Lutheran Blessing of Animals or Another Example of What Happens When You Drift Free From Your Theological Mooring
Two questions: A) Why do pets and other animals need the church’s "blessing"? B) What Lutheran congregation in its right mind would so such a thing? I know, it is "cute" and I’m sure the kiddies and grown ups all are quite pleased with the whole thing and it makes a lot of people happy, but….is that any reason to engage in such activity? This happened in Georgetown, South Carolina at an ELCA congregation. I’m wondering what might happen if the congregation were to "bless" a nice fat pig and then slaughter it on the spot and roast it for a delicious pork feast. Now that might be something a bit more appropriate if we are truly to celebrate God’s gift of animals to us, "Take and eat" as St. Peter was told. But it would be terribly messy, might upset some folks and kind of be a damper on the whole "cuteness" thing going on here. In our house we "bless" animals every day when we pray, "Lord God, Heavenly Father, bless us and these Thy gifts, which we receive from Thy bountiful goodness, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
Little
Daniel Cox ran around the lawn of Trinity Lutheran Church in Maryville
Sunday afternoon showing everyone in attendance his turtle Marty, one
of the numerous pets gathered by their owners for the first-ever
Blessing of the Animals service held at the church.
“Everything needs a blessing, even the animals. I figure this will help them,” Daniel’s dad, Richie Cox said.
While dogs greatly outnumbered the other pets that were there to
receive a blessing from Pastor Nedra Merriman, there were also ferrets,
guinea pigs, cats and – for a short time – a horned owl.
Merriman
said Blessing of the Pets and Animals services are quite common across
the country but, as far as she knows, this was the first held in
Georgetown.
The services are generally held in early October to
coincide with the Oct. 4 date of death of St. Francis of Assisi, the
Roman Catholic patron saint of animals and ecology.
She said such services were held at her church in Atlanta and she wanted to bring the tradition to Georgetown.
About two dozen people gathered outside the church under perfect fall
weather as the service began with Irene Mobley presenting and then
releasing a horned owl that has been receiving care from International
Center for Birds of Prey.
“It came into the center in June. She had
been found on the ground in Walterboro. She had severe emaciation, we
don’t know why. We gave her antibiotics and kept her and fed her and
now she was ready to be released,” Mobley said, adding that she fed the
owl half a rat prior to being set free.
As the owl flew out of
sight towards the marshes surrounding the city, Merriman and some kids
from her church read scriptures as the pets sat amazingly quiet and
still next to their owners.
Merriman, after the scriptures and a
prayer, walked around touching each animal, delivering a personal
blessing to each one. What the pets probably liked the most was the bag
of treats each was given for their owners to take home and feed them.
Shelley Kaufman had two dogs in tow – Jed and Molly – for the service.
“My mom is a member of the church and these dogs are very important to us,” she said.
Mobley also brought her ferret, Otter, to the service which seemed to take a liking to many of the dogs and other pets on hand.
Little Tyler Bone, who spent a lot of time rubbing the stomach of her
dog Cassie, had people laughing when she ran up front asking Merriman
to also bless two small stuffed animals she was carrying.
Merriman, herself a pet lover, had her dog Shelly by her side during the service.
“It’s amazing the friendship human beings develop with their pets. She
loves me when it seems other people may not. She is glad to see me and
I am glad to see her. I care for her the way God cares for me,”
Merriman said.
She said the service is “an acknowledgment of our great love for God’s creation.”
She also said she was amazed at how well the various animals got along.
She said she had feared there may be problems when they were all
brought together but the service was peaceful.
Trinity English Lutheran (ELCA) here in Fort Wayne, Indiana had a special animal blessing service a week or so ago. It happens.
I have heard of this kind of non-sense (which, by the way, I think one could make a solid argument that it breaks the second commandment!) happening in LCMS churches as well.
McCain: Like I said, this kind of thing happens when you drift free from your theological mooring.
My apologies to the last three or four of you who left comments on this post. I accidentally hit “delete” instead of “save” or “post” or whatever. So, if you want to give it a whirl again….I’ll try not to delete them this time, at least not by accident.
This stuff goes on out here in Omaha, NE as well. Huge Catholic Church does this every year.
