 Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, never have I been more generously introduced as a failure in a fringe. I am sorry to say it entirely accurately so. It is a great pleasure to be here. I have only 10, 15 or so minutes to make an argument to look at the status of animals within the Christian tradition a gallwch yn causio i'n fwrdd a ddysgu'r ddebyg i ddaillu, o waith ystod, mae'r oedd perthydig o'r wyf yn hyn deall gwahanol unrhyw o gwell yn gwell, yn y gweithwyr i gweithio'u perthŷl yn cyfaint o'i gwaith o'r cyfaint o'r 10 minu? Yn cais o地, mae'r Cymru maen nhw'n cais i'r ddifii ameryddol? Mae'r ddifii efo'n gweithwyr gwahanol, mae pobl yn cyfwyr llawer. Is thinlynw. Is a... Is it kingdom hall, and outside they sometimes have questions like Did Jesus rise from the dead or was Jesus the Son of God? You've got a pretty good idea of what the answer to many of these questions are. In this case, am sorry to say a real restient. I'm afraid we cannot be sanguine about the answer. So, first of all, let's look at the negative tradition. Those people say actually Christianity can't be good news for animals at least in terms of contemporary ethical concern. And that is simply because the dominant negative voices, dominant voices are negative voices. By that, I don't mean the truest or the most biblical or the most spiritual. I simply mean those that are the most prevalent within the tradition are still heavily negative. And so, we have to recognise the role of Christian theology in legitimating, if not originating, certainly propagating negative ideas, these negative ideas that rule the world and have done so for many, many years. So, let's briefly look at the negative tradition. Animals are defined out of the picture. No mind, no reason, no soul, no sentence, no rights, and no status. Let's look at these briefly in turn. Dumb animals, notice that phrase. Dumb animals and plants are devoid of the life of reason, whereby to set themselves in motion, they are moved as it were by a natural impulse, a sign of which is that they are naturally enslaved and accommodated to the uses of others. St Thomas Aquinas, Church Father, arguably the most important Church Father in the Catholic tradition. Dumb animals, they have no independent movement as it was a result of rational faculties. They are naturally our slaves. No soul, in the Tomas tradition, that's the tradition following St Thomas Aquinas, broadly there are three divisions, vegetative souls, animated souls for animals and rational souls for humans. It's not true to say as many people do that the Christian tradition or the Catholic tradition specifically denies that animals have souls, it is always denied that they have rational and therefore immortal souls, do you see? I hope that's clear. So we move from the idea that they have no mind, no reason, they have no soul, therefore because they are not rational and therefore the question has to be raised, as indeed it was by Descartes, whether they could have sufficient self-consciousness even to feel pain. Indeed says Descartes that they act naturally and mechanically like a clock. There is no prejudice to which we are more accustomed from our earliest years than the belief that dumb animals think. Hence was born Cartesianism, the idea that animals are, well if not all to mate up pretty close to it. In fact I used for many years to give Descartes the benefit of the doubt and say that he was just suggesting a possible line of thought until I found actually evidence that he was personally a vivisector as well of the animals he kept. No mere ideas then. Of course it follows, no soul, no mind, they have no rights, zoophilist, that's a nice word, it doesn't mean people who have sex with animals, that's a modern connotation, zoophilist simply means those who have some concern or love for animals, zoophilist, those who now want to have sexual relations with animals call themselves zoos or zoophilist but this is not the context in this. Zoophilist often lose sight of the end for which animals as rational creatures were created by God, the service and use of man. In fact, Catholic moral doctrine teaches that animals have no rights on the part of man. Now this is as early or late however you put it as 1962, 1962, wiping animals off the rights agenda which partly goes to explain I think why the notion of rights has become such a similarly important discussion and no status. This is from Joseph Ricabee, the famous Jesuit, I mean it's a bit off the wall, it's a bit extreme even for his day but it was a Catholic textbook, brute beast not having understanding and therefore not being persons cannot have any rights, we have no duties of charity nor duties of any kind to the low animals as neither to sticks or stones, do you see, animals are progressively out of the moral picture, no status, no mind, no soul, no rationality. So just to summarise it a little more accurately, there are three strands. The first is instrumentalism, animals are here for our use, again in Augustine, when we say they shall not kill, we do not understand this a plant since they have no sensation nor of the irrational animals since they are dissociated from us by their want of reason and are therefore by the just appointment of the creator subject to us to kill or keep alive for our own uses. Animals here for our use of course, it predates for Augustine, might even predate, Aristotle certainly found in pre-Socratics if not earlier, animals are here for our use. Animals are only animals, and by this I am picking up on the dualist tendency, especially prevalent in certain ages of Christianity, that makes distinctions and separations between flesh and spirit, mind and matter, persons and things, souls and non-souls. The result of all this very briefly is that animals come off on the worst side of each of these distinctions. I indeed this is reflected in our language, beasts, boots, irrational, dumb creatures. Just think of the enormous dummies that this historic language of denigration has done. In the book of Common Prayer, the lines still remain, brute beasts, so we do not become quote, brute beasts that have no understanding, I've often wondered who these boots