Exposing (and Avoiding) Deeds of Darkness

Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness;

instead, expose them.

(Ephesians 5:11, NLT)

There is such a thing as visual pornography, colloquially illustrated by man's inability to turn away and not look at a train wreck. Some people will object to the video I'm posting here for that reason. But higher concerns make it justifiable.

First, it is not that visually offensive. Rather, the offense is in the practice it illustrates—the cruel practices, standard in the industry, associated with producing baby chicks for the factory farms that house hens for egg-laying purposes. I dare say the VAST majority of Americans have no idea that their breakfast eggs (unless produced under non-factory-farm conditions) have such a sordid heritage. It is a heritage that the owners of these chick-producing companies, along with all factory farms, want to keep in the dark. It's why they don't allow cameras or reporters inside their facilities; why films such as this one have to be shot under cover. One would think that, if they were proud of what they did, factory farm companies would welcome public exposure.

The fact that 150,000 male chicks are destroyed each day at the Hy-Line Hatchery chick factory in Iowa, and how they are destroyed, is a deed or darkness that needs to be exposed.

Connecting personal responsibility to the deeds of others is a difficult issue. That is, if you are a consumer of meat or dairy products—eggs, in this case—what responsibility do you have not to support industries that are based on cruelty? The same question can be asked concerning the taxes we pay to our government when parts of those taxes are used to fund practices that violate one's conscious and personal ethics, e.g., abortion or war. Or when investors place money into a mutual fund, and their money is invested by the fund managers in "sin industries"—companies that promote ill health (e.g., the tobacco industry), moral decline (e.g., certain parts of the gaming and entertainment industries), or human rights abuse (e.g., companies located in nations that allow child labor or do not protect basic human rights).

Two considerations are obvious:

1. Degrees of choice. To use examples at opposite ends of the spectrum: On one end, we are required, under penalty of law, to pay taxes to a government that may violate our personal standards in the way it uses our taxes. On the other end, we are not required to eat food that is produced in inhumane ways. So the degree of volunteerism (or obligation, or choice) is different in each situation and must be considered when weighing our response.

2. Degrees of separation. There are varying degrees of separation between an individual and inhumane or unethical practices in different situations. If I pay a farmer, face to face, for animal products he has raised inhumanely, my complicity in his actions is clearer than if I purchase a similar product at a grocery store that has multiple levels of separation between a product's origin and my purchase of it (producers who hide or disguise their actions, wholesalers, distributors, retailers, etc.). It doesn't necessarily dilute my complicity, but it makes it harder to see. And out of sight usually means out of mind.

These two factors complicate one's response in any given situation, but we are required to do the hard work of consideration nonetheless. After viewing the following short video, I hope you'll give consideration to any part you may be playing in supporting this industry's profitability, and therefore its viability: