By Beth Quick
After many years as a local church pastor, my ongoing discernment took me back to Drew Theological School, where I received my MDiv in 2003, this time to pursue a PhD. A growing commitment to animal ethics and ongoing questions about how people of faith think (or don’t think) about the place of animals called me back to school to study Christianity and Ecology with a focus on Animal Studies. My still-forming research questions center on how people make choices about what they eat and how our beliefs and attitudes about our relationships with animals come alongside our other justice-commitments as people of faith. If Christians seek justice for all, who and what is included in that “all”? And how are they included?
My coursework introduced me to feminist, scientist, and dog-enthusiast Donna J. Haraway, who writes about many topics, but especially about “companion species,” and the “becoming with” relationships of animals and humans. (Companion Species Manifesto, When Species Meet, and Staying with the Trouble are a few of her works that have absorbed my attention.) Haraway specifically thinks a lot about animals and labor. How are animals workers, and how does that shape our relationship with animals? As I read Haraway’s work, I started thinking about our own United Methodist focus on labor.
Have you thought of animals as workers? Thinking of animals as workers, laborers, might sound strange at first, since we’re used to thinking of humans as the ones who hold jobs and earn a living. But taking a quick inventory, the number of ways animals are laborers is actually quite astonishing!
Animals work:
- As service animals or emotional support animals for people
- As entertainers in theater productions, at SeaWorld and zoos, at Disney parks and in circus acts, TV shows, films, in weddings (doves, butterflies) and more
- As transportation—horses pulling carriages, elephants, camels, mules, donkeys giving rides to people, and more
- As pack animals, carrying heavy burdens to ease human labor
- As laborers on farms and ranches, watching over and protecting other animals, and taking part in the tilling of the earth, the growing of food
- As messengers, carrying important information
- As fighters and competitors, trained to race against or harm other animals
- As experimental subjects, as test subjects for countless medical, psychological, and scientific studies
- As enforcement and safety animals, guard dogs, bomb sniffers, guides, security systems, with police squads and investigation units
- As providers of fur, wool, and other bodily materials for use in products for human
- As providers of food, in the form of eggs, dairy products, and meats, giving their lives in the process
- As pets, trying to please their human owners
We see animal labor in the Scriptures too, where we find animals laboring from Genesis to Revelation—carrying messages, providing a safe-haven for prophets thrown overboard, laboring on the land to help with tilling the soil, and working as a vehicle for Jesus Christ, just to name a very few. Animals, hard workers, are part of God’s story of love and redemption for creation. This is just a partial list, of course. What other kinds of animal labor come to your mind?
In The United Methodist Church, we have a long history of seeking the rights of workers. For example, in the 1908 Social Creed of the Methodist Episcopal Church (which you can read here) labor issues addressed include child labor, sweat shops, health and safety conditions, work hours and rest, the rights of workers to complain about and seek changes to unfair working conditions and practices, and a living wage. Our current Social Principles still emphasize worker justice, and you can read about our United Methodist commitment to justice for laborers.
When it comes to human workers, our dedication to justice is clear. But what ethical and faithful obligations do we have to laboring animals? There are important differences between human and nonhuman animals—but sometimes we forget how much common ground we have as God’s creatures. As we think about the common ground of labor, can we do more to expand our considerable and inspiring focus on the rights of human workers into justice for our animal laborers? How might we apply, for example, Wesley’s rule of “First, Do No Harm” to animal laborers? As we labor for justice, may we expand our circle, realizing the scope of God’s creation that labors beside us.
Beth Quick is an ordained elder in the Upper New York Annual Conference, and served as pastor in churches in New York and New Jersey. She is currently appointed to attend school at Drew Theological School where she is pursuing a PhD in Christianity and Ecology with a focus on Animal Studies. Beth is the author of a book of sung communion liturgies called Singing at the Table.