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Many people who have thought about God have not thought about animals, or about the relationship between the two. But among those who have some of the most celebrated religious thinkers. This volume comprises 24 scholarly studies that detail challenges to the dominant anthropocentrism of most religious traditions.
List of contents
- About the Editors and the Contributors
- Introduction: "Before Animal Theology"
- Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey
- Part 1: Prophets and Pioneers
- Chapter 1.1: Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655): Vegetarianism and the Beatific Vision
- Justin Begley
- Chapter 1.2: Michel de Montaigne (1533 - 1592): Elephant Theologians
- Kathleen Long
- Chapter 1.3: Thomas Tryon (1634 - 1703): A Theology of Animal Enslavement
- Adam Bridgen
- Chapter 1.4: John Wesley (1703 - 1791): The Tension between Theological Hope and Biological Reality
- Ryan Patrick McLaughlin
- Chapter 1.5: Humphry Primatt (1735-1777): Animal Protection and its Revolutionary Contexts
- Adam Bridgen
- Chapter 1.6: William Bartram (1739 - 1823): A Quaker-Inspired Animal Advocacy
- Michael J. Gilmour
- Chapter 1.7: Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862): Capturing the "Anima" in Animals
- Wesley T. Mott
- Part 2: Social Sensibility
- Chapter 2.1: John Ruskin (1819 - 1900): "Beholding Birds": A Visual Case against Vivisection
- Linda Johnson
- Chapter 2.2: Frances Power Cobbe (1822 - 1904): Theology, Science, and the Anti-Vivisection Movement
- Chien-hui Li
- Chapter 2.3: Frank Buckland (1826 - 1880) and Henry Parry Liddon (1829 - 1890): Vivisection in Oxford
- Serenhedd James
- Chapter 2.4: Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1910): Literature and the Lives of Animals
- Alice Crary
- Chapter 2.5: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844 - 1911): Writer and Reformer
- Robyn Hederman
- Chapter 2.6: Muhammad 'Abduh (1849 - 1905): The Transvaal Fatwa, and the Fate of Animals
- Nuri Friedlander
- Chapter 2.7: Josiah Oldfield (1863 - 1953): "You can't trust a fellow who lives on nuts": Vegetarianism and the Order of the Golden Age in nineteenth-century Britain
- A. W. H. Bates
- Chapter 2.8: Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935): Biblical Ethics as the Basis of Rav Kook's A Vision of Vegetarianism and Peace
- Idan Breier
- Chapter 2.9: Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869 - 1948): In the Service of All that Lives: The Vision of Engaged Nonviolent Animal Care
- Kenneth R. Valpey (Krishna Kshetra Swami)
- Part 3: Deeper Probing
- Chapter 3.1: Albert Schweitzer (1875 - 1965): The Life of Reverence
- Carl Tobias Frayne
- Chapter 3.2: Martin Buber (1878 - 1965): Encountering Animals: A Prelude to the Animal Question
- Ryan Brand
- Chapter 3.3: Paul Tillich (1886 - 1965): The Method of Correlation and the Possibility of an Animal Ethic
- Abbey Smith
- Chapter 3.4: Charles Hartshorne (1897 - 2000): Animals in Process Thought
- Daniel A. Dombrowski
- Chapter 3.5: C. S. Lewis (1898 - 1963): Rethinking Dominion: C. S. Lewis and the Sleek, Purring Panther
- Michael J. Gilmour
- Chapter 3.6: Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904 - 1991): 'Myriads of cows and fowls ... ready to take revenge'
- Beruriah Wiegand
- Chapter 3.7: Jürgen Moltmann (1926 -): Creation and Sabbath Theology
- Ryan Patrick McLaughlin
- Chapter 3.8: Andrew Linzey (1952 -): Animal Theology
- Ryan Patrick McLaughlin
- Index
About the author
Andrew Linzey is director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics and has been a member of the Faculty of Theology in the University of Oxford for twenty-eight years. He is a visiting professor of animal theology at the University of Winchester. He is the author or editor of more than thirty books, including Animal Theology (1994), Why Animal Suffering Matters (OUP, 2009), and The Palgrave Handbook of Practical Animal Ethics (2018).
Clair Linzey is the deputy director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics and professor of animal theology at the Graduate Theological Foundation. She is co-editor of the Journal of Animal Ethics and co-editor of the Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series. She is the author of Developing Animal Theology (2021) and has co-edited eight other books with Andrew Linzey.
Summary
Many people who have thought about God have not thought about animals, or about the relationship between the two. But among those who have are some of the most celebrated religious thinkers, including Michel de Montaigne, Thomas Tryon, John Wesley, John Ruskin, Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas K. Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, and Paul Tillich. This volume comprises 24 scholarly studies that detail challenges to the dominant anthropocentrism of most religious traditions. The editors have brought together Jewish, Unitarian, Christian, transcendentalist, Muslim, Hindu, Dissenting, deist, and Quaker voices, each offering a unique theological perspective that counters the neglect of the nonhuman.
Animal Theologians is divided into three parts starting with the pioneers who first saw a relationship between animals and divinity, those who contributed to the expansion of social sensibility to animals, and ending with the work of contemporary theologians. The essays in this volume use contextual and historical background to describe what led animal theologians to their beliefs, and then pave way for further developments in this expanding field. This volume is an act of reclaiming different religious traditions for animals by recovering lost voices.
Additional text
Animal Theologians was a real eye-opener! From graphic accounts of how animals are slaughtered to how utterly reliant we are on other life forms. The book is full of insightful facts including why cows are sacred in India to how contemplative appreciation and gratitude awaken our conscience to the interconnectedness of all life.
