In this deeply personal and thought-provoking reflection, Dr Daniela Rizzo, Lecturer in Systematic Theology at Alphacrucis University College, explores how childhood concern for a beloved cat became the starting point for a wider theological journey. Challenging visions of salvation centred on escape from creation, she argues for a richer Christian hope rooted in the healing and renewal of all that God has made.
In The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien imagines a world of hobbits, wizards, forests and ancient powers. Among its most memorable creatures are the Ents: tree-like beings who act as shepherds and guardians of the forests.
The most famous of them is Treebeard. When the hobbits Merry and Pippin encounter him, they meet a being whose speech belongs to an older, slower world. His words are not efficient. They do not rush towards usefulness. They grow, like roots beneath the soil, from memory, place and long attention. To speak too quickly, in Treebeard’s world, is almost to fail to speak truthfully.
This is part of what makes the Ents so compelling. They are not voiceless, but their voices do not fit the pace of those around them. They require patience. They require humility. They require listeners willing to be slowed down.
When we look into the frightened eyes of an intensively farmed animal, what do we see?
Speaking at the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Humanities Forum, the philosopher Slavoj Žižek gives an unsettling answer. We might assume that the question concerns animal consciousness: what does the animal feel, know, fear or understand? But Žižek turns the question around. The deeper question is not only what we see in the animal, but what the animal’s gaze reveals about us. In the gaze of the frightened animal, Žižek says, ‘you see your own monstrosity.’
In Blade Runner 2049, there is a quiet, unsettling scene in which a replicant, an engineered being designed for labour, is told that his memories are not his own. They have been implanted. Manufactured. He is, in every meaningful sense, a product. And yet, as the film unfolds, it becomes increasingly difficult to sustain that description. He feels. He longs. He suffers. He hopes.
The world of Blade Runner 2049 is built on a contradiction: beings who are treated as things, yet cannot help but appear as lives.
A similar tension runs through Ex Machina. Ava, an artificial intelligence embodied in a humanoid form, is confined behind glass, observed, tested, evaluated. The question posed by her creator is clinical: can she convincingly simulate consciousness? But the question that emerges for the viewer is far more troubling: what kind of person can look at a being like this and see only an object?
These films are not really about the future. They are about us. They ask, with disarming clarity, what it is that allows human beings to recognise, or to refuse to recognise, life.
And that question is not abstract. It presses urgently upon us, here and now.
Dr Ellie Atayee-Bennett is part of a growing number of scholars exploring the relationship between religion and veganism, not as separate domains, but as mutually shaping ways of life. Her work challenges the assumption that concern for animals sits at the margins of religious faith, rather than at its heart.
In this interview, she introduces the concept of ‘faith veganism’, a term she developed through her doctoral research and forthcoming book Faith Veganism: Animal Ethics, Sustainability, and Abrahamic Religiosity in the UK. Rather than a lifestyle that sits alongside belief, it describes a way of taking religious commitment seriously in everyday life, shaping how people eat, shop and relate to other creatures.
What follows is a thoughtful and grounded reflection drawn from lived experience as well as theological insight.
On Easter morning, church bells ring and Christians greet one another with ancient words: Christ is risen.
We gather in light after darkness. We speak of life after death. We proclaim hope stronger than the grave.
Yet on the same morning, in the same country, slaughterhouses are operating as usual. Lambs are processed for seasonal demand. Chickens move along mechanised lines. Bodies become units. Units become products. Products become part of the Easter table. For most of us, these realities never meet. Resurrection belongs to church. Slaughter belongs somewhere else.
But what does resurrection mean in a world of slaughterhouses?
In recent years, questions about food, animals and Christian responsibility have moved from the margins to the centre of theological and ethical debate. As industrial farming intensifies, ecological crises deepen, and churches revisit what faithful discipleship looks like in a wounded world, long-standing assumptions about animal use are being re-examined. Christian Inspired Vegetarianism. Humans and Animals in the Divine Plan by Marilena Bogazzi enters this conversation with clarity and theological seriousness, asking whether care for animals belongs not merely to ethical reflection but to the spiritual heart of Christianity itself. Alma Massaro’s reflections on the book offer a careful guide through its scriptural, theological and historical arguments.
Christmas is a season of abundance. Tables groan under food. Kitchens fill with the familiar smells of roasting, herbs and spice. Families gather, traditions are honoured, and we reassure ourselves that this is what celebration looks like.
And yet Christmas tells another story.
It is the story of a God who enters the world quietly and without excess. A child born among animals, not above them (Luke 2:7). A saviour whose first bed is a feeding trough, whose arrival is announced not to the powerful but to shepherds keeping watch through the night. Christmas does not begin with triumph, but with vulnerability.
Which raises an unsettling question, one we rarely ask amid the festivities:
What would Jesus eat for Christmas?
When COP30 convenes in Belém, deep within the Brazilian Amazon, the world’s leaders will gather in one of the most biologically rich places on earth. The Amazon is home to jaguars slipping through the shadows, pink river dolphins gliding beneath sunlit waters, macaws streaking across the canopy, and thousands upon thousands of species still unnamed by science. It is a place of astonishing life and, tragically, one of the most dangerous regions on earth to be an animal.
As we prepare for this critical climate summit, Christians are rightly speaking about justice, biodiversity, and stewardship. But there is a missing voice in our climate conversations: the voice of the animals themselves. COP30 offers an extraordinary opportunity for the global Church to recognise that climate justice is not only a human concern. It is also an issue of compassion, morality, and deep spiritual significance for the creatures with whom we share God’s earth.
This article explores why animals must be placed at the centre of our Christian engagement with COP30 — and why doing so is an act of faithfulness to the God who calls creation “very good”.
