Quaker Thoughts on Climate Change and Spirituality

Care for the Planet

At our Quaker Summer Gathering 2020/21 Murray Short presented a session on his thoughts about the underlying beliefs which give us a mental structure for understanding and responding to the world around us. He suggested that we need to review the old narrative behind our present relationship to the planet and the devine. Rather than persist with the dualistic perspective (in which there are conceived to be two substances to reality: the divine/spirit/soul on the one hand and nature/earth/things on the other), he suggests that monism, the traditional view of most indigenous societies, may encourage taking greater care of the panet.  By popular request his thesis was prepared in booklet form and issued as a supplement to the ANZ Friends Newsletter in July 2021.

Read here: Care for the Planet:  Toward a Quaker Story

Quaker Call to Action

In 2020, New Zealand Quakers spent lockdown discerning how we would like the world to look post Covid. Could the changes necessitated by Covid lockdown translate to a new way of relating to the world and organising our society. The result was A Call to Action which was endorsed by Yearly meeting and promulgated as far as we could. 

Here is a link to the Yearly Meeting Public Statement Quaker Call for Action.

Friends' Thoughts on Climate Change and Spirituality

Some years ago, an open question was posed to Quakers in New Zealand: "Describe your spiritual responses to climate change." 

Here is a thought provoking collation of 15 Friends' thoughts on Climate Change and Spirituality from; Albie Burgers, Jimmy Green, Marvin Hubbard, Helen Kingston, Rick Kooperberg, Don Mead, Viola Palmer, Anne Potaka, Murray Short, Gray Southon, Jack Woodward, Bobbie Woodward, Richard Milne, Mary Rose and Liz Remeerswaal.

Quaker Climate Emergency Correspondent pages

Click here to browse pages with various articles, resources and links to other websites, magazines on sustainability and related issues. 

Beacons for Hope

Friends ethics and spirituality in times of climate change by Marvin Hubbard. Click here to view.