It has been a few months since Bryan Fischer demanded that an animal be put to death for having killed a human being, but with news that hiker has been killed by a bear in Yellowstone National Park, Fischer is renewing his demand that we take action against “these Jeffrey Dahmers of the animal kingdom” and start shooting each and every bear on sight:
The Old Testament has been preserved for us, in part, so that we may see how God deals with nations. It’s not that its prescriptions are to applied woodenly or literally today, but there are principles of public policy embedded there which can be extracted and applied to contemporary challenges.
As I have written before, God’s word to ancient Israel was that a growing danger from wild animals is a sign of a nation in rebellion against God. “If you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments…I will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock” (Leviticus 26:14, 22).
In the case of the United States, there is no need for God to “let loose the wild beasts” against us, because we are doing a fine job of it all by ourselves. And we are doing it to ourselves because we have rejected the teaching of Scripture that God has given to man authority over the animal kingdom. Man has been given authority by God over the earth, to “subdue it and have dominion over…every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28). This authority certainly extends to putting predators out of our misery.
But placing a higher value on human life than on animal life is now rejected by secular fundamentalists as “specie-ism” and a form of hateful bigotry … It’s time to shoot these man-eaters on sight. Human life is of infinitely more value than the life of a grizzly. If it’s a choice between a man and a grizzly bear, the grizzly bear is going down. Let’s get back to Scripture, and spend less time saving grizzlies and more time protecting creatures made in the image of God.
