Animals Are Not Ours (No Really They Are Not): An Evangelical Animal Liberation Theology

by Sarah Withrow King

Why should Christians care about animals? Is there a biblical basis for abstaining from eating animals? Is avoiding companies that use (and misuse) animals a viable way for Christians to live out the message of God? Sarah Withrow King makes the argument that care for all of creation is no “far-fetched” idea that only radical people would consider, but rather a faithful witness of the peaceful kingdom God desires and Jesus modelled. This includes all living and breathing creatures that share this earth with us. King uses her decade-plus of experience as a vegan, her seminary education, her evangelical Christian faith, and her years working with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to call Christians to examine how we treat and view the nonhuman animals with whom we share a finite planet.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Stealing Chickens in Austria (It Was an Accident, I Swear)
part one Looking at the Word through an Animal Lens
Introduction to Part One
2 Creation (or, Using Animals Says to God, “I Don’t Think You Got It Quite Right in Genesis”)
3 What It Means to “Have Dominion”
4 The Prophets
5 Jesus, the Prince of Peace
6 I Think Jesus Dug Birds, Too
7 The Good Animals as Neighbors
8 The End and the Now
9 The Bible Tells Me So . . .
part two Intersections and Bridges (The Oppression Connection)
Introduction to Part Two
10 Do Animals Suffer? (And Does It Matter?)
11 The Trinity and Being in Right Relationship with Animals
12 What Is a Human?
13 The Heresy of Hierarchy
14 Stewardship of Creation (or, Changing Light Bulbs Isn’t Enough)
15 Can You Be a Peace-Loving Meat Eater? (Pssst, No, ’cause Using Animals Necessitates Violence)
16 Whose Bodies Matter?
17 Liberate Your Language
18 Undercover Hell on Earth Exposed
part three Now What? The Basics of Treating Animals Well
Introduction to Part Three
19 Don’t Eat Them
20 Don’t Beat Them (or Pay People Who Do)
21 Your Animal Companions
22 PETA’s Community Animal Project (and How You Can Help Animals in Your Own Community)
23 Buying Cruelty Free
24 Public Policies
25 Frequently Asked Questions
Epilogue
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

192 pages, Paperback

Published July 28, 2016

Reviews

[Jonathan]

Withrow King is a passionate and accessible writer, frequently funny, although her tone sometimes came off as a bit snarky which might have alienated her audience. I also thought it was interesting that she called it "an evangelical animal liberation theology" but hardly quoted evangelical theologians. She tried to do a lot in one book, and the unity of the book felt a tad stretched and scattered. All that said, I'm sympathetic to her cause and there is a lot of good stuff here.

[Michelle]

I get her point, but I found myself disagreeing with her a bit on the place of humans in creation. Those are pure theological disagreements, not so much against her writing or reasoning. And then I did have a few questions regarding points and verses she failed to address, like when Jesus cast the demon out of the person and into the herd of pigs, after which they threw themselves in the nearby water and drowned. She had failed to address that when talking about Jesus and he's a model for good animal treatment. She was also trying to claim that because Jesus (and the rest of the speakers in the Bible) use references to chickens, birds, etc that it can be directly tied to a mandate to protect animals. Like I said, I agree with her general ideas, that we as God's human creations need to care for his other creations right down to how we approach eating them, BUT....animal metaphors and examples in that era in my opinion don't necessarily mean it's coming from a place of animal rights activism or concern, but rather the culture. it would be like preachers today basing sermons around social media or some such. It's a big part of our lives, and animals were a big part of theirs. Now, Jesus by nature did seem to care about God's nonhuman creation but yeah... I think she makes some leaps that are a bit of stretch.

[Kevin Burrell]

You can't address this topic and make a case for not eating meat without at all addressing (as one example) Acts 10. Peter's vision to accept formerly "unclean" animals as permissible has both a literal and a spiritual application, and is never discussed in the entire book. King says, "Though I admit that the image of Jesus gnawing on flesh doesn’t jibe with my Christology, I don’t want to argue about it. I don’t think that whether Jesus ate meat two thousand years ago is the most important question for Christians to ask today." This is as close as she comes to addressing the elephant in the room (that Jesus ate meat and even encouraged Peter to eat meat). And even if she "doesn't want to argue about it," she spends the rest of this chapter surmising what Jesus would do (a love for the marginalized equals a love for animal welfare) and not what Jesus actually did (eat fish, a Passover lamb, etc.). This is eisegesis (reading our own preferences into the text) rather than honest balanced exegesis. I'm grateful for some of the topics King brings up, and I believe we need to wrestle biblically with our call to animal stewardship, but this should not pretend to be a Biblical presentation of the topic.

[Krista]

Sarah King does a great job of leading the reader through the argument for why Christians who are called to show mercy to the powerless should care about animals. On her words "Shalom is the concept of right relationships, not just between humans, but between all elements of God's creation. When we think about shalom, we might envision the perfect harmony of Eden and the promise of full restoration three that marks the kingdom of God. Shalom is flourishing, and it is for all of God's creation."

If we are the stewards of God's creation, and made in the image of God, and then having dominion over nature should be just to Cara whole lot about how we treat animals. This is an excellent read for anyone serious about God's call to show compassion.