Looking back through the mists of time, I recall some distinctly religious experiences in my teens--when I was only fourteen years old to be precise. These experiences opened my mind to the idea of a Creator and that caring for other living things was a Christian duty. My parents were not strongly religious at the time and when I announced at that youthful age that I wanted to be a priest, it not unnaturally provoked some incredulity, even mirth. In the same year, I became a vegetarian, which--for family and friends--was even more vexing.

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

Familiarity with holy things can often engender blindness, and churches are, for all their merits, institutions that embody, perhaps more than most, the will to perpetuate themselves. In this process, they can easily lose sight of the purpose for which they came into being and, in so doing, frustrate the Spirit.

Although Christianity has a poor record on animals (as it does, it must be said, on the treatment of slaves, women, children, and gays), it is also the case that Christian theology, when creatively and critically handled, can provide a strong basis for animal rights.

One cannot get to animal rights by trampling on human rights.

Moral education, as I understand it, is not about inculcating obedience to law or cultivating self-virtue, it is rather about finding within us an ever-increasing sense of the worth of creation. It is about how we can develop and deepen our intuitive sense of beauty and creativity.

The Bible nowhere says that animals are just made for human use. It does not say that the whole earth is just ours to do with as we like. Neither does it say that God's sole interest is with the human species. We cannot allow such an important and influential book to become the preserve of those who want to exploit animals. The Bible needs to be read, studied, and reclaimed for the animals.