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Related Articles
Who Is My Neighbor? Like others in the CVA, I have a deep conviction that our animal cousins are included in that company. My heart's feelings received strong confirmation from my dissertation research. Studying Near-Death Experiences, I learned about a deeper form of the well-known Life Review. A small number of experiencers have not only seen their whole lives to date, but have relived them, with an expansion of consciousness that included the experiences of all those they have ever encountered. They found that they were undergoing, from inside others' consciousness, the impact of their own deeds. Of all their kind and loving deeds (and words, and even thoughts) they were now the recipients. They also felt all the effects of their unkind and destructive actions. This was true not only of people (including even unknown passers-by on the street) but of animals; it extended even to the earth itself. Persons who felt overwhelmed by the harm they had done in many cases reported that Christ (or some other guardian by their side) looked on in compassion, uncondemning, encouraging them to believe that Divine Love has the last word. I felt I began to understand Biblical conceptions such as "the books were opened, and every one was judged by his (her) deeds" and "We shall give an account of every idle word" and "Love your neighbor as yourself" and "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you. . ." "Whatever you have done to the least of these. . ." and "You shall not muzzle the ox who treads out the grain." Wise counsel, since some day you may feel just what the ox (or the dog, or the cat, or the pig, or the chicken) is feeling. I also recall reading that about 30% of returned experiencers become vegetarians, a percentage considerably higher than the national average. (Unfortunately I don't remember the source or the exact figure.) It seems to be part of a new outlook on the world as having a deep oneness beyond all divisions. Gracia Fay Ellwood First Things: A Monthly
Journal of Religion and Public Life Animal Rights and Wrongs; Correspondence. Richard John Neuhaus is to be commended for the respect he pays to Matthew Scully's new book Dominion and the call therein to examine the rightness of our raising animals for food ("Wild Moralists in the Animal Kingdom," Public Square, April). The huge industrial farms that provide nearly all animal-based foods today inflict pain on the weakest of creation through castration, debeaking, and tail-docking without anesthesia. Furthermore, factory farming systems frustrate every God-given drive in these innocent animals: chickens can neither spread their wings nor establish a pecking order, while piglets and calves are weaned quickly, if not immediately removed from their mothers. Artificial insemination rules on today's farms; natural reproduction is prevented by the quest for efficiency and profit and the hormone-saturated, artificially enlarged bodies these industries create. Father Neuhaus, Mr. Scully, and all Christians are
right to conclude that these practices constitute the wrong answer
to God's entrustment of the care of His creatures to humanity. We
are called by God to treat with love and mercy the animals that,
by their mere existence, bless and give Him glory. Responding to
that call should begin each time we sit down to eat. Adopting a
vegetarian diet, as Mr. Scully himself has, meets the biblical demand
for just environmental stewardship and follows Christ's precedent
of ministering to the exploited. This choice for nonviolence and
kindness, against cruelty and the "might makes right"
mentality, is a most practicable means for alleviating an average
of ninety-two animals each year of the sorry "existence"
that factory farms entail. Daniel Paden, Director, Catholic Vegetarian Society, Norfolk, Virginia An Open Letter to the Bishops on Hunting Dear Bishops The bishops who have spoken so far are concerned about the welfare of the rural communities they represent,and also about the social and cultural aspects of hunting. Some feel, quite understandably, that rural concerns have been marginalised, and that farmers are experiencing unique difficulties. It is less clear, however, that these bishops have heard those who regard the issue of cruelty as central to this debate. While some bishops have made references to animal welfare, very few have fully addressed the issue of cruelty. I define ‘cruelty’ as the deliberate infliction of suffering upon a sentient creature – when it is not performed for that individual animal’s own benefit (for example, in a veterinary operation). That hunting with dogs is ‘cruel’ is uncontestable.There is ample scientific evidence that all mammals experience, stress, terror,shock, anxiety, fear, trauma, foreboding, as well as physical pain. It is also ‘deliberate’ in that those who hunt do so with the express aim of