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As belief in God is such a personal thing, it seemed only fair to give my pupils, who are from eleven to fourteen years of age, a chance to express their feelings, thoughts and ideas on this subject through a survey. Their anonymous responses varied from just a few lines to several pages. There were a few questions that many, clearly, really wanted to explore.
Those of us who were lucky enough to be at Yearly Meeting Gathering were rightly and repeatedly challenged to look at ourselves and our lack of diversity and its causes, and to become a more welcoming and inclusive Society – not only numerically, but also in terms of responsibility and influence in our structures.
At the moment we are overwhelmingly white and middle-aged-to-old. In our Local Meetings we are also predominantly female, and this was not mentioned at Yearly Meeting Gathering. By and large, we also come largely from the white middle classes and most (though not all) of us are ‘comfortably off’, or in global terms rich, as the Yearly Meeting Epistle has it