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Friends United Meeting |
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June 1999
Why I Think FUM Should Speak on Care of Creation
By Gene Hillman
About a year ago the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA addressed a letter to President Clinton urging ratification of the Kyoto Protocols on Global Warming. Friends United Meeting, as a member denomination, was asked to support it by signing, and as the FUM member of the NCCC's EcoJustice Working Group, I inquired whether the General Board could consider endorsing it. I was told that since the Triennial Sessions had never minuted concern in this area, the General Board did not have the authority to approve a statement.
Although the original impetus was a concern about global warming, the scope of this minute goes far beyond that one issue. It addresses the whole web of relationships in the creation, relationships governed by the dual covenants made by God with mankind and with the creation. (The Noahic covenant, found in Gen. 9:8-16, is cited in the minute.) The minute calls on us to examine our hearts and consider what part we play in violence against the creation.
Scripture reflects the reality that God's Shalom is to encompass all the creation. To exploit and do violence to any part of it is a falling out of the covenant established after the flood with Noah and his descendants, and the whole creation. The covenant made on Sinai also included the creation, making the Sabbath binding for the domestic animals, as well as the fields (in a seven year cycle: Lev. 25). The renewed covenant foreseen by the prophets (e.g., Isaiah's vision of the peaceable kingdom depicted in a well known series of paintings by the Quaker artist Edward Hicks) was one of shalom for the whole creation. The new covenant, particularly in Paul (Rom 8:18ff cited in the minute but also Col. 1:15-20 and II Cor. 5:17-20) speaks of a "new creation."
It is the new creation George Fox spoke of in 1647 when he marveled, "All things were new, and all the creation gave another smell...." He spoke of the wastefulness and the conspicuous consumption of his day as "devouring the creatures." John Woolman asked, "May we look upon the treasures, the furniture of our houses, and our garments, and try whether the seeds of war have nourishment in these our possessions." Knowing his concern for the suffering of our fellow creatures (he wouldn't ride a stage coach because of how the horses were treated) I think we can apply this query to our relationship to nature as well as to war. This is not a new testimony but has been implicit in our Christian testimony of peace (harmony), simplicity, justice and integrity all along.
The minute on care of creation was approved for forwarding to Triennial sessions by the General Board of Friends United Meeting, and by Representative Meeting of my own Baltimore Yearly Meeting. This was on the assumption that full consideration would be given in Williamsburg this summer. I am a little disappointed at the ease with which it was approved. A minute, at one level, should cause Friends to hold in the Light that concern that is being raised that we may be guided to the Truth, and if we are honest with ourselves it should create some discomfort.
Gene Hillman is a member of Nottingham Friends in Oxford, Pennsylvania, and representative to the FUM general board from Baltimore Yearly Meeting.
The Proposed Minute on Care of Creation
George Fox "lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars and [he] knew from whence all wars did rise, from the lust, according to James's doctrine." (Journal 1651) It is the same lust (cravings, desires, self-centeredness) that causes violence in war, and which causes us to do violence to God's creation. The "life and power that takes away the occasion of all wars" also takes away the occasion for violence against the creation.
The concern for the care of God's creation has long been implicit in our Christian testimony. We recognize that our historic peace testimony is a testimony to living in harmony with the world in a covenant among God, humanity, and the creation (Genesis 9:8-13), a covenant the renewal of which was foreseen by the prophets as in Isaiah's vision of the peaceable kingdom (11:1-9), by Paul (e.g., Romans 8:18-23), and in the great commission when the risen Christ told the eleven "Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation." (Mark 16:15 NRSV, the AV has all creatures) Implicit in our testimony on simplicity is the understanding that we will not take more than we need, particularly (and here we move into the testimony on justice) if it means depriving others, including future generations, of their basic needs.
We call upon the nations of the world, and in particular our own governments to ratify and implement the Kyoto protocols on global warming, and otherwise enact laws and reach agreements which will protect the creation from the effects of human exploitation, greed, and carelessness. We call upon Friends to examine their own lives to see if their own patterns of consumption reflect self-centeredness and greed rather than a concern for living harmoniously in the creation, that we might witness to the world that harmony.
Approved by FUM General Board, February 14, 1999, for consideration by the 1999 Triennial Sessions
Copyright (c) 1999 Friends United Meeting