ABSTRACT
At first sight, Sullivan has backed a winner. What better than conservative theology and who better than conservative churches to respond to the rallying call for human supe riority over animals-even and especially if this “superiority” involves inflicting pain and suffering? Christian theology has, it must be admitted, served long and well the oppressors of slaves, women and animals. Only 131 years ago, William Henry Holcombe wrote confi dently of slavery as the “Christianization of the dark races.” It took 1900 years for theolo gians to question seriously the morality of slavery, and even longer the oppression of women. Keith Thomas reminds us that over the centuries theologians debated “half frivo lously, half seriously, whether or not the female sex had souls, a discussion which closely paralleled the debate about animals.” Apparently the Quaker George Fox encountered some who thought women had “no souls, no more than a goose.”
