SCRIPTURE AND PRAYER

"Be still and know that I am God."

     

                                Psalm 46:10 

       This week I wanted to share two posts from other sources and three links.  Both posts help to bring us back to our foundations as animal activists in faith communities.  For me, it is a time to take some necessary refreshment, and to return to the fundamentals.     

        The first link is to a post from the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.  10 Biblical Truths About Animals, by Barrett Duke, provides an overview of basic scriptural teachings about animals. It is a good reminder that scripture has a great deal to say about our fellow creatures.  As animal activists in our faith communities, we must be firmly grounded in scripture and we must always be prepared to explain that we are not bringing a secular perspective into our faith, but are seeking to open the eyes of our communities to the place animals have always had in the Bible so that we can more fully live into what we say we believe.  

         The second link is a post from a few months ago at Still Harbor by Rev. Steven Bonsey.  The Activist As Contemplative reminds us of the importance of stillness before God.  "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10) is both scripture and prayer and it is always an important idea for activists to remember to help us avoid and overcome the frustration and burn-out that can come from working for any kind of social change.  By simply being with God silence, we allow His presence to renew and refresh us and to remind us that not everything depends on us.  By trusting God and allowing Him to work through us on His schedule, we can accomplish so much more - both for our own faith and for the cause we all cherish so deeply.

        The third link is simply to the location where you can go to sign up to receive Humane Steward, if you don't already get it.  It is a monthly e-mail from the Humane Society of the United States Faith Outreach Department with links to various items of interest for those of us interested in animal welfare as a matter of faith.  This month, for example, it provides a link to the Barrett Duke article described above. 

       And now,  may "the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord."  (From The Book of Common Prayer, another excellent resource for grounding and refreshment).  

DO ANIMALS SIN?           

“The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.  So the Lord said, ‘I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created – and with them the animals, the birds and creatures that move along the ground – for I regret that I have made them.

                                                                          ~  Genesis 6:6-7

            Throughout his book, On Animals, David Clough consistently challenges our common human understanding of “animals” as simple creatures, wholly separate from humans.  Instead, he develops a complex image of our fellow creatures, urging us to appreciate the wide range of creatures with whom we share this planet, the richness and complexity of their lives, and many ways humans and other animals are alike.  In addressing the doctrine of atonement, he continues to invite us to broaden our understanding of other animals’ places before God, asking, among other things, whether animals sin and whether they are in need of reconciliation with God.     

ON HUMAN VALUE, CHILDREN, AND POLAR BEARS    

“We care for creation because we love the God to whom it belongs and because we long to see God’s glory enhanced through creation and God’s pleasure in creation served through our loving care.”

                                      

                                                                Christopher Wright 

     I want to do two things in things in this post.  First, more or less in the spirit of "throwback Thursday," I want to link again to a post I did in November of 2013, On Image And Value.  That post considers some of the same issues raised in last week's post from a different angle.  Last week's post considered the significance of the incarnation for animals, arguing that because the incarnation was an event of cosmic significance, humans cannot use the fact that God was incarnate as a human to set ourselves apart from or above the rest of creation.  Likewise, in On Image and Value, I consider the traditional idea that humans have inherent value, as distinct from the rest of creation, because humans alone are made in the image of God.  I argue instead that human value and  the value of all of creation comes from the fact that we loved by God.  Our creation in God's image does not set us part in terms of value, but imposes on us responsibilities.  If we can be said to have greater value, it is only because we are called upon to fulfill those important responsibilities to care for creation and in particular the animals.  These two concepts are closely related, and I think it is worth considering them together.


      Second, and on a related note, I want to comment on an article I saw today, somewhat surprisingly, in the environmental law trade press.  The article provides yet another example of Christians talking about creation care and seeing only part of the picture, and thereby missing a critical element of God's call to us.  Today's Energy and Environment News ClimateWire included an article about religious groups seeking to raise the issue of climate change from various Christian perspectives to the Congress and to congregrations.  The article discusses a number of different groups and views.  One of the groups discussed was the Evangelical Environment Network, which makes presentations to conservative churches about the biblical mandate of environmental stewardship and the need to address climate change.  According to the article, Mitch Hescox, the president of the organization, attributes the skepticism about climate change among some conservative Christians to "the fact that evangelicals are typically conservative and Republican, and that climate change has long been framed as a partisan issue."  He counters, however, that, "'It's not about Al Gore, it's about Jesus,' Hescox said he tells groups. 'And it's not about polar bears. It's about our children.'"  (Here is a link to the article, although it is a subscription only publication.) 

     Why, I wonder, can it not be about both polar bears and children?  And what is wrong with it being about polar bears?  The article quotes Hescox as saying that "[t]here is a biblical responsibility for caring for God's creation," but the dichotomy he presents between polar bears and children, one worth taking action to protect and other not, suggests that he does not consider polar bears to be part of that creation.  It suggests that the real reason to protect creation is to benefit humans and implies the rest of creation - including polar bears and other animals - is of value only to the extent it is useful to humans.  Of course, we can't assume that a few quotes in one article adequately represent Hescox's views or the views of the Evangelical Environment Network.  It is nevertheless a disappointing statement and one that echoes all too clearly the history of a church unwilling to see the inherent value of our fellow creatures and desiring instead to set humans above and apart from the rest of creation.   As the two posts discussed above make clear, this statement expresses a vision of God's incarnation, of God's grace, and of our call to live into the image of God that is too small. 

Photo credit: Steve Amstrup, US Fish & Wildlife Service

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

Animals and the Incarnation

“The fundamental New Testament assertion concerning the incarnation, therefore, is not that God became a member of the species Homo sapiens, but that God took on flesh, the stuff of living creatures.”

                                                ~   David Clough

            As we emerge from the Christmas season, and in part as a follow-up to my recent post about animals and heaven, I thought it appropriate this week to pick up again with David Clough’s book, On Animals, to consider what he has to say about the incarnation.[1] 

In the incarnation, God became human. What does that have to do with animals? Quite a lot, actually.

Opening Part Two of his book, Clough quite rightly calls “the person and work of Jesus Christ . . . the heart of the matter” in developing a theology of animals.  I believe this is true in two ways; Clough’s focus in on the second.  First, whatever we do as Christians, the person and work of Jesus Christ must be the heart of the matter, and whatever activities we engage in, we must ask ourselves whether we are following where he would lead.  Our relationships with animals and our theology of animals are no different.  But second, in developing a coherent and consistent system of theology, while we may logically start at the beginning with the doctrine of creation, we must quickly conclude that we cannot understand either our creation in the image of God or its corollary our dominion over the animals, without considering that perfect image of God, Jesus Christ, and his dominion over all of creation.   

Guido Reni - Saint Joseph and the Christ Child