Anthropomorphism defined:
….the ascription of human attributes or characteristics to animals.
As a breeder and trainer of pure bred German Shepherd Dogs, I often receive calls from tearful people who have just lost a dearly loved pet.
They often ask if their dog will cross “over the rainbow bridge” and be in Heaven with them.
We need to respond with care.
Perhaps starting with: “Let’s talk about death for a moment and why it is….”
Followed by: “Perhaps we should discuss how people get to Heaven….”
Christians know that the Lord has given mankind “dominion” over the animals, requiring that all are good stewards of that which has been entrusted to man’s care and is for his blessing.
“A righteous man hath regard for the life of his beast…”
Proverbs 12:10
However, it appears the “blessing” of animals is only one prong in a multi-pronged and broadly facetted effort to provide animals with the same “rights” and legal status as human beings.
Militant Animal Rights Organizations (ARO) abound with the following stated goals:
Abolition of all animal research.
Encourage vegetarianism for ethical,ecological, and “healing” reasons.
Phase out of all forms of animal agriculture.
Abolition of all pesticides and predator control.
Abolition of all hunting and fishing for sport.
Abolish all breeding of pure bred companion animals.
Abolition of animals used in sports, entertainment, zoos and aquariums.
The ARO(s) have incrementally chipped away at and influenced legislation on the local, state and federal levels relative to the “Guardian issue”.
Such legislation attempts to change the legal status of the pet from “property owned” to defining an individual as the pet’s “guardian”.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is probably the most well known such group.
We should not be surprised that anthropomorphism and pantheism has entered the church door.
“It [a horned owl] came into the center in June. She had been found on the ground in Walterboro. She had severe emaciation, we don’t know why. We gave her antibiotics and kept her and fed her and now she was ready to be released,” Mobley said, adding that she fed the owl half a rat prior to being set free.
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.
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“Everything needs a blessing, even the animals. I figure this [the ecclesial blessing] will help them,” Daniel’s dad, Richie Cox said.
And nothing, it would appear, requires an intercessory blessing more than a rat in attendance at a “Blessing of the Pets and Animals” service.
McCain: Well, Orwell did say it long ago: all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
The LCA in Australia has problems of this sort too take a look at http://www.seasonofcreation.com
Which is more difficult — to bless a house, which is inanimate, or animals, with which we even share table scraps? Yet we have a house blessing in the LSB Agenda. I really fail to see the harm here.
No, I do not agree with animal rights proponents. I eat steak, and fully support the right to hunt, etc.
And no, I do not believe or encourage the notion that animals go to heaven.
But if a godly prophet can use his blessing for something as trivial as retrieving a sunken axehead (2 Kg 6), and if Christ tells us that God cares for the animals of the field (Lk. 12:24), then why is it so bad that people ask God to bless their animals–just one more aspect of our life here in His creation?
McCain: Seems context is everything. If those who are “into” St Francis day animal blessings were orthodox in all other respects, I’m sure there would be room for debate about this, but….generally the practice goes hand-in-glove with doctrinal problems of all kinds and so “pet blessings” seems indicative of deeper problems in these cases. I did notice in the story that the owl got to eat half a rat. I guess the rat didn’t get a blessing!
I would be interested in what “doctrinal problems” are connected with a “Pet Blessing”. Is it that it is usually held on or near the commemoration of St. Francis of Assisi? St. Francis is honored on the Lutheran liturgical calendar as well as Roman Catholic and Anglican ones. My LCMS parish is considering doing this and I’m not sure I understand why this would might violate the 2nd commandment.
McCain: Simply because there is no command, example or promise provided in Holy Scripture that would lend validity to a “blessing” of pets. It is a cutsie bit of nonsense and accommodating the church to the misunderstandings of our time is counterproductive. Sadly some congregations will do anything to draw a crowd.
I must say that our congregation is proposing this event as an evangelization tool. I overheard one of people encouraging the event to say that “the animals may not have souls but the people bringing them do.”
McCain: Yup, as I suspected.
God considered animals important enough to give instructions to Adam to name them.
McCain: Nowhere in Holy Scripture does God provide any command, example or promise associated with “blessing” of animals. We bless people , not animals. It is patently silly. It is not faithful “evangelism” to bring people to church under false pretenses.