Do all species have the right to be free? How has religion shaped the complex notions of “freedom” that inform the human relationship with the more-than-human world? Each of the papers on this panel wrestles with the reality that human freedom is always entangled with other forms of life.
Hunting critics have consistently attacked the rhetoric that contemporary hunters use to justify the slaying of wild animals. This paper examines two such techniques as found in a collection of Evangelical hunting devotionals: the projection of the desire to be put out of one’s misery in the case of wounded animals and the construal of slain animals as having sacrificed themselves. Although these rationalizations merit criticism for conveniently eliding animals’ actual perspectives, confirming the suspicions of anti-hunters, these cases also deflate the idea that hunters' ethical discourses amount to a mere charade. Moreover, the particular articulations of these techniques in the devotionals achieve the complex effect of saturating the slaying of animals with gravity and ambiguity. Without diminishing the vices of these works, such an effect, I propose, merits contemplation in the Anthropocene, which is partially characterized by the mass annihilation and mutilation of nonhuman animals.
The concept of Christian vocation has long centered around work. This narrow concept of vocation conflating “call” and “career” is problematic for both humans and all creatures. I examine how problematic interpretations of vocation are oppressive for humans and nonhuman animals. If nonhuman animals are laborers, then the theo-ethical systems that protect human workers should also include nonhuman animal workers. However, simple support for nonhuman laborers is insufficient as a just theo-ethic. I explore attitudes towards labor in Christianity, and how a persistent rhetoric of “call as career” denigrates the concept of vocation for all creatures. I also explore how intersecting concepts of animality, class, ability, and race coalesce to maintain the forced labor of creaturekind. I argue for the delinking of labor and vocation, and a repudiation of the idea that the purpose of existence is work, calling out Christianity’s complicity in the oppression of human and nonhuman workers.
The portrayal of animals in the hadith literature offers a unique perspective on the spiritual status of nonhuman beings within Islamic tradition. While the Qur’an affirms that all of creation glorifies God, the hadith expands upon this theme, presenting animals as active participants in devotional acts, as believers in Muhammad’s prophethood, and as morally accountable beings in the afterlife. These themes challenge anthropocentric assumptions and invite believers to reconsider the relationship between humans and nonhuman creatures in a way that fosters affinity, humility, and ethical responsibility. Despite this, some modern and premodern interpretations dismiss the religious significance of animals in Islamic scripture, reducing their devotion to mechanical or instinctive behavior. This presentation explores the religious dimension of animals in the hadith, critically engages with contesting views that undermine this theme, and highlights its ethical impact in fostering a sense of interspecies kinship and promoting ethical attitudes toward the nonhuman other.
This paper explores the ethical implications of a current debate about evolution, natural evil, and the goodness of God. There is an ongoing “fault-line” (in Christopher Southgate’s words) between those who believe God willed the evolutionary process with all its struggle, suffering, and destruction, because this was the only way to create complex life, and those who regard the struggle, suffering, and destruction as opposed to God’s good purposes. Yet some on both sides agree strikingly on the shape of eschatological hope for other-than-human animals. Following Southgate’s own call for an eschatological ethic of animal care, the paper explores the ethical implications of this recent eschatological convergence across the fault-line, focusing on two issues: killing animals for food, and responding to anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic species extinction. While endorsing much in Southgate’s proposed eschatological ethic, it disagrees with his practical conclusions about both these issues.