ARE CHURCH LEADERS SENTIENT?[1]

The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?

                                                                 ~  Jeremy Bentham, 1748-1832

                    An Introduction To The Principles Of Morals And Legislation

            I apologize that this week I have not had time to write a reflection on scripture and animals.  I did, however attend a two-day conference this week entitled The Science of Animal Thinking and Emotion: Sentience as a Factor in Policy and Practice, and I’d like to offer just a few thoughts on why I attended this conference, what I learned, and why the church should care. 

            The conference was sponsored by the Humane Society Institute for Science & Policy and featured scientists and policy makers from a wide range of disciplines and from around the world.  We learned about studies being done regarding the emotional and intellectual lives of dogs, chimps, bonobos, fish, farm animals, prairie dogs, and crocodilians.  We heard about the impacts the advances in our understanding of animal sentience has had in the European Union, strides being made in China, and the role of media in shaping public understanding and opinion of proper treatment of animals.  It was a very full two days. 

Psalm Of A Downed Dairy Cow

“A cow’s a piece of machinery.  If it’s broke, we try to fix it, and if we can’t, it’s replaced.”

                                                 ~ quoted in Dominion, The Power of Man, The Suffering of Animals, and The Call to Mercy by Matthew Scully

            Following up last week’s post on animals and Sabbath, and in keeping with a Lenten theme of penitence, I offer this “psalm.”  It is written from the perspective of a downed dairy cow (that is, a cow so exhausted from over-breeding and over-milking that she cannot stand or walk) in a factory farm, where animals are given no rest, but are manipulated solely for profit, without regard to their most basic needs. This is a system that disregards the rhythm of work, play, and rest, that, as Ex. 20:8-11 tells us, are woven into creation and into the Sabbath commandment, as discussed in last week’s post.

            We know that farm animals have a great deal more intelligence, self-awareness, and emotional depth than previously believed.  They know pain, fear, and loneliness. Those on factory farms know these emotions intensely.  Farm animals do cry out - with bellows and squeals and squawks - and just as the God of the Exodus heard the cries of the slaves in Egypt which were not intentionally cries or prayers to God, so I believe he hears the cries of the animals on factory farms and in slaughterhouses.  This psalm is my effort to render those cries and my understanding of the divine response into a theological representation. 

ANIMALS AND THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT

Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work.  But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work -- you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.  For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the Sabbath day and consecrated it.

                                                                    ~ Exodus 20: 8-11

            The Fourth Commandment is one of several places in Scripture where we are expressly told that we have obligations to animals – in particular the animals who work for us and who become our food – yet few people are aware that the Sabbath command has anything to do with animals.  This is particularly significant, for this commandment is a pivotal point of the Ten Commandments, bridging the distance between the first three, which are directed to loving God, and the last 6, which are directed to loving neighbor.  It brings us back to the creation story and the place of humankind in it; it encompasses worship, law, trust in God, justice, compassion, mercy, and life lived in the image of God.  The presence of animals here signifies their importance in all of these themes.  In this season of Lent, it seems appropriate to consider how we keep –or fall short of – this commandment. 

Tissot, Moses and the Ten Commandments

         

Because He Had No Pity

Because he had no pity

Nathan’s Confrontation of David in 2 Samuel 12

David’s burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die!  He must pay for that lamb four times over because he did such a thing and had no pity." Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man!"

                                                                                  ~ 2 Samuel 12:5-7

           

While scripture is replete with stories of animals, we rarely focus on them, unless we consider the animals as allegories or metaphors for some element of the human relationship with God. Today I want to turn the tables just a bit and look at a story of human interaction to see what it has to say about our interactions with animals.  The story of David, Bathsheba, Uriah, and Nathan is a story of the use and abuse of power.  It is a story well worth the church's attention.  If you have read earlier posts, especially this one, this one, and this one, you know that I believe that power is at the heart of our relationship with animals, so scripture’s teachings on the use of power go to the heart of how we rightly exercise dominion, and that it is matter of urgency that the church speak up about our misuse of power over animals. 

While my focus is on the confrontation between King David and the prophet Nathan, the story really begins when David spies Bathsheba from a rooftop.  