are. Now the third strand then is humanism, instrumentalism, dualism, humanism, the idea really the only humans matter. And you find this not just in the classical tradition but also in modern presentations of the Christian faith. God wills nothing but man's advantage, man's true greatness and his ultimate dignity. This then is God's will, man's well-being, well, both sexist and speciesist, as you can see, that's from Hans Cungham being a Christian in 1978, but also in the Catholic Catechism. Look at this. God willed creation as a gift addressed to man, wow, wow, the whole thing is ours folks, given to us, similar like a birthday present, an inheritance destined for and entrusted to him. Wow, look at that, oh, whole world is ours, whole world is ours, what a gift from God. Only human beings matter, only human welfare, only human suffering matters, everything else matters, periphery or at best marginal. Now the result of all this negative tradition, first of all theoretical, we have effectively deified the human species, we have made human beings God, there is a more or less absolute identification of God's will with humanity. Now I myself believe this is a kind of idolatry. It is based on the assumption that God is wholly or chiefly concerned with the welfare of the human species to the exclusion of all else. And that's folks where I think we are. And the second result practical is that animals don't matter. Despite some reservations and qualifiers, still a great many Christians don't believe that animals matter because they don't matter theologically, that is they don't matter to God the Creator. And that is why Christian churches are still generally indifferent to the issue of animal cruelty abuse and exploitation. And as a witness of that you only have to look at the very conservative Christian churches. The Catholic tradition especially in relation to bull fighting for example, whaling again, Norway, conservative Lutheran tradition, sealing both Anglicans and Catholics have justified sealing and so on and so forth. There's even a Christian Bowman's association in the States that shoots animals with them bows and arrows. Good, well that's the bad news folks. Now let's try and look at some of the more positive news for animals. This has to be very rushed and very much an overview. Now I think it comes in four parts, biblical insights, Christian apogful literature, hagiography and then the humanitarian movement. I want briefly to run through these. Firstly biblical insights, well we got so accustomed to so much of this stuff that we've actually forgotten how radical and interesting it is. Let's just go through them. See Genesis 1 in the first creation saga humans are created with animals on the same day of creation. They're blessed by God, they're given their own space to flourish, they are made part of an originally very good creation. In other words they have value in themselves and we should rightly feel a kind of kinship with them. Genesis doesn't say look here folks, it's all for you, do as you like. Now I'm not saying that everything in the Bible supports animal liberationist perspective far from it but I do think we've rather lost sight of some of those foundational insights in the biblical material that are a great deal more animal friendly than we dare to suppose. Indeed they are included within the covenant, the covenant is made with living creatures five times and with the earth twice. Now the theological significance of this notion of covenant really can't be minimised. I spent five years of my life studying Karl Barth's doctrine of creation and he makes a great deal of how humanity, human beings are elected in Christ. All of humanity is elected in Christ because of the notion of covenant and election in Genesis. Well it completely overlooks the fact that in Genesis 9 God also elects enter into covenant with all living creatures, not just human beings. Thirdly humans have dominion. Now this is normally associated, normally interpreted as something anti animals as despotic rule over animals. In fact in the States there's now an anti dominionist movement amongst animal people. I'm afraid it's all based on a mistake, I'm sorry folks, but dominion doesn't mean absolute rights, it means that humans power is derived independent power. We are in other words commissioned by God to look after the world. Our only power over animals, theologically and crystallologically, is a power to serve. Now how do we know that that's the case? Well we know that's the case because if you look at the first saga in Genesis 2526 verse 2526 we're made in the image of God, then we're given dominion 28 and then we're given a vegetarian diet verse 29-30. Most Christians don't remember that bit, they remember a bit about being made in the image of God, they remember the bit about having dominion, they like those ideas and then they're given a vegetarian diet. It's one of the examples of hermeneutics really, how we find those things we like. So what you're having in Genesis is her beating human beings, this is hardly a license for tyranny is it if you think about it. So dominion, the whole saga of Genesis 1 is pro-animal, so indeed Genesis 2 in the second chapter, you have God making the garden and then creating human beings quote to till it and serve it, chapter 2 verse 17, till it and serve it, in other words that is our purpose, to serve the garden you see, to look after the show. Also in various passages in the Old Testament there is a notion that there are moral limits to what we may do to animals and in their own day were significant although arguably not so much in ours and also not least of all the vision of the peaceable kingdom which you find in Isaiah, in Genesis as epitomised by the Sabbath coming together, the end of Genesis 1 being the Sabbath experience after all, not they all sat and they all enjoyed God's presence, having God having worked and so therefore there was an anticipation of the future kingdom to come and also you find a hint of that in that very strange verse in Mark 12, 1, 12, 13 about Jesus being with the wild beasts. Now moving on also the theme of the redemption of all creation found most especially in