Caring for Animals

Did you see the story in the news earlier this week about the animal rights activist group releasing a video of an egg hatchery that was grinding up baby chicks?

Many of us are likely to respond to a story like this based on our previously held political inclinations, emotions (or lack thereof), or views on farming and food production.

What would the Bible bring to the discussion? We might think first of the fact that human beings are uniquely created in the image of God, unlike any other creature (Genesis 1:27). This implies that, in some sense, humans have rights in a way that animals do not. However, one does not have to be an "animal rights" advocate to be concerned about how we should or should not treat animals.

Here's a portion of a recent editorial from Christianity Today that helps explain what I mean:

But while Christians happily acknowledge the charge [of "speciesism"-- human priority or privilege over animals], we misstep when we brush off animal cruelty with nonchalance. Showing animal compassion does not de facto assign animals the same worth as humans. It merely acknowledges that animals have worth and dignity—something plainly assumed in biblical passages like Exodus 21-22:14 and Deuteronomy 25, which outline upright ways to handle livestock, and Proverbs 12:10, which praises the righteous man who "cares for the needs of his animal." The church has traditionally interpreted Isaiah 65's well-known apocalyptic imagery of lions and lambs not as a cozy metaphor of human community, but as a picture of fully restored creation, people and animals. And while Luke 12:6's five sparrows sold for two cents usually refer to God's sovereign care for us in our daily lives, it's remarkable that those five sparrows aren't forgotten by God, but are part of his sovereign care as well.

Instead of leading us down dangerous paths toward secular humanism, animal compassion becomes part of our privileged role as custodians of the creatures in which God delights. In fact, C. S. Lewis, who wrestled in many essays with the seeming senselessness of animal suffering, argued that it was precisely because humans are higher than animals in creation's hierarchy that they should oppose animal cruelty. Our very superiority to animals, he said, ought to motivate us "to prove ourselves better than the beasts precisely by the fact of acknowledging duties to them which they do not acknowledge to us."