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 Statements about Animals
in the Protestant-Lutheran Catechism
In the Protestant-Lutheran Catechism little is said about animals. For the institutional churches animals are little more than an object and thus not worthy of in-depth consideration. This is apparent from the article “The Lamb of God” in ZEIT. Here I quote the few remarks about animals from the German Protestant Catechism for Adults (translated from the German Evangelischer Erwachsenenkatechismus, 5th ed. 1989, [Lutheran Catechism for Adults] to which the page numbers also refer):
Man is charged with “working and keeping” the garden. And so, work is a part of mankind from the beginning. Through work man should develop and at the same time preserve the environment that has been entrusted to him (animals, plants, water, air). In this context also belongs the story of the creation of animals. God brings man the animals and entrusts them to his care … Love and honor for the Creator should also be visible in the way that creation is cared for. Man remains responsible to the Creator for his entire conduct. (p. 40) These statements in the Protestant Catechism are probably meant to ridicule God, if they are contrasted with the article in ZEIT.
The Protestant Catechism continues: ... The animal in particular makes profanity of conception, birth and death in the lack of inhibitions or taboos concerning these, which appear as most inhuman and alien to our nature. It is only the sense of shame and the burial rites of people that mark the beginning of the history of mankind. No animals conceal their genitals, none honors and buries their dead (p. 508).
It is ironic that the Lutheran Catechism would choose to speak of profanity, of the lack of inhibitions or taboos concerning conception – while the revered founder of this religion used incredibly vulgar language, for example: Why do you not belch and fart, did you not like the food? [table talk]. Or from his slander of the Jews: The devil has shit in his pants and emptied the belly once again. That is a right holy shrine that the Jews and those who would be Jews should kiss, eat, drink and sanctify, and in turn the devil should also eat and drink what such disciples will vomit, throwing out from above or below … The devil now eats with his English snout and devours with lust what the upper and lower mouth of the Jews retches and spews out. (Luther Writings XXXII, p. 282, Erlang Edition) Or: Here in Wittenberg, a sow is hewn in stone at our parish church; there lie young piglets and Jews below it who suckle; behind the sow there stands a rabbi, who lifts the sow’s right leg, and with his left hand he draws the tail over himself, stooping forward and looking with great industry below the tail into the sow’s Talmud, as if he would read and spy upon something sharp and peculiar … For this is how one speaks among the Germans of one who claims great wisdom without basis: Where did he read it? Bluntly put, in the sow’s ass. (ibid. at p. 298)
Reading about the lack of inhibitions or taboos concerning these (conception, birth and death), which appear as most inhuman and alien to our nature, we are reminded of the sexuality without taboos or inhibitions of people who advertise their promiscuity on television and in the internet, or publish it in newspapers. Animals mate at certain times, human beings revel in their physical drives with whom and where they please.
There is nothing more alien to our nature, namely, to our original, spiritual being, than the human being. He has become what he is through his godlessness. The main responsibility for this is borne by church dignitaries who are as God does not want them to be. The birth of an animal in my opinion is one of the most noble things. The animal gives birth according to the laws of nature. Rarely, it cries or complains at giving birth, as, for example, human beings do. And what about death? The animal lags behind the herd, finds a quiet place, and dies. It dies in dignity, according to the laws of nature, compared to some people who go through a death-struggle because during their entire lives they struggled against the love for God and for neighbor.
Where is there still a sense of shame? Certainly not in man! The animal does not need a sense of shame because it lives according to the laws of nature. And the animal does not need funeral rites. Nature does not dictate these, only the Church does. And the animals do not need to conceal their genitals because they do not sin with them, unlike man. Or should animals wear drawers in order not to tempt the “devil” even more, who takes his off without shame anyway?
The Protestant Catechism gives us the chance to look even “deeper”: A comparison of the social behavior of human beings and animals shows that no animal goes through such a comparatively long childhood – a period of development and of differentiated processes of learning and socialization – before it becomes sexually mature, as human beings do. (p. 509)
What label and what “dignity” does a human being bear, despite such a lengthy childhood? What is triggered in human beings with the onset of sexual maturity would fill volumes. The sexual show-off should in no way be compared to the animal. The animal would not act this way, anyway. If the values and perversions of man and animals were compared, in whose favor would the scales tip?
The Protestant Catechism further enlightens us: Considering the great success of space travel one will ask: How is it possible that man alone is capable of such accomplishments? Man is by nature endowed with the predispositions to grow beyond himself (p. 640).
Human beings have in fact grown beyond themselves. They do everything to destroy their environment, which is also that of the animals.
Technological and scientific progress so far has not brought mankind unity, peace, prosperity for everyone, health, or true happiness. If we take mankind’s growing beyond itself to refer to the hubris and sheer madness that utterly holds human beings and creation in contempt, then we may well agree that man has gone way beyond his limits in more ways and more excessively than ever before.
That man should be so inherently inclined toward this by nature is the view of the Churches but not the will of God, who spoke through Jesus of Nazareth, for instance: If you do not become like little children …(Mt. 18:3) and: You must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Mt 5:48) With these words He wanted to tell us that we should come into our divine heritage by overcoming the base human aspects in us, the non-divine. He did not speak of the conquest of space through mankind, nor of the creation of new human beings in test tubes and the creation of a new nature and a new Earth through genetic engineering and other assaults on God’s wise order of creation.
Those who read all this and more should automatically ask themselves whether they still want to belong to the Lutheran Church.
to the next chapter
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