Man Beats Dog

A local story here hit the newspaper. It wasn't a remarkable story, to tell the truth. A man was arrested for beating his dog. Okay, fine. Not a nice thing to do. Also not horribly unheard of. The story went on, however, to explain that when the police showed to cite him for the action, he threatened to kill a neighbor. That's bad. When the police went to arrest him for it, he fought them. So now the story is that a man who beat his dog was arrested for aggravated assault, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest.

As I said, the story was newsworthy, but not particularly remarkable. What I did find remarkable was the response to the story. I talked to several people about it, and their response was the same. And the story was on the Internet complete with comments, and their response was the same: "How awful that someone would beat his dog!"

Where have we come to in this society? No one is upset that he threatened his neighbor. No one is outraged that he resisted arrest. No one is particularly concerned about disorderly conduct. What is really, really upsetting is that this man hit his dog.

Perhaps I'm too simplistic. Or maybe I'm just out of touch with reality. I am not in favor of people abusing animals. As Christians, we believe that we are to reflect the character of God to the world, and that includes to the world of nature around us. We are supposed to take care of it. All well and good. We're in agreement. But there is a sharp, biblical dividing line between animals and Man in Scripture. Animals should be taken care of, but Man is "in the image of God" and requires special care above and beyond anything offered to animals. We are allowed to kill animals to eat, but we are not allowed to kill people. Killing an animal is not murder; killing a person is. So why is it that people are outraged at the treatment of the animal, but not at the treatment of the people? (Note: Although the perpetrator hit him, the dog was not injured.)

This shift in society's thinking about the elevated importance of nature over the decimated importance of humans is really troubling to me.