IN CONVERSATION: 

Q&A With David Clough

"When Christians get the chance to think about these issues, they recognize that treating other animals better is an obvious step to take in putting into practice a faith-based view of the world."

                                          -  David Clough

   
         Not long ago, I reached out to David Clough, whose book On Animals Volume I: Systematic Theology, I've been discussing in my last few posts (here, here, and here).  We corresponded about his book and his thoughts about animal advocacy within the Christian community, where it stands now, where it may be going, and what we can do.  Here are some of his thoughts on these topics and others.

Q:      How did you first become interested in animals as a matter of theological concern?

A: Questions of origin are always interesting! I remember a classmate at school giving a presentation against laboratory research on animals when I was 14 that impressed me. I also remember sitting alone on a Scottish hill in the Cairngorms during a hiking trip, and witnessing a reindeer walk past only a short distance away, look at me in the eye for what seemed a long time, and then amble slowly off. I became vegetarian when I was 18. I’m convinced that my Christian faith was a key influence on this choice: a simple belief that that if it’s possible to live without depending on the suffering and killing of others of God’s animal creatures, that is obviously preferable for Christians. Since then I’ve been surprised at how few fellow Christians make a similar connection, and I think it was that puzzlement, a sense of wanting to explore the issue in depth, and a sense of the scandal in the way we treat other animals, especially in intensive farming, that motivated me to focus my academic work on the topic. I’d like to persuade fellow Christians that they have faith-based reasons for respecting the lives of their fellow animal creatures before God. 

Q:      Historically, the church has been largely silent on the issue of our relationships with animals, and what it has had to say, with some exceptions, has not been good.  How can traditional doctrine help animals?

A: Doctrine at its best is a dialogue with practice: helping us think well about the relevance of the Bible and Christian theological tradition in order to guide how we live. In order to get clear where animals belong in Christian thought and practice, we need to take time to examine the texts and traditions we have inherited, and bring this new question to them. As I began to think about how to address these questions, it became clear to me that many Christians accepted a very particular doctrinal position in relation to other animals: that God created the Universe for the sake of human beings, and that everything else was created to serve human ends. This position, it seems to me, undergirds a great deal of our current practice in relation to other animals. When we look in depth at biblical and theological traditions, however, the belief that God created everything for the sake of humans looks like a bad theological mistake. It’s a much better answer to say the purpose of creation is to glorify God, or that it’s an end in itself, or that it is made to participate in the triune life of God. Once we recognize this doctrinal position, we can immediately see clear ethical consequences. If a chicken lives to bring glory to God, to re-engineer its body so that it reaches slaughter weight in 35 days, and spends that time in crowded windowless sheds, seems clearly to fail to respect its place in God’s creation or its Creator. In this way, traditional Christian doctrinal claims about God and the world seem to me to have consequences for our relationships with other animals that Christians have been very slow to appreciate.

Q:   What do you think is the most pressing ethical concern regarding our relationships with animals? How do you think the Christian community should address it? 

A: There are many ways in which human activity has a heavy impact on other animals: destruction of the environment of wild animals, laboratory product testing and research on animals, the use of animals in sport and entertainment, and many more. The biggest and most direct impact we have on the lives of animals, however, is our raising them for meat, dairy and eggs. Around 56 billion animals are slaughtered for meat globally each year, and many of these spend their short lives in conditions very far from anything we could consider humane. This seems to me the most important area for action. I’d like to encourage conversation in the churches on this issue, so that Christians could be at the forefront of a public recognition that we shouldn’t be part of systems that treat animals in this way. I’d like churches to decide not to serve meat that comes from the intensive factory farming of animals, and for individual Christians to follow this practice individually.

Q:  In the introduction to your book you state that the newness of our current practices towards is “breathtaking.”  You also discuss in Part 1 how our scientific understanding of animals has developed.  I have often been struck by the fact that, as we grow in our knowledge of animals’ capacity for suffering, we also grow in institutional cruelty towards them. What are your thoughts on this disconnect? 

A: It seems to me that the public at large, including most Christians, are reluctant to recognize that the choices they make about what they eat is a moral issue. The food industry makes this easier by hiding their practices from the public, and selling meat, eggs, and dairy products from animals whose lives are unrecognizably different from what many consumers imagine. In the main, we don’t exercise our moral imaginations to make connections between packaged supermarket animal products and the lives of the animals behind them. The good news, however, is that consumer choice has the potential to effect radical changes in farming practice: if Christians came to see that they have faith-based reasons to avoid buying the products of intensive factory farming, then a great deal would quickly change.


 Q:     How has your work on animals been received by your colleagues, both in academia and among clergy?  

A: To be honest, when I started working in this area I expected skepticism from fellow theologians and from church leaders. It has been exciting to discover that this is far from the case. I’ve given papers in university systematic theology seminars where theologians have told me not only that what I’m saying about animals and theology is persuasive, but that it also gives them new insights about broader issues in theology. I’ve given academic papers with an ethical focus after which members of the audience have told me that they’ve decided they will no longer eat factory farmed meat. And I’ve talked to conservative Christian groups who have quickly recognized that taking the lives of fellow animal creatures seriously is a way of taking seriously God’s creative and providential purposes. This convinces me that when Christians get the chance to think about these issues, they recognize that treating other animals better is an obvious step to take in putting into practice a faith-based view of the world.

Q:   Do you see the issue of animals gaining theological traction academically, among clergy, or among lay Christians? 

A:  In the academy, there has been a big rise in the last ten years in interest in animals, among historians, scholars of literature, philosophers, geographers, anthropologists, as well as scholars of religion. It seems that our growing knowledge about the lives and capacities of other animals provokes big questions for how we think about them and act in relation to them across the academic spectrum. I don’t have such a clear sense that the issue is gaining much greater attention among clergy, or the broader church, however, so that’s where I see the need for more work.

Q:     Have you preached about animals?  If so, in what context and what kind of reception did you get? 

A: I’m a lay preacher in the Methodist Church in the UK, and I’ve preached regularly on the place of animals in Christian biblical narratives, theology and ethics. Once I was invited to take a pet service, so was preaching to a congregation of dogs, cats, gerbils as well as humans! I was invited to preach at St. John’s College, Cambridge, on the topic last year (recording and transcript available here), and always do my best to accept invitations. It seems to me that preaching about a wider vision of God’s purposes in creation, reconciliation, and redemption is important for Christians to feel confident in their faith: our knowledge about the vastness of the Universe makes a faith that relates only to one species of creature on one small planet seem implausible. The cosmic visions of the opening chapter of the letters to the Colossians and Ephesians see things on a much grander scale: they repeatedly affirm that Jesus Christ came to make peace all things in heaven and earth. I always include a challenge for Christian practice in relation to other animals, but there is also gospel good news in appreciating the graciousness of God to all creatures.

Q:    How do you recommend that congregation members raise their concerns about animals as a matter for church instruction with their clergy and church leaders?  

A:  Members of congregations can exercise a great deal of influence over their churches. If they let leaders know that they are concerned about the treatment of animals, or the kind of meat the church is serving at events, or how to make sense of the meaning of the Romans 8 vision of creation released from its bondage, I’d hope that church leaders would be interested in exploring the issue with them. If clergy feel under-equipped to address the issue, they could help by highlighting the many good recent books that have come out. Alongside my On Animals, I’d encourage people to look at:

-          York, T., & Alexis-Baker, A. (Eds.). (2012). A Faith Embracing All Creatures: Addressing Commonly Asked Questions about Christian Care for Animals. Wipf and Stock.

-          Camosy, C. (2013). For the Love of Animals: Christian Ethics, Consistent Action. St Anthony Messenger Press.

-          Hobgood-Oster, L. (2008). Holy Dogs and Asses: Animals in the Christian Tradition. University of Illinois Press.
     [Note:  These and other excellent sources of information are listed on my Resources page.]

      

Q:    There are a lot of important ethical concerns for Christians to deal with in the world today, including poverty, homelessness, hunger, gun violence, human suffering resulting from on-going wars, the place of women clergy, and the place of the LGBT community in the church, to name just a few.  In the face of these pressing matters for human welfare, why should Christians concern themselves with animal welfare?  

A: You’re right, of course, that there are many moral issues that deserve the attention of Christians. It’s a mistake, though, to think that paying attention to one moral issue means not paying attention to another. There is very strong evidence that cruelty towards animals makes people much more likely to be cruel towards other human beings, and I’m convinced that the relationship goes the other way, as well. Increasing sympathy for the exploitation of weak and vulnerable non-human animal creatures can only increase sympathy for the exploitation of weak and vulnerable human ones. The other important factor is eating less meat, and stopping consuming the animal products of intensive factory farming will benefit not only animals, but humans, too: it reduces the pressures on global food and water supply, reduces local environmental pollution, is better for human health, and reduces the greenhouse gas emissions fuelling climate change. 

 

Q:   What is the most important message you hope readers take away from your book?

 A:  My greatest hope is that fellow Christians come to realize that, far from Christianity giving permission for humans to exploit other animals without regard, faith in the God who made and declared good this magnificent and diverse creation, who was incarnate in Jesus Christ to make peace between all things in heaven and earth, and who will redeem creation by releasing it from its bondage to sin and decay, means animals have a place in God’s purposes, and should therefore have a place in ours.

 

Photo credit: Dietrich [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons