A NEW CREATION FOR THE ANIMALS, 
OR, DO ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN?

The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid,

The calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. . . .

They will not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain;

For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

                                                                  ~ Isaiah 11:6, 9

            Before my forced blogging hiatus as a result of a broken wrist, I was blogging my way through David Clough’s On Animals, Volume 1: Systematic Theology.  Although it has been some time since my last post on the topic, there is but one chapter left and I think it is time to let the last shoe drop.  As you know if you read those previous posts, I cannot recommend this book highly enough; it provides a very thoughtful and wide-ranging discussion of the place of animals – and humans – in Christian theology, considering our modern understanding of animal nature together with a careful reading of scripture and Christian tradition.  For Clough, taking animal welfare seriously is simply a matter of living in accordance with what Christians have always believed.  I am especially grateful for Clough’s emphasis on animal welfare as “a vital theological task,” which touches on nearly every element of what it means to be a Christian, and for the way he consistently urges us to look at and understand animals in new ways, asking us to appreciate their complexity, their individuality, and their place in the world.  Previous posts in this series are A Vital Theological Task, All Creatures of Our God and King, On Humans and Other Animals, The Heart of the Matter, and Do Animals Sin?  There is also a discussion with the author himself, Q&A With David Clough.  This post will look at Part III of Clough’s book, asking whether animals will be redeemed together with humans.

AND THE SECOND IS LIKE UNTO IT

Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

                                                                        ~  Matthew 22:36-40 (KJV)

But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

                                                           ~  Luke 10:29 (NAS)

            I don’t think it stirs much controversy to say that we cannot claim to love God if we do not love our neighbor, or to say that loving our neighbor does not mean that we have nice, warm feelings about that neighbor or even that we think highly of him or her; rather it is to say that we are willing to reach out to help when that person is in need or that – at the barest minimum – we refrain from treating him or her with cruelty.  It is to say that we have a responsibility for that person’s well-being. 

            Scripture, both the old and new testaments, makes clear that this is a central tenant of the Judeo-Christian faith.  Christ calls it the second great commandment, likens it to loving God, and says that on it (and on loving God) depend the rest of the scriptures.  Because we can’t really get around this requirement, since ancient times we have instead been trying to ease its burden by limiting the definition of “neighbor.” 

Jesus with the Pharisees - Gustav Dore

BUT WE’VE ALWAYS DONE IT THAT WAY

(AND ITS COROLLARY, WE’VE NEVER DONE THAT BEFORE)

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
                                   Isaiah 43:19   

       Anyone who has ever been involved in church committees is familiar with the cry, “But we’ve always done it that way!”  Whether the topic is the order of service, the language of the prayers, the color of the carpet, or where the cups for coffee hour are stored, church folk are resistant to change.  Of course, this is not unique to church folk (try changing the menu for family holidays), but “the way things have always been” does seem to have a particularly strong pull in our places of worship. 

Dave Walker, Cartoon Church

Perhaps this should not be surprising, since – at least for many Christian traditions – worship is deeply tied with ritual, and when we come to our houses of worship, we want to feel welcome and secure and sure-footed, notwithstanding Anne Dillard’s excellent admonition that we should come prepared for anything, wearing crash helmets.[1]  Often we have treasured memories of walking down that carpet on our wedding day or with our newly-baptized infant; we remember how that one particular prayer got us through a difficult time and it comforts us to say it again every Sunday.[2]  In a rapidly changing world, we like to think that here, at least, we can rely on things to be as they have always been.  Introducing new practices is hard, can lead to conflict, and needs to be undertaken with care. 

            Introducing new ideas is even harder.  Introducing new ideas that ask people to change long-cherished practices is, perhaps, hardest of all.  For church leaders, balancing so many things and facing so many challenges (not least declining church membership), it might be too much to ask.  Even so:

POPE FRANCIS AND THE ANIMALS

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us . . .”

                     ~ John 1:14

“Man and beast thou savest, O Lord.”

                        ~ Psalm 36:6b

            There has been a great deal of press coverage about Pope Francis and a statement he was reported to have made to console a young boy who had lost a pet.  “Paradise is open to all God’s creatures.”  The statement immediately filled the internet with all manner of people weighing in on what this might mean for Christians.  I posted a link to this story about the statement on the Dominion In The Image Of God Facebook page.  It got quite a number of views.  Then it turned out he didn’t say that after all (although Pope Paul VI apparently did).[1]  According to the Regions News Service, what he really said, citing the Apostle Paul in a discussion of the End Times, was that the new creation was not the annihilation of all that is, “but the bringing of all things into the fullness of being.”  The New York Times’ corrected story quotes him as saying, “Holy Scripture teaches us that the fulfillment of this wonderful design also affects everything around us.”  The Religion News Service has a very helpful story about how the Pope’s statement became transformed through interpretation and errors in reporting. 

            Whatever the Pope’s actual words, the story got a lot of people talking about whether we will, indeed, see our pets and other animals in heaven.  

St. Blaise with animals

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. 

ALL CREATURES OF OUR GOD AND KING

The Doctrine of Creation in David Clough’s On Animals, Vol. 1

All creatures of our God and King
Lift up your voice and with us sing,
Alleluia! Alleluia!

                                                        ~ Hymn, based on a poem by St. Francis

            What is the purpose of creation?  Where do humans fit into that purpose?  And where do other animals fit?  Are other animals – and the rest of the non-human creation – created solely for human benefit, or is something larger at work?  What separates humans from other animals?  What does it mean to be created in the image of God?

These are some of the questions David Clough seeks to tackle in Part 1 of his book, On Animals, Volume 1: Systematic Theology.  Last time, I looked at Clough’s introduction, which urges theologians to take the question of animal welfare seriously because it is one that touches on nearly every aspect of what it means to be Christian and because our relationship with animals has changed dramatically and nearly without question in recent decades.  It is time, he argues, to pull back the curtain, to pay attention to what we are doing and why, and to ask whether it is compatible with what we say we believe.  In order to do that, we need to consider the place of animals in fundamental Christian doctrines.   One of those fundamental doctrines is the doctrine of creation, which Clough addresses in Part One of his book.  This post will start at the beginning and ask, what is the purpose of creation? 

Photo credit: David Wye

Living Legacy:  Faith Voices on Animal Protection (Updated 11/1/14)

        Here is a great new three-part video series from the Human Society of the United States Faith Outreach Department.  In this series, three notable animal advocates, whose faith inspires their concern for animals, speak about three such figures from the past.  HSUS explains: 

• Eric Metaxas discusses William Wilberforce, an evangelical member of Britain’s Parliament, best known for championing the equal rights of all human beings through the passage of the Foreign Slave Trade Act (1806-07). Wilberforce also passionately fought for the welfare of animals, seeing a direct link between how humans treat animals and how they treat their neighbors.
• Dr. Karen Swallow Prior discusses Hannah More and her commitment to reforming culture. More, a close friend of William Wilberforce, advocated for the abolition of slavery and the improvement of morals, education, religion and animal welfare.
• Dr. Jerry Root discusses C.S. Lewis and the concern he had for animals throughout his life. A writer and Christian apologist, Lewis is best known for his fictional work, especially The Chronicles of Narnia, and for his nonfiction such as Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain.

Here is a link to a discussion of the series in Desert News.   As noted in that article, and as these videos make clear, there is a long history of people committed to living into their faith taking up the banner of animal welfare,even if the topic is rarely addressed in our faith communities:

The forgotten faith connection
Animal welfare activism, like environmentalism, is often associated with liberal politics and secular culture in American society.

Prior said that's likely because faith leaders stopped talking about the issue in their communities, leaving other social issues to fill the void.

"Anytime the church fails (to address) a topic, then other voices are going to pick it up," she said. "And they're not going to pick it up in the same way we would."

Metaxas shared a similar sentiment in one of the Wilberforce videos, explaining that, "Many people write it off as a left-wing obsession, but the reality is that the roots of it comes from people of faith."

In fact, for 34 of the Humane Society's 60 years of operation, the organization was under the leadership of an ordained pastor. John Hoyt, a Presbyterian minister, served as president from 1970 to 1992 and Paul Irwin, a Methodist minister, from 1992 to 2004.

