Kristie Noem, governor of South Dakota, shot her fourteenth-month-old dog Cricket for being a bad pheasant hunter and a good chicken hunter. Noem could have given Cricket to someone else or taken her to a shelter. Instead, Noem took Cricket to a gravel pit and shot her. Noem later shot her goat. His biggest offense was that he smelled and chased her children. Noem dragged the goat to the pit, tied him to a post, and shot him. Unfortunately, the goat moved, requiring Noem to fire again.
Kevin Roberts, the mastermind behind Project 2025, killed his neighbor’s dog with a shovel. The dog’s capital crime? He barked too much.
My partner, Polly’s late uncle was the pastor of the Newark Baptist Temple — an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation in Heath, Ohio. He was also an avid hunter. One day, while he and his dogs were out hunting, one of them took off after deer, returning hours later. His punishment for running off? Polly’s uncle shot him in the head. Again, the dog could have been given to someone else or taken to a shelter, but Polly’s uncle deemed the dog irredeemable and killed him.
One Baptist preacher told me that when he went hunting, he shot every cat he came upon. If he saw a cat along the berm of the road, he swerved at them, hoping to end their nine lives underneath the tire of his pickup truck. Why? Why such violent, indifferent behavior?
Years ago, we attended a Bible church in Butler, Indiana. One Sunday, a farmer told the adult Sunday school class about some kittens he had. He didn’t want them, so he killed each kitten by hitting them in the head with a hammer.
The one thing all of these animal killers have in common is that all of them are devout Christians. One of them is a conservative Roman Catholic, the other four are Evangelical Christians.
It has been said you can tell a lot about a person by how he or she treats animals. What do these stories tell us about these people?
Perhaps the bigger question is, why did these people indiscriminately kill innocent animals? They could have done differently, but they chose to use violence instead. Why?
Genesis 1:26 says:
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
According to this verse, God gave humankind dominion (rule) over animals; domination over; control over. Many Evangelicals believe that God has given them the absolute right to do what they want with animals, be they wild or domestic. In their minds, if you have dominion over animals, their lives are in your hands. You have every right to kill them, eat them, or use them any way you want.
For many Evangelicals, animals are property, meant to be used in any way they wish. This leads to behavior that many people, believers and unbelievers alike, think is indifferent violence — killing because they can. When animals no longer provide value, they are often killed. Can’t have an old boar or heifer taking up space, right? If the boar can no longer impregnate sows or the heifer can no longer produce milk, it’s time to kill them.
Let me be clear, some Evangelicals are animal lovers, much like my partner and I. We value the life of all creatures. We find the aforementioned animal abuse stories to be morally offensive. None of these animals had to die, but because their owners were dominionists, they were killed.
Of course, God provided a good example to Christians in Genesis 1-3. After Adam and Even sinned, they made clothes for themselves to cover up their nakedness. That wasn’t good enough for God. God killed several animals to provide Adam and Eve with animal skin clothing. Why? (And please don’t read substitutionary atonement back into the text.)
God also provided an example to Christians in Genesis 6-9. God had Noah gather up two of every kind of animal on a big boat. Due to humanity’s wickedness, God flooded the entire earth, killing countless innocent animals who were unable to find protection on the Ark. Why did God do this? Because he could. So it is for many Evangelical Christians. They kill animals in their care because they can.
We also see God’s view of animals in the blood sacrifice system of the Old Testament. Animals of all sorts were killed to provide blood atonement for sin. God could have done otherwise, but he didn’t. Being the Bible believers that they are, is it surprising that so many Evangelicals are what many of us call animal abusers?
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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None of this shocks me. I have encountered similar behavior of evangelicals, IFBers specifically, during my childhood. My thinking is that people who don’t like animals don’t like other people either.
Last week I posted about Leslie and I having to put our beautiful cat companion 🐈⬛ Bella to sleep. My heart is still broken. We had her about 15 years. She was a stray that one of neighbors found on a road near our subdivision (we lived in Monroe, Ohio at the time, which was a farming area that was becoming more populated). They rescued her because we had jackasses in our community in their cool large pick up trucks that surely would have tried to hit her had they seen her on the road side.
Bella was a beautiful, social intelligent cat, and a faithful companion. She was always waiting for me when I got home. I can’t imagine someone intentionally harming a cat or a dog or any other animal just because. If the dog is dangerously attacking someone, then yes, I understand. I am a meat eater so yes I know what the
True Christians®️who read this are going to ask. Only response I have is that if you can’t see the difference between the proper use of an animal for food and shooting a dog because it doesn’t hunt well or swerving to hit a cat on the side of the road, then no answer I give is going to satisfy you.
