Author’s Note: I was going to write about the Rapture, but I’ll do that tomorrow. Or the day after.
So I stumbled across a video today of one cat fighting another cat while two crows sort of agitate the whole mess. It isn’t very gruesome, just an ordinary cat fight, but as I watched the video I felt kind of angry at the person videotaping it because they just sat there and watched it all happen. One cat seems to specifically get picked on, and I will admit that I’m a sucker for the underdog (undercat?) and also a cat person, so seeing the all happen made me want to get in the midst of it and stop the whole fight. Shoo them all off, maybe throw some water down there and yell, “Hey, knock it off!” And I’m okay if you think I sound silly right now, but it bothers me when we just sit by and watch these things happen.
I usually love nature documentaries, but it always frustrates me when the people videotaping just sit by as animals suffer, or end up dying because humans don’t want to get involved: it is all the Circle of Life, we say. Nature needs to be allowed to work itself out, and the worst thing we can do is to get involved. But it still angers me. I understand that if one animal is saved, then another may go hungry, or the saved animal will begin to over run the predator and suddenly another species goes extinct. We have heard stories and stories, I’m sure, of human involvement in the lives of animals and the atrocities committed. But I’m not okay with sitting by. And I wonder about the people who are.
I don’t want to completely generalize everyone, but I wonder if the people who are okay with sitting by as animals suffer in the Circle of Life are also the people okay with sitting by and watching other humans suffer because it is the Circle of Life. I wonder if the callous hearts that can watch an animal fight against two predators and not get involved are also the same people who can watch companies abuse employees and shrug it off.
I understand the designation we would make as Christians, that humans are more important than animals, that we can’t stop lions from eating lambs. And I understand that I may be sounding like some crazy conservationist, eco-friendly, liberal, hippie right now, but I have to wonder if it is alright that animals kill each other, and humans kill animals. You see, I ask these questions because I believe that God doesn’t just care about human souls, but about everything he made. Genesis reminds us that in the beginning everything was good, and there was peace and completion. What I also notice is that all the plants were given as food, but never do we hear the idea that animals ate and slaughtered one another. And yet we, living in a sin filled world, now see this very thing happening, and we turn a blind eye to it. “We can’t stop them from eating one another,” we may remark. “Sin has ruined this world.”
It wasn’t until I started reading Heaven by Randy Alcorn that I began to question the assumption that God is just interested in saving our souls. And once I saw that God’s plan wasn’t just to save humans so they could dwell in heaven, but was to redeem all of Creation (Rev. 21), that is physical creation, not just spiritual, that I began to understand other parts of the Bible. Ever notice John’s emphasis at the beginning of his gospel, and in his letters, that Jesus wasn’t just the son of God, but seen, and more importantly felt? Ever notice Paul’s fascination with Jesus death and physical resurrection in Colossians 2:12, that all of Christ deity is in bodily form? It is God’s plan to redeem all of creation, all spiritual and physical things. So what of it?
Living as one in a world marred by sin I find it in myself not to sit back and watch this place tear itself apart, but to be, like Christ, a redeeming factor in this world. But let me specify that being a redeeming factor isn’t just to save man’s souls, but also to strive to redeem the physical things as well. I cannot bring about the redemption of the world by my own doings, but as one redeemed I am called to work towards a time when “A wolf and a lamb will graze together; a lion, like an ox, will eat straw, and a snake’s food will be dirt. They will no longer injure or destroy on my entire royal mountain” (Isa. 65:25). As Trevor Hart and Richard Bauckham discuss in their book Hope Against Hope, we live in a time when we must imagine what the future holds for us, and then pull those ideas into the present. So rather than sit by as humans and animals tear each other apart, maybe we should be redemptive agents in the Animal Kingdom. Instead of walking around and ignoring the pain of not just humans but also animals, we should be the ones caring for the hurting creation around us. It may seem silly, and it may be more time and effort than feels necessary, but maybe in redeeming small parts of creation we begin to see the world as God sees it, not as a place to escape, or a broken, unsalvageable mess, but as something worth saving, something that demands our time and energy.
If we return to Genesis, we see that man was made to subdue and rule over creation, and however you interpret those words, it must be done in light of God’s previous statement that all of the plants were given for food, and it was a command in the midst of a perfect creation. Not a broken world. Instead of furthering along the suffering of animals, humans were called to continue this sense of peace and perfection. Yes, we screwed that up, but as redeemed individuals maybe it is time we begin to bring about rule and redemption to the whole of creation, not just pain and further suffering. We messed things up already, let us not continue to break it more.
Cameron
