Interfaith Service in Celebration of Animals

June 13^th 2004

 Golders Green Unitarian Church

 

 

 

Over 120 people packed into Golders Green Unitarian Church to be a part of the first UK Interfaith Service in celebration of Animals. It was a hot afternoon, but spirits were high and the feeling that something worthwhile was happening pervaded the room.

One perfectly behaved Border collie named ‘Luludi’ was also present, the sole representative of the four-legged species!

 

 

Andrew Burns, one of the organisers and a member of the World Congress of Faiths Governing Body, introduced the service. He stressed the uniqueness of the event noting how it was the first such interfaith service in the UK. The Revd Feargus

O’ Connor minister of Golders Green Unitarians and joint organiser of the event then welcomed everyone to his Church and opened the service with a a hymn entitled ‘reverence for life’. In keeping with Unitarian tradition a candle was lit and each speaker was also asked to light a further candle. The World faith traditions were represented by,

Dr Aria Datta (from the Brahmo Sumaj), The Venerable Wilaoye Wimalajothi

(from the London Buddhist Vihara in Chiswick), Ms. Poorva Joshipura (Hindu),

Ajit Singh OBE (Sikh), Rabbi Jackie Tabick (Chair of WCF), Rev Marcus Braybooke (President of WCF) accompanied by his wife, Mary. Three representatives from animal welfare organisations were also present and each of them also gave a short reading. They were, Jackie Ballard (Director General, RSPCA), Phyllis Campbell-McRae (UK Director of IFAW) and John Cooper (President of The League Against Cruel Sports) The well known writer and animal campaigner Carla Lane read one of her own very moving poems about her old cat called ‘wolfgang’.

 

Following a musical mediation by the harpist Marilene Berryman, the key speaker the Rev Professor Andrew Linzey, PhD, DD, gave a most rousing sermon from the pulpit. He spoke about how all the religious traditions valued animal life, but went on to point out that most did not actually speak out against cruelty or neglect. He called for renewed compassion for all life, saying, ‘maybe we have lost the capacity to wonder and to recognise the beauty of animals. Human beings are not the sum total of all that is valuable…we are not the master species, but the servant species, in the unique position of being able to look after the world’ At the conclusion of his talk the congregation broke into spontaneous applause and ‘Luludi’ barked in what seemed to everyone to be a note of approval!

 

The service concluded with a prayer for the hunted animals of the World, a second hymn and a closing benediction by the Rev. O’ Connor.

 

 

 

The success of this service has already prompted calls for it to become an annual event. A comment made by one of the congregation nicely summed up the spirit of the service. The man - in saying how much he had enjoyed the event - added, ‘You know we have achieved something special here today, and pushed the barriers further than they have ever gone before’

 

 

 

Report and photograph by

Andrew Burns (World Congress of Faiths)

 

 

 

 

The photograph shows Prof. Andrew Linzey (left) with the Revd Feargus O’ Connor

and Carla Lane (right) with Jackie Ballard (Director General, RSPCA)