Ask hunters why they choose to kill animals, and you’ll often hear remarks about “spending time with God in nature” and “enjoying the beauty of His creation.” But the thought of walking beside our creator—with Scripture in one hand and a loaded weapon in the other—to stalk and slay an animal He made and loves (Psalm 50:10) should give hunters pause and inspire them to pray.
Many verses reveal that our loving God wouldn’t want any human to harm or destroy other animals. Here are just four powerful examples:
- “The slothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting, but the substance of a diligent man is precious” (Proverbs 12:27).
Here we learn that hunting animals when it’s unnecessary for survival—as hunters do when they kill for entertainment, to brag, or to display their victims’ body parts as trophies—is a sin.
- “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: Therefore, glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20).
If we recognize that our bodies are temples to God, why would we intentionally destroy them, which is precisely what we’re doing every time we consume anything taken from animals, including their flesh, eggs, and milk? Genesis 1:29–30 tells us that God gave humans and all other animals in the Garden of Eden “every green plant for food.” He designed our bodies to run perfectly on fruits, vegetables, and grains. When sin entered the world, humans began eating other animals—but the bodies God gave them remained the same and developed health problems. A vast amount of research has shown that meat-eaters have significantly higher rates of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, strokes, and Alzheimer’s disease than those who consume vegan foods as God intended.
- “And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground, and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the Earth and will make them to lie down safely” (Hosea 2:18).
In what is perhaps the Bible’s most direct rebuke of hunting, God describes His covenant with animals: He will abolish all weapons and protect animals from being slaughtered. When the Earth and creation are restored to God’s intended perfection, there will be no more violence, killing, or death, all of which are hallmarks of a world ravaged by sin. And since peaceful coexistence is integral to the world God has promised us, Christians who seek a close relationship with Him can’t legitimately justify choosing to do harm.
- “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Luke 6:31).
The Golden Rule is a straightforward instruction on how we should treat others. None of us would want to be subjected to the cruelty inherent in hunting and trapping, so we shouldn’t inflict their suffering and terror on anyone else.
Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer ineptly hunted down Cecil the lion, who suffered for 10 to 12 hours before he died. Similar scenarios play out every time a hunter takes to the woods. Many animals are running for their lives as they’re wounded by a bullet or an arrow, so they escape but only to die slowly and in agony.
Wildlife biologists put the “wound rate” for ducks and geese at up to 40%. Geese choose a lifetime partner and go through a long grieving process when their loved one dies, and some never form such a bond again.
When killers bowhunt deer, the wound rate climbs to 50%. And although many hunters claim to be preventing these animals from starving by controlling their population, they’re actually doing the opposite. When deer are killed, the available food supply increases, causing survivors to breed more quickly, which results in a lack of resources. Hunting also tears apart families, and when mother deer are killed, their babies, who stay by their mothers’ side for up to two years, usually starve to death.
Hunters run wolves down with snowmobiles; catch them in leg-crushing traps and snares that slam down on their necks, slowly strangling them to death; and gun down their sleeping pups in their dens. Wolves also commit themselves to one partner for life and remain faithful in good times and bad. They live in close-knit family packs in which everyone pitches in. Hunting devastates entire communities.
No matter which animals hunters target, they inflict gratuitous and horrific suffering and death.
As Pope Francis said, “We are not God. … [W]e must forcefully reject the notion that our being created in God’s image and given dominion over the earth justifies absolute domination over other creatures.” People of faith must reject violence and show the same radical love to the world that God does.
