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FROM THE PULPIT
July - August 1997 Issue

hr-199707-04-pulpitRABBI EZEKIEL LANDAU (1763)
In the Torah the sport of hunting is imputed only to fierce characters like Nimrod and Esau, never to any of the patriarchs and their descendants...I cannot comprehend how a Jew could even dream of killing animals for the pleasure of hunting...it is downright cruelty.

GARY KOWALSKI, UNITARIAN MINISTER (1991)
We are kin to, and must be kind to, all creation. Overcoming specieism—the illusion of human superiority—will be the next step in our moral and spiritual evolution.

POPE JOHN PAUL II (1982)
St Francis [of Assisi] is before us also as an example of unalterable meekness and sincere love with regard to irrational beings...In [him] we glimpse an anticipation of that peace proposed by Scripture, when “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion shall graze together and a child shall lead them.

THEOPHILUS, BISHOP OF ANTIOCH (A.D.150)
When man diverted from the path [of goodness] the animals followed him...If man now would rise to his original nature and would not do evil any longer, then the animals, too, would return to their original gentle nature.

THE AMPLIFIED BIBLE ( ROMANS 8:19-22)
For the whole creation (all nature) waits expectantly and longs earnestly for God’s sons to be made known—waits for the revealing, the disclosing of their son-ship. For (creation) itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and corruption...We know that the whole creation (of irrational creatures) has been moaning together in the pains of childbirth, until now.

REVD. ANDREW LINZEY (1987)
All living creatures should be seen as participating in spiritual becoming, spiritual communion and [as] awaiting spiritual consummation. #

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