Peter Manley Scott offers a theological and ethical reading of our present situation. Due to the vigour of its re-engineering of the world by its technologies, western society has entered into a postnatural condition in which standard divisions between the natural and the artificial are no longer convincing. This postnatural development is liberating - both theologically and politically. Scott develops an 'anthropology' that does not repeat Christianity's history of anthropocentrism but instead criticises it by exploring the mutual entanglement of animals, humans and other creatures. Deeply disrespectful of traditional centres of power, his ethical critiques of 'pioneering' technologies expose their anti-social and anti-ecological tendencies and identify possible paths of oppositional political action. This is ethical theology at its best: deeply informed by theological tradition, immersed in contemporary political-technological problematics in radically oppositional ways, and yet fiercely hopeful of a good outcome for animals-human and non-human-and other life in history. Dr Peter Manley Scott is Senior Lecturer in Christian Social Thought and Director of the Lincoln Theological Institute at the University of Manchester, UK.

In Creaturely Theology a wide range of first-rate contributors show that theological reflection on non-human animals and related issues are an important though hitherto neglected part of the agenda of Christian theology and related disciplines. The book offers a genuine interdisciplinary conversation between theologians, philosophers and scientists and will be a standard text on the theology of non-human animals for years to come. It is wide-ranging in terms of coverage and accessibly written. It is ideal as a key text in any postgraduate course engaging with the ethics, theology and philosophy of the non-human and the post-human. Ab Professor Celia Deane-Drummond is Professor of Theology and the Biological Sciences and Director of the Centre for Religion and Bioscience at the University of Chester.Dr David Clough is Senior Lecturer in Theology at the University of Chester.

There are two driving questions informing this book. The first is where does our moral life come from? It presupposes that considering morality broadly is inadequate. Instead, different aspects need to be teased apart. It is not sufficient to assume that different virtues are bolted onto a vicious animality, red in tooth and claw. Nature and culture have interlaced histories. By weaving in evolutionary theories and debates on the evolution of compassion, justice and wisdom, it showa a richer account of who we are as moral agents. The second driving question concerns our relationships with animals. Deane-Drummond argues for a complex community-based multispecies approach. Hence, rather than extending rights, a more radical approach is a holistic multispecies framework for moral action. This need not weaken individual responsibility. She intends not to develop a manual of practice, but rather to build towards an alternative philosophically informed approach to theological ethics, including animal ethics. The theological thread weaving through this account is wisdom. Wisdom has many different levels, and in the broadest sense is connected with the flow of life understood in its interconnectedness and sociality. It is profoundly theological and practical. In naming the project the evolution of wisdom Deane-Drummond makes a statement about where wisdom may have come from and its future orientation. But justice, compassion and conscience are not far behind, especially in so far as they are relevant to both individual decision-making and institutions.