John Todd Ferrier


John Todd Ferrier was the founder of the Order of the Cross, an informal spiritual fellowship fostering compassion towards creatures. He was an advocate of vegetarianism from a Christian point of view.

History

Ferrier was born in Greenock, Scotland. Although biographical details are sparse, in 1947, E. Mary Gordon Kemmis wrote a biography and her memoirs of Ferrier: Shepherd of Souls: Some Impressions of the Life and Ministry of John Todd Ferrier. For some years he was a minister in the Congregational Church in Macclesfield, England. However, he became increasingly dissatisfied with the traditional Christian attitude toward animals. For this and other reasons he left the church, and, via the Order of the Golden Age, in 1904 founded the Order of the Cross.
In this informal spiritual communion, the members are both vegetarian or vegan and pacifist. He often spoke in defence of 'the creatures', and stated that a true Christian should be vegetarian. In his writings he emphasised the underlying unity of all religious aspirations and suggested that many traditional Christian teachings are allegorical and universal in nature.
Ferrier authored a book, Concerning Human Carnivorism. It was reprinted as On Behalf of the Creatures in 1968. Ferrier argued that Jesus was a vegetarian who espoused Essene-like asceticism.

Selected bibliography