John Stott on humans and animals

The Gospel Coalition has made available for download a sermon titled "Humans and Animals" from the venerable and hugely influential Christian voice John Stott.  Stott, born in 1921, is a British pastor, theologian and prolific author who founded the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion in the early 1960's.  Billy Graham himself pays tribute to Stott as one of Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2005, an article which increases my respect for Stott's contributions to world evangelism and missions, and his personal humility just as well.

In "Humans and Animals," Stott acknowledges the differences between humans and animals biblically understood, and also our dominion over them, even our permission to use them for human needs which that dominion grants.  And while many Christian leaders have traditionally taken the discussion no further, I greatly admire Stott's adamant call to a respectful appreciation and compassionate stewardship of the animals God has wonderfully created and graciously called us to care for on His behalf. 

I was especially grateful for his grounds and encouragement for keeping companion animals in God's relationship to the leviathan, mentioned in Psalm 104:25-26, which God has "formed to frolic there" (NIV) or even "made (His) plaything" (NEB).  And I particularly appreciated the following quote, made in response to the popular animal rights argument against speciesism, "the assigning of different values or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership," (Wikipedia) or the discrimination against animals by our own human species:

"Speciesism" is exactly what the Bible teaches, namely that the human species, because made in the image and likeness of God, is unlike and superior to every other species.  And we must affirm that, so long as we remember that the rule that is given to humans is a limited and beneficent rule and gives us no justification whatever to any kind of cruelty or exploitation.  On the contrary, ... it demands a compassionate care for any animals that are in our responsibility.

Stott goes on to explicitly support the use of alternatives to animal testing whenever possible, and similarly calls for legislation which promotes more humane standards of housing, treatment and slaughtering of farm animals: "We should want legislation in the elimination of all cruelty and the infliction of pain ..."  And he makes this call on specifically biblical grounds. 

Amen and amen. 

I'm grateful to The Gospel Coalition for making Stott's sermon available, which was originally given in 2000.  Apparently, Stott has also written a book by the name of The Birds Our Teachers: Biblical Lessons from a Lifelong Bird-watcher (Baker '01).  I haven't had the pleasure of reading it yet, but please let us know if you have.  Stott does mention his affinity for observing migratory birds in his sermon.