The first part of this series [1] tackled how the Bible teaches that animals, though they do not bear God's image as humans do, are plainly described as being "good" along with the rest of God's creations and as having moral rights so that it is possible to mistreat them. Everything from God creating non-human creatures to him calling them good (Genesis 1:25, 31) to specifically preserving some of them from the flood of Genesis 7 all affirm in the first chapters of the Bible that animals do have significance on the Christian worldview. There are also specific forms of animal mistreatment such as bestiality that Mosaic Law singles out as evil and particularly heinous (Exodus 22:19). Beyond avoiding certain treatment of animals as the first part of the series focused on, deeds such as helping the animal of a personal enemy if it collapses under its load are prescribed (Exodus 23:4-5). Summarizing part of this but without the specificity necessary to understand the details, Proverbs 12:10 says that a righteous man--or woman--cares for the needs of their animals.
There are two primary reasons why many Christians ignore the philosophical subject of animal rights, especially how it overlaps with Biblical doctrines. First, many of them believe things based on subjective, emotionalistic persuasion or on family/church tradition. This is why so much legalism, the condemnation of things which God permits and the demand for things God has not prescribed or has even prohibited, persists in the church at large. Second, at least in a country like America, it is rather easy for plenty of people to so distance themselves from wild animals that the only non-human creatures they regularly encounter are pets or invasive bugs. With this lack of interaction with or observation of many animals, it could be easy to not think about them, and one must think about animals in order to think about the issue of animal rights. Perhaps more Christians would take moral obligations to animals more seriously in a consistent sense if they saw them frequently. However, not having certain experiences coexisting with wild animals does not mean someone is not irrational for making assumptions or for being philosophically apathetic towards the issue.
The ramifications of how animals should be treated are enormous: if killing a deer without any intention or need to use its bodily components for human flourishing is immoral, than the same would be true of killing bees or other bugs because they, too, are living things that were either created by God directly or that evolved with his permission. Not all life has equal value on the Christian worldview. Not even all humans are equal, with irrationalists being inferior to rationalists if truth matters and those who do not desire or seek what is just being inferior even to those who desire or seek justice imperfectly at times (gender, race, age, nationality, disability status, mental or physical health, and class have nothing to do with this). However, all life has something in common with the uncaused cause who created or permitted it, and thus, if animals are "very good" even to a lesser extent than humans are, as Genesis so clearly teaches, they are not to be needlessly or selfishly harmed. All living things would in some way reflect the goodness that God, the supreme being, possesses.
With the enormity of the ramifications of animals having moral rights on the Christian worldview addressed, I return to the question asked in the prior entry of this series: what of hunting animals for nothing but the sport of it? While it is possible and Biblically valid to hunt animals for food, clothing (or to make other usable items out of animal parts), or protection, and while it was valid to sacrifice animals prior to Christ's coming, to kill an animal for no reason other than to find pleasure in it, to exercise power over lesser creatures, or to participate in arbitrary traditions is ultimately to kill a living thing that God has called "very good" without a just or constructive reason. Someone does not have to kill an animal out of intentional cruelty or, even worse, torture it in order to kill it without justification. Someone does not need to hunt a species to extinction for money to kill an animal without reason. In fact, to kill an animal for no reason but to fit in with traditions, to perform in a competition which will not result in the animals being consumed/used, or simply to act on a subjective whim is to extinguish life when it is neither just nor permissible by default.
Animal rights are indeed addressed only in smaller bursts throughout the Bible, primarily in the Old Testament that most Christians thoroughly misunderstand or ignore out of deep stupidity. There is no single place in the Bible, like with other subjects such as capital punishment or erotic media, that says everything found in its pages about animal rights. All of the verses I have referenced here and in the first part of the series have to be identified separately, and since Biblical animal rights are by no means as immediately clear as doctrines like the divine creation of the universe, it takes more effort in one sense to realize what the Bible says about them and what logically follows from these ideas. Obligations to animals are secondary to obligations to humans, which is likely why the Bible spends so much more time exploring how to treat other people. There is all the same a massive lack of concern and concentration on Biblical animal rights by general Christians. If this was only because they were rationalistically focused on other philosophical issues of greater foundationality or other significance, it would not be a problem; whether or not someone else prompted them, they could quickly reason out many of these truths about the matter once they thought about it. Apathy towards animals beyond pets or an emotionalistic desire to trample on animals to feel better about being human often get in the way instead.
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