Is it Un-Christian to Hunt and Sell Fluffy Animal Pelts?
By Doug Phillips
Posted November 5, 2004
The Vision Forum, I was delighted to receive your catalog today anticipating ordering
items for my four children, UNTIL I got to page 19 of the Lewis and Clark Collection.....
I am absolutely outraged that you are offering the pelts and tails of animals.....do
you need a reality check that it is the year 2000 and these poor animals have been
so exploited and their natural habitats so destroyed by man....and you have to offer
them as children’s play toys......get a reality check and get those items out
of your catalog as I’m sure that many other Christian mom’s in America
will feel the same way. I hope you take this rebuke seriously because your magazine
is fabulous and the idea you are promoting is also great. Grossed out in New Jersey....
Dear “Grossed-out in New Jersey”:
Thank you for sharing your candid thoughts expressing concern over products like
our coon tail cap and rabbit skins. Please understand that we are always grateful
to hear from our readers, not only because we benefit from their insights, but also
because it provides a forum for us to further explain our mission and our beliefs.
I cannot hope to fully address your concern in an e-mail, but I would be happy to
offer a few thoughts on why we are so thankful before the Lord for the opportunity
to include animal skins in our catalog.
First, our approach is to build our catalog based on biblical precepts, patterns
and principles. We are aware for example that it was God who performed the first
animal sacrifice and who used animal skins to make the first coats for Adam and
Eve; It was God who placed the animals under subjection to Adam and told him to
have dominion over them and use them wisely for the glory of God; It was God who
specifically sent seven of certain types of animals to Noah for the sole purpose
of using them for sacrifices after the flood subsided; It was God who blessed Abraham
as he took a knife to the throat of a ram; It was God who commanded animal sacrifices
throughout the Bible; It was God who wanted the blood of the lamb to be sprinkled
on the doorposts of the Hebrews; It was God who specifically blessed the harvesting
of all types of animals for food in the Mosaic law; It was God who blessed men like
David for killing predators who threatened the flocks; It was God who helped the
disciples to trap and execute thousands of unsuspecting fish. I could go on and
on.
Our reading of Scripture leads us to conclude: (1) Man is to have dominion over
the animals; (2) Such dominion includes using animals for food, clothing, preparation,
training and other activities which bring glory to God include child training; (3)
Dominion presupposes responsibility and resource management, which is why everything,
including the pelts of the animals, should be used to the fullest extent possible
and practicable given the circumstances;(4) While it is cruel to torture an animal,
it is not cruel to kill him through trapping, hunting, etc; and (5) Finally, we
believe it is important to give our children a distinctively biblical worldview.
This is why we specifically hope to train our children to love self-sufficiency
and environmental stewardship (both of which are dominion principles) through hunting,
and to reject the philosophy of the animal rights activists, a belief system which
is not only rooted in two Satanic dangers (Evolutionism and the New Age movement),
but is inconsistent, intellectually indefensible and incoherent as a system of rational
thought.
Please note that we are not advocating the senseless killing of animals, or the
death of a rabbit to provide a mere “toy” to our children. In fact, the
entire philosophy of the All-American Boys Adventure Catalog is rooted in the notion
that the way a boy plays is the way he lives. Each product is selected because it
can be a useful tool in building father-son relationships, inspiring a child about
the past, or teaching a dominion skill. This is precisely why we stand behind our
decision to include skins in the catalog. When a boy takes a pelt and uses it for
clothing, for decoration, or even for pretend as he imagines the adventures of Lewis
and Clarke, he is doing what wise, well-trained boys have done for thousands of
years — preparing for manhood, stewardship and dominion. When a boy takes a
pelt and sews it into a pouch or a hat, he is learning valuable skills, growing
in self-sufficiency and learning respect for the value of God’s creation. When
he places animal skins in his room he is emphasizing his future role as a provider
and protector of his family. When he puts on a coonskin cap, he is imagining what
life was like as a frontiersman and showing appreciation for the spirit of bold
manhood which made America great.
I would offer you a gracious challenge: By what standard have you determined that
it is o.k. to eat a hamburger, but not o.k. to wear a raccoon on your head? By what
standard have you determined that it might have been o.k. for trappers to hunt in
the past, but the same activity today is barbaric? Moreover, permit me to observe
that it seems to me a very strange philosophy indeed to say that it is barbaric
to wear a coonskin cap, but not barbaric to wear those nice leather shoes you have
on right now. Equally strange to me is the idea that somehow it is inhumane and
cruel to give a boy a rabbit pelt with which he can learn to make a trail pouch,
but not inhumane and cruel for you to strap on that nice leather belt you might
be wearing. My question is this: by what standard do you reach these conclusions,
and are you really prepared to live consistently by them?
It would be my view that any Christian who eats a hamburger at McDonald’s from
cows that were harvested for mass cow execution, or who dons a pair of leather shoes,
or enjoys a Purdue chicken should pause before criticizing hunters, trappers, etc.
To offer such criticism is really to be hypocritical. Such individuals do not have
to look at the execution and harvesting of turkeys for Thanksgiving, chickens for
McNuggets, calves for shoe soles....but they enjoy the end result every day in a
thousand ways. Because they do not see the blood and hear the cries of the animals,
somehow the death of these animals has become sanitized in their mind. Still others
do not object to killing a cow, but do object to killing an Arctic Fox because it
appears fuzzy and cute. But is this a biblical distinction? Is it wrong to trap
a predator like a fox, tan the hide and use it for clothing, play or whatever, but
O.K. to brutally smash a fly that buzzes around your french fries, then toss the
bloody fly carcass on the ground where it will never be utilized? Doesn’t that
fly have as much value and as many rights as the cute little fox, or does the size
and fur quotient of the animal give it special value? Can this be defended biblically?
