ABSTRACT
Lions, lambs, locusts, and even a leviathan—Christianity and its texts are full of animals, from the mundane to the mystical, and at its center, a Good Shepherd. Despite centuries of all creatures great and small depicted in Christian art and literature, it remains rare that Christianity directly addresses nonhuman animals as more than symbols and metaphors. The study of animals in Christianity is a relatively new academic pursuit but one that has experienced significant growth with the animal turn of the late 20th and early 21st century. This chapter begins by outlining the theological challenges that have historically impeded the development of a Christian concern for animals and continue to act as stumbling blocks for the integration of veganism into Christian thought and practice. Having established the stakes of the debate, the chapter traces the involvement of Christians in the earliest animal welfare movements and concludes with a look at the advent of contemporary scholarly interest in animals within the fields of Religious Studies and Christian Theology.
