Communicating on climate change—don’t forget the heart

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One Response to “Communicating on climate change—don’t forget the heart”

  1. Paul Klinkman says:

    Among Friends around 1740 were two antislavery advocates, John Woolman and Anthony Benezet. Both wanted to move Friends’ hearts.

    Benezet used to stand outside meetinghouses on First Day and, as people came out, he had a bladder of pigs blood up his sleeve. He’d dump the bladder onto his hands and talk about the blood being on Friends’ hands.

    Woolman had bad dreams about slavery, and he eventually found that he couldn’t write a bill of sale for a slave. He could have stopped there and he would have been a storekeeper for all of his life, but he changed his trade so that he could spend the rest of his life traveling and worshiping with Friends with a concern for shunning slavery. The Truth is true for everyone equally, and Truth is spread through love and through patient suffering. In this way, hearers become equally passionate advocates for the same Truth.

    In the end, Woolman and his prayerful mission was recognized as succeeding. The few last American Friends who wouldn’t get out of the slavery business were disowned. Then people of other denominations started to take up the cry. Numbers of Friends were moved to assist in the Underground Railroad. In 1865 slavery was made unconstitutional.

    Numbers of Friends are already abhorred of catastrophic climate change. The early train on this movement has already left the station and the second train is boarding now. At this point we’re looking for more effective tactical positions toward the rapid spread of climate change abolitionism. You’re right to note the importance of moving hearts.