In God's eyes, all creatures have value whether we find them cuddly, affectionate, beautiful or otherwise. Our own perspective-in a way-is neither here nor there. Theology, at its best, can help to liberate us from our own anthropocentric limitations.

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.

I would happily, sometimes more than happily, have vacated my role as an animal theologian, if there were others prepared to take my place.

I fear theology is--in the words attributed to William Temple--"still in its infancy" when it comes to animals.

If the cross does provide us with a true picture of what God is like, it follows that God is a redeeming presence in all creaturely experiences of suffering. All innocent suffering will be transformed.

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.

I look forward to the time when the churches come to celebrate and honour the work of animal protection as an imperative arising from their belief in the Creator and in the gospel of the crucified. After all, similarly remarkable things have happened, for example, the growing consensus among churches that the environment should be cared for and protected as a Christian duty--an astonishing turnaround when one considers the prevailing dualism in previous centuries, which expressly discouraged concern for "earthly" matters as distinct from "spiritual" ones.