Putting animals in their place

Recently, an animal rights activist stunned members of the U.S. Senate when he called for the murder of those conducting medical research. The member of the Animal Liberation Front said killing medical researchers is "morally justified" to save laboratory animals, which are treated like slaves and concentration camp victims.

Most animal-righters regard humans as lower than animals. The PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) website states it is acceptable to use "defective" or dying humans in scientific tests as opposed to testing things on healthy animals.

The Bible is clear that man is made in God's image and is granted dominion (control) over Earth and the animals. And because the Earth is God's, our control is limited to the role of good stewardship: managing, but not exploiting, another's property. Man is of a higher order than animals. Jesus said, "You are of more value than many sparrows "[Luke 12:7]. He demonstrated this when He expelled demons from the men they possessed and sent them into a herd of swine. Since the act caused the pigs to leap to their deaths, I wonder if PETA would have screamed for the murder of Jesus. Oh, wait--that already happened.

As Christians, we must make decisions regarding the care of Earth and its environment out of concern for God's property [1 Corinthians 10:26], but also with the understanding that Creation was given to us to meet our needs [Genesis 1:26—28]. Elevating animals to a degree above mankind is a satanic perversion of the truth: "They gave up the truth about God for a lie, and they worshiped God's creation instead of God." [Romans 1:25 (Contemporary English Version)]