cover image Animal Theology

Animal Theology

Andrew Linzey. University of Illinois Press, $29.95 (214pp) ISBN 978-0-252-02170-1

This disturbing volume, based on a series of lectures given to the theology faculty at Oxford University, argues that contemporary agribusiness, based on the commodification of animals, is immoral and theologically indefensible. No vegan polemic or anti-vivisectionist tract, Lindzey's is a carefully prepared and argued discussion of the theology of animal rights in which the author takes the community of faith to task for its blindness to the centrality, within the Christian tradition, of duty to animals. Particularly damning are the chapters on scientific experimentation, hunting for sport, meat-eating and genetic engineering. (May)