Recently, I was invited to speak at the adult forum at Christ Episcopal Church in Rockville, MD. I was, of course, delighted to accept. I very much enjoyed the hour, and hope that the congregation did, as well. I'm sharing below a copy of my remarks.
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| Christ Episcopal Church, Rockville, MD |
Dominion In The Image Of God –
Why Caring About Animals Is Central To What
It Means To Follow Christ
Remarks at Christ Episcopal Church,
Rockville, MD
September 30, 2018
Good morning. Thank you for inviting me here to talk with
you, and thank you for the work the St. Francis Flock is doing in raising the
issue of animal welfare as a Christian concern, and thank you for your support
of this important work, Rev. Simpson. There
is a lot that I could talk about today, but given our limited time, I thought I
would try to lay out what I think are the foundational concepts for a theology
of animal welfare, and then answer any questions the group may have.
I want to start
with what might strike you as a fairly startling proposition: that caring for animals is not just an appropriate Christian concern, I believe
it is fundamental to what it means to
be human, what it means to be created in God’s image, and what it means to
carry out God’s will on earth. To
support that idea, I want to focus on the creation stories, which form the
foundation of our understanding of our place as humans in God’s creation. Specifically, I want to focus on the idea that
we are created in God’s image and given dominion over the animals. That’s an
idea that traditionally has been used to excuse exploitation of animals, but I
think it is telling something very different indeed – and something that goes
beyond what many mean when they use the word “stewardship” in place of dominion.
