All God's Animals by Christopher Steck

All God's Animals by Christopher Steck

The book is the first of its kind to draw together in conversation the views of the early Church, contemporary biblical and theological scholarship, and post-conciliar teachings. Steck develops a comprehensive, Catholic theology of animals based on an in-depth exploration of Catholicism's fundamental doctrines—trinitarian theology, Christology, pneumatology, eschatology, and soteriology.
 
All God's Animals makes two central claims. First, we can hope that God will include animals of the present age in the kingdom inaugurated by Christ. Second, because of this inclusion, our responses to animals should be guided by the values of the kingdom.
  
As Christians await the final liberation of all creation, they are to be witnesses to God’s kingdom by embodying its ideals in their relations with animal life.  Because the kingdom's fullness is yet to come and because our world remains marked by the wounds of sin, however, Christian treatment of animals will at times require acts that are at odds with the kingdom’s ideals (for example, those causing suffering and death). Steck examines each of these ideas and explores all of their complexities.

The book will be an important touchpoint for scholars following the interchange between animal studies and Christian theology, especially as that conversation pertains to ecological theology

All God's Animals is a book worth reading. It presents a lot of valuable information on the Catholic perception of animals.

Rev. Christopher Steck, SJ, who earned his Ph.D. at Yale, has been a member of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Georgetown University since 1999.  In addition to his book The Ethical Thought of Hans Urs von Balthasar, he has published many articles dealing with theoretical issues in Catholic moral theology.