These Voices, Advices and Queries have yet to be approved by Baltimore Yearly Meeting. Your comments to the Faith and Practice Revision Committee would be appreciated.
7. Stewardship
Stewardship of Personal Resources: Queries
Do we regard our time, talents, energy, money,
material possessions and other resources as gifts from God, to be held
in trust and shared according to the Light we are given?
How do we express this conviction?
What are we doing as individuals and as a meeting to
use and thereby perfect our gifts?
How do we encourage others to use theirs?
Stewardship of Personal Resources: Advices
"To turn all we possess into the channel of universal
love becomes the business of our lives" - this, in the words of
John Woolman, is the meaning of Quaker stewardship.
This applies to all that we have and are, as individuals,
as members of groups, and as inhabitants of the earth. As
individuals, we are obliged to use our time, our various abilities, our
strength, our money, our material possessions, and other resources in
a spirit of love, aware that we hold these gifts in trust, and
are responsible to use them in the Light.
Investment of assets and consumption of resources
require our careful stewardship. As friends, we can direct our
investments toward socially desirable ends, avoiding speculation and
activities wasteful or harmful to others. We should seek to
participate constructively and without greed in the economic life of
the community and to refrain from undue accumulation of wealth
as well as irresponsible borrowing.
Stewardship of Personal Resources: Voices
To "stretch beyond one's compass" grasping at shadows,
and encumbering oneself with more than is needed for
simple, wholesome living, is at variance with all our best traditions.
Caroline Stephens, Quaker Strongholds
In reading those short last essays of John Woolman, which
are little treatises on economics, I have been struck by his
intuition that wrong roads were being taken by his contemporaries,
upon which we their descendants should find our direction
almost irreversibly fixed. Unrighteous use of other human
beings, unrighteous use of one's own powers, irresponsible use and
waste of land and other natural resources - he touches on them all. It
is evident that he was convinced that the spiritual life of men
and women is deeply conditioned by their economic life.
Mildred Binns Young, 1966
Of the interest of the public in our estates: Hardly any
thing is given us for our selves, but the public may claim a share
with us. But of all we call ours, we are most accountable to God
and the public for our estates: In this we are but stewards, and
to hoard up all to ourselves is great injustice as well as ingratitude.
John Woolman, 1720
As Christians, all we possess is the gift of God, and in
the distribution of it we act as his stewards; it becomes us
therefore to act agreeably to that divine wisdom which he graciously
gives to his servants.
John Woolman, 1793
To turn all we possess into the channel of universal
love becomes the business of our lives.
John Woolman
For some there is a danger that care for the future may lead
to undue anxiety and become a habit of saving for its own sake,
resulting in the withholding of what should be expended for
the needs of the family or devoted to the service of the Society.
The temptation to trust in riches comes in many forms, and can
only be withstood through faith in our Father and his providing care.
London Yearly Meeting, 1945
Stewardship of the Earth: Queries
How do we exercise our respect for the balance of nature?
How do we avoid misusing the land, air, and sea and to
use the world's resources with care and consideration for
future generations and with respect for all life?
In what other ways do we carry out our commitment
to stewardship?
Stewardship of the Earth: Advices
Friends have connected with the earth and all it holds as
part of their spiritual development. From George Fox
walking throughout England searching for his spiritual identity to
current times, we are aware that we are only stewards, not owners of
this land. We need to be constantly aware of how our actions
affect the rest of the world. By not using more than we need and
by sharing with others, we ensure that the earth will continue
to support everyone.
Stewardship of the Earth: Voices
Sustainability as a concept has recently acquired new
spiritual depth of meaning to include a resolve to live in harmony
with biological and physical systems, and to work to create social
systems that can enable us to do that. It includes a sense
of connectedness and an understanding of the utter
dependence of human society within the intricate web of life; a passion
for environmental justice and ecological ethics; an
understanding of dynamic natural balances and processes; and a recognition
of the limits to growth due to finite resources. Our concern
for Sustainability recognizes our responsibility to future
generations, to care for the Earth as our own home and the home of all
that dwell herein. We seek a relationship between human beings
and the Earth that is mutually enhancing.
Quaker Earthcare Witness, 1998
The produce of the earth is a gift from our gracious creator
to the inhabitants, and to impoverish the earth now to
support outward greatness appears to be an injury to the succeeding age.
John Woolman, 1772
As a Religious Society of Friends we see the stewardship
of God's creation as a major concern. The environmental crisis is
at root a spiritual and religious crisis; we are called to look again
at the real purpose of being on this earth, which is to till it and
keep it so as to reveal the glory of God for generations to come.
London Yearly Meeting, 1988
That the sweat and tedious labour of the farmer, early
and late, cold and hot, wet and dry, should be converted into
the pleasure of a small number of men _ that continued severity
should be laid on nineteen parts of the land to feed the inordinate
lusts and delicate appetites of the twentieth, is so far from the will
of the great Governor of the world, [it] is wretched and blasphemous.
William Penn, 1669
These Voices, Advices and Queries have yet to be approved by Baltimore Yearly Meeting. Your comments to the Faith and Practice Revision Committee would be appreciated.
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