Why Animal Suffering Matters

"1. The assumption is frequently made that human suffering matters more than any other kind of suffering. This position may not be wholly rational nor supported by rational considerations. At the very least, my argument is that we owe animals more than is commonly supposed.

2. Those who wish to justify or minimise animal suffering frequently argue that animals are different from humans. But the question is whether any of these are morally relevantdifferences that could justify differential treatment.

3. My concern is not to dispute the accuracy of these differences, but rather to show that the moral conclusions drawn from these differences are almost entirely mistaken, and that another completely opposed conclusion follows."
— Why Animal Suffering Matters

Seeing Animals as God's Creatures

"What is desperately needed is to be able to see animals as God's creatures: to learn and habituate ourselves to this perception so that it becomes the primary or dominant lens through which we view animals every day. This is an immense spiritual task. It is also a deeply subversive one in a culture that thinks and speaks of animals largely in terms of machines, tools, commodities, or resources. To be a Christian is — whatever else must be said — to be someone who sees animals as God's own creatures. This insight precisely because it is so foundational and fundamental — as well as countercultural — does not, cannot, survive without nurture and support."
— Animal Rites

Celebrating the Creatures: A Liturgy

"All:
Help us to wonder, Lord
to stand in awe;
to stand and stare;
and so to praise you
for the richness of the world
you have laid before us.

One:
God of the universe
all creatures praise you:

the sun setting on the lake,
the birds flying upward toward the heavens;

the growl of the bear,
the darting of the stickleback;

the purring of the cat,
the wide eyes of the tiger;

the swift legs of the cheetah,
the dance of the hare;

the lapping of the dog,
the descent of the dove.

God of a thousand ears
the music of your creatures
resounds throughout creation
and in heaven a symphony is made.

All:
Help us to wonder, Lord
to stand in awe;
to stand and stare;
and so to praise you
for the richness of the world
you have laid before us."
— Animal Rites

Animals are Gifts

"People who keep animals have often made an elementary but profound discovery: animals are not machines or commodities but beings with their own God-given life (nephesh), individuality, and personality. At their best, relations with companion animals can help us to grow in mutuality, self-giving, and trust. Indeed, one recent theologian has boldly, and in my view, rightly, suggested that in these relationships of apparent excess, we see prefigured and actualized nothing less than the self-giving of God. 'I want to suggest that, from a theological perspective that takes pets seriously, animals are more like gifts than something owned, giving us more than we expect and thus obliging us to return their gifts.' Far from decrying these relationships as sentimental, unbalanced, or obsessive (as frequently happens today), churches could point us to their underlying theological significance — as living examples of divine grace."
— Animal Rites

Religious Leaders and Animal Protection

"There is an urgent need for a much greater dialogue and understanding between religious believers and those working for animal protection. There are many thousands of animal-caring people working for humane goals who deserve, but do not often receive, support from religious authorities, even though the goals that they pursue are wholly consistent with mainstream religious teachings. It is time for religious traditions to meet the challenge of what is a growing worldwide movement of ethical sensitivity to animals. Animal protectionists have much to gain from an enlarged religious vision of the world, and, on closer inspection, many religious believers may be surprised to discover how much in their respective traditions supports a wider vision of peaceableness and compassion that explicitly includes animals."
— Creatures of the Same God

Seeing Christ in Suffering Animals

"I believe that our indifference to animal suffering is a sign that we have not allowed the Gospel to speak to us. . . . I think the matter can be put even more starkly: We have failed to see the face of the Crucified in the faces of suffering animals. We have not allowed the Gospel of Christ to interpret the world of innocent suffering, and so have helped to create the very climate in which the Gospel is dismissed as irrelevant to the messy and tragic world of suffering, both human and nonhuman.

"This book is also about a struggle — a struggle, as I see it, against the blindness and indifference of Christians and the Churches to the sufferings of animals. It is about how those individuals and institutions who could have become the voice of God's weaker creatures have justified cruelty and oppression. The book speaks of my frustration, my pain, my sadness, but most of all my inner conviction that Christ-like discipleship is singularly tested in compassion to the Christ-like sufferings of the weakest of all."
— Animal Gospel

Blessing for Animals

"For Animals Nearing Death

Creator God
in whose sight
all life is holy
and before whom
all the creatures
of the earth
are remembered;
bless this creature, (Name),
with your Holy Spirit
and grant him/her with us
a share in
your eternal kingdom.
Amen.

