I just finished reading Andrew Linzey’s Animal Theology. Linzey, a Church of England priest and theologian is also a long-time animal rights activist. His book presents a strong challenge to Christians who think of animal rights as a concern confined to the likes of PETA and Peter Singer, and who see concern for animals as peripheral to the gospel at best and anti-Christian at worst.

What sets Linzey’s approach apart from secular animal rights theorists like Tom Regan is that, for Linzey, rights are grounded in God, not in anything inherent to the subject of rights (human or animal). He calls these (in a rather unfortunate neologism) “theos-rights.” By this he means that animals exist for the sake of God, not for human beings, and consequently we must reject a purely instrumentalist view of animals that subordinates them to human purposes. “Creation exists for its Creator” (p. 24). And God, as Christianity conceives of him, is for Creation. In his overflowing grace, God’s will for creation, including animals, is for flourishing and well-being. “The notion of ‘theos-rights’ then for animals means that God rejoices in the lives of those differentiated beings in creation enlivened by the Spirit. In short: If God is for them, we cannot be against them” (p. 25).

Linzey argues that just as Jesus is the Good Shepherd who lays his life down for his sheep, we are called to exhibit costly and sacrificial love in our relationships with others, especially those who are powerless and at our mercy as animals undoubtedly are. This is what he calls “the moral priority of the weak.” What makes humans unique and how we image God, he says, is that we are the “servant species;” like Jesus was can live in service to others rather than seeking our own advantage.

This implies that we should eliminate or mitigate the harm of those practices which inflict unnecessary suffering on animals for the sake of human ends. Linzey is pretty radical in what he thinks that entails, calling for an end to meat-eating, animal experimentation, hunting, and genetic engineering. Linzey is no utopian, and he realizes that we can never be “pure” in that we are inevitably enmeshed in systems and practices that inflict harm. So self-righteousness is not an option. And he is aware that such a change in our lifestyles would involve some measure of sacrifice. But he thinks that Christians are called to live in a way that anticipates the advent of God’s peaceable kingdom where predation and suffering are abolished. This eschatological vision recognizes that the creation as it is fails to reflect the creator’s intentions in many respects.

One thing that makes Linzey difficult to dismiss is that the theological basis for his arguments are thoroughly Christological, Trinitarian and orthodox. A belief in the Triune God who works to redeem all of creation through the incarnation of the Son and sending of the Spirit and whose will for that creation is peace forms the context for the whole argument. Nearly everyone will quibble with some of his conclusions. One minor complaint I might make is that Linzey isn’t always clear to what extent he sees this as an aspirational ideal for Christians, or a ethic that can be instutionalized in the wider society. At any rate, I find it difficult to disagree with the main thrust of his argument. Surely the degree of suffering we inflict on our fellow creatures, often for trivial reasons, is not something that should sit easily with professed followers of the Good Shepherd.