Genesis

We begin by highlighting the two clearest examples of God's covenantal actions towards nonhuman animals. The first of these can be found in Genesis 9,Footnote ³ which is the first time God enacts a covenant with his creatures.Footnote ⁴ Bill Arnold makes the point that ‘“Covenant” occurs seven times in ten verses (9.8–17), and the very density of the term itself makes the point: God's covenant with Noah is central to the post-diluvian world order’.Footnote ⁵ Kent Hughes notes three themes of the Noahic covenant which are useful in describing it in more detail; it can be understood as universal (involving all creation), unilateral (dependent entirely on God), and unconditional (there will never be another flood).Footnote ⁶ The universality of the covenant is one which not only involves both humans and nonhumans, but includes all generations of creatures.Footnote ⁷ That this is a covenant which goes beyond merely humans is highlighted by the repetitive focus on ‘every living creature’, ‘all living creatures’ and ‘all life’, with such repetitions making clear the extent of the covenant.Footnote ⁸ That this covenant is unilateral and dependent on God alone is a view shared by many biblical commentators,Footnote ⁹ and Clare Amos notes that this is highlighted by the fact that ‘throughout 9.1–17 Noah remains completely mute, accentuating the one-sided obligation which God is placing himself under’. Footnote ¹⁰ This may also be observed by the fact that the famous ‘rainbow sign’ is a reminder not for God's creatures, but for God. Finally, that this covenant is one which is unconditional can be seen in the thrice repeated phrase ‘never again’,Footnote ¹¹ as well as the explicit mention of this covenant being an ‘everlasting covenant’.Footnote ¹² The Noahic covenant is one which extends to all of God's creatures, is dependent on God alone, and is unbreakable. This is a covenant which aims to emphasise God's commitment to the preservation of God's creatures;Footnote ¹³ or to use the words of Patrick Miller, it ‘restores and secures the creation for the benefit of the creatures, animal and human’.Footnote ¹⁴

Hosea

The covenant found in Hosea 2 is more subdued than that found in Genesis 9, but the extension to the nonhuman animal is shared. Here the term ‘covenant’ occurs only once, but God states ‘I will make for you a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground’.Footnote ¹⁵ Thus the parties with whom God covenants are the various groupings of animals. The goal of the covenant (as part of the greater goal of the restoration shown in Hosea 2) incorporates some of the same ideas from the covenant found in Genesis 9, and includes ‘freedom from harm from animals, and freedom from harm of humans. Both are manifestations of the general restoration blessing of covenant renewal.’Footnote ¹⁶ Robert Murray notes that the author of Hosea ‘saw the covenant as that of cosmic renewal and peace rather than any other model’.Footnote ¹⁷ The point which this article wishes to focus on, however, is that this cosmic peace is one which entails a covenant involving God and both human and nonhuman animals. In Hosea 2, unlike Genesis 9, there is no explicit mention of God even covenanting with humans; only for humans, with nonhuman animals.Footnote ¹⁸ Though this is a covenant which ultimately seems to have been entered into for the sake of humans, this does not detract from the fact that it is with animals that God once more enters into covenant. Given that Genesis 9 and Hosea 2 are quite clear on God's covenantal actions with animals, it is of natural interest to turn to just what such actions mean with regard to those animals with whom God covenants.

Covenanting

The Hebrew word for covenant, bĕrît, is one which is found in twenty-six of the thirty-nine Old Testament books (in some of these quite frequently), so by numbers alone it suggests that this is a word of importance to its authors.Footnote ¹⁹ As might be expected, with such a wide spread of uses, the meaning is not always consistent and this (and other biblical study issues such as dating, and selection of verses on which to focus) have had an impact on our understanding of what it means to covenant. In the past, biblical studies of covenant have found various themes and functions of understanding, including viewing it as a treaty between partners, as an institution providing social and political coherence, and as fulfilling a theological need for Israel.Footnote ²⁰ However, such past examinations of covenant have often chosen specific covenants to focus on (usually the Sinai or Mosaic covenant) to the exclusion of others (such as Genesis 9).Footnote ²¹ Katherine Dell notes that ‘the Noahic covenant has generally been regarded by scholars as less primary or significant than the other three [the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic]. For those concerned to write an Old Testament Theology, it has tended to take a back seat.’Footnote ²² This has necessarily had an impact on the way in which covenant has been understood. In being overly specific as to the choices of covenant, there has been a very real danger of creating a definition which is too narrow to be applied to all the uses. Klaus Baltzer, for example, understands the covenant as akin to a treaty following ancient treaty structures and, from this, suggests a list of what covenants entail, including a number of items which are not found in the Noahic covenant.Footnote ²³ The issue is not in looking at individual covenants, but in creating a general category from a limited selection. However, with this noted, there are a number of common elements which can be seen in the vast majority of covenants.

