Book review: The Gospel in the Anthropocene: Letters from a Quaker Naturalist by Brian Drayton

Book review: The Gospel in the Anthropocene: Letters from a Quaker Naturalist

by Brian Drayton, 2026. Published by Inner Light Books, Newberg, OR 97132

Book review by Ruah Swennerfelt

Whether you are Christian or not, and whether you are biblically centered or not, I highly recommend Brian’s beautiful book because you will learn and grow from reading it. But don’t rush through it. Savor it, dip into it, and feel refreshed.

It is a collection of letters to an unknown person about the relevance of the Gospel in a new era of Earth’s history—the Anthropocene—where natural processes are increasingly dominated by human activities, technologies, perspectives, and values. Each letter is followed by meditations that allow the reader to settle into the teachings from the letters. It’s beautifully written and illustrated by Brian’s wife, Darcy Drayton. 

He writes:

I am speaking as a Christian to other Christians, not to make barriers against those of other faiths or none, but to help individual Christians see that the challenges of the Anthropocene require us to live up to the gospel of love we profess to follow.

I’ve known Brian for many years and was drawn to him partly because of his wisdom, but most of all because of his deep relationship with the land that he and Darcy homesteaded. So I’m not surprised that his writings about the natural world we live in are filled with so many crises. Each letter is a teaching that is gentle, honest, and provocative. While reading these letters each morning, I was transported to a deeper place where I felt strong bonds to the whole living world.

The book has three parts—“The Worshipped and the Worshipper,” “Spiritual Formation, “Reverence and Gospel Order,” and “The Lamb’s War—Worship, Praxis, and Proclamation for a Time of Climate Crisis.” As examples, the meditation titles include: “The Great, Slow Gestures of Trees,” “Lady Slippers’ Orchid,” and “Raven Plays on the Wind.” They reflect Brian’s understanding and deep reverence for the natural world, not as something “out there” but as something within and kindred.

With training in plant conservation biology, Brian has concentrated his research on science pedagogy, climate-change education, and learning and discourse in educational communities of practice. He is a member of Wellesley Monthly Meeting, and a recorded minister in New England Yearly Meeting.