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Christ and the Animals
As many of you all know, my faith background is fundamentalist Pentecostal. I do not mean to disparage my background by any means, I fully appreciate the passion it has instilled in me and, in fact, the same faith I lost, still carries on many friends and family in their personal lives. But, as I have changed spiritually and left my former religious context, many of my views on the nature of God and creation have changed as well. I eventually wandered into an Eastern Orthodox church and after being enraptured by the liturgy, have yet to leave it, despite the many doubts I have about people in the Church’s rigidity, ideas of ecclesiology and elitism (that’ll be another essay, but John Zizioulas has really healed my view of the Episcopacy). But one thing the Church has given me is a better understanding of salvation and the atonement. I have learned a more holistic approach to the healing and restoration of creation (and not merely humanity) in God’s Kingdom.
In my background, and especially in my cultural milieu of the Southern Bible Belt, salvation is extremely individualistic. I could go into the myriad reasons why this is so (such as the lack of the Eucharist as essential to worship) but for this essay, I will not go into that, although occasionally I am sure I am bound to touch the issue. Soteriology in the tradition I grew up in was profoundly anthropocentric. Jesus Christ was not the incarnate Logos whose humiliation in taking on human form started the entire healing and sanctification of all material reality, but rather he was “my own personal Jesus” as the Depeche Mode song goes. And drawing from the feudalistic theory of Atonement developed by Anselm, God had to murder his own son (in the most bloody style of execution possible) in order to quell his rage at humanity’s sin (and because of an Augustinian view of Original Sin, it is sin we can’t really help, because we are born sinners).
So this perfect storm of individualistic faith and a blood-bath style of Atonement, would naturally lead to a violent faith. A faith that advocates war (or at least advocates a party that advocates war; there is a picture of George Bush in the foyer of my former church) and all types of American Fundamentalist xenophobia. But not only that, people that advocate a respect of nature, a respect of animals, a love of peace over war, are scoffed at and mocked. Never mind whether you adhere to the 2000 year theology of Christianity or not, Jesus of Nazareth himself advocated a morality entirely contrary to what most people believe. In fact, something I have observed after recently discussing these things with a pastor of a Fundamentalist church (and a member of my family), Jesus isn’t really taken too seriously. People I know, especially people my age, have invented a Jesus from sentimental cheesy love songs (that pass as worship songs) and a few snipets of sermons. But if one were to closely read the Gospels (as Dallas Willard recommends in his The Divine Conspiracy) they would be startled. If one were to take seriously Jesus and what he accomplished in his brief ministry with all the symbols he used as a Jewish prophet in a first-century Palestinian setting, they would see a Jesus that would make any one uncomfortable. In fact he would probably be tried for treason by the government and be excommunicated by most Churches.
Jesus advocated an ethic that does not really make too much sense, turning the other cheek, meekness, humility, patience, et cetera. And of course if you add on to his own life teachings the doctrine(s) of the Church that meditated on the significance of his life, death, resurrection and teachings, you get an even more counter-cultural ethic.
The nascent church after Jesus abhorred all forms of violence, including violence we would say today justified by self-defense. This church believed that Jesus in his life radically altered the fabric of the cosmos. A church that had teachers such as Irenaeus, who lived in the second century, who said Jesus redeemed every aspect of life. The very fact God had dwelt among humans as one of us, was enough for salvation. This thought taken further eventually led to the theology of Icons. That because God dwelt in matter, all matter has been sanctified, and therefore infused with the life of God himself. My favorite Feast is the Baptism of Our Lord (Epiphany). After the Liturgy the Church goes out to the nearest body of water and the priest blesses it saying “Great are you, O Lord, and wonderful are your works and our words are insufficient to praise you wonders. Therefore you, O loving King, come to us also now through the descent of the Holy Spirit and sanctify this water. And that to all who are sprinkled with it, drink of it, or wash with it may it bring sanctification, healing, cleansing and blessing.” What is so powerful and significant about this action is that water is part of a cycle. This water has been blessed, and now it will be consumed by other creatures, it will be taken up into clouds and spread over the world, it will be absorbed by plants who give us air, it will eventually trickle down into the wells and will find its way to our very lips, sanctifying and healing everything in its path. It’s not merely the water or the prayer the priest has said over it, but because God himself was baptized in water, it has been redeemed. The prayer and this Feast reminds us of a truth that has already occurred. For instance, the very air between you and I when we worship or pray together is sanctified because God is among us!
This should totally alter how we view the world. And should change the way we relate to creatures. If God has emptied out himself by becoming human, full of all our weaknesses, should we likewise humble ourselves in relation to other creatures? Theologian Andrew Linzey thinks so. God’s example in Christ leaves us no excuse to harm other creatures, let alone other humans. This is one of the most radical and counter-cultural things I have ever heard. But it doesn’t surprise me when I think about it. Growing up I often thought about animals and what happens when they die, if anything. I was often told not to worry about it, or that animals don’t have souls, or that Jesus came only for humans. But now when I study how earth shattering the Incarnation was for early Christians, or meditate on the implications of that doctrine I see how all of that is silly. God did not come to earth merely to save people and take them to heaven, but rather to start a movement, a divine conspiracy to alter the balance of the universe. He instituted a community, gathered around a common meal that would show what the God of Israel wills for the broken and hurting universe. This community was meant to embody the Kingdom of God, which was to invade and pervade the very lives of those who were baptized into it.
Following the writings of the Hebrew prophets the early Christians claimed to be living in the messianic age, or the Jubilee of Israel. Money was no longer a problem for the community, attachments to the vulgar attractions of their surrounding culture no longer had a grasp on them, and violence had no place among them. But also in those prophetic writings were verses of peace between humans and animals and we all know that the Church has a horrible record on dealing with non-human creatures (we have a horrible record on dealing with humans too!)
But this strain of the messianic age has never died. Various saints through the ages such as Isaac of Syria, Francis of Assisi, and Seraphim of Sarvov to mention a few have advocated the peace between humans and other creatures. Even in the life of the Church, veganism is advocated as the norm of our existence (in Lent, Christmas Fast, and various other fasts throughout the year). In the Garden of Eden the primeval human and his wife had a vegetarian diet. So obviously it is something that is part of the Church’s healing mission in the world.
Christians, more than anyone should advocate animal rights. Not because animals and humans are equal, or because of some humanist utilitarian argument, but because of the Incarnation, because of the Prophets, because God is Trinity, which means that God is all consuming movement, relationship and Love. Christians should recognize that animals, as fellow sentient beings, have intrinsic value as being individual creatures made by God. And as animals in the Image of God, we have a duty to fulfill that image, by being animal’s servants.
Christ did not just come to just save humans, but rather came to emancipate his entire universe from the chains of decay and death. Christians are to incarnate that mission. By displaying God’s love for animals, we are actualizing God’s own mission in our lives. The world and secularists (who may also be animal rights activists) will see something different in our lives. We aren’t doing it because of any selfish or philosophical reasons, but out of love. C.S. Lewis, who was a vehement critic of vivisection, said that when we begin to lose respect of animals it is only the beginning of our disrespect and disregard for human life. The great author Fydor Dostoevsky said something that everyone should ponder, especially when we see fellow Christians advocating violence against fellow human and fellow animal: “Love man even in his sin, for that bears the semblance of divine love and his the highest love on earth. Love all God’s creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light! Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. And if you love everything you will perceive the divine mystery in things. And once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it ceaselessly more and more every day. And you will at last come to love the whole world with an abiding universal love.”
May I, in all my inadequacies, learn your love, God. Forgive me for despising your gift. Heal me from my sins.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