In turning to a workable understanding of what it means to covenant within the Bible, Beckwith states that ‘the Hebrew term for covenant, bĕrît, is of uncertain derivation, but is most commonly connected with the Middle Assyrian noun biritu, meaning “bond” or “fetter”’.Footnote ²⁴ In Old Testament usage, a bĕrît commonly means a league of friendship, either between humans or between God and humans, ‘solemnly inaugurated, either by words alone or by words and symbolical ceremonies, in which obligations are undertaken on one or both sides’.Footnote ²⁵ Roger Beckwith finds seven commonalities between all covenants, including the presence of promise, signs, and oaths.Footnote ²⁶ One specific element of what it means to covenant has been highlighted by James Scott: ‘Generally speaking, the term, “covenant” indicates a special relationship that is based upon commitment, in which obligations and promises are included, and which contains both qualities of dependability and permanence.’Footnote ²⁷ It is this aspect of relationship, and the corresponding care and concern for the other, which we want to highlight with regards to understanding covenanting within Genesis 9 and Hosea 2.

That a crucial idea of what it means to be in covenant is to be in relation is a point which has been noted by a number of biblical scholars and theologians. The way in which this has been presented has varied. Beckwith, as noted above, suggests that in Old Testament usage, a covenant means a league of friendship, between either human and human, or God and human.Footnote ²⁸ Others such as Bruce Waltke and W. J. Dumbrell suggest that, instead of instituting a relationship, a covenant instead confirms a pre-existing relationship.Footnote ²⁹ With regard to the covenant found in Genesis 9, the pre-existing relationship is said to be found in Genesis 1, through God's act of creation and blessing.Footnote ³⁰ Murray discusses the creation narrative, and states that ‘though creation was not expressed in explicitly covenantal terms . . . already there was [an] emphasi[s] on the relationship of humankind to God and to the animal orders’.Footnote ³¹ This idea is another means by which the relational aspect of covenant is expressed; through the relation of all the covenant partners, even those who are not active members. In the case of Genesis 9, the only active partner is God. Yet the passive nature of being a covenantal partner with God suggests not only relation between God and creation, but also relation between all the passive members; between human and nonhuman animals. Scott notes that, in translating bĕrît as ‘covenant’, we have lost something of the original meaning, which would have been an emphasis on a binding relationship.Footnote ³² Peter Golding likewise notes that the emphasis on a ‘bond’ is inherently relational, and suggests that even in Genesis 9 and Hosea 2 where the parties involved include animals, ‘it is still a “bond” that is being established with them’.Footnote ³³ In addition to this more general understanding of the covenant as relational in nature, there is another associated way of understanding covenant (and the ancient West Semitic tribal way of life more generally) as relational which has been proposed by Frank Cross (and subsequently taken up by Amos) which proposes an idea of covenant which is rooted in kinship.

Frank Cross begins his book, From Epic to Canon, with a chapter titled ‘Kinship and Covenant in Ancient Israel’.Footnote ³⁴ Though Cross touches on a number of issues relating to the idea of kinship to the ancient Israelites, he notes that ‘the social organization of West Semitic tribal groups was grounded in kinship. Kinship relations defined the rights and obligations, the duties, status, and privileges of tribal members, and kinship terminology provided the only language for expressing legal, political, and religious institutions.’Footnote ³⁵ Part of what kinship meant was upholding the welfare of one's fellow kinsman, and redeeming them in times of need, as well as being loving, just and generous to them.Footnote ³⁶ Amos, discussing Cross’ work, suggests that, in covenanting with both human and nonhuman animals, God was, ‘in effect, “adopting” the other party as kin, and agreeing to accept the mutual obligations inherent in kinship’.Footnote ³⁷ Thus, through the covenant, God became (using Cross’ term) the Divine Kinsman.Footnote ³⁸ Cross is not alone in his presentation of covenant as closely related to familial ties. D. J. McCarthy states ‘And there is no doubt that covenants, even treaties, were thought of as establishing a kind of quasi-familial unity. In the technical vocabulary of these documents a superior partner was called “father”, his inferior “son”, and equal partners were “brothers”.’Footnote ³⁹ Though this is stronger language than other discussions of the covenant as based on relation, the idea is the same. By God's self-chosen action, and dependent on God alone, God covenants with all of the creatures of the earth, and through doing so, makes explicit his value and care for his creatures. The implications of such an understanding lead very strongly to the idea of animals as loved by God, based on the fact that the Almighty chose to covenant with them.

