Christian animal activists sometimes waffle about whether other creatures go to heaven. They’ll say things like, maybe animals have eternal life, but if they don’t, that’s more reason we should treat them well now. I suppose that’s correct, but the more I think about it, the more it feels like conceding too much.

To say animals don’t go to heaven, however one might conceive of unification with God, is to say there’s nothing in other creatures worth preserving. For me, animal rights come before religion, and that’s just not something I’m willing to agree with. If there is a heaven, other creatures must be there.

As I read more in Christian theology, I’ve been surprised to learn that while many organizations don’t have an official position on other creatures in the afterlife, quite a few notable figures have argued animals go to heaven. As such, I don’t believe it would be fair to consider this view far outside the mainstream.

For instance, John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, defended the perspective in his Sermon 60, which cites the Book of Isaiah and the Epistle to the Romans, among other Biblical texts. God’s promise of a future Peaceable Kingdom appears in Isaiah. Descriptions of creation awaiting freedom appear in Romans.

“The whole brute creation will then, undoubtedly, be restored, not only to the vigour, strength, and swiftness which they had at their creation, but to a far higher degree of each than they ever enjoyed,” Wesley wrote. “No rage will be found in any creature, no fierceness, no cruelty, or thirst for blood.”

Interestingly, the Methodism founder appealed to a basic sense of fairness. He argued animals can’t sin, as they aren’t moral agents, like humans are. Nevertheless, they suffer terribly in the mortal world. The only way to make sense of this, Wesley wrote, is an afterlife in which these creatures are repaid.

Moving forward in time, lay Anglican theologian C.S. Lewis believed some animals would go to heaven, but his rationale was much less satisfying from a nonhuman-rights perspective. In short, certain creatures would be granted eternal life not because they were of value to God but because they were of value to humans.

“I ventured the supposal — it could be nothing more — that as we are raised in Christ, so at least some animals are raised in us,” Lewis wrote in a letter. “Who knows, indeed, but that a great deal even of the inanimate creation is raised in the redeemed souls who have, during this life, taken its beauty into themselves?”

Closer to the present day, the evangelical leader Billy Graham made the case animals would go to heaven in a written response to a frequently asked question, which was posted to his association’s website. Like Wesley, he cited as evidence Isaiah’s vision of the Peaceable Kingdom, where the wolf will live with the lamb.

“No one can miss God’s creative work in the animal kingdom,” Graham wrote. “Scripture speaks of the future messianic kingdom that captivates our imagination… In that day, death and evil will be destroyed, perfect peace will reign, and everything that has breath, including animals, will praise Him.”

I take a more perennialist approach to religion than those mentioned here. As such, I don’t feel bound by what the Bible does and doesn’t say. For me, it’s enough to argue a heaven that excludes animals wouldn’t be worthy of a loving God or a God that is literally love. I’m most moved by Wesley’s appeal to basic fairness.

Still, it gives me comfort to know a number of prominent theologians throughout Christian history have believed animals will go to heaven. Of course, within Eastern spirituality, it’s my understanding the view animals will eventually be united with God or its equivalent is generally assumed through the process of reincarnation.

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I’m the author of a number of books of animal-rights history. As a journalist, I’ve written for The San Francisco Chronicle, The Lake Placid News, Slate, The Plattsburgh Press Republican, The Adirondack Daily Enterprise, and Splice Today, among many other publications. Visit it Blog Here