We are in good company, indeed, when we argue for Christian concern for animals -- and when we argue that how we relate to animals is an important issue of faith, and that the concern for animals and the concern for humans goes hand in hand. 

A Vital Theological Task

“I agree with Barth, however, that theology is finally fruitless unless the results of its reflections are brought to bear on questions of practice.”

“The animal question is a properly theological one in the sense that it raises and illuminates issues concerning the adequacy and coherence of Christian doctrine in the areas of trinity, creation, covenant, incarnation, atonement, eschatology, Christology, pneumatology, and beyond.”

                    ~ David L. Clough,

                                                        On Animals, Volume I: Systematic Theology

            We should seek to live according to what we say we believe, and our relationships with animals touch on nearly every aspect of what it means to be Christian.  These are two animating themes underlying David L. Clough’s book, On Animals, Volume I: Systematic Theology.  Since they are also two animating themes underlying this blog, you will not be surprised to learn that I am a big fan of this book.  Clough comes at these issues by delving into fundamental Christian doctrines to see where and how animals, and our relationships with them, might fit into or be informed by those doctrines.  I want to consider a number of ideas Clough discusses and I will do so over the course of several (not necessarily consecutive) posts in coming months.  Today, I just want to consider Clough’s forward and introduction, by way of setting the stage and explaining why I am so excited about this book. 

My dog-eared copy

LOVE BUILDS UP:

1 Corinthians 8

Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up.

                                                                                    1 Cor 8:1

            Last time, I considered the harm that working in high speed slaughterhouses and factory farms causes to humans in light of 1 Corinthian 8, in which Paul admonishes us always to act in love, being careful not to cause others to fall into sin.  With this post, I want to take a closer look at that passage from Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth to see what it might have to tell us about loving our neighbors – with two feet and four – and about proclaiming the gospel. 

In 1 Corinthians 8 Paul begins his response to a question from the Corinthian church regarding whether it is permissible to eat food sacrificed to idols.  Paul’s full response is lengthy and carefully structured, comprising 8:1 - 11:1, but in Chapter 8 he lays the foundation for his argument with a central Pauline theme: in discerning appropriate behavior, the Corinthians are to consider what will build up the community and draw people to Christ.  Although today we tend to dismiss this passage as irrelevant in a culture that does not sacrifice meat or other food in the temples of the Greco-Roman pantheon, the lesson of this passage is as relevant today as it ever was.  

Ancient Corinth, photo by Ploync, cc via Wikicommons

THE THEOLOGY IS ALL THERE,

NOW WHAT?

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world;

indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

                                                                    ~     Margaret Mead     

            As I have tried to argue throughout this blog, concern for the well-being of our fellow creatures is not a novel idea in Christianity.  It is not some modern, secular import seeking to re-write the Bible and Church tradition.  Rather, it is an idea deeply rooted in scripture and present in our earliest Christian traditions and voices, even if it has often been a "minority report" (see my posts Parts One, Two, and Three).  It is an idea not only compatible with, but central to, who we are called by God to be, as creatures uniquely created in His image.  Recent biblical scholarship and theological insights make this call very clear.  So, if the pieces are all there, what do we do now?  This is no time to rest.

Kittens at the Washington Animal Rescue League.

            Now we, as a Christian community, as “Church,” must claim the implications of this theology and we must live what we say we believe. 

ANIMALS AND THE TRINITY
PART ONE

 “Human beings are created in the image of the relational God and gradually are being perfected in that image (theōsis), making more and more real the communion of all creatures with one another.”

                         ~ Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God For Us [1]

                        The Trinity!  Yikes!  Like many Christians, for much of my faith journey I had a fairly vague notion of the Trinity and found struggling to come to terms with how three are one to be a fairly esoteric and largely impossible task, without much bearing on the actual practice of my faith.  Then I read Catherine LaCugna and everything changed.  Suddenly, I saw that the practice of my faith was only possible because of how the Three are One. 

            I also saw that God as Trinity has radical implications for Christian ethics – including, yes, the ethics of how we relate to animals.  This post and the next one will seek to explore what our Christian understanding of God as Trinity might have to say about animals.   

Andrej Rublëv

           

HOW MANY PIGS IS A HUMAN WORTH?

