About
Animals & Religion
Religious Traditions & Animals
Animals & Religion examines how major religious traditions understand and relate to nonhuman animals. Across cultures and histories, these teachings have shaped how humans perceive and treat other beings—sometimes with care, sometimes in tension with their own ethical foundations.
Reading Within Traditions
The project engages sacred texts, theological interpretations, and lived practices from within each tradition. Through careful study, it brings forward a consistent ethical thread—one that calls for respect and kindness toward animals—grounded in foundational texts and teachings across religions.
A Living Structure
Animals & Religion operates through three interconnected layers: a structured digital platform, a network of Ambassadors working within their own traditions and communities, and a growing body of teaching resources. Together, these connect research, lived experience, and shared learning, enabling these ethical foundations to be examined, communicated, and applied in practice.
From Teaching to Life
By placing these teachings in relation to contemporary realities, the project highlights their implications for how animals are treated today. It invites a reconsideration of the widespread assumption that religion sanctions harm to animals, showing instead how all major religious traditions affirm ways of living rooted in respect, responsibility, and care toward animals.
five
interconnected
areas
Across traditions, Animals & Religion examines:
Sacred Texts
Foundational teachings concerning animals and moral responsibility.
Sacred Stories
Narratives in which animals shape religious imagination and ethical reflection.
Discord
Moments of tension between enduring teachings and contemporary practice.
Food Ethics
Religious perspectives on diet, moral responsibility, and the treatment of animals.
Activism
How faith traditions inspire social and political engagement on behalf of the vulnerable.
For Different Callings
For Advocates
Those working to reduce animal suffering often encounter religious questions or objections. Animals & Religion provides grounded, text-centered analysis to support respectful dialogue and thoughtful engagement with faith communities.
FOR RELIGIOUS LEADERS & TEACHERS
Clergy, educators, and community leaders shape moral imagination and communal life. By returning to foundational teachings across traditions, this project supports leaders in examining how enduring religious ethics speak to modern systems that affect animals and the natural world.
FOR PEOPLE OF FAITH
Many believers seek deeper alignment with the ethical foundations of their tradition. This website offers careful engagement with sacred texts, inviting reflection on how teachings of compassion, justice, stewardship, and humility may inform contemporary treatment of animals.
For Scholars & Students
Researchers and students of religion will find text-centered analysis, comparative study across traditions, and sustained engagement with ethical themes that illuminate the relationship between doctrine, narrative, and lived practice.
Shared Moral Ground
Religious traditions, scholars, and advocates do not always approach questions of animal ethics from the same starting point. Yet when sacred teachings are examined carefully, a shared moral language emerges—grounded in compassion, justice, humility, and care for the vulnerable. Taken seriously, these principles offer a durable foundation for thoughtful dialogue and responsible moral action across communities.
Our Vision
We envision a world where no animal suffers in the name of religion.
OUR Mission
We bring forward a consistent ethical thread within sacred traditions, one that calls for respect and kindness toward animals, and connect it to contemporary life.
Through study and engagement across communities, we support reflection and change in how animals are understood and treated.