Why Animal Theology Matters.
Animal theology matters because animal suffering matters. And when we encounter the suffering non-human animal we encounter the suffering Christ. John Henry Newman vicar of St. Mary’s University Church, Oxford preached a sermon on Good Friday in 1842. Newman posited within his sermon that “we cannot love Christ unless we feel heartfelt gratitude, and we cannot feel that gratitude “unless we feel keenly what he suffered for us”.
The Sermon:
“I mean consider how very horrible it is to read the accounts which sometimes meet us of cruelties exercised on brute animals. Does it not sometimes make us shudder to hear tell of them, or to read them in some chance publication which we take up? At one time it is the wanton deed of barbarous owners who ill-treat their cattle, or beasts of burden; and at another, it is cold-blooded and calculating act of men of science, who make experiments on brute animals, perhaps merely from a sort of curiosity. I do not like to go into particulars, for many reasons; but one of those instances which we read of as happening in this day, and which seems more shocking than the rest, is when the poor dumb victim is fastened against a wall, pierced, gashed, and left to linger out its life. Now do you not see that I have a reason for saying this, and am not using these distressing words for nothing? For what was this but the very cruelty inflicted upon our Lord? He was gashed with a scourge, pierced through hands and feet, and so fastened to the Cross, and there left as a spectacle.”
“Now what is it that moves our very hearts, and sickens us so much at the cruelty shown to poor brutes? I suppose this first, that they have done no harm; next, that they have no power whatever of resistance; it is the cowardice and tyranny of which they are victims which makes their suffering so especially touching. For instance, if they were dangerous animals, take the case of wild beasts at large, able not only to defend themselves, but even to attack us; much as we might dislike to hear of their wounds and agony, yet our feelings would be of a different kind; but there is 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, who have weapons neither of offense nor defense, that none but very hardened persons can endure the thought of”
“Now this was just our Saviour’s case: He had laid aside his glory, he had (as it were) disbanded his legions of angels, he came on earth without arms, except the arms of truth, meekness and righteousness, and committed himself to the world in perfect innocence and sinlessness, and in utter helplessness, as the Lamb of God.”
“Think then, my brethren, of your feelings at cruelty practiced upon brute animals, and you will gain one sort of feeling which the history of Christ’s Cross and Passion ought to excite within you.”
Amen
Isaiah 53:7 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
The Word of the Lord.
The only way to alleviate the suffering of animals (human and non-human) is through the transformation of the heart, that is why “Animal Theology” matters.
R. Grace Sperry
“Why Animal Suffering Matters; Philosophy, Theology, and Practical Ethics” By Andrew Linzey