Cared for by God

Due to the understanding of covenant as inherently relational, be it more generally or as kin, it is only rational to suggest that, in covenanting with a group, the members of that group are seen to be valued and cared for. Various theologians have commented on the care that God has for his creation, as seen through his covenantal actions towards it. Claus Westermann suggests this is an ‘unconditional approval’ by God towards creation,Footnote ⁴⁰ Wolfhart Pannenberg (based in part on Genesis 9 as well as other scriptural verses) suggests that God both preserves and cares for each individual creature.Footnote ⁴¹ David Fergusson notes that through the covenant of Genesis 9, ‘God offers care to all creatures’, and Michael Bullmore, in referring to the Noahic covenant, puts it simply: ‘at minimum it says that God sees bird and beast as worthy of covenantal protection’.Footnote ⁴² The relational significance of God's covenanting with nonhuman animals is further emphasised by the Anglican Church's 1998 Lambeth Conference which recognised the relationship between all creatures based on God's covenantal actions.Footnote ⁴³ What can be seen here is the recognition that, in choosing to covenant with all his creatures, God was making clear his care for all these creatures. To covenant with someone is to value them, and in Genesis 9 and Hosea 2 there is evidence of God freely covenanting with nonhuman animals, and thus expressing his relationship with them. Given that God enters into relationship with nonhuman animals (and in fact brings humans into covenant with them), it suggests a need to construct a Christian understanding of the nonhuman which is aware of the love that God has for these creatures, as evidenced by the fact that he covenants with them.

Thus far the case has been made that God cares for all his creatures, as shown by the fact that he enters into covenant with them. The covenant is not a cause of God's love, but follows naturally from it. But what does God's relation to the nonhuman have to do with humans? Do God's promises to the nonhuman involve the human in some way, and if so, how? In the case of the Noahic covenant, humans are involved as they are part of the very same covenant with the nonhuman. It was noted above that, even as passive members of the covenant, humans and nonhumans are put into relation with one another. In the covenant found in Hos 2, it is a covenant between God and nonhuman animals; such human and nonhuman creatures will be brought to peace with one another. Murray questions how if ‘God is seen as promising to care for both orders of creatures; and if both are God's covenant-partners, how can they not be in some sense covenantally bound to one another?’Footnote ⁴⁴ Jürgen Moltmann puts an ethical spin on this, and suggests that this covenantal relationship is so strong that violence against members of God's covenant (including animals), is an injury against God himself.Footnote ⁴⁵ What these authors are suggesting is that, through the act of covenanting with both humans and nonhumans, God was in a sense binding what might be called ‘two member groups’, into a single covenantal (and therefore relational) community. Beyond this shared community, the very fact that God's covenantal actions towards the nonhuman are indicative of God's care for these creatures has implications for how humans should understand and view the nonhuman. Rather than viewing nonhuman animals as mere resources, as material for our use, the fact that God covenants with these creatures, and draws us into covenant with them, suggests a need to view them in a much more relational and covenantal way.

To begin to understand what it means for us to view other animals in a relational and covenantal way involves reflection on what it means for God to be in relationship. The relationality of God, and what that means for those humans created in God's image, is attested to throughout the whole of Christian doctrine in a way which augments and clarifies the ethical significance of covenant relationality. The Triune God, relational in God's very being,Footnote ⁴⁶ freely chose to create, including the creation of beings with whom God could be in relationship. The incarnation of God's Word into flesh, an act of cosmic significance,Footnote ⁴⁷ is the revelation of God's relational care for all God's creatures, and furthermore an inauguration and foretaste of the peaceable kingdom where relationships will be made anew.Footnote ⁴⁸ These new relationships, the prophets tell us, will mirror the relationality of God; that is, being for the other in a way which rejoices in their particularity and their involvement in wider relational networks.Footnote ⁴⁹ This is the relationality which God's covenantal action with human and nonhuman animals calls us to strive towards in our responsibility within and for creation: living for the other, and in so doing attending to them – so far as one is ableFootnote ⁵⁰ – both as an individual and as a member of the myriad relational networks which constitute creation. To evaluate the extent to which the church has lived out this calling is the task to which we now turn.

