By Richard S. DenUyl, Jr.
Sentinel Contributor
It is a question that every parent will be asked by their child after the death of their favorite pet: “Mommy, Daddy, do animals go to heaven?”
I asked it myself many years ago. The answer I received broke my heart and left me secretly questioning the existence of a good God. I was eight years old at the time. My parents had just divorced. I took the news pretty hard. I thought love was supposed to last forever. During that time, the only stable presence in my life was our black Lab. She was 15 years old. She was there the day I was born. She slept in my room on the floor next to my bed. She was a silent, grounding presence. I did not handle the divorce very well. When the teacher called home and said I wasn’t paying attention, my mother phoned the pastor and asked him if he would come by and talk to me about the separation.
The next day, after smiling and shaking my hand, the pastor relaxed on the sofa, his right leg crossed over his left. I sat on the floor in front of him, the trusty dog at my side. I can still see the sole of his big black orthopedic shoe worn thin at the ball. He was a good soul who had covered a lot of miles for Jesus. Eventually he got around to asking me how I was feeling about the divorce.
It was not a developmentally appropriate question for a little kid. So, instead of answering him, I asked my own question. With my hand on the old dog, I inquired, “Do Animals go to heaven?” It was an eight-year-old boy’s way of saying, “Does anything last forever?” Without a whiff of compassion he replied, “No, animals do not go to heaven.” And then he launched into a canned homily about my dog not having a soul. At a time when the earth was shifting beneath my feet, it was not what I needed to hear.
Do animals go to heaven? This pastor says, “Yes!” It is significant that there are over 120 different species of animals mentioned in the Bible. Furthermore, in the book of Genesis, God created animals before humans. And God looked at all those birds and fish and said, “This is good.” From time to time I wonder if, when God looks down at human mistreatment of other humans and the environment, He sometimes regrets not stopping the evolutionary process right there… Finally, it is also telling that God had Noah “save” two of every species of animals. And then, following the flood, God “established a covenant with Noah and every living creature.”
Many of us have experienced our pet’s unconditional love. They don’t care if we are a prince or a pauper. They love us even more than we love ourselves. They are by our side, “in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, as long as we both shall live.” They do not dwell on the past or live in the future. Rather, they are joyfully present in the moment, which includes an almost supernatural capacity to forgive after we forget to feed them or accidently step on their tail.
Do animals go to heaven? Consider Psalm 36: “Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens… O Lord, you save humans and animals alike.” Or my favorite answer: One evening, after reading Romans 8 where it says, “All of creation will be liberated from bondage,” the father of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther, looked down at his small dog and said: “Ja! Thou too shalt have a little golden tail!”
The Rev. Richard S. DenUyl is senior pastor of The First Congregational Church in Old Greenwich.
