel and inhumane conditions [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}