The church and human–animal relationality

To move from the theological implications of God's covenanting with nonhuman animals – which we have argued can be seen as exhorting humans to a deeper and more genuine relationality with them in creation – to considering how and in what ways the church has lived this out, it will be instructive to compare official doctrinal statements and examples of lived Christian practice. In particular, a focus on the Lambeth Conference's most recent declaration on humans in creation and the Catholic Catechism's treatment of the same, in tandem with a consideration of the impact of such at an institutional level, will benefit from a comparison with the praxis of organisations concerned with animal matters which share a denominational umbrella. Specifically, Lambeth will be considered in conversation with the theology and ethics of the Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals (ASWA); the Catechism in conversation with Catholic Concern for Animals (CCA). What is striking about ASWA and CCA is that, as confessional organisations standing in a distinct denominational tradition, their ideology and intentions are not only faithful witnesses to God's covenantal relationship with individual animals, but also faithful witnesses to their own traditions in seeking to practise and work out the implications of the theology present in what their traditions have to say about nonhuman animals. If we recognise that our theology is (or at least should be) our ethics, this is what one would expect from anyone practising in the relevant tradition; that said, it cannot be ignored that ASWA and CCA remain in the minority.

ASWA's stated mission, to promote animal welfare and ‘teach respect for all creation and highlight the ways in which animals suffer as a result of human neglect, exploitation and cruelty’,Footnote ⁵¹ is in clear accordance with the recognition that humans and other animals are bound up in a covenant relationship, and that God values both parties to that relationship (even if not equally). It is also, we would argue, a natural living out of the Anglican Communion's declaration, at Lambeth 1998, that ‘Creation is a web of inter-dependent relationships bound together in the Covenant which God, the Holy Trinity has established with the whole earth and every living being’,Footnote ⁵² and that human beings have ‘responsibility to make personal and corporate sacrifices for the common good of all Creation’.Footnote ⁵³ Whether the Anglican Church has succeeded in living out this element of its confessional theology on a larger scale is more debatable. Take, for example, the question of factory farming, considered by Richard Bauckham to be a clear and direct abrogation of the covenantal relationship between humans and other animals.

Despite the many criticisms (scriptural and otherwise) of factory farming as abusive of individual animals and disruptive of human connectivity with nonhuman animals and the environment as a whole,Footnote ⁵⁵ it is ASWA and not the Anglican Church itself which has made explicit the move from recognising creation as a ‘web of inter-dependent relationships’ in theory to acting on it in practice; in this case, by exhorting Christians towards activism and purchasing practices which promote closer relationality between human and nonhuman animals.Footnote ⁵⁶ Andrew Linzey, a theologian and Anglican priest who might reasonably be described as the ‘first wave’ of Christian vegetarian theology, also works to take the Lambeth declaration on humans in creation further than the church has at an institutional level. Arguing that the uniqueness of humankind in creation – and one of the implications of worshipping Christ the Suffering Servant – is the ability of humans to become the ‘servant species’ for others,Footnote ⁵⁷ the relationality one can read from scriptural accounts of God covenanting with nonhuman animals is imaged by Linzey as human responsibility for nonhuman animals.

Perhaps, though, critical attention should be focused not so much on how the Lambeth declaration should be lived out as on how it actually conceptualises human–animal relationality. That is, with an emphasis on creation as a web of relationships, and human responsibility to act for the good of creation – and without an emphasis on individual animals or human–animal relationships – it could be argued that the scriptural duty of stewardship is upheld at the cost of neglecting the bringing together of human and nonhuman in covenantal relationship by God. This could be understood as a microcosm of the tension between environmental theology and animal theology;Footnote ⁵⁸ and, indeed, in the tension between these movements, one of the pivotal issues is the significance of relationality between individual human and nonhuman animals. The environmental approach, concerned with ecosystems and fecundity, is unconcerned with the life, death and suffering of individual animals – potentially even with individual humans – in the bigger picture of environmental conservation.Footnote ⁵⁹ Is this, then, the case for Anglicanism's seeming neglect of covenantal relationality between human and nonhuman animals when it comes to making praxis of theology?

With regards to factory farming, there may indeed be sound environmental arguments for its abandonment;Footnote ⁶⁰ but if our covenantal responsibility within creation is understood as responsibility for the environment and not for individuals – and if, therefore, animal ethics is not common subject matter for moral discernment – even an environmentally motivated argument against factory farming might be seen to muddy the waters, by admitting questions about individual animals and our relationships to them in a way which other typical environmental hot topics (fossil fuels, overpopulation, overconsumption) do not. Michael Northcott recognises human responsibility to nonhuman animals as requiring that ‘where animals are domesticated or hunted for food, they must be treated with compassion and respect and their suffering minimized’;Footnote ⁶¹ and, as aforementioned, Moltmann goes so far as to say that covenantal responsibility to nonhuman animals means that injury against them is injury against God.Footnote ⁶² Perhaps it is the radical nature of such implications which leads to human–animal covenantal relationality being under-represented in doctrinal statements, in favour of broad, environmental foci of the kind seen in Lambeth.