THE GADARENE PIGS

PART II

“The moral problem can be safely dismissed: one man is of greater value than many swine.”

                                      ~ I. Howard Marshall[1]

Last week I began a discussion about the troubling story told in all three synoptic gospels in which Jesus heals a man (or two men) possessed by demons by allowing the demons to enter a nearby herd of swine, who then rush into the sea and drown.  In that post, I took a careful look at the context and details of the story, with particular emphasis on the Gospel of Matthew.  I argued that the context of the story, Jesus’ escalating demonstrations of power, and the setting, in the tombs of the city, point to an apocalyptic message.  The purpose of the story is to demonstrate that Jesus has power not only over sickness, as various healings had shown, and not only over the natural elements, commanding the wind and water, but also over the powers of darkness.  With “one little word,” he conquers demons who had terrorized the population of the city. 

This week, I’d like to examine some of the interpretations that have been made of the story, and of the significance of the pigs, and to offer my own.  As I noted at the close of last week’s post, most commentaries addressing this story do not focus on the pigs, but have nevertheless considered a variety of interpretations of their meaning and role.  The pigs have been regarded as ironic, comic, symbolic, evidentiary, disposable, and fictional.  They have rarely been considered as sentient being with inherent value to God.

Miracle of the Gadarene Swine, Briton Riviere, 1883, Tate Gallery

HOW MANY PIGS IS A HUMAN WORTH?

THE GADARENE PIGS

PART ONE


“The demons begged him, ‘If you cast us out, send us into the herd of swine’” 
                                                                    Matthew 8:31

            The story of Jesus confronting a demoniac (or demoniacs, depending on which gospel you are reading) and “sending”[1] the demons into a nearby herd of swine, who then rush into the sea and drown, is told in all three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke).  It is a troubling story for those of us who care about animals and what scripture has to say about our relationships to animals, and it has been used over the years to justify much animal cruelty.  It is, therefore, an important story to consider carefully, and for that reason I propose to do so in two parts.  In this part, I want to look carefully at the various elements of the story as it is told in all three gospels, with particular emphasis on the Gospel of Matthew.  Next week, I will consider various interpretations of the story and offer my own. 

Miracle of Gadarene Swine

In the Gospel of Matthew, the story is told in verse 8:28-9:1.  The story opens with Jesus arriving in a boat on the shores of “the country of the Gadarenes” [2] (8:28), and closes with him leaving to “cross the sea,” obviously also in a boat, to go to “his own town” (9:1).  This frames the actions on shore and focuses our attention.  Our attention has also been heightened by the way Matthew has built his portrait of Jesus thus far.  After the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus came down from the mountain and began enacting the kingdom about which he had been teaching.  He performed three healings, including healings both within and outside of the Jewish community and healings through touch and at a distance.  All of this, Matthew explains, is to fulfill the prophet Isaiah.  Jesus is the one who has been foretold.  Next Jesus taught again, this time about the costs and urgency of discipleship.  The message is that what is happening in Jesus is something more important than anything that has gone before - more important even than Jewish law, since disciples are to “leave the dead to bury their own dead” (8:21).  Then Jesus commanded even the wind and the sea and the disciples are left flabbergasted and awestruck, wondering, “what sort of man is this?” (8:27).

COMMON CREATURELINESS:

CREATION CARE AND ANIMALS, PART FOUR

“For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other.  They all have the same breath and humans have no advantage over the animals; for all is vanity.  All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again.”

                                                                  ~ Ecclesiastes 3:19-20.

            In my last three posts, I have looked at the work of various creation care authors who, while making many excellent points regarding our right relationship with the earth, have failed to address our right relationship with animals.  At least one author, however, shows us how a “green theology” perspective can specifically address our obligations to animals.  
          In his book, Living With Other Creatures: Green Exegesis And Theology[1], Richard Bauckham considers how the church has traditionally understood its relationship with animals and reconsiders that relationship, analyzing several scriptural passages that deal directly and indirectly with animals.  He considers two issues in particular, the ecological setting of first century Palestine and Jesus’ role in ushering in the kingdom of God, “in order to show that the kingdom includes the whole of creation and that some of the acts in which Jesus anticipated the coming kingdom point to the redemption of the human relationship with the rest of creation.”[2]  He does this, however, without conflating animals with non-sentient creation. 

