The Bible and Animal Rights
The Bible can be used to argue both for and against animals rights. In summary:
- Christians for animal rights will say that we should respect all of God’s creation; when God made animals, fish and birds ‘He saw that they were good’; life is sacred; God hates unnecessary suffering; humans are supposed to be ‘stewards’ looking after creation;
- Christians against animal rights will say that only humans were made in God’s image; Jesus said God loves us much more than sparrows; humans were given power over animals by God (dominion); use any of the ‘sanctity of human life’ quotes
Bible teaching used to argue in favour of animal rights
The idea of stewardship, that humans are responsible for caring for God's creation and looking after animals, comes up throughout the Bible:
The righteous care for the needs of their animals
Proverbs 12:10
The Scriptures are clear that everything on Earth belongs to God, including all of the animals. God cares for all of the animals:
All the animals in the forest are Mine and the cattle on thousands of hills. All the wild birds are Mine and all living things in the fields.
Psalm 50:10, 11
A human being may be worth many sparrows, but even a sparrow does not die unnoticed
Matthew 10:29-31
He gives animals their food and feeds the young ravens when they call.
Psalm 147:9
There are examples of animal sacrifices in the Bible, and Christianity has been criticised for this history. However, in the Bible God says:
I gave your ancestors no commands about burnt offerings or any other kinds of sacrifices, when I brought them out of Egypt. But I did command them to obey Me... Instead, they did whatever their stubborn and evil hearts told them to do and they became worse instead of better.
Jeremiah 7:22;24
God's concern for animals is shown in other places:
And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?
Jonah 4:11
In the Bible, all of creation praises God, God has a plan for the whole world, and through Jesus' death and resurrection, the whole of creation is brought together:
He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.
Ephesians 1:10
Bible teaching used to argue against animal rights
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Genesis 1:28
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
Genesis 1:26
