Good to see Alastair.

To be fair, James Nayler was far from self-satisfied, and suffered greatly at the hands of coercive power.

Ah, OK, I get your point. Nayler would have argued that whether or not a person was "in Christ" would be revealed by the way they lived their lives (the fruits) and this would preclude any abuse, coercion, oppression or violence. We may have to agree to disagree on this.

Hi Laurie, is this a response to my post? I'm not sure I can see the connection.

Thanks Tina! I am hoping to write a longer and more affordable book on Nayler in the next couple of years. The "ecological theology" material first appeared in an Friends Quarterly article (Issue 1, 2020).

I suppose it depends on the nature of the crisis. Some crises just make life more difficult for the poorest and least powerful, some break up established unjust structures and create space for new opportunities to emerge.

Yes, it also highlights the limitations of short passages shared as memes, without the wider context of the writing they are drawn from.

Yes, I can see the significance of the issue you are flagging up. But, if we view Jesus as God Incarnate, then as Paul states he “did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave” (Phil. 2:6-11).