He said former church presidents Lorenzo Snow, Joseph F. Smith and later, Joseph Fielding Smith, quietly abstained from eating meat and were concerned with "how to treat and live with animals."

LDS children in the late 19th century used to celebrate "Humane Day," he said, and were urged to write poetry about birds or animals as a way to engender kind treatment. "There was even an early debate in Utah history about whether to eat pork," Welling said.

Book of Mormon imagery regularly associates wickedness with "animal-like behavior" and the consumption of raw meat, he said, noting that at times, the righteous were also meat-eaters. Analogies of "sheep" being righteous and "beasts" being wicked maybe have something to do with pervasive attitudes about animals among Latter-day Saints today, he said.

LDS Church founder Joseph Smith taught early followers to avoid killing "serpents, birds or animals of any kind" unless it was necessary to provide food.

Such actions represent a type of "practical millennialism," which is "that we help bring about the millennial state" that Latter-day Saints believe will exist on Earth after the second coming of Christ "by reining in our (debased) actions regarding the treatment of nature," Welling said.

Several sections in the faith's Doctrine and Covenants put forth the notion that "animals are eternal beings and subject to Christ's atonement," he said, adding, "their lives are only to be taken under strictly defined conditions."

He urged a return to the "historical dialogue (among church members) about the kinds of life we choose to save and the kinds of life we choose to take."

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