Byron Borger of Hearts & Minds Books has an excellent review of what sounds like a very good new book–A Faith Embracing All Creatures–at the Humane Society website.
Byron talking about my book at the Jubilee Conference.
I was surprised and delighted to see my new book mentioned as “the essential ‘go-to’ entry level, must-read book on the subject” of faith and eating.
Byron writes:
In the last decades there have been academic (and often arcane) theological writings about animal welfare, but few widely-available, easily accessible books for traditional religious readers. Gladly, there have been many voices deconstructing the rather traditional but quite wrong-headed assumptions and attitudes revealing human hubris in “taking dominion” over the creation. Nearly every major Christian publishing house, especially evangelical ones, have done fabulous books about creation care, Christian environmentalism, and Bible-based ruminations on the beauty and duty of caring well for God’s good world.
Few of them, however, until recently, have mentioned much about animals, let alone animal welfare. This is changing, and it is wonderful to see lovely titles like “All God’s Creatures: The Blessing of Animal Companions” by Debra Farrington (Paraclete Press), “Will I See My Dog in Heaven?” by Jack Wintz (Paraclete) and “The Friends We Keep: Unleashing Christianity’s Compassion for Animals” by Laura Hobgood-Oster (Baylor University Press).
More generally, there are books coming out about faith perspectives on eating sustainably. “Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating” by Norman Wirzba (Cambridge University Press) is serious but wonderful; “The Spirit of Food: 34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting Toward God” is a truly beautifully-written anthology, and the fabulous, new “Eat with Joy: Redeeming God’s Gift of Food” by Rachel Marie Stone (IVP) is the essential “go-to” entry level, must-read book on the subject. Each offers faith-shaped insight about land, creation-care, animals, and the ethical dimensions of our embodied human tasks such as farming, shopping, and eating.
Read the rest of this review here.