Audio Transcript
You see them everywhere now, in strollers, in tiny sweaters, on just about every commercial jet flight: “fur babies.” And it turns out, how we treat those pets says more about our own hearts than it does about the pets themselves. There’s a deeper question here, Pastor John, about what happens to us when a pet starts to fill a hole that only a person can fill. So, we are talking “child pets.” When I saw this question come in a few weeks back, I knew I had to ask it, and I’ve been looking forward to this day. Today on Ask Pastor John: fur babies and pet stewardship.
The question is from Samuel in New Haven, Connecticut: “Pastor John, hello and thank you for entertaining my question. It’s a cultural one. You seem like a man who loves dogs. I do, too, which is why I love the end of APJ 1001, ‘Do Pets Distract the Christian Life?’ There you mentioned your goldendoodle, Dusty, and all that she taught you, and in an April 2014 article, you mentioned in passing a dog in your childhood in South Carolina. What do you think of this society in which we live increasingly treating dogs and other pets as children or child replacements by single women who have a nurturing instinct? Or especially by married couples who could have children, but chose instead to spend their discretionary money pampering those pets with unnecessary clothes and expensive food, flying them on jets, using resources that would easily support a child, and throwing it to the dogs, as Jesus puts it in Matthew 15:26. I’m sure you’ve seen this. How does it strike you?”
When I saw this question, I thought to myself, “When I’m dead and gone, somebody is going to say, ‘Not only did Piper waste his time and money on a dog, but he also wasted everybody’s time answering questions about whether you ought to have a dog.’” But then I thought, “Well, if not on Ask Pastor John, then where?” Who else would make himself a shooting target over dogs, cats, fish, and pet turtles? So, here we go.
If your culture is poor enough, you eat dogs — no shame. I would certainly eat a dog before I’d let my kids starve. If your culture is rich enough, you kill other animals like fish and chickens, and feed your dogs, and then you bring them in the house and brush their hair. Clearly, how we relate to animals as pets or as food is mainly culturally determined.
Biblical Companionship
So, let’s ask what biblical factors might shape a culture’s attitude toward animals (or pets in particular). And the first thing I would draw attention to is Genesis 2.
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” [That’s where we get complementarianism, by the way, from that word right there: “complementary to him.”] Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. (Genesis 2:18–20)
The main point of that paragraph is that when God created all the animals, he did not make any of them as a satisfying partner for a human being — that’s the point. “For Adam there was not found a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:20). Animals are not designed by God to solve the God-given longing for companionship, expressed in the words, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). That problem is not solved by animals, as God designed it.
“God means for all of creation, including animals, to declare the glory of God.”
This doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the companionship of an animal. It means that, when that companionship starts to function like the companionship of a human, it’s moving against God’s design. The Bible considers sex with an animal a perversion (Leviticus 18:23), and Jesus had very harsh words for those who had more compassion for an animal than for a disabled human being — or, I might add, an unborn human being (Matthew 12:10–12).
Regard for Life
The next text I would cite is Proverbs 12:10: “Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.” In other words, even though animals are not human and should not be treated as human, nevertheless, how you treat them says something about being human. Indeed, it says something about being righteous and not wicked.
Now the text, of course, is not about pets, but it is certainly relevant to whether you kick a mangy dog into the gutter or whether you feel some pity and try to relieve its pain. And you can see pretty clearly, I think, that it’s not a great leap from that sense of biblical pity to taking the dog home and finding that the affection turns into ten years of care and dog-and-human friendship.
The third text I would refer to is 2 Samuel 12. Remember, the prophet Nathan indicts David for his adultery and murder by telling this little parable:
The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him. (2 Samuel 12:2–3)
Now, it would be very strange for Nathan to use that little parable if such a thing were disgusting to David or if such a thing never happened. In other words, it did happen, evidently, from time to time, that a family would become attached to one of the little lambs in the flock, which then grew up as a pet.
Beauty and Strangeness
The fourth text (or group of texts) I would refer to is the dozens and dozens and dozens of texts that refer to over 75 different kinds of animals in the Bible, most of whom have no commercial value at all. They’re just there in the wild, and the main use that God makes of them is not how they function perfectly to keep the ecosystem going (though that’s his wisdom as well), but how they provide occasions for humans to see in God’s creation things like strength, diligence, beauty, orderliness, perseverance, freedom, skill, humor (like the ostrich), fearlessness, balance, motherliness, filth, disgust, changeableness, slyness, subtlety, hugeness, insignificance (sparrows who just fall to the ground in the middle of the forest), peace, wisdom, deceit, tenderness, humility, magnificence, and on and on.
Just like the stars and trees and mountains and lakes and flowers, animals show that God is bent on beauty and strangeness, not just functionality. He means for all of creation, including animals, to declare the glory of God — his wisdom, his power, his beauty, his wonder.
And when we ask what animals are for, we can’t just answer, “For food, for clothing, for transport, for war.” We must also answer, “They are to be admired and feared and stayed away from and taken hold of and copied.” “Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise” (Proverbs 6:6). They are to draw out of us worshipful responses toward God.
Wisdom for Pets
So, here are some of the questions that I think we should ask to test whether we’re responding to animals biblically and wisely, knowing that we’re shaped by our culture:
- Does this animal point us to God and help us love God more, or does it distract us from God and replace God?
- Does this animal draw out of us virtuous impulses, or does it stir up unrighteous impulses? Do we treat people better because of this animal?
- Does our relationship with this animal accord with and confirm God’s order of creation, or does it distort that order? Is the animal starting to fill needs that only a human should fill?
- Is the care for this animal hindering resources and time that should be spent blessing other people?
Now, I’m trying to be careful with that last question because I know there are people who don’t have pets who are stingy, and they’re not generous to other people, and there are people who do have pets that are lavishly generous to other people. Giving up their pets wouldn’t make them more generous to other people. So, I’m asking, “Is the pet hindering generosity to others?”
There — I’ve done it, Tony. Somebody is going to say, “Piper, you overthink things” (that’s what my wife says), to which I say, “Well then, stop asking these questions, and get yourself a dog, and be way more generous with other people than you are now.”
