George R. Hoelzeman wrote:

> There should be a fundamental difference in the way we pray
> for objects and animals as opposed to humans.  This is clearly understood
> in the various prayers and blessings for tools, crops, animals, pets, rain,
> etc. which have been in long use by many Christian communions.

I agree with this up to a point, but I think it may be accusing me of
advocating things that I haven't advocated. If you look back at the liturgy
for my "funeral" for a dog, you will see that with the possible exception of
the line "We give back to you our friend Bindi" none of the prayers pray "for"
the deceased dog. There are prayers of thanks for the life of the dog and
there are prayers for those bereaved by the death of the dog but there are no
petitions for the dog.

George also wrote:
> there is still something to be said for the inate dignity of humanity
> which, IMHO, is compromised when one extends the ritual benefits of the
> Church to an animal

As I've implied above, I'm not claiming that the dog benefits from the ritual.
But I want to respond further than that. Certainly the innate dignity of
humans is of a different status to that of a dog, but we don't protect the
dignity of humans by denying the dignity of everything else. There is an
innate dignity in everything that is a product of the creative genius of God
and has been declared to be good by God. While I can accept that our dignity
as image bearers is of a different degree, God has placed us in an intricate
web of interconnectedness with the rest of creation and a church that tries to
separate its liturgy from its location in that web denies the wholeness of
creation and exacerbates its fragmentation.

I partially agree with George's statement that a pastoral liturgy around the
death of a dog should  "not recreate or parallel the rites used with humans".
But such a liturgy will inevitably parallel rites used with humans in so far
as both recognize and honour the grief of the bereaved and there will always
be unavoidable parallels in the liturgical expression of grief. However such a
liturgy must have significant differences too, because we are dealing with
events that have significant differences.

The objection I have with what goes on in the name of liturgy in far too many
churches is that it lacks the creativity to come up with appropriate liturgies
to give ritual expression to the various significant events in people's lives.
Too often we get stuck with our basic list of liturgies and we we don't know
what to do when someone's experience doesn't fit our categories. Among other
things this has resulted in the use of liturgies that mark stages of faith as
substitute liturgies to mark stages of life. 

For example, a service to celebrate a birth should "not recreate or parallel
the rites used" for a baptism, and a service to celebrate reaching puberty
should "not recreate or parallel the rites used" for confirmation, and yet
isn't that often how those important faith stage rituals end up being used? I
would bet that most of the non-church going parents who request baptism for
their children would actually be far happier if we offered them a service that
actually celebrated what it was they were wanting to celebrate and included
vows that they actually meant and intended to keep.

The problem that George is correctly reacting to, if not correctly
identifying, is actually the problem of trying to make too few church rites
fit too many different life situations. Instead we need to recognize that any
event that has a deep impact on a person is worthy of liturgical
acknowledgement and use our creativity and freedom to craft something suitable.

I don't believe I'm guilty of uncritically using a human rite for an animal. I
put the word "funeral" in inverted commas in my original post to acknowledge
that I realize it is not the same thing. What I am guilty of is believing that
worship and ritual are far too important to confine them to only a few
"churchy" areas of life. 

Peace and hope,

Nathan

_____________________________________
Nathan Nettleton
Pastor, South Yarra Community Baptist Church
Melbourne, Australia
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