Quick To Listen

Last Saturday, a four-year-old boy climbed the wall of the Cincinnati Zoo’s gorilla exhibit and tumbled into the moat. After Harambe, the zoo’s 17-year-old gorilla, dragged the boy through the water multiple times, a zookeeper shot and killed the animal. Over the weekend, the story provoked national speculation, fury, and sadness over parenting, zoos, and dead animals. While zoo officials were right to kill Harambe to protect the toddler, the Bible is clear that animals have value, says Karen Swallow Prior, an English professor at Liberty University, and a member of the Faith Advisory Council of the Humane Society of the United States. “Let’s go back to Genesis and the Bible. Very clearly there is something that we as human beings share with animals, in terms of having animation, having a moving spirit,” said Prior. “We are made in God’s image, animals are not, but we still have the breath of life in us. God himself indicates in the Genesis account that there is a special relationship between humans and anima