Romans 8 in which Paul compares creation to being in the state of childbirth awaiting for its freedom and liberation with the children of God. In other words the scope, the scope of the redemption is cosmic not just individual souls are going to be redeemed but indeed the entire creation indeed. I've often got into theological hot water by saying you know when I'm asked do I believe animals will be in heaven my answer is they will certainly be there, the real question is whether sinful, violent, wicked human beings will be there, that's the really big issue. Okay biblical insights and themes then, fellow creatureliness, kinship, peaceableness, unitable creatures in Christ, humans as the servant species as I've tried to argue in my books humans are best defined not as the master species but as the servant species. Now time is pressing on so I'm going to give them faster at this point. Secondly the Christian apocryphal material, from the second to the eighth century there's a huge voluminous amount actually of material concerning animals, Christian material that develops some of the ideas in scripture and especially in the gospels. Now by saying it's apocryphal I don't mean it's worthless, I don't mean it has no authority, I just mean it has never been collected together as scripture as such, Christian scripture but nevertheless there was us and this is really the thesis I'm trying to make here that even though there has been as it were a negative tradition and the dominant voices have been negative there has been as it were a subterranean tradition within Christianity that has always kept alive the idea of peaceable friendly relations with animals and you see these in these stories that have been preserved from the eighth to the second to the eighth century. For example there is a famous apocryphal, a famous story of Jesus healing a mule which is sadly we cannot be sure when it was written but is very similar to those other stories in the snottyg gospels. Those are more examples of that hagiography and also let me give you a Chinese puzzle that I have recently been wrestling with. Some years ago I had to write an introduction to one of my books Animal Gospel that was to be published in China and I thought gosh what am I going to say, how can I say to another culture I mean about animal rights I mean they'll think I'm this is really way off and then of course I began to research something of the religious history in China and I found out that there was indeed the first Chinese church sometimes known as the religion of the light or the Taoist church existed for 300 years and it taught reverence for life, vegetarianism, opposed slavery, advocated the equality of women and men and testimony from a historic stele in AD 781 as well as from the existing sutras the verses from that period and it was not astonishing so here you have an early pacifist vegetarian feminist church almost sounds too good to be to be true folks am almost too good to be to perhaps it is good to be to accept it does have a connection with the gospel of the ebeanites and is very similar in some of its theology to the gospel the ebeanites which is a very early gospel that depicts Jesus as a vegetarian and opposed to animal sacrifice now hagiogs no we're going back are we we're going oh yes here we are some more stuff from hagiography the one I particularly like is from Bonaventure every creature is by its nature a kind of effigy and likeness of the eternal wisdom Saint Bonaventure the biographer of Saint Francis every creature is by its nature a kind of effigy and likeness of the eternal wisdom okay a theological significance of this hagiography is this as we grow in union with God show we should grow in communion with God's creatures and concern for God's other creatures is a sign of greatness if anything and thirdly that the creator has interests above and beyond the human species now the last piece of the good news is the humanitarian movement in the 19th century if my thesis is right despite the pervasiveness of the negative dominant negative voices there has been there have been traditions of concern for regard for animals within the Christian tradition right from the start and suddenly in 19th century this began to be crystallized in the form of embodied in social social institutions William Cowherd founds the Bible Christian Church which makes vegetarianism obligatory for its members to forerunner of the organized vegetarian movement in the UK and the US then in 1824 we have the founding of the SPCA that shortly to become the RSPCA by the Anglican priest Arthur Broome and then we even have the anti-vivisection movements in the 1870s with ecclesial venerable ecclesiastical Patrick Neige and the famous line I like from this is this this emerging humanitarian movement is from Humphrey permit well-known line from his book The Duty of Mercy in the Sin of Cruelty we may pretend to what religion we please but cruelty is atheism we may make our base to Christianity but cruelty is infidelity we may trust to our orthodoxy but cruelty is the worst of heresies now as we know this influenced Arthur Broome who subsequently edited the second edition of permits work. Broome after all was the founder of the RSPCA now where's all this lead to well I'm afraid we're not going to be able to get to section three on the maybe and so I want to leave you with this final thought when it comes to the second section what I've called the Jesus shaped ethic we don't know everything that Jesus said or did and and in many ways we're still trying to grapple with it significance we don't know the the the details but we do know the contours and what one finds in Jesus I suggest is a paradigm or least rather what I called a paradigm of inclusive moral generosity one that privileges the poor the vulnerable the outcast the marginalized the oppressed and I believe by extension animals and I believe some of the the best thinkers in the Christian tradition across this relationship but the struggle still goes on between these two vastly different approaches to animals within the Christian tradition and I fear the jury is still out as to which side might eventually win thank you very much indeed