This book wants to bridge the distance separating our plates (and stomachs) from our ethics. We have some idea of what animals look like on farms and are used to seeing their meat cooked in our meals. But what happens in between is a gray area for many consumers (Christians among them). There is a gap that disconnects us from the process by which animal meat gets on our tables. How are these animals treated and eventually slaughtered? More radically, is it ethical to use them as a consistent part of our food? Should we all be vegetarian? What is the moral ground for us humans to eat or exploit animals? Is there a justice issue as we deal with animals? These questions are widespread today.
Camosy is professor of Christian ethics at Fordham University. He writes from a Catholic perspective, although he assumes his readership will be wider including Christians of various traditions willing to test their own Christian convictions about the ethical way of treating animals.
Questioning ‘Speciesism’
The book voices growing concerns in both secular and Christian circles about the need to revise our ethical approach to animals. Yes, there are extreme positions that call for an “animal liberation” (e.g., Peter Singer), that is, liberation from the supposedly Christian and tyrannical view that devalues animal lives. According to Singer and others, after fighting against racism and sexism, the present-day liberation front opposes speciesism—the segregation of animals to a lower species possessing no rights and the elevation of humans to the highest species claiming all rights. The enemies of animalists are Christianity with its moral justification of abusing the animals and Western consumerism with its push to make profit without any other moral consideration.
For Love of Animals: Christian Ethics, Consistent Action
Charles Camosy
After considering and somewhat sympathizing with the criticism of animalists like Singer, Camosy desires to show that an ecological, non-violent, and animal-friendly form of Christianity best represents the message of Jesus Christ. According to him, the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (often quoted in the book) reflects a passion for justice that owes animals what they deserve and leads to a liberating morality for the whole cosmos.
Did Jesus Ever Eat Meat?
How does Camosy support his claims? He tries to show that the Bible itself provides a moral framework for animal rights. He awkwardly suggests that the reality of angels shows that human beings are not the only moral beings in the universe and that it may be the case that aliens, if they exist at all, may also have a morality. But he rightly recalls that all creation—animals included—is pronounced “good” by God. Unfortunately Camosy omits to remember that it was after creating Adam and Eve that God said his work was “very good” (Gen. 1:31). It is right to emphasize that animals and humans belong together in the created order, but it is also biblically warranted to say the peak of creation comes when humans are created and tasked with cultivating the garden.
He then explains the option to eat animal meat in terms of an “ambiguous permission” to accommodate human sinfulness and violence, although he again omits to remember God himself gives animal meat to the Israelites in the wilderness (e.g. Exod. 16). He argues Jesus never ate meat (only fish, which by the way is not acceptable for animalists), although there is no biblical evidence for his case while many clues support the contrary view. He quotes the Sermon on the Mount yet forgets to explain why Jesus would say: “Are you [human beings] not of more value that they [birds]”? Jesus does not fit the category of a present-day animalist, but Camosy seems to think so by appealing to a sentimentalized and truncated view of his message.
Turning to Paul, Camosy has to admit the apostle to the Gentiles was less animal-friendly than Jesus (e.g. 1 Cor. 9:9-10). But since Paul does not fit his pro-animal agenda, Camosy immediately adds that “[n]ot everything that Paul says in his letters is inspired by God” (56). The result is that selective quotations of Scripture are related to a selective view of biblical inspiration. Only the “peaceful” verses are quoted; only the ecological parts are inspired. This eclectic use of Scripture leads him to argue this thesis: “Nonhuman animals are created to be companions—and not food—of human beings” (58, 129). This is partially true, but not totally true. The first part is certainly something that needs to be stressed in times of violent exploitation of animals, but the second does not follow, at least from a biblical perspective.
Pro-Life, Pro-Animals?
Turning to church history, Camosy highlights how the great saints of different ages treated animals as beings deserving respect. Francis of Assisi is the best-known example, but William Wilberforce is also mentioned as a founding member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Recent popes have records of being animal-friendly, even though Vatican II (the last authoritative council for the Roman Catholic Church) focuses exclusively on the dignity of the human person and does not mention animals (77).
From the moral point of view, Camosy’s main argument stretches the pro-life position into a pro-animal (life) one. According to this line of reasoning, if life is to be taken as paramount, then all life must be defended. If life is at the center of our moral concern, it becomes “quite easy to connect the dots between moral concern for nonhuman animals and for our prenatal children” (79). Camosy blames theologically conservative Christianity for being subjugated to the culture of violence. Yet here, touching on the pro-life sensitivity, he strikes deep cords for conservative Christians. For him the animalist case becomes a pro-life issue. But is it really? His argument stands or falls on his premise that there is more moral continuity than discontinuity between nonhuman animals and human beings. In other words, anthropology and zoology overlap. Contrary to Camosy’s opinion, the Bible is not so easy to squeeze into animalist categories when read as a whole. Camosy’s agenda determines the “canon within the canon” with a pro-animal hermeneutic.
Beyond Western Consumerism
Although selective and faulty in its biblical treatment and moral conclusions, the book deserves a hearing especially when it denounces the evils of our consumerist society that, paradoxically, implement brutality in the name of human civilization. Camosy is at his best in the pars destruens of the book than in the pars construens. In other words, he gives food for thought to all serious Christians who wish to live responsibly in relationship with the animal world.
It is true that Christians should be “concerned about how the logic of violence and consumerism dominate the reasoning of factory farms” (100). What happens today in our consumerist world is not the best nor the only possible way of treating the animals. This is a serious issue to consider, though we must not blur the biblical distinctions in the created order.