Good News for Animals

Something that I didn’t expect, when I started studying the Bible years ago, was how much scripture has to say about God’s care for animals.

Christ tells us that, when someone went to the market and bought five sparrows, not one of those birds was forgotten by God. (Luke 12:6)

The Lord asks Jonah why he shouldn’t spare Nineveh—after all, the city was filled with people and animals. (Jon 4:11)

The Old Testament describes God’s careful provision for the needs of all sorts of creatures, from ravens (Job 38:41), to donkeys (Ps 104:10-11), to lions (Ps 104:21), not to mention the praise these creatures offer back to God (Ps 96:11-13, 98:7-9).

We saw this Sunday at Eastlawn that Isaiah insists even eternity has a place and a promise for animals: no longer brutal hunters or frightened prey, but simply enjoying life in God’s new world (Isa 11:6-9, 65:25).

One of the most surprising verses about all of this comes straight from the mouth of Jesus.

A professor at my seminary, Norman Wirzba, once pointed out that, while Matthew’s great commission famously sends the disciples to “all nations,” Mark says that the mission is to all created things. In Mark 16:15, Jesus commands his followers to “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.” That led Dr. Wirzba to ask: Is our presence on earth “good news” for all the other creatures living alongside us?

Do you remember Watership Down, the novel about a group of rabbit refugees trying to find a new home? (Or maybe the cartoon version, that’s been traumatizing children since 1978?) In the first chapter of the book, two rabbits see a sign some humans have recently erected. They can’t read it, but it’s ominous and prompts them to flee their warren and set out for new lands. The sign, as it turns out, was advertising a subdivision that's coming soon.

Later, a rabbit who escaped that day describes the horror that unfolded when construction began: their warren pumped full of poison, rabbits that fled being shot. Reflecting on the carnage, one rabbit said that the men hated them for stealing from their gardens and fields. But another answered him, “That wasn’t why they destroyed the warren. It was just because we were in their way. They killed us to suit themselves.” 

Watership Down is fiction (if the talking bunnies didn't give that away), but the sort of disregard for and destruction of habitats and animal populations it depicts can be all too real—not to mention countless smaller, everyday acts of cruelty or neglect. If Christians are going to “proclaim the good news to the whole creation,” if our presence on earth is going to be good news for all the other creations living here, then I believe we need to be intentional about how our lives impact the animals whom we share this world with, from the dog on your couch to the rabbits in the woods behind your home. 

At very least, no creature ought to be able to say of us, “They killed us to suit themselves.”