Every November, millions of people around the world take part in World Vegan Month — a time to celebrate plant-based living and to reflect on our relationship with animals and the planet. For Christians, it offers more than a dietary challenge or lifestyle trend. It’s an opportunity to rediscover a deep current of compassion running through Scripture — a call to live in greater harmony with all God’s creatures.
Created for peace: animals in God’s story
From the very first chapter of Genesis, animals are not an afterthought but integral to creation’s goodness. God delights in the living world, blessing the animals and calling them “good” before humanity ever arrives on the scene. When humankind is created and given dominion over the earth, the same passage also sets a boundary — humans are to eat from the plants and trees (Genesis 1:29). Dominion, therefore, cannot mean domination. It is stewardship rooted in service, responsibility, and reverence.
After the Flood, God renews His covenant not only with Noah but with “every living creature of all flesh” (Genesis 9:12). The rainbow covenant is striking in its scope: it embraces sparrow and serpent, ox and whale, as well as humankind. God’s promises extend beyond the human family, revealing that animals are included in the moral and spiritual concern of the Creator.
The prophets envision the same truth in the language of hope. Isaiah imagines a time when “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb” and the earth shall be “full of the knowledge of the Lord” (Isaiah 11). This peaceable vision — echoed in Hosea and Revelation — portrays creation restored to its original harmony. In that kingdom, predation and fear are no more. To live toward such a vision is to align ourselves with God’s ultimate will for creation: reconciliation, not exploitation.
Christ and the creatures
Jesus’ ministry embodies that reconciling love. When challenged about healing on the Sabbath, He reminds His critics that anyone would rescue an animal fallen into a pit — for mercy outweighs rule-keeping (Matthew 12:11). His teaching assumes compassion for animals as natural and obvious. Elsewhere He points to God’s care for even the smallest of birds: “Not one of them is forgotten before God.”
The Lord’s frequent use of animal imagery — sheep, birds, vines, foxes — rests upon the real worth of those creatures. His description of Himself as the Good Shepherd presupposes that shepherds are meant to love and protect their flocks. A metaphor that comforted His listeners only makes sense if compassion for animals was itself a moral good. The shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep reflects divine love that extends through all living beings.
Throughout Christian history, this theme of compassion has never been lost. St Francis of Assisi spoke tenderly of “our brothers the birds” and called the sun, moon, and animals his kin. St Isaac the Syrian wrote that a merciful heart “burns with love for all creation: for people, for birds, for animals, even for demons.” More recently, C. S. Lewis condemned needless cruelty to animals as a betrayal of Christian conscience, reminding his readers that sentience itself demands moral regard.
In all these voices runs a common conviction: to follow Christ is to grow in mercy, and mercy cannot be confined to our own species.
Naming the wound
If the biblical and spiritual vision is one of harmony, the reality of modern animal agriculture reveals how far we have strayed. Each year tens of billions of land animals — and far more fish — are bred and slaughtered in industrial systems that prioritise profit over compassion.
Hens are confined to cages so small they cannot spread their wings. Pigs are kept in metal crates where they cannot turn around. Chickens are bred to grow so rapidly their legs buckle under their own weight. Many animals endure painful mutilations without anaesthetic and suffer immense stress and illness before slaughter.
Even those who rarely think about animal welfare instinctively recoil from such scenes. As philosopher Alastair Norcross once noted, if any neighbour were discovered keeping puppies in such conditions, the community would be horrified. Yet these same methods are routinely accepted when the victims are chickens or pigs.
Factory farming also harms people: it damages the environment, spreads zoonotic disease, and leaves workers traumatised by the conditions they witness. As Christians called to love both neighbour and creation, we cannot turn away. To inflict suffering on sentient creatures, when alternatives abound, contradicts the very heart of the Gospel.
Practising mercy this World Vegan Month
World Vegan Month offers a simple invitation: to align our daily habits more closely with our faith. Mercy can begin at the table.
Personally, you might try a vegan month as an act of discipleship — a spiritual discipline that joins compassion with gratitude. It needn’t be about perfection, but intention: choosing foods that honour life, seeking nourishment without harm, and discovering that plant-based meals can be joyful, abundant, and good for body and soul.
Within households and churches, November can become a season of creative hospitality:
- Host a plant-rich bring-and-share lunch or fellowship meal that celebrates God’s provision from the earth.
- Share vegan recipes through church newsletters or social media.
- Offer prayers of thanksgiving for creation and blessings for animals, echoing the covenant with “all flesh.”
- Encourage sermons or study groups exploring the biblical vision of peace between species.
Such practices can help Christians see that food choices are not trivial but deeply spiritual — expressions of love, justice and hope.
At an institutional level, churches and Christian organisations might review catering policies or move towards “default-veg” events where plant-based options are the norm. They can champion sustainable food systems, support local growers, and speak prophetically about compassion in agriculture. In a world where the poor are often most harmed by environmental damage, these steps also serve human justice.
A witness to the peaceable kingdom
Christianity has always proclaimed that creation is not ours to consume, but God’s to cherish. Each act of mercy, each choice to eat or live more gently, is a small sign of the kingdom Christ proclaimed — a world where every creature has its place and none are forgotten.
This November, as the wider world celebrates World Vegan Month, the Church has a chance to bear distinctive witness: to live out the covenant of peace with all living things. Our plates can become altars of thanksgiving; our meals, signs of God’s future. In turning away from unnecessary cruelty, we turn toward the One whose mercy is over all His works.
As the psalmist writes, “The Lord is good to all; His compassion is over all that He has made.” (Psalm 145:9)
May this compassion guide our hearts, our tables, and our witness — not only this month, but always.
Newer Posts