Abstract

Komashin connects England’s Gerrard Winstanley and Japan’s Inazo Nitobe as fellow converts to Quakerism from their respective Christian indigenous movements, the Diggers and the Sapporo Band. She analyzes the roles of mystical experience, agricultural ecology, and economic justice in their religious thought by presenting evidence from Winstanley’s tracts, Nitobe’s essays and newspaper articles, and the Sapporo Band’s letters and journals that demonstrates their ecospirituality and theologically-motivated theory of equitable economics. Komashin also explores Winstanley’s relation to George Fox and his followers and the contours of Nitobe’s colonialism. Throughout the chapter, she explains how Winstanley and Nitobe contribute to the ethnographic and historical quilt of the Society of Friends through their advocacy for ecotheology, environmentalism, agroecology, and sustainability.