Religions differ on attitudes toward hunting
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BY BOB REEVES/Lincoln Journal Star
Kirk Nelson is an avid hunter. On crisp fall mornings you’ll find him out on a farm tract north of Lincoln, stalking deer. He’s also an active member of Lincoln’s United Lutheran Church, where he’s taught Sunday school and confirmation classes.
Nelson, who is assistant director of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission for fish and wildlife, sees no conflict between what’s taught in the Bible and the sport of hunting, when done in an environmentally conscious and responsible way.
“I think God created man to manage the earth,” Nelson said. “That means not being wasteful and also controlling populations of animals through the natural process of hunting food.”
All the world’s great religions teach an ethic of love and caring, both for other human beings and for the world. But attitudes toward hunting have varied through the ages.
Most Native people depend upon hunting for all or part of their sustenance, and as a result, their spiritual beliefs stress the interdependence of human beings and animals.
Ed McGaa (Eagle Man), an Oglala Sioux tribal leader, examines the life lessons human beings can learn from animals in his book “Nature’s Way: Native Wisdom for Living in Balance with the Earth” ($24.95, Harper San Francisco). He tells many stories of his experiences hunting quail, pheasant, rabbits, deer and other creatures but also emphasizes the great respect native people feel for all living things.
Native people kill wildlife as a source of food but know that it is wrong to take more than they need, he says. In pre-hunt rituals, they often don costumes resembling the animals or bird to show a closeness and empathy with them. Afterward, they offer prayers of thanksgiving to the Great Spirit for the gifts of food, skins, furs and other necessities provided by the hunt.
“The Indians preserved their bountiful Buffalo before the white men arrived by living in harmony with it and by not wasting out of ignorance or greed,” McGaa writes. “It was a way to honor Buffalo and use all of it as a way to honor its gifts and creator.”
A similar respect for nature and wild creatures is common to indigenous people worldwide, McGaa says. That ancient wisdom is needed today, he says, to counteract the lack of balance between humans and the environment, as evidenced by such problems as global warming, air and water pollution, depletion of energy resources and overpopulation.
“Nature’s memory is deeply embedded within our collective consciousness, waiting to be rediscovered,” he writes. “A simple commitment to learn and experience more of Nature’s way in our daily lives is a spiritual practice that may lead to the salvation of our living planet.”
Respect for nature and living things is also an important part of Eastern religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. All three religions take firm positions against hunting, based in part on the belief in reincarnation. In one famous story, Buddha took the form of a deer and rebuked a hunter, saying, “Stop your hunting! Desist forever! Animals have the same feelings as men, desiring happiness and the absence of suffering. Keeping this in mind, is it not wrong to do to others what would cause unhappiness to yourself?”
Eastern religions promote vegetarianism, based on the idea that it is wrong to kill animals even as a source of food.
The three great Western religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — are less negative about hunting, but they all share in the idea that human beings ought not to cause unnecessary suffering or destruction to other creatures.
Judaism has no outright prohibition on hunting, but kosher dietary laws make it difficult to kill an animal in the wild, said Rabbi Ilan Emmanuel of Lincoln’s Congregation B’nai Jeshurun (South Street Temple).
“Animals have to be slaughtered in a particular way, and hunting isn’t it,” he said. An animal is to be killed by slitting its throat in a ritual manner, killing it quickly and allowing the blood to drain out, he said. It would be nearly impossible for a hunter with a gun or bow and arrow to fulfill that requirement.
“Jewish tradition isn’t particularly keen on hunting,” he added. “It’s certainly not a big Jewish cultural thing. It’s not so much a love of animals, but the belief that we shouldn’t enjoy killing creatures for sport.”
Rabbi Royi Shaffin of Tiffereth Israel Synagogue noted that the only way a hunter could properly follow kosher rules would be to trap an animal without harming it, then have a rabbi ritually slaughter the creature.
“I do know some hunters who are Jewish,” he said. “But they definitely are not following Jewish tradition and Jewish law.”
Muslims have similar rules regarding halal meat, which must be slaughtered in a ritually correct way. But Islam has no strong prohibition against hunting, so long as the animal is killed to provide food and not just for fun. The Quran teaches that God created both humans and animals, and that animals exist for the benefit of humans but also that they must be treated with kindness and compassion.
The prophet Muhammad is quoted as saying: “Whoever kills a sparrow or anything bigger than that without a just cause, Allah will hold him accountable on the day of judgment.”
The Rev. David Larsen, interim pastor of All Saints Lutheran Church, is a Christian environmentalist.
Christian ethics doesn’t prohibit hunting, he said, but it sets clear guidelines on the hunter’s responsibility, both to wildlife and the environment.
“God created human beings in God’s image, and gave them dominion over all things,” Larsen said, referring to a passage in Genesis 1:26 in the Old Testament. “Dominion doesn’t mean dominance, but care and responsibility for God’s creation.”
Hunting plays an important role in helping control and manage wildlife populations but should never be done in an exploitative way, Larsen said.
“Nothing in the Bible says not to hunt, but God wants us to do the loving and caring thing, whether it’s for people or for animals.”
Nebraska hunting laws require that anyone age 12 or older who was born after Jan. 1, 1977, must have taken a hunter safety class in order to hunt.
The classes are administered by volunteers and always include a strong emphasis on hunting ethics, said Mike Streeter, hunter education coordinator for the state Game and Parks Commission.
“We teach several sections on the responsibilities of hunters and the theory of conservation,” he said. “For an 11- to 13-year-old kid, the word ethics doesn’t have a lot of meaning, but they can understand what it means to be responsible.”
To learn more about hunter education and Nebraska requirements, visit www.ngpc.state.ne.us
/hunting/programs/education.
Reach Bob Reeves at 473-7212 or breeves@journalstar.com.
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