pursuing a creature to its death. Not all may witness the death, but those who participate can be in no doubt about the result, at least, for most of the hunted species. Humans are moral agents with the freedom to make moral decisions. That consideration is of central relevance to the debate about hunting. What is so objectionable is that moral beings, who should know better, choose to engage in an activity that results in cruelty.There is all the difference in the world between the accidental or instinctual infliction of harm by non-moral things or agents, and the volitional infliction of suffering by moral agents. In short: it is the difference between an ‘accident’, or a ‘misfortune’, and a morally evil act. It therefore will not do, as some bishops have attempted, to justify hunting by reference to the facts that ‘foxes are not kindly in their ways’, or that, ‘the natural world is not a kindly place’, as if nature was a moral textbook, or capable of relieving us of our obligations as moral agents. Strictly speaking, cruelty is a wholly human act; it presupposes freedom and intention. There are good theological grounds for regarding such
acts as intrinsically objectionable. Human beings are made in the
‘image of God’ and given ‘dominion’ over
animals. It is true that, in the past, both notions have been used
to defend an exploitative attitude toward animals, but there are
almost no scholars today who endorse that implication. Rather, we
are to act as God’s deputies – made in the image of
God who is holy, loving and just, and uniquely commissioned to care
for creation as God cares. To the question, ‘Why should we
care for animals?’ there is only one biblical answer: ‘We
are From this standpoint, the deliberate infliction of suffering on ‘lesser creatures’ who are wholly in our power, and who are, strictly speaking, morally innocent, is a gross betrayal of our God-given responsibility. It is Christologically unenlightened for one bishop to defend hunting by arguing that, ‘there is in the tradition of the three Abrahamic faiths a gulf fixed between the human race and the rest of the created order’ – as if power was its own justification. That ‘gulf’ should, at least in part, be filled up by the exercise of moral solicitude. As C. S. Lewis observed, our superiority over animals partly consists in our acknowledging obligations to them which they cannot acknowledge to us. But cruelty is not just an intrinsically objectionable act; it is a token of moral meanness; a practical example of our failure to live generously after the example of Jesus. There is, as Cardinal Newman indicated, ‘something so very dreadful, so satanic in tormenting those who have never harmed us, and who cannot defend themselves,who are utterly in our power [and] who have weapons neither of offence or defence …’. And he concludes his consideration of the Christ-like innocence of animals with this appeal: ‘Think, then, my brethren of your feelings at cruelty practised on brute animals, and you will gain one sort of feeling which the history of Christ’s Cross and Passion ought to excite within you’. But there is more. Hunting is not undertaken (as all killing should be) as a regrettable act sometimes made necessary in a sinful and fallen world, rather it is celebrated as a ‘sport’.It is here, most of all, that we should glimpse its utter incompatibility with the Gospel of God’s free, generous love in Jesus Christ. People hunt because they enjoy it. In the words of Baroness Mallalieu: ‘Hunting is our music, it is our poetry, it is our art, it is our pleasure …’. Thousands have not marched in London simply to defend the ‘most efficient’ means of killing foxes. It is crucial to understand why the taking of pleasure in the infliction of suffering is so morally deplorable. It may be morally permissible to smack a child when performed with the intention of rectifying regressive behaviour. But all should properly recoil at parents who enjoy this act. The taking of pleasure renders what might, conceivably, be a morally licit act into one that is disturbed, even depraved. A ban on hunting (any more than a ban on smacking) will not by itself prevent such depravity, but it will, at least, limit the number of victims. Specifically, there is a Christian dimension which deserves to be articulated. It is we – the species to whom so much power has been given - who should faithfully reflect that trust by acts of care and generosity to the animal world. If God’s power in Christ was manifest in acts of sacrificial love, and a special solicitude exhibited towards the poor, weak and vulnerable, should not our power be so similarly directed?And are all those Christian virtues to be solely exercised in relation to ourselves? I fear not only the judgment of God, but also the judgment of history. Is hunting now to be counted among the long list of moral issues, including capital punishment, votes for women,or the protection