Viva! 8 York Court Wilder Street Bristol BS2 8QH Tel: 0117 944 1000 Fax: 0117 924 4646 email: media@viva.org.uk	28 April 2000 ‘Eat a Burger - Save Your Soul’ Campaign Under Fire Hookers for Jesus once used sex to attract new disciples, now its burgers that are the evangelical loss leaders. On The Move barbecue ministries is planning a series of four-day meat-ins across Britain to which ordinary people off the street are invited in the hope of converting them. The aim is to serve 400,000 burgers. The first ‘kill a cow for Jesus’ barbie starts in Manchester on Wednesday, May 3 and tambourine-rattling supporters of the animal charity Viva! will be protesting outside Manchester cathedral (by Victoria railway station) at 12.00 noon. “It is the most unchristian idea imaginable”, says Tony Wardle, Viva!’s communications director. “While supposedly preaching a message of love and compassion, they are supporting cruelty on a mass scale, helping to destroy the world’s environment and playing a part in the starvation of the world’s poorest people. When the meek finally inherit the earth, there won’t be many left - and there won’t be much Earth, either.” Barbecues are planned for many major cities and Viva! supporters will be protesting at all of them. The public will be handed leaflets which explain the cruelty of meat production and the role that livestock play in causing global starvation. One depicts an impoverished child with the words “He’s dying for your burger ...” Another shows Jesus holding a burger alongside the words “In the name of the father, the son and Ronald McDonald. “The wealth of the meat industry gives it a stranglehold on land and vanishing resources. In the developing world, an area of land the size of Britain, France, Italy and New Zealand is used to grow fodder for the west’s animals. It is often the same countries whose children die from strvation. In Ethiopas last famine, it was having to supply fodder for our animals while its people were ravaged by stravation. These supposedly religious jamborees will contnribute to this abuse of the world’s poorest people.,” concludes Tony Wardle. For further information, contact Tony Wardle on 0117 944 1000