Resources for Lent 2020

by Sarah Withrow King

The season of Lent was not a strong part of my Christian formation. To me it was, at most, a time to stop eating some food I liked, to be “spiritual.” In high school, following the lead of a cute camp counsellor, I gave up meat for Lent…a commitment I abandoned after approximately two days when I ordered a turkey sandwich because I forgot that I had become a vegetarian.

It wasn’t until I became a parent, and I started looking for ways to help expand my son’s sense of Christian community, that I started paying closer attention to the rhythms of the Church calendar, and to Lent.

Whether you are a Lenten new-comer, like me, or have been marking this period for as long as you can remember, we hope these resources connecting Christian faith with animals will be a welcome addition to your Lent practice.

Wild Hope: Stories for Lent from the Vanishing

“Attention to the amazingness of our arkmates routes us directly to the heart of Lent. The season means to rouse us from our self-absorption. Absorbed instead in the beauty of other creatures, we see how they value their lives, lives woven together across species in beautifully complex webs. The nine-ounce red knot flies from the southern tip of the world to meet the horseshoe crab at precisely the week she crawls from the waters of Delaware Bay to lay her eggs. Once alive to the exquisite web holding all creatures, we also see the holes slashed through it. By us. We’re enraptured by the animals’ beauty, and we’re horrified by the suffering we inflict on that beauty. With Saint Paul we can hear all creation groaning, including ourselves.” Gayle Boss, from the introduction to Wild Hope: Stories for Lent from the Vanishing.

With a reading for each day of Lent, and Easter Sunday, Wild Hope connects our human stories with the stories of individual animals in creation. A simultaneously beautiful, heart breaking, and hope-filled work. Wild Hope: Stories for Lent from the Vanishing. Text Copyright © 2020 Gayle Boss. Illustrations Copyright © 2020 David G. Klein. Available from Paraclete Press.

CreatureKind Small Group Study

 “I was really glad to be able to consider a lot of areas of scripture that I hadn't thought about before. I found learning about the environmental cost and the way animals are treated on these farms to be very persuasive, in combination of a better understanding of how Christians should think about caring for other creatures and the earth,” said one participant. Post-course surveys show that in addition to thinking differently about animals, participants commit to changing their daily dietary choices, as well.

You can lead a church or community discussion using CreatureKind's free course! Our six-week small group study:

• helps Christian communities think about what their faith means for animals, 

• is designed especially for small groups to use over a six-week period (like Lent), 

• provides a gentle introduction to animal welfare and the church,

• and guides communities to explore how to care for animals more faithfully. 

Through videos, short readings, and lots of dialogue, the CreatureKind Course for Churches encourages Christians to consider what we believe about God’s creatures and how we might move toward living out those beliefs as members of the body of Christ. We provide all the course materials, and a guide for leaders. You don't need to have any specialist knowledge, just the motivation to help people think and discuss together. Download the course today! 

Honorable Mention: We Are The Weather

“The chief threat to human life—the overlapping emergencies of ever-stronger superstorms and rising seas, more severe droughts and declining water supplies, increasingly large ocean dead zones, massive noxious-insect outbreaks, and the daily disappearance of forests and species—is, for most people, not a good story. When the planetary crisis matters to us at all, it has the quality of a war being fought over there. We are aware of the existential stakes and the urgency, but even when we know that a war for our survival is raging, we don’t feel immersed in it. That distance between awareness and feeling can make it very difficult for even thoughtful and politically engaged people—people who want to act—to act.” Jonathan Safran Foer. We Are the Weather

Safran Foer applies the art and science of storytelling to help deeply connect readers to the realities of the climate crisis. While the book doesn’t connect Christian faith with animals, Safran Foer explores spiritual themes familiar to Christians. This may be a good resource to use for a group open to spiritual seekers, as well as Christians. Written in five parts, the book can be studied on your own or in a group. We Are the Weather. Text Copyright © 2019 by Jonathan Safran Foer. Available from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Fourth of July Church Vegan Barbecue

by Carol J. Adams

My spouse, Bruce, has been the Associate Pastor for Community Ministries at a church in Dallas for 30 years. When we first arrived we learned that the Fourth of July event hosted by the church’s senior activities group was “a must.” To us northerners it was more than strange that anyone would choose to be outside in 100° temperature on July 4. On top of it, and to my dismay, the event was centered on chicken.

Ten years into Bruce's ministry here the people who hosted the event had aged and were unable to host it any longer. For a few years, the event rotated between other elderly members, and then no one could host it. The event went dark for a couple of years. I said to Bruce, “If all they need is a backyard in which to have their celebration, we can do it!”

But there was the issue of the chicken. This needed to be addressed. So I began serving vegan drumsticks. I bought them from my local vegan Chinese restaurant. She stocked them in bags of 80. They are little pieces of seitan on a cane sugar stick. I would slather barbecue on half of them and olive oil on the other half, bake them and serve them. They were a huge success and a curiosity.

But the Chinese restaurant went out of business. So I decided to make my own barbecue. First I use frozen tofu. One year I used tofu, tempeh, and seitan in barbecue sauce. (It’s the barbecue sauce that really matters!)

Everyone adjusted to the change in the main course and the request to bring vegetables or fruit (and no meat). What I was preparing became a matter of interest.

This picture shows my most successful barbecue—barbecued unribs!

The author with her popular BBQ unribs! 

This recipe is a little labor intensive, but while preparing them I make a point to listen to an audiobook about US history. At church the week following the serving of these unribs, I saw some of the matriarchs of the church. One said, “When I was asked how the barbecue was, I reported I had the best ribs ever!”

A faster BBQ recipe uses jackfruit instead of seitan. You hardly need any time at all!

Vegan BBQ Jackfruit

A barbecue is incomplete without macaroni and cheese, and I created the most luscious, richest, outrageous vegan mac and cheese recipe. I added a little kale just to prevent its complete descent to decadence.

Decadent Vegan Mac & Cheese

One friend, a nonagenarian, and very proper Southerner, went back for thirds! You can find the recipe here.

Of course, some cole slaw is necessary.

Use a vegan mayonnaise and you don’t have to worry about the eggs in the mayonnaise going bad in the sun! (Veganism has so many side benefits.)

Finally, we always end with a Texas sheet cake.

If I mention ordering a cake, there are protests: this is the cake that must complete the bbq.

As people are finishing their meals, Bruce brings out his miniature cannon and sets it off. But that is another story. The vegan bbq has found its place in the hearts and stomachs of at least one Texas congregation. Why stop there?

Happy eaters! 

Carol J. Adams is the author of numerous books including The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, now in a Bloomsbury Revelations edition celebrating its 25th anniversary. She has written several books on living as a vegan, including Never Too Late to Go Vegan: The Over-50 Guide to Adopting and Thriving on a Vegan Diet (with Patti Breitman and Virginia Messina), Living Among Meat Eaters: The Vegetarian’s Survival Guide, and How to Eat Like a Vegetarian Even if You Never Want to Be One.

She is the author of Woman-Battering (1995) in Fortress Press’s Creative Pastoral Care and Counseling Series. With Marie Fortune, she edited Violence Against Women and Children: A Christian Theological Sourcebook (1995). She is the author of the training manual, Pastoral Care for Domestic Violence:  Case Studies for Clergy - for Christian Audiences - Training Manual (2007) published by the FaithTrust Institute. She has a Masters of Divinity from Yale University. www.caroljadams.com