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Description
The intense interest in the Pope’s views about afterlife for non-human animals reveals a concern about this topic that goes far beyond the audience for other similar issues of Christian doctrine. It suggests that the question touches a nerve: our uncertainty about how to give an account of human life in relation to that of other animals. The issue is not merely speculative: John Wesley argued in his 1781 sermon ‘The General Deliverance’ that Romans 8 clearly stated that animals would be redeemed, and that this had practical implications for Christian opposition to animal cruelty in the present. This lecture will outline the case for thinking about salvation in a more-than-human context and for the ethical implications of this understanding of salvation.
Speaker Bios
David Clough is Professor of Theological Ethics at the University of Chester and has just finished a term as President of the Society for the Study of Christian Ethics. He co-wrote Faith and Force: A Christian Debate about War (2007), debating just war and pacifism in a 21st century context, and has recently completed the landmark two-volume monograph On Animals (2012, 2018), on the place of animals in Christian theology and ethics. He is the founder of CreatureKind (http://becreaturekind.org), and Principal Investigator for a three-year UK Research Council funded project on the Christian Ethics of Farmed Animal Welfare in partnership with major UK churches and Compassion in World Farming. He is a Methodist lay preacher and has represented the Methodist Church on national ecumenical working groups on the ethics of warfare and climate change.