Dear God
you have enlivened
all the creatures
of the earth
with your Spirit;
nothing dies
but is remembered by you
and nothing lives
without your grace;
bless this innocent creature, (Name),
and by your same Spirit
grant him/her and all your creatures
eternal life in your presence."
— Animal Rites

Trying to be Impartial

"We do not, therefore, come to the animal issue with clean hands nor, indeed, with a clean mind. The range of our use of animals is enormous: we hunt, ride, shoot, fish, wear, eat, exhibit, factory farm, and experiment on millions, if not billions, every year. None of us are untouched by our use of animals, and all of us, directly or indirectly, benefit from it. This means that we are never able to decide our actions from a position of impartiality based on first principles, as if we were encountering an entirely new moral problem for the first time. Rather, we find that the issue has already been determined for us, and by the time we begin thinking (if we do), we find that we are already compromised by our existing involvement. That recognition should give us pause. Whatever the strengths of rational argument, it is always difficult, sometimes even impossible, for people to change deeply ingrained habits of life, especially ones that bring specific benefits. Much more work needs to be done — by psychologists, educators, and ethicists — on the nature of moral change and development in individuals. Far too many campaigners assume that all individuals are prepared, able, or willing to change when faced with rival moral perceptions or rational arguments. We know that the situation is not so simple, and it remains an open question whether humans are ever really able to withstand the immense power of their own conditioning and upbringing. But the moral response is not simply to despair (however understandable that may be at times) but to think creatively about how these institutions that so govern our lives can be adapted and transformed, even how we can create new ones."
— Why Animal Suffering Matters

Animals and Humans: A Biblical Persepctive

"So close indeed are humans and animals thought to be within creation that a significant number of biblical passages speak of their condition in similar or identical terms. Thus, according to the Prophets, animals, as well as humans, suffer chastisement from the Lord. Both animals as well as humans are dependent upon the providence of the Lord, according to the Psalmist. In Joel, animals and humans both suffer common deprivation and common restoration. Indeed, if Jonah is right, the Lord takes pity on the city of Nineveh because of its many thousands of inhabitants, and also because of 'much cattle.'

"In the light of this biblically based view of the fundamental closeness between humans and animals, there is, of course, no suggestion in the Old and New Testaments that animals do not suffer pain. Indeed the idea that there is a misery common to both is well documented by the prophetic writers, such as Isaiah. And yet the idea that animals can suffer pain like humans has not been a unanimous view throughout Christian history."
— Animals and Christianity

Bringing Animals into Worship

"In order to bring animals into worship we may well have to bring them into our worship. Years ago I produced for the RSPCA an Order of Service for Animal Welfare. It is now in its fourth edition and serves countless parishes who every year make a point of worshipping with animals, literally inviting them into church, in order to remind Christians that animals too have one Heavenly Father. Having excluded animals for so long, bringing them in has obvious symbolic significance. Of course, for some parishes and clergy this service is a novelty and still treated with some disdain, even levity. But it can, and usually does, serve a vital purpose: to challenge the view that the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus is only concerned with the human species.

"Sometimes, of course, these animals make a mess. But again it is a symbolic mess. Animals can and do make a mess of our self-centered worship: They give us, at best, a glimpse of creation in praise, a foretaste of the eternal Sabbath. 'Animal services' or 'animal rites' are now essential to restore the balance: to help enrich our sense of common creatureliness and to help us feel a sense of awe and wonder at the world God has made."
— Animal Gospel

Sermons about Animals

"I have yet to hear a Gospel sermon on the love of animals — a sermon, that is, which begins with a recognition of God's expansive and creative love and treats seriously how we can love animals, too, in a way that approximates God's love for them and for us. If the love and care of animals appears as an aberration or as an intrusion into normal Christian preaching, it is simply because we have failed to relate our faith to our full God-given potentialities for loving. If Christian clergy appear uncomfortable when members of their congregation speak of their love for other creatures, it is a sure sign that they themselves have a limited conception of the expansive love of God. I know that there are Christian leaders who can hardly speak of animals without smiling or raising a laugh, as though the whole notion that God loves other than human creatures is utterly foreign to the Christian Gospel. They are — to put it bluntly — embarrassed at any display of fellow-feeling or kinship with animals."
— Animal Gospel