           

ANIMALS ARE PEOPLE, TOO

“Then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and it said to Balaam, ‘What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?’ . . . The angel of the Lord said to [Balaam], “Why have you struck your donkey these three times?”

                                                        ~ Numbers 22:28, 32

“Animals are people, too.”  I used to say this with some regularly years ago – before I ever dreamed of becoming an animal advocate and when I was blissfully unaware of philosophical controversies over what makes a “person” – because it seemed self-evident to me that animals were unique individuals with their own viewpoints on the world and were therefore “people.”  Fast forward several years to when I was writing my proposal for my master’s thesis at Wesley Seminary. I included some language (I don’t remember what it was) potentially attributing “personhood” to animals.  My advisor warned, “Don’t go there.  You don’t need to, and you’ll only get yourself into trouble.”   

It was good advice, but I am going to “go there” today because I want to talk about justice. 

MINORITY REPORT PART THREE:

ANIMALS, SOCIAL REFORM, AND CHRISTIANITY

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

“Cruelty to animals is as if man did not love God.”
                                                        ~ Cardinal John Henry Newman

            For those of us who care about animals, the silence of the church on the issue of compassion and mercy for animals is not only frustrating, it is a challenge to our faith.  When people ask us what animals have to do with faith or why we aren’t concentrating on “more important” issues involving human suffering, we sometimes want to (and some do) run from the church into the more welcoming arms of secular animal welfare organizations.  What kind of a God, we wonder, is silent in the face of a world filled to bursting with needless and extreme animal suffering at human hands?  What kind of a church fails to see the misery to which it contributes?

            The answer, it seems to me, is not the God we meet in the Bible, and it is not the church as it is called to be.  I am not the first to believe this, and in these Minority Report posts, I hope to bring to the fore our deeply rooted traditions that recognize the bonds between compassion for animals and holiness and the repeated calls from a variety of faith perspectives within the church for reform on this issue.  I hope to underscore, as these long-standing, if often unheeded, voices in our tradition have underscored, that this is not a matter of abstract theology, but it touches in a very real way who we are and how we live our day-to-day lives.

          

MINORITY REPORT – PART TWO: 

JOHN WESLEY AND HUMPHREY PRIMATT

We may pretend to what religion we please, but cruelty is atheism.
We may make our boast of Christianity; but cruelty is infidelity. We may trust to our orthodoxy; but cruelty is the worst of heresies.

                                                                  ~ Rev.  Humphrey Primatt 

This post picks up the discussion I began earlier addressing the fact that, while the church as an institution may have been silent about -- or even hostile to -- the idea of animal welfare as a Christian concern, there have always been people of faith with a different view.  John Wesley and Humphrey Primatt were two eighteenth century Anglican clergy who understood our obligations for mercy toward animals as a matter of faith and spoke publicly about it. 

John Wesley, who founded the Methodist tradition, addressed the issue most directly in his 1771 sermon, The GeneralDeliverance.  Humphrey Primatt is much less well-known today, but he tackled the issue head-on in a tract of some 300-plus pages titled ADissertation on the Duty of Mercy and the Sin of Cruelty to Brute Animals, published in 1776.  They do not agree on all the theological particulars, but they do agree that we have an obligation as followers of Christ to be merciful to all God’s creatures. 

MINORITY REPORT –PART ONE: ANIMALS AND THE SAINTS

“The saints are exceedingly loving and gentle to mankind, and even to brute beasts ... Surely we ought to show them [animals] great kindness and gentleness for many reasons, but, above all, because they are of the same origin as ourselves.” 

                                                                         ~ St. John Chrysostom 

            The Christian tradition, on the whole, has not been kind to animals.  As we have seen, the dominant voice in the history of the tradition has held that animals were created for the benefit of humans.  Therefore, as Augustine explained in The City of God, animals are “subjected to us to kill or keep alive for our uses,” or as Aquinas expressed it in his Summa Theologica, “charity does not extend to irrational creatures.”[1]  This viewpoint has had devastating consequences for animals and, I would argue, for humans.  It is a viewpoint that is alive and well today as our culture uses and abuses billions of animals every year for human convenience and entertainment. 

