Host Tony Hoshaw opens with a viral Donald Trump claim about immigrants eating pets and uses it to explore how we dehumanize people by turning them into "animals."
He traces his own journey from a hunting childhood to a Christian conversion and tentative vegetarianism, shares stories of his companion pets, and criticizes careless hunting and factory farming.
The episode brings in thinkers—Derrida, Ken Stone, Carol J. Adams, Val Plumwood, and Martha Nussbaum—to discuss animal sentience, the predator–prey dynamic in the Bible, and the ethical implications of edibility and sacrifice.
Hoshaw argues for treating sentient animals as beings with species-specific lives, calls for more compassionate practices, and closes the season asking listeners to "rest from cruel dominion" and rethink our relationship to animals.
EXPLORE:
Read a preview of Tony's essay, *The Bible Isn't Edible* here: https://gay-thoughts.com/2025/12/04/on-the-urgent-matter-of-the-bible-or-on-how-vegetarians-should-use-the-bible/
Read Tony's sermon, *Rest From Cruel Dominion* here: https://gay-thoughts.com/2024/05/15/rest-from-cruel-dominion-embracing-mercy-on-the-sabbath-day/
Read *Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy* by Matthew Scully: https://www.amazon.com/Dominion-Power-Suffering-Animals-Mercy/dp/0312319738
Read *The Animal That Therefore I Am* by Jacques Derrida: https://www.amazon.com/Animal-Therefore-Perspectives-Continental-Philosophy/dp/082322791X
Read *Reading the Hebrew Bible with Animal Studies* by Ken Stone: https://www.sup.org/books/religious-studies/reading-hebrew-bible-animal-studies
Read *The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegan Critical Theory* by Carol J. Adams: https://caroljadams.com/spom-the-book
Read *The Eye of the Crocodile* by Val Plumwood (edited by Lorraine Shannon): https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/eye-crocodile
Read *Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility* by Martha C. Nussbaum: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Justice-for-Animals/Martha-C-Nussbaum/9781982102517
Read "Questions of Biblical Ambivalence and Authority Under A Tree Outside Delhi; Or, The Postcolonial And The Postmodern" in *Postcolonial Biblical Criticism: Interdisciplinary Intersections*, by Stephen D. Moore: https://www.amazon.com/Postcolonial-Biblical-Criticism-Interdisciplinary-Postcolonialism/dp/0567045307
Read *Jacob's Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel* by Theodore Jennings, Jr.: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/jacobs-wound-9780826417121/
