This book explores the religious language of Nonconformity used in ethical debates about animals. It uncovers a rich stream of innovative discourse from the Puritans of the seventeenth century, through the Clapham Sect and Evangelical Revival, to the nineteenth century debates about vivisection. This discourse contributed to law reform and the foundation of the RSPCA, and continues to flavour the way we talk about animal welfare and animal rights today. Shaped by the "nonconformist conscience", it has been largely overlooked. The more common perception is that Christian "dominion" authorises the human exploitation of animals, while Enlightenment humanism and Darwinian thought are seen as drawing humans and animals together in one "family". This book challenges that perception, and proposes an alternative perspective. Through exploring the shaping of animal advocacy discourses by Biblical themes of creation, fall and restoration, this book reveals the continuing importance of the nonconformist conscience as a source to enrich animal ethics today. It will appeal to the animal studies community, theologians and early modern historians.

This book explores the religious language of Nonconformity used in ethical debates about animals. It uncovers a rich stream of innovative discourse from the Puritans of the seventeenth century, through the Clapham Sect and Evangelical Revival, to the nineteenth century debates about vivisection. This discourse contributed to law reform and the foundation of the RSPCA, and continues to flavour the way we talk about animal welfare and animal rights today. Shaped by the "nonconformist conscience", it has been largely overlooked. The more common perception is that Christian "dominion" authorises the human exploitation of animals, while Enlightenment humanism and Darwinian thought are seen as drawing humans and animals together in one "family". This book challenges that perception, and proposes an alternative perspective. Through exploring the shaping of animal advocacy discourses by Biblical themes of creation, fall and restoration, this book reveals the continuing importance of the nonconformist conscience as a source to enrich animal ethics today. It will appeal to the animal studies community, theologians and early modern historians.

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III Special session of Parliament?General Botha's great speech ?On honour and dishonour?Hertzog's extraordinary attitude ? General Smuts' smashing reply ? Result of the voting. The scene next shifts to Capetown, where the special session of Parliament opened on September 9. It was memorable from the fact that it was a special war session, that it marked the first public appearance in South Africa of Lord Buxton (who had succeeded Lord Gladstone as Governor-General), and that the Premier, General Botha, made a speech which, considering all the circumstances of the case, is as remarkable as anything the war has produced in the shape of support to the British cause. Consider, twelve years previously this same General Botha was in arms against the British, and now the duty and the responsibility were cast upon him of declaring the readiness of himself and his compatriots to take up arms on behalf of their former foes. General Botha knew better than most that such an attitude on the part of the Government would not be received with enthusiasm by a section of the South African Dutch, and he also must have been aware that it would meet with active opposition in certain quarters. Yet he never flinched from the path he and his colleagues in the Cabinet evidently had mapped out for themselves from the first. His speech is such a manly epitome of the sentiments of the loyal section of his followers, and had such momentous consequences in bringing the Dutch to the crucial parting of the ways, that it must be given in full: " As Prime Minister, he moved: ' This House, duly recognizing the obligation of the Union as a portion of the British Empire, respectfully requests His Excellency the Governor-General to convey a humble address to His Majesty the King, assuring him of its l...

When did you last encounter a myth? Maybe watching a movie, touring a museum or browsing the sci-fi section of your local bookstore? To contemporary men and women, myths seem mere relics of a premodern era--legendary stories of capricious gods, heroic deeds and lost cities. The physical and social anxieties that gave rise to myths have been dealt with more productively in our century by science, government and art. Right? "Not at all," says Philip Sampson. In 6 Modern Myths he shows that all societies, even sophisticated and skeptical societies like ours, nurture myths that distort both science and history to further cultural goals. Such myths are important guides to a society's understanding of itself. How often have you heard the story, for example, of plucky Galileo, armed merely with a telescope and reason, doing battle with a superstitious church only to be condemned as a heretic and harshly imprisoned? Even though most of the "facts" commonly assumed to be true about this story are just not so, the romanticized myth of Galileo boldly marches forward. Sampson dispels this myth and five others--that the rise of Christianity led to ecological crisis, that missionaries have oppressed native peoples, that Darwin's evolutionary ideas were embraced by scientists but vilified by religious leaders, that the church was responsible for persecution of witches, and that Christianity teaches the repression of bodily pleasures--all woven nearly inextricably into the fabric of Christianity and Western civilization. To tease apart historical fact from cultural fiction Sampson tells different stories, rich in historical detail, fascinating characters and surprising twists.6 Modern Myths offers you a historical tapestry that unsettles conventional wisdom and provides an enlightening look at the complexities of truth.