theologian & animal rights activist
It took Christians many years to realize that we cannot love God and also keep humans as slaves. It has taken even longer for Christians to realize that we cannot love God and also regard women as second-class humans. Now is the time for Christians to realize that we cannot love God and hate the Creator's nonhuman creatures.
ANDREW LINZEY
Animal Gospel
It is because God loves and cares for creation and because, moreover, that great creative generosity is shown us in Jesus Christ, that we have a sure moral imperative for our dealings with fellow creatures.
ANDREW LINZEY
Animal Theology
There are only two ways to deal with the media: either elect to take the Buddha's vow of eternal silence, or make one's voice known as responsibly as one humanly can, and take the consequences.
ANDREW LINZEY
Creatures of the Same God: Explorations in Animal Theology
Imagine then a different world: A world of peaceful coexistence between all species. A world where there is room for all, and every need is met. A world teeming with life, with each creature living free of violence. A world in which human beings self-evidently reflect the glory and love of God. A world in which humans look after the world, knowing it to be God's own possession and therefore a sacred treasure. A world in which everything is blessed, and its very life is a blessing to God. A world transfigured by Sabbath thanksgiving, where humans precede other creatures only in grateful, reverential praise and worship. A world in which all creatures, animate and inanimate, sentient and non-sentient, human and nonhuman, exist in perfect unity before their Creator.
ANDREW LINZEY
Animal Gospel
I do not oppose violence simply because it is counterproductive. I oppose it because it betrays animal rights philosophy. Those who resort to such tactics really have not understood that animal rights is about the extension of moral concern to all sentient beings--humans obviously included.
ANDREW LINZEY
Creatures of the Same God: Explorations in Animal Theology
If it was really true that predation is God's will, it would have to follow for Christians that the life of Jesus -- what after all is the self-disclosure of God -- manifested and vindicated this predator/prey relationship. Such a gospel would be substantially different from the one we currently have.... Instead of raising Lazarus from the dead, the Predator Jesus could only comment that death is God's blessing. Instead of preaching the good news of the coming kingdom of God, the proclamation would run: "Eat and be eaten."
ANDREW LINZEY
Animal Theology
When I was in my teens I had a series of intensely religious experiences. They deepened my sense of God as the creator of all things. And they also deepened my sensitivity towards creation itself so that concern for God's creatures and animal rights followed from that. Some people think I'm an animal rights person who just happens, almost incidentally, to be religious. In fact, it's because I believe in God that I'm concerned about God's creatures. The religious impulse is primary.
ANDREW LINZEY
interview, Satya, February 1996
I would happily, sometimes more than happily, have vacated my role as an animal theologian, if there were others prepared to take my place.
ANDREW LINZEY
Creatures of the Same God: Explorations in Animal Theology