Chicken Crusade

  Is the slaughter of chickens comparable to the Holocaust? Karen Davis says "Yes"—and she's devoted her life to saving them. In a recent Washington Post interview, Davis described poultry farms as "huge prison camps" where chickens are humiliated, tortured, and murdered. Yes, murdered. In a strange—I might say feather-brained sort of way—Davis, who says she does not believe in God, is providing evidence of God's existence, and of the unique role human beings play in His creation. At her Virginia home, Davis keeps more than a hundred chickens, many of which she rescued after they fell off poultry trucks. She devotes hours every day caring for them, and spends the rest of her time fighting political battles on their behalf. The cause has not been without its sacrifices. Davis' husband, tiring of her single-minded devotion to chickens, left her. Her home is almost entirely bereft of furniture so the chickens can roam freely. Davis is so committed to her fowls that she even missed her father's funeral to care for them. Of course, scripture teaches that Christians ought to be stewards over animals. But is it normal to view chickens as the moral equivalent of humans, and to sacrifice everything for their sake? Most animal rights activists would answer, "Yes," because they believe in Darwinian evolution, which teaches that there's no clear dividing line between animals and humans. But Darwinian evolution teaches other things as well—things that don't fit so comfortably with Davis' commitment. Darwinists teach that life has no meaning or purpose. They also teach the survival of the fittest—the idea that the strong survive and the weak get selected out. But Davis' fanatical commitment to chickens flies in the face of this naturalistic belief. A consistent naturalist, you see, would not care if chickens were winnowed out by a stronger species. But Davis DOES care. She believes that humans, as the stronger and more intelligent species, ought to protect the weaker species. Clearly, something is driving Davis to rise above her own self-interest. That "something," however misdirected, is the Imago Dei, the image of God planted in all of us and which makes us realize we are created for a higher purpose. Davis' devotion to her feathered friends is evidence that she is looking for something transcendent, for some calling beyond herself. She's proving that the Darwinian worldview is false, because she cannot live with its logical conclusions. The true test of a worldview, after all, is whether it conforms to reality. Davis says she does not believe in God—and yet in a twisted way, by seeking a higher purpose, she's validating the Christian worldview. It's tempting to laugh off people like Davis as eccentrics. But Davis is well-educated, a former college professor. People like her are deadly serious. The real problem is that she and other animal rights activists have a flawed worldview, a wrong understanding of the doctrine of creation. Animal rights activists are having a serious impact. Our job is to expose the failure in their underlying belief system and then lead them to the One who cares about every sparrow that falls to the ground-and Who values humans so much more that He sent His Son to die for them.

12/1/99