Jesus said, “Whatever you have done to the least of these you have also done to me”. When we properly love and care for our animal companions, including at the end of their life (Bella had advanced kidney disease and had rapidly gone downhill last Thursday) then we manifest compassion. Want to be a real “True Christian”? Begin by manifesting compassion for all beings, which seems to come naturally to most non-religious people I have met.
The same people who argue vehemently that ‘morality is objective’ appear to be the same people who have a very clear disregard, dare I say contempt, for animals. The very fact that they can recount these stories without any apparent sense of guilt or shame shows that they don’t understand or empathise with those who hold animals in special regard. I suppose we’re all a bit inconsistent at times, however. I’m perfectly content killing wasps and flies (not bees or butterflies, making me even more illogical), but I will also say that even the tiniest annoying gnat is a life form just like us, doing its best to survive. As for eating food for meat, that’s part of our culture, and we attempt to respect as best we can the animals we do eat. We kill them as humanely as we possibly can (though I also think we close our minds somewhat on the subject), and people who hunt, by and large, eat what they kill.
Incidentally, it’s a pity God didn’t give us dominion over viruses, be it flu, smallpox, or Covid. It’s ironic that when we do achieve dominion via vaccination these religious zealots resist it?
I remember being taught in evangelicalism that Adam, and thus his descendants, were given dominion over animals and the earth in general. The more responsible teachers explained that meant that God gave us the earth and all within it to use, but that we were supposed to do so responsibly. Of course, many of those same teachers are now Clinate Change Deniers, so I suppose their view of responsibility is limited.
Don’t forget also that evangelicals are taught that only HUMANS have sould, as they were the only creature created in the image of God. Thus, since animals don’t have souls, the implication is that they are inferior to humans which can justify not treating the animals as well.
I remember the shift in our family from the notion that pet dogs should live outside to pet dogs should live inside. Growing up, I had pet dogs, but they were required to live outside, with their shelter being a doghouse on our porch. This went on until I was in college. My brother’s dog died, and our cousin (a dog breeder) happened to be at the vet when our dog died. She offered my mom one of her Pomeranians that was too big to sell (so she said – he was big for a Pomeranian but I think she was just being kind to our family). From then on, our dogs all lived indoors. It was a big shift in view regarding a dog companion.
My grandfather (a WWII vet and Southern Baptist deacon) always told me you could judge someone’s character by how they treated animals and children, and whether animals and children were drawn to or shied away from a person. He told me to be wary of anyone who animals or kids instinctively avoid. I believe that……
Christian dominionists are drawn to abuse – to being abusers……yeah, I said it.
John—You bring up a great point about the proper use of animals. One Native American tribe had a ceremony in which they promised the Earth Mother they would use the bison or other animal they killed for food, clothing, shelter or some other good purpose.
Like you. I still eat meat, albeit less than I used to And I wear leather shoes and ride a bicycle with á leather saddle. But I cannot fathom killing an animal (or human) “just because.”
In light of what Bruce has written, it’s no surprise that some Christians could rationalize slavery and patriarchy: Women and the enslaved (Is that a repetitive redundancy?) were seen as less than human. Nicholas V said as much when he issued his 1452 bull to King Alfonso of Portugal. In essence, he told the monarch that he (and by extension all white Christians) had the duty to subjugate natives of Africa, which Portugal had recently begun to colonize.
Eating meat is not just cultural. Reportedly, vegans find proper nutrition difficult without consuming meat. That being so, eating meat is crucial to human biology. We evolved to need meat. We can survive without it but not as well or as naturally. Killing animals for food can be done with compassion for and concern for pain and suffering though it inherently contradicts respect for life. It may be only romantic fantasy but one reads about native Americans honoring spirits of animals they kill for survival. I don’t think about the cow’s feelings when I have steak. It’s our callousness toward food animals that’s cultural. Perhaps if I had ever had a cow as a pet, I’d feel differently. In a crisis, human nutrition takes precedence over everything and the craving, especially, for meat over rides compassion, sentiment, and whatever reluctance humans may have based on what (or who) supplied the meat. My parents were in Europe during one of the world wars and I’m reliably informed that before the war’s end, cats and dogs were nowhere to be found, and people who claimed they would never eat a cat or dog were known to enjoy a meal of “haas” (rabbit) with a distinctly unusual but tasty flavor. My Father chuckled about it and made it clear he ate his share. Even so, he had compassion for our family pets and he was especially fond of our clever little shepherd dog. When he learned Sheppie had died, he didn’t cry but he came, (for him) pretty close. I personally tend to anthropomorphize, which I guess means I humanize animals, at least with my personal pets. I contradictorily enjoy a steak or a pork chop. Like a typical human, I’m imperfect and conflicted, particularly about being carnivorous.