Ritual & Animals

Whenever a sheep or a goat is sacrificed in the Indian Himalaya it is first expected to shake and thereby indicate its acceptance by the deity to whom it is offered. I suggest that this practice, which includes an inherent element of unpredictability and uncertainty, is essential to establishing a local sense of divine presence which is entirely accessible to humans yet not fully guaranteed. The offered animals thus emerge as prime mediators to the gods and as essential contributors to a mechanism that makes the divine present in the everyday lives of Hindus in this region.

This paper discusses the *Ōharae*, arguably the most important Shinto ritual. It is a  purification ceremony that is performed twice a year, at the end of June and December, in shrines all over Japan. The ritual is based on a specific natural landscape characterized by mountains, land,  rivers, and the sea, and these natural elements are envisioned as ritual tools in themselves. In the ritual, pollution (*kegare*) is collected from the air, the land, and the participants and is disposed of in the depths of the ocean. 

Throughout its history, the ritual has evolved from a secret ritual at the imperial court to a popular custom, profoundly changing its components. Nowadays, the *Ōharae* is a social event in which people participate to avert illness and promote luck. Recently, it has been performed also for pets, in a significant breach of the Shinto tradition. This evolution seems to have caused a change in the perception of pollution. 

This paper aims to shed light on the changes in this ritual and its role in contemporary society.

This paper focuses on Blessing of the Animals liturgies in the Roman Catholic *Book of Blessings* and *The United Methodist Book of Worship*. I examine the theological claims made about animals in these liturgies, including human relationships with nonhuman animals, animals’ relationships with God, and claims about the redemption and reconciliation of animals. I also read these theological claims against doctrinal statements about animals from the corresponding tradition. I suspect that animal blessing liturgies are largely anthropocentric, that they do not have a cohesive theological message about animals, that they contain contradictory theological messages within the liturgy, or that the liturgies reflect a theological aspiration that is not reflected in the church’s doctrine. Animal Blessings are often the only way churches publicly speak about animals, and so what these liturgies claim about animals is important for understanding animals’ place within the larger Christian tradition.