About
Animals & Religion
Animals & Religion examines sacred texts across major world religions to explore our moral responsibilities to animals.
People of faith readily acknowledge that ethics such as compassion, mercy, humility, justice, and reverence for life are core to their faith, yet they just as readily participate in cultural traditions and habits that are cruel and indifferent to the sacrality of life. This project explores how sacred texts address and resolve this tension.
We turn to primary religious texts rather than peripheral and isolated phrases, conventional assumptions, or contemporary practice.
This website analyzes foundational sacred writings from nine major religious traditions, focusing on five key themes: sacred texts, sacred stories, discord between teachings and practice, food ethics, and activism. Relying on core sacred texts, this website distinguishes between deep and enduring moral principles and the use of passing phrases to justify habitual practice.
Across traditions, shared ethical principles emerge with striking consistency.
Despite significant differences in cultural history, language, ritual, and doctrine, the world’s major religions agree that nature is sacred, that animals possess moral significance, and that, while on Earth, human beings are called to responsible care, mercy, and humility. Many traditions emphasize kinship across species and teach that moral integrity requires protecting those who are most vulnerable.
Sacred teachings invite serious reflection on contemporary systems that harm animals.
Modern food production, clothing industries, entertainment, and scientific practices often operate at a scale unimaginable to earlier religious communities. Core religious ethics—compassion, stewardship, justice, nonviolence—raise important questions about participation in these contemporary systems in light of religious values.
Religious communities possess profound moral influence.
Faith traditions shape individual behavior, cultural norms, and collective priorities. When communities draw deeply from their own sacred teachings, they carry the potential to influence social structures, economic systems, and public policy in ways that protect vulnerable beings—including animals.
This project seeks to bring enduring religious ethics into meaningful conversation with contemporary life.
Animals & Religion works with faith communities, scholars, and advocates to clarify how sacred teachings relate to present realities. By fostering careful study and respectful dialogue, the website aims to support thoughtful alignment between theological conviction and lived practice.
In a world of great diversity, shared moral insight deserves attention.
When the world’s oldest and largest traditions converge on principles of kindness and respect toward animals, it suggests that these teachings touch something fundamental. This website invites readers—whether leaders, believers, students, or advocates—to engage these traditions deeply and consider how their wisdom may inform ethical life today.
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.
five interconnected areas of inquiry
Across traditions, Animals & Religion examines:
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.