David and Bathsheba by Artemisia Gentileschi

Briefly told, David orders his servants to bring Bathsheba to him, although he knew she was married to his faithful soldier Uriah, who was away fighting a war on David’s behalf. Later, when Bathsheba surprises David by telling him she is pregnant, David first tries to have Uriah come home so he will think the baby is his, and when that fails, he arranges to have Uriah killed in battle.  He marries Bathsheba to hide his adultery. 

            This is a turning point in David’s rule.  As D.M. Gunn puts it, here David turns “from gift to grasp.”[1]  Until this time, David, while not perfect and always pragmatic, has been a man after God’s own heart.[2]  He has prayed regularly, ruled justly, and enjoyed success after success against considerable odds.  Yet in this setting of plenty, David took what was not his.[3]  With these actions, David behaved like the kings of other nations - a king who takes what he likes, not because he needs anything, but simply because he can. “But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of the Lord and the Lord sent Nathan to David.” (11:27-12:1).[4]  Here is where the confrontation begins.

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. 

           

IS VEGETARIANISM CONTRARY TO GOD’S INTENTIONS?
CREATION CARE AND ANIMALS, PART THREE

In my last two posts, here and here, I have considered the ways in which creation care has made great strides in moving us away from thinking of humans as entitled to exploit the earth, but has failed to bring us to accountability for our treatment of animals.   Too often, creation care authors consider animals as part of “nature,” to be grouped together with plants and waterways, rather than as individual sentient beings, more similar to humans than trees.  Norman Wirzba is a well-known agrarian theologian whose book, Food & Faith: A Theology of Eating[1], illustrates how failing to make this distinction can lead to conclusions that I believe are seriously flawed theologically, ethically, and practically.   

Wirzba proposes that choosing not to eat meat may be thwarting God’s intentions. Wirzba’s reasoning is complex, beginning with the inevitability of death and the Christian belief in death as a means to greater life.  He considers the ancient sacrificial system, which called upon its practitioners to give up something of value, and portrays all of creation as God’s eternal self-giving wherein all creatures feed on one another.  In this context, he theorizes, refusing to eat of God’s bounty, including the animals, is a refusal of God.

PIGS ARE NOT "THE LAND"

CREATION CARE AND ANIMALS, PART TWO

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed.”
                                                                              Prov.31:8, New Living Translation

Last week, I began a look at a theological perspective variously known as “creation care,” “green theology,” “ecotheology,” and similar terms.  I noted that while this perspective has done excellent work in helping us to understand that Scripture places on humans obligations toward the rest of creation, rather than simply conferring rights, it falls short in addressing our obligations toward animals.  The problem lies in the fact that these authors most often fail to distinguish between sentient and non-sentient elements of the non-human creation.  They tend to consider animals as part of “nature.”  This allows them – and us - (intentionally or otherwise) to disregard the fact that animals are individuals and have value apart from their environment.  It also makes it easy to think of animals as “out there” – in the wild somewhere, and lets us avoid turning our gaze on the animals we impact most directly – the ones in places like factory farms and puppy mills and laboratories.[1] 

Ellen F. Davis, in her book, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture, does turn her eyes directly on farm animals, ever so briefly, and in so doing helps to illustrate the disconnect between concern for animals and concern for the environment even when food is the topic. [2]  Davis has provided what she subtitles “An Agrarian Reading of the Bible.”  She describes agrarianism as “a way of thinking and ordering life in community that is based on the health of the land and of living creatures.”  

            Davis offers in this work a thorough-going indictment of our modern food delivery system.  “In this half-century,” she says, “it has given North Americans probably the cheapest food in human history, but at what cost?”[3]  She addresses at some length the destruction industrial agriculture wreaks on the land, on the farming families who cannot compete with this industrial model, and on “the natural machinery that supports life on Earth,” and puts it all in the context of the biblical covenant and the tie of the ancient Israelites to the land.[4]  She also addresses a host of other natural, economic, and social impacts of industrial agriculture.  One looks in vain, however, for any sustained discussion of the catastrophic suffering industrial agriculture imposes on animals or its theological implications.