            But there has always been another voice in the Christian tradition, a voice pleading for compassion for our fellow creatures, a voice that recognizes our obligations to animals.  In this post, I want to take a brief look at the earliest part of that tradition, considering how stories of the lives of the saints recognize the connection between compassion for animals and holiness.  In coming posts, I’ll look at some of the writings of John Wesley, Humphrey Primatt, and social reformers like William Wilberforce, whose faith compelled them to plead for – and act with - mercy and compassion toward our fellow creatures.  

Saint Blaise.with animals

           

IMAGE OF GOD: WE CANNOT BE HUMAN WITHOUT THE ANIMALS

“God’s resolve to create in the divine image is coupled with a commissioning to have dominion. . . . It is as representative (image) of God that we are given capacity for power in the world.”

                               ~ Bruce Birch

In last Friday’s post, I took a very brief look at some of the traditional understandings of what it means to be created in the image of God and how that has led to the perspective that humans, separated from the rest of creation with the gifts of reason and will, are privileged in creation.  We saw that these traditional understandings of our creation were heavily influenced by philosophical ideas from different times and places and that those philosophical views about what it meant to human were grafted onto theological interpretations of our creation in God’s image.  In particular, many theologians, notably Augustine and Aquinas, were strongly influenced by Aristotle, including Aristotle’s view that there exists a natural hierarchy, with the “lesser” things in creation existing for the benefit of the “greater.”  Thus, the church traditionally reasoned, animals were created for the benefit of humans, which was fully in keeping with our privileged status as the only creatures in God’s image and thus (it was thought) the only creatures capable of being in relationship with God.  We shall see in a later post that there have always been Christians who have felt that compassion for animals is a necessary part of what it means to be Christian, but the mainline traditional view, that animals were created for human benefit, has resulted in a great deal of suffering by God’s creatures and has kept humans from living more fully into the purpose for which we are created. 

Aristotle

 Before I turn to what I call the “minority report” on animals from the Christian tradition or the consequences of the church’s mainline traditional view, however, I would like to take a closer look at how modern Old Testament scholarship is changing our understanding of what it means to be created in the image of God.  Over the last few decades, as scholars have come to better understand ancient cultures in which the stories of the Old Testament were preserved and written down, a new perspective has arisen that has garnered nearly unanimous support among those scholars.  This perspective underscores, in keeping with all Biblical teaching on power and privilege, that our creation in God’s image brings with it significant responsibility, answerable to God.  

WHY HAS THE CHURCH TRADITIONALLY TAKEN A DIFFERENT VIEW?

[I]rrational animals . . . are dissociated from us by their want of reason, and therefore by the just appointment of the Creator subjected to us to kill or keep alive for our uses . . . .

                                               ~ St. Augustine, The City of God, Book 1

            If it is true, as I argued in earlier posts, that our creation in the image of God imposes on us an obligation to care for our fellow creatures, that Scripture tells us that how we relate to animals is reflective of our character, and that Scripture’s teachings on the right use of power extend to animals as well as humans, why has the Church traditionally taken the view that we owe no duty of care to animals?  To understand that, we need to consider early conceptions of what it meant to be created in the image of God and where those conceptions came from.[1]

Because Scripture says that humans alone are created in the image of God, most theories about what that might mean centered on those traits that were believed to set humans apart from other animals, including our rationality, moral consciousness, capacity for relationship, sense of responsibility to (or ability to be in relationship with) God, and even our upright posture and facial expressiveness.[2]  In his book, The Liberating Image, Richard Middleton attributes the diversity of opinion on the subject to the infrequency with which the phrase appears in scripture and the fact that until quite recently, most interpreters have disregarded the context of the phrase as it appears in Genesis 1.  Instead they have relied on “extrabiblical, usually philosophical, sources to interpret the image and end up reading contemporaneous conceptions of being human back into the Genesis text.”[3]  One of the earliest and most significant philosophical influences was Aristotle, with his theory of a natural hierarchy whereby plants were meant for the use of animals, and animals for humans.[4]  Augustine and Aquinas, both hugely influential, drew heavily on this idea.   

                                                               St. Augustine