of children, on which bishops have either frustrated, or voted against, reform? There is no more desultory experience than reading the past record of Anglican bishops on moral issues. Specifically, it is odd to see bishops so apparently uncomprehending of the anti-cruelty cause since our Christian forebears pioneered it. Many luminaries of the nineteenth-century – William Wilberforce, Lord Shaftesbury and Fowell Buxton – to take only three examples, saw it as their Christian duty to oppose cruelty in all its forms.Anglican priest, Arthur Broome, founded the SPCA (as it then was) in 1824 as a Christian organisation. In 1909, the Bishop of Hereford sponsored - with the support of five other members of the bench of bishops - a bill to outlaw deer hunting, pigeon shooting, and rabbit coursing. Speaking in support, the, then, Archbishop of Canterbury commented that, ‘I firmly believe that fifty years hence it will be found as impossible for the then members of your Lordships’s House to realise why we refrained from taking exception to rabbit-coursing as it is pursued today as we now find it difficult to understand why a hundred years ago exception was not taken to things like bull-baiting’. Almost one hundred years later, it appears that the sensibilities of (at least the most vocal) Christian bishops are no more advanced about hunting and coursing than they were about bull-baiting. The hunting debate is at a critical juncture. The Government is now proposing a fudged piece of legislation, which will allow the hunting of foxes, mink, and hares, to continue under license. Licensing will imbue these ‘sports’ with a kind of legitimacy, which they do not possess morally, and ought not to have legally.Indeed, the whole notion of ‘licensing’ cruel acts is an affront to moral theology. The so-called principles of ‘utility’ and ‘cruelty’ (like the question-begging formula ‘necessary cruelty’) presuppose a wholly utilitarian (and secular) justification for cruelty. There are times when some measure of compromise may be morally laudable, but this is not one of them. Hunting mammals with dogs for sport belongs to that class of always morally impermissible acts along with rape, child abuse, and torture. Whatever else is true, the Christian Gospel and cruelty are incompatible. In the debates so far, the bench of bishops have voted
for the continuance of hunting. But I do not believe that these
bishops represent the mind of the Church in England, or of the wider
Anglican Church in this country. I appeal to those many bishops
who are opposed to hunting, whether in the Lords or not, to make
their voices known – and I would be grateful to hear from
them. I wish you – and all God’s creatures – a peaceful Christmas. Andrew Linzey Oxford OX4 1EG People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ (PETA) national tour of a controversial Holocaust exhibit draws parallels between the Nazi concentration camps and contemporary factory farms. Perhaps inspired by Charles Patterson’s book Eternal Treblinka, the exhibit contains photographs showing similarities in the ways Jews were treated by the Nazis and how animals are treated on contemporary factory farms. There are several quotes from Jewish writers who note the parallels, including Nobel Prize laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer. Many Jewish leaders have expressed outrage, as have the traditionally anti-PETA conservative columnists and talk-radio personalities. Whether intentionally or not, I think they all miss PETA’s point. It seems clear to me that PETA is trying to show that victimizers have similar mindsets and methods, whether the victims are humans or animals. Critics object that PETA is equating humans and nonhumans. I think the PETA exhibit shows the parallels between the victimizers rather than the victims, but the exhibit may be open to a range of interpretations. Christianity teaches that humans hold a special place in Creation, but it also reminds us that all of Creation belongs to God. Factory farming, then, is a crime against God, whether or not the Holocaust was a greater crime. Showing similarities in the ways humans dishonor God does not demean victims. Rather, it reminds faithful believers that even sincere Christians can, perhaps out of ignorance, bring misery to God’s Creation. Critics have expressed outrage because the PETA exhibit “demeans” the Holocaust. I disagree. We should not treat the Holocaust as a unique event. While the Holocaust was distinctive in scope and cruelty, we can only learn from this tragedy if we seek to understand why humans repeatedly victimize innocent individuals. In recognizing that animals, too, can be victims, we may gain further insight into human cruelty and destructiveness. Such insight is necessary, I am convinced, if we are to have any hope of realizing the Jewish prayer, “Never again.” Steve Kaufman |
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