Earthcare, Literally Speaking
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| George Fox By Violet Oakley, Pennsylvania State Capitol, 1906 |
Historical Note: George Fox, referenced below, was one of the founders of the Religious Society of Friends during the 17th century; his journals are seminal to Quaker thought and practice. The 17th century was a time somewhat analogous to our own. Global climate disruption in the form of the Little Ice Age caused extreme weather events, floods, droughts and failed harvests; it was a time of religious and civil wars, sectarian violence, empires jockeying for position, extreme income inequality, a time of polluted cities, impoverished rural areas, and vast human migrations.
Remarkably, and counterintuitively, in Europe one result of this tumult was the formation of several “peace” churches. In England the Religious Society of Friends managed to get in trouble with both the Church of England and the Puritans for their refusal to fight in wars; their belief in equality (including women preachers), freedom of worship and continuing revelation; their lack of paid clergy; and their insistence that the Bible was not the inerrant word of God, but was “written by Man.”
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