In May 2016 a 3-year-old boy at the Cincinnati Zoo wandered away from his parents and fell into the gorilla enclosure. Harambe, a 450-pound gorilla, dragged the boy for several minutes until zoo workers fatally shot the gorilla. A firestorm of protest arose on the internet with many saying the gorilla was treated unjustly. While there are valid questions on whether the workers acted in the best way to preserve both the animal and the boy, the debate raises questions of the relative value of human and animal life.
Michael Haykin, professor of church history and biblical spirituality at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, says animal protection has a long history among evangelicals but has been coopted and perverted by some Darwinists and secularists.
Beginning in the 18th century, Haykin said, key Christian figures in the movement to abolish slavery “also became aware of unnecessary cruelty to animals,” including sports like bear and bull baiting in which dogs killed larger animals in a savage manner. British abolitionist William Wilberforce along with hymn writers Augustus Toplady (“Rock of Ages”) and William Cowper (“There Is a Fountain, Filled with Blood”) were among those to advocate the humane treatment of animals on biblical grounds.
Toplady believed there will be animals in the new heavens and new earth, Haykin said, though not the specific animals humans know in their earthly lives. Wilberforce cofounded the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Scottish pastor Robert Murray M’Cheyne, whose personal piety became legendary and whose annual Bible reading plan remains in use, devoted an entire sermon to the ethical treatment of animals.
Haykin noted that all these early advocates of humane animal treatment believed humans “have priority in creation.”
Yet evangelicals withdrew from the animal protection movement in significant measure during the 20th century because many sought to avoid the error of theological liberals, who “focused on the societal impacts of the Gospel to the expense of the Gospel,” Haykin said.
As evolutionary theory influenced the animal rights movement, the cause was further distanced from its Christian roots, resulting in phenomena like protests over the killing of the Cincinnati gorilla, Haykin said.
“It’s amazing that in valuing animal rights, we’ve actually lost the value of human beings,” Haykin said. “…To say we should have saved the gorilla rather than the child — there’s something deeply wrong with that.”