Far too often, Christians have accepted the common secular view that we are the masters of animals, their rulers or owners — utterly forgetting that the dominion promised to humanity is a deputized dominion, in which we are to stand before creation as God's vice-regents, putting into effect not our own egotistical wants but God's own law of love and mercy. And yet, when one begins to challenge our despotic treatment of animals — whether killing for sport, the ruthless export trade, or (to take the latest example) the quite obscene slaughter of thousands of seals for their penises, to be sold as aphrodisiacs in Europe and Asia — again and again, one has to face this humanistic dogma: If it benefits humanity, it must be right.
Andrew Linzey
