Members of the Prophetic Climate Working Group have discerned nine principles that we believe to be essential to a faith-driven prophetic struggle to transform empire into God’s vision of society and creation. First generation Friends used the term “The Lamb’s War” to refer to how they envisioned their own movements struggle with the established powers of their day.

1 – Love

  • This is the first motion
  • All great faith traditions have been based on love
  • If we challenge others we tender it with compassion and tenderness

2 – Faithfulness (not effectiveness)

  • Not outrunning one’s guide – patience, resisting pull towards urgency
  • Response to leading / call from God – dependence on God
  • Willingness – submission to God’s guidance. Not my will but thine be done
  • This is how you discover specific voice & action

3 – Truth

  • Speaking and living prophetic truth – the heart of the matter
  • Speaking with spiritual authority
  • Receiving truth from God and communicating it to others – willingness to be a vessel

4 – Integrity

  • Living manifestations of God’s kingdom
  • Being patterns – clear distinction from the values and lifestyle of empire
  • Being a sign – living into the Kingdom

5 – Evil

  • Recognizing the challenge of evil (“powers and principalities”) – and what we’re up against
  • How important this is – how serious – nature of the “opponent” (the structure of the destructive system)
  • It’s not about individual bad actors but about destructive relationships baked into systems

6 – Resistance

  • Stepping outside of the business as usual of empire – non-participation (e.g. refusing tithes, blocking coal trains)
  • Interrupting places of violence/destruction, active disruption
  • Standing with those at risk – putting your body in the way

7 – Meekness

  • Humility
  • Nonviolence
  • Eschewing conquest, power over
  • Our approach is invitational rather than coercive

8 – Suffering

  • Submission to / acceptance of suffering (“It murmurs not at oppression”)
  • Open disobedience. Not trying to avoid persecution by secret resistance or technical legal defenses
  • Taking up the cross and following Christ

9 – Hope

  • Hopes to endure its own in the end, outlasting cruelty

The Prophetic Climate Action Working Group was a group of eight members of New England Yearly Meeting attempting to discern the shape of radical faith-rooted nonviolent struggle against climate change from 2016-18. The group at the point this was written included Brian Drayton, Jay O’Hara, Louis Cox, Meg Klepack, Minga Claggett Borne, Peter Blood, and Wendy Schlotterbeck.