Dominion by Matthew Scully

I’m addicted to reading. Which means when I pick up a book, I selfishly insist the rest of the world freeze into a stationary backdrop so I can get lost in my new find.  I come up for air a day or two later, after pouring through it cover to cover.

But with some books, I have to force a slower pace. Because something going on in the book is new or significant or has the potential to change me if I let it.

Awareness* by Anthony deMello and Thought Matters* by Mary Margaret Funk are definitely in this category for me. And to a lesser degree, so is Making Room* by Christine Pohl and maybe a dozen or so others that I can’t rattle off as easily.

I am always on the hunt for that next good read that challenges something inside me. And 150 pages or so into it, I am wondering if Dominion* by Matthew Scully, which was passed onto me by my good friend, Erik, might end up being that next important find.

Scully is a former speech-writer for George W., which might make him an unexpected candidate for pushing the more usually left-wing animal rights agenda. But the book doesn’t present a political platform, as much as it explores the moral dimensions surrounding the way society views animals.

“Dominion,” for example, is a word used multiples times in the Old Testament (depending on translation). It is most simply translated “to rule” and usually referred to a leader’s actions toward a subordinate. What doesn’t always come across in our English translation, though, is that the word “dominion” included the expectation that a master extend benevolence toward his subjects.

Want to read more? Continue with this blog series about Dominion here.