Animal exploitation metaphors in Christianity
As an animal activist, I struggle with the centrality of nonhuman exploitation metaphors in the Christian faith, whether those are about fishing or shepherding. So I decided to ask some Christians deeply concerned with animal ethics how they handled this.
Victoria Moran is cofounder of the Compassion Consortium, as well as the author of Shelter for the Spirit and Main Street Vegan. "If Jesus lived today, the resulting scriptures would refer to social media because it's as much a part of our time as herding sheep was to his,” she said. “That doesn't make Twitter a sanctified entity.“
Moran noted that in Jesus’ day, women were chattel and slavery was accepted without question. “On those issues, we easily separate the times from the teachings,” she said. “We need to reach the point at which we're doing that about animal exploitation, too.”
David Clough is chair of theology and applied sciences at the University of Aberdeen. “In the Bible the good shepherd is presented as prioritizing the welfare of their sheep, but that obviously is in tension with killing sheep for their meat,” he said. “One big realization I had was that biblical shepherds may well not own their sheep and would not usually be responsible for their slaughter.”
In this case, Clough believed a shepherd’s whole job was ensuring the safety of their flocks. “So I think that’s why biblical texts about shepherding see the role of the good shepherd as positive without reservation,” he said. “We should recognize that it doesn’t engage the whole system, but I think it’s helpful to recognize the particular role of the shepherd.”
Fish were different. “They were widely seen in the ancient world as very different to land animals and birds, because they lived in a different element, did not show facial expressions, and did not vocalize,” Clough said. “They were also not farmed and success in catching wild fish was seen as a sign of God’s favor.”
Clough acknowledged a modern, species-conscious reader might have trouble with this. “Biblical accounts of fish are very hard to translate into a context where we know they are sentient and feel pain, where we have denuded their populations by about 90 percent compared to pre-20th century levels, and where half of the fish consumed come from intensive aquaculture,” he said.
Matthew A. King is president of the Christian Animal Rights Association, which he co-founded with his wife, Nina. He is also the author of I Will Abolish the Bow. Like Moran and Clough, he sought to place the Bible in historical context, noting it condoned other horrors as well.
“I’m a big supporter and advocate of what is known as the Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutic, which is essentially an interpretation of the Bible which shows that the text is always trying to lead us toward an ultimate goal,” King said. “When we read passages about animal exploitation and slavery, it is essential to remember that it’s not the end of the story. The Bible is moving us toward an ethic of getting rid of those evils.”