Like ASWA, CCA bears witness to the value of individual nonhuman animals and human relationality with them: its mission statement claims that it ‘exists to influence the Christian Church and, ultimately the wider society, into adopting a more just, understanding and compassionate attitude towards the animal creation’.Footnote ⁶³ Compared to ASWA, however, it is more difficult to make the argument that CCA is living out the implications of its church's doctrinal statements – i.e. the Catholic Catechism – on nonhuman animals, in as much as the Catechism itself appears inconsistent on the matter:

The twinned clauses of 2417 and 2418, stating that it is legitimate to use animals for food and for clothing, but that it is contrary to human dignity to allow animals to die unnecessarily, raise serious and significant questions about what constitutes necessity. Read logically, and consistently with belief in a God who covenants with nonhuman animals and in so doing draws a relational line between them and humans, it would seem reasonable to argue that CCA should faithfully live out, in their ethics, adherence both to a theology wherein God covenants with individual animals, and to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It is a tragic testament to the divided nature of our world that the vast majority of those who have ready access to animal flesh for food and clothing are those who do not need it for survival. Those in countries where food is scarce are unlikely to have access to the meat which the Catechism would appear, if we understand necessity as true necessity and not simply as desirability, to allow to them only.

Where CCA diverge most notably from the Catechism can be seen in 2418, wherein it is deemed contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly; and 2415, wherein respect for creation is called for solely for the sake of humankind, for whom all other creatures exist. The moral concern here lies not with the animal, not even as a species or genera or representative of the whole nonhuman creation, and certainly not as an individual creature of God. Section 2416, wherein animals are recognised as God's creatures, offers the Catholic theologian who wishes to talk about animals some solution to this. But the legacy of the Christian tradition's understanding of nonhuman animals, typified in Aquinas’ claim – contrary to Genesis 9 and Hosea 2 – that animals have no value in themselves, that any negative action directed towards an animal was negative only in so far as it impacted another human,Footnote ⁶⁴ has had a determinative and derivative effect on how the Catholic Church views the individual creatures whom God brought with humans into covenantal relationship. As is the case with Lambeth's focus on environment and ecosystems rather than individuals and relationships, we find in the Catechism a neglect of animal matters in favour of environmental ones. If creation is viewed as a sphere within which the human creature exists, not quite unimportant in itself but only significant in relation to (not with) the human, discussions of human relationality with and responsibilities to nonhuman animals – even on the scriptural grounds of God's covenantal action – will struggle to find traction.

It is unfortunate, in light of God's valuing all animals and bringing nonhuman and human animals into a covenantal relationship, that the Church has often avoided reflection on the implications of our covenantal relationship with nonhuman animals. This runs counter to the well-worn truism that our beliefs should not merely impact upon, but should be our practice. Our theology must be our ethics if we are to call truthful our witness to the God in whom we believe;Footnote ⁶⁵ our confessional beliefs ought to be normative for our worldly practice. To affirm that God covenants with nonhuman animals, values them as subjects, and draws them furthermore into a covenantal relationship with humans, while at the same time supporting (explicitly or implicitly) the degradation and marginalisation of individual animals – such as is present in modern mass farming practices – is to avoid exploring fully the ethical implications of one's confessional theology.

It should be noted that the intention of this article is not to advocate vegetarianism as essential to good Christian practice. It is our intention to demonstrate that questions such as what to eat, and how to respond to political and social conversations concerning the nonhuman – such as proposed wildlife cullsFootnote ⁶⁶ or revisions to traditional practices involving animalsFootnote ⁶⁷ – are questions requiring serious moral consideration, at both the academic and ecclesial level. This is because if God values nonhuman animals, and brings them into a covenantal relationship with humans, and if our theology is supposed to be our ethics, existing practices cannot be justified simply by reference to precedent. To take a parallel example, on the topic of war it is to be expected that different Christians – even within the same church community – will vary considerably in their attitudes, from absolute pacifism to absolute trust in the right actions of the civil authorities. The difference between war and animal ethics here is that attitudes to war are expected to be justified, and genuine and faithful moral discernment practised, if the individual Christian is to demonstrate that their ethics are consistent with their theology. Recognition must be given, in short, to the value of individual human lives. We would propose that the church should exhort and engage in similarly deep reflection on God's covenantal action with and for the nonhuman. If instead we give no ethical recognition to the value of animal lives, it is difficult to argue that our practices are consistent with belief in the God who said, ‘I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind’ (Gen 9:15).