Are we really advocating an evolutionary ladder of worth based on progress, development,
or, even worse, cuteness?
You argue that these animals are killed in an inhumane manner. What do you base
this on? Are you aware how they are trapped and killed? What constitutes inhumanity?
Is it inhumane to slice the neck of an animal — this is what is done to most
cows that are processed for hamburger, and it is the method that appears to be used
and blessed by God in the Scripture for animal sacrifice. Personally I am aware
of precious few cows, fish, chickens, lambs or any other animals which are peacefully
euthanized prior to their death. For the most part, they are killed in the same
manner that animals have been killed for 6,000 years by man. My point is, that it
is wrong to make an accusation without knowledge, or to substitute human opinion
to create a sin (in this case “inhumanity”) when God does not do so. It
is also wrong to object to the killing of a varmint like a coyote on the grounds
of inhumanity, but to enjoy hundreds of products from executed animals.
A more important question to be asked has to do with the implications of your conclusion
on biblical record of God the Father and God the Son. To argue that it is inhumane
to skin an animal for clothing is to declare that God Himself is “inhumane”
and cruel. As noted previously, it was God the Father who performed the first animal
sacrifice by shedding the blood of an animal to give coverings to Adam and Eve.
(Please note that God had more than a few resources available to him — He is
God — He could have made those coats out of anything, but he specifically shed
blood of an animal as an example for Adam, and declared that “without the shedding
of blood there is no remission for sins”). It was God the Father who sent a
ram to be sacrificed in place of Isaac, and who commanded the death of birds and
animals as blood sacrifices. It was Jesus, the Son, who facilitated the trapping
and execution of thousands of unsuspecting and innocent fish at the hands of his
future disciples. The Bible is replete with God-blessed testimony of hunting and
trapping for the purpose of helping man take dominion over the earth. To argue that
it is wrong kill animals for human benefit is to argue outside of a biblical worldview.
In fact, the animal rights movement, with its opposition to “speciesism,”
its advocacy of vegetarianism (by the way, why should animals have more rights than
plants?), its opposition to hunting, and its hypocritical pleas for animal safety
is a direct attack on Genesis and the dominion mandate. Every time we train a boy
to hunt for the glory of God and teach them the biblical implications of such hunting
— we strike a blow against the Devil! Every time we train a boy to be self-sufficient
on the environment, we prepare him to be a better man and a better leader and protector
and provider for his family. Every time we teach a boy to respect God’s creation,
and therefore to wisely and without waste harvest and cultivate the animal resources
God has given us for our use, we advance the Kingdom of God because we are obeying
the dominion mandate of Genesis.
In my own family, we go out once a year and hunt for deer. I put one bullet into
the neck of the deer, I harvest the meat, I use the hide, and my family has enough
low-fat, high protein meat to last us for months. This saves us money, provides
a healthy diet, teaches my son self-sufficiency, and saves human lives by decreasing
the excess deer population which causes numerous injuries and fatalities to humans
every year because deer love nothing better than to stare headlong into the lights
of a speeding car.
Let me conclude with an interesting observation: Many years ago, certain activists
led a campaign in the United Nations to prevent the ivory trade. They believed that
if elephant hunting were prohibited, that the elephant population would increase.
In point of fact, the exact opposite happened. Prior to the ban on elephant hunting
many local tribes survived from killing and using the entire elephant, including
the ivory. These tribes and local governments had a vested interest in perpetuating
and protecting the elephant herds. Elephant herds often struggle with survival in
Africa, not primarily from hunters, but from environmental pressures and problems.
By banning all elephant hunting and harvesting, these peoples were economically
ravaged. More importantly, they lost all incentive to protect, cultivate and wisely
harvest the herds. Today, the only people doing the killing are poachers who care
little for the elephants and certainly do not wisely use the entire elephant for
the glory of God. The end result is that by banning the killing of elephants for
ivory, we have practically condemned the future of the elephant to a slow death.
This is the problem of supplanting the wisdom and revelation of God for the sentiments
of man.
The best thing that could happen to rodents, varmints and wild animals of all stripes
is for Christian boys to grow up and teach others how to wisely care for and harvest
such animals, and how to use every part of the animal for a productive use whether
that be for food, for industry, for protection or even for decoration. When thinking
Christians get involved in animal husbandry the result is a better environment and
the perpetuation of the animal herds through wise management. This means that deer
will not suffer mass starvation because of overpopulation, that animals like elephants
will not be harvested just for their ivory, and that predators and pests like the
fox and the coyote (whose tails we proudly sell) will neither become extinct, nor
will they harm the lives of farmers and families.
It is our mission to encourage such hunting, trapping, skinning and self-sufficiency
skills to give our children a greater appreciation for the wonders of creation,
to give them a love for America’s history, to assist them in their stewardship
of the earth, to rid them of the hypocrisy of the modern environmental movement
and to replace such hypocrisy with a distinctively biblical ethic for environmental
dominion and stewardship. We believe that this is biblical and hope that you will
join us in our mission.
Thanks again for your candid comments. In the spirit of dialogue and discussion
I offer the above thoughts. I hope you will feel free to write or communicate with
me again.
Blessings, Doug Phillips