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US edition of Creatures published

30th July 2009

The American edition of Creatures of the Same God: Explorations in Animal Theology by Centre Director, Professor Andrew Linzey, has recently been published by Lantern Books in New York. Originally published by the University of Winchester Press in 2006, it comprises nine of Professor Linzey’s most recent essays updating the subject of animal theology which he has pioneered over three decades.

Chapters include “Religion and sensitivity to animal suffering”, “Theology as if animals mattered”, “Animal rights and animal theology”, “The conflict between eco-theology and animal theology”, “Jesus and animals in the apocryphal gospels”, “Animals and vegetarianism in early Chinese Christianity”, and “On being an animal liturgist” – an account of the considerable media reaction to his book Animal Rites: Liturgies of Animal Care in 1999.

In a review in the Church Times, Claire Foster, a lay canon of St Paul’s Cathedral, commented: “I share Linzey’s sense of the intrinsic value of animals. Like him, I believe that their value does not come from their usefulness to humanity. They — like all creation — are lovely, just as they are, because they are … As Linzey observes, if we were to value animals only in relation to ourselves we would be proposing an anthropocentric, not a theocentric, cosmology”. And she concluded with this remarkable tribute: “Linzey has championed an unfashionable cause all his life, staying true to what he believes, and arguing passionately that it should be better understood in Christian circles. He has not been afraid to speak out, and has not courted popularity. For this reason, he is a hero, and we should listen to what he has to say.”

Further details of the book, and how to order it, are available here.