Since writing his book Animal Rights: A Christian Assessment (SCM, 1976), Andrew Linzey has been the unofficial chaplain of the animal rightists. His new book shows that he has changed somewhat in the past 10 years, as he admits. There is a change of style. His first book was highly polemical. This one could not be so described, though it still has a sharp cutting edge. There is also a deeper appreciation of the theological issues involved, and of earlier discussion of them in Christian tradition. Most importantly, there is a significant shift in emphasis in regard to his basis for the defence of animal rights.

In his earlier book Linzey defended the concept of sentiency (understood as the capacity to experience pain and pleasure) as the basis for animal rights. He now recognizes that this is inadequate and that a more rounded theological criterion is needed. He therefore proposes the concept of the theos-rights of animals. By this he means that God as Creator has rights in his creation, which is of inherent value to him. The non-human creation therefore makes an objective moral claim on us that is nothing less than God’s claim on us. This might seem to imply that vegetables, insects, and stones have rights too. Linzey responds to this point by arguing that in the Bible a special status is given to the creatures which are said to be composed of flesh and blood and to be animated by Spirit (Linzey always spells this with a capital ‘S’ in this context). Linzey takes this group to consist of humans and other mammals. He notes that the birds and fish are created on a different day from humans and animals in Genesis 1. However, he goes on to stress that this distinction is not to be taken to mean that other creatures have no value. They must still be treated as having some, if lesser, value in God’s eyes. Therefore they still demand our respect.

This is only the bare core of Linzey’s argument. He seeks to support it in the first two-thirds of the book by detailed arguments from Scripture and Christian tradition. One can only applaud his determination to find a Christian and theological basis for animal rights, even when one disagrees with his use of Scripture (e.g. his appeal to Ec. 3:19–20 to support the idea of animals having souls) or the relative weight he gives to it and tradition. The rest of the book has some thought-provoking discussions of practical issues of animal liberation. Here there is a refreshing lack of a judgmental attitude towards fellow-Christians who disagree with him, e.g.over vegetarianism. In fact he urges animal rightists to beware of self-righteousness in their attitude to others.

Here then is a balanced, Christian, attempt to argue the case for animal rights. Even if it does not carry full conviction in all its arguments, it will enrich the debate about the issues. It is well worth reading.