Animal Rights & Wrongs: A Biblical Perspective
By Tony Sargent
Hodder & Stoughton. 264 pages. £8.99
ISBN 0 340 66913 6
Ever since Peter Singer wrote his book Animal Liberation in 1975, the question of the ethics of our treatment of animals has been firmly on the agenda of the Western world. Unfortunately, as with so many major ethical debates, evangelicalism has lagged behind both the secular thinkers and less conservative theologians. Tony Sargent is therefore to be commended in helping us to do a little catching up. He tells us that he writes about animal welfare because: 'There is a large collection of books and learned articles which consider it, but I could find little from evangelicals' (p. 2).
The fact that the front and back covers have endorsements from J.I. Packer and Joyce D'Silva (Director of Compassion in World Farming) indicates that he is writing for a broad audience. He writes unashamedly as an evangelical preacher, and yet he has not been afraid to align himself with animal rights protesters. Anyone who has been prepared to walk alongside an abused horse in India, rather than ride in the cart it was pulling (p. 31), deserves a hearing.
