I AM CECIL

“If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who deal likewise with their fellow men.”

                                                               ~    St. Francis of Assisi

We have all heard a great deal about Cecil, the lion in Zimbabwe who was killed by an American dentist on safari.  Cecil was not just any lion; he was a lion being tracked by researchers inside a national park.  He was well known for his magnificent black mane and he was a favorite with locals and tourists.  Nor was this just any hunting expedition.  This was a guaranteed kill outing and it is reported that Cecil, who, popular as he was, had become accustomed to humans, was intentionally lured outside the protections of the park with an animal carcass so that he could be “legally” killed.  And it was not just any kill.  Cecil was shot with an arrow, which failed to kill him, and he suffered for upwards of 40 hours – nearly two days - before he was finally found and killed with a shotgun.  He was then skinned and decapitated so the American, who had paid more than $50,000 for the privilege, could have his trophy.

            There is so much about this to be outraged over – and many people and nations have been outraged.  There is now a proposal in the senate to ban the import of animal trophies not just to animals on the endangered species list, but to those proposed for listing as well.  Botswana has banned sport hunting and exporting of wild animals, including lions, from the country.  Several airlines are now refusing to carry trophy animals. This tragedy has, at least, put a spotlight on this terrible “sport” and some good will result.   

            But is this a Christian concern?  The secular world is moving on this.  Does the church need to do anything?  Absolutely.

            First, it is a sad thing when the secular world leads the way for followers of the Prince of Peace in condemning acts of cruelty to God’s creatures.  We should be leaders; we should be showing the world what it means to love God and neighbor, not taking notes from our surrounding culture. 

            Second, as Humphrey Primatt pointed out more than two hundred years ago, “When we reflect upon the shocking barbarities, and see the brutal rage exercised by the most worthless of men, without controul of Law, and without reproof from the Pulpit, we are almost tempted to draw this inference, that Cruelty cannot be a sin.”[1]  We have to ask ourselves, who do want to be, and who do we hold ourselves out to be, as people of God?  Is it right to remain silent in the face of cold-heartedness?   
            This is not just about Cecil, and it is not just about lions, and it is not even just about trophy hunting.  It is about who we are as human beings, and who we seek to be.  It is about the human capacity to look a fellow creature in the eye, to watch it with its family or herd or group, and to say, “I think it would be fun to kill that.”  Not, “that animal is threat to me, my family, my livelihood;” not “that animal is sick or in pain;” not “I need to feed my family;” just, “I think it would be fun to take innocent life.” How can this possibly be consistent with scripture? 

            Matthew Scully has a chilling chapter in his book, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy, in which he describes a convention of Safari Club International, where the opportunity to kill virtually any animal can be arranged.  He describes Christian groups who gather there for prayer with their camouflage-covered Bibles.   

Here is what Wayne Pacelle had to say recently about Safari Club International in a recent blog:

The lion is one of Safari Club International’s Africa Big Five, along with elephants, rhinos, leopards, and Cape buffalo, and the idea of killing each of them motivates thousands of wealthy people to do it. It’s one of more than 30 hunting achievement and “inner circle” awards you can get if you become a member of Safari Club – including Cats of the World, Bears of the World, and Antlered Game of North America. If you win all of the awards, and there are plenty people who do, you have to shoot more than 320 different species and subspecies of large animals. In the process, you spend millions of dollars, in addition to spilling an awful lot of blood and spreading a lot of death.

How is this consistent with anything that Jesus taught?  How is this reflective of love, compassion, mercy, the Kingdom of God, or the exercise of power for the benefit of the powerless? Is this really acceptable for the people of God?  And when we harden our hearts to idea of causing harm to animals – for fun! - we are very close to hardening our hearts to the idea of causing harm to humans, and to closing our eyes to humans in need.  Yet, hunters like Sabrina Corgatelli of Idaho, who proudly posts pictures of herself on Facebook with her “kills,” defends herself by quoting the Bible.

            We cannot blame the hunters with their camouflage-covered Bibles.  No one has told them that there is anything inconsistent with their faith in what they are doing. No one has pointed out that “dominion” does not mean ruthless exploitation, or that the animals weren’t put here for human purposes, or that “species management” is not all that is relevant in dealing with animals.  They are constantly re-affirmed in their understanding of trophy hunting as “sport” and of animals as objects for collection.  From the perspective of those engaged in these activities, it is a proud tradition.  Full stop.  

This, this, is where the church must step in, to present a new viewpoint, to remind us that Christ died for all of creation, to ask us consider all this blood and death, and the orphans left behind, and the millions spent on self-indulgence, through the lens of Christ; to put verses like those quoted by the "huntress" into context; and to talk about how we are all creatures of and before the same God, how hardness of heart toward the animals changes who we are as human beings and makes it easier to develop a hard heart toward humans in need, and how, finally, we must show mercy as we ask for mercy.

            Some will say these hunters are “conservationists,” helping to manage unwieldy animal populations; some will say they are “philanthropists,” because their money provides jobs and supports communities. 

            I’m sorry, but I don’t buy it.  For herds and prides that have outgrown the small plots we still allow animals to roam, there are other ways to manage populations.  Certainly, population management cannot justify the killing of a member of a species whose population is dwindling so fast it may soon be considered endangered, such as a lion (not to mention rhinos, who are in even more danger).  Nor does it justify the breeding of these creatures for the sole purpose of making them available to “sportsmen” to kill.  There are also other ways to raise money – including non-lethal safaris, where people shoot with cameras. In 2002, Scully pointed out that Kenya prohibits sport hunting, but has "by far the the highest tourism revenues" in Africa. (Dominion, p. 68)  If those who spend millions to kill innocent animals cared about animal conservation or the welfare of the African communities, there are ways to achieve these goals other than blood sport that are more constructive and more consistent with who we are called to be as caretakers of God’s creation and of each other.  There are, no doubt, circumstances where an individual animal poses real threats to a human community that may need to be dealt with lethally, but even those are not an occasion for “sport.”

            As for what is “legal” and what is “ethical,” there is no question that some trophy hunters feel an obligation to play by the rules, while others lure animals out of protected areas, or hunt in protected areas, or put the challenge of a bow and arrow kill over the suffering of the victim, or use any number of other underhanded means to achieve their goals, and it is important, I think, to recognize the difference.  Nevertheless, just because something is legal, that does not mean it is ethical.  And it certainly doesn’t mean it is consistent with Christian teaching.

            Is there something for the church to do? Yes.  The church can preach the teachings of scripture regarding the value of all of God’s creatures, wholly apart from their interactions with humans; the church can explain that the right exercise of power is to be helpful, not exploitative; the church can speak of our “common creatureliness” with the animals; and the church can remind us that, created in His image, we are called to reflect God’s love, mercy, and compassion to the whole world, even to “game.”  
           The church needs to do this not only for the Cecils of the world, but for those who seek to follow Christ.

           

Photo credits: 
Cecil the Lion by Daughter#3 [CC BY-SA 2.0] via Wikimedia Commons
The Raising of the Cross Rembrandt
Bible and rifle, public domain
Giraffes by David Wye

---

[1] Primatt, Humphrey. "A Dissertation on the Duty of Mercy and the Sin of Cruelty to Brute Animals." Google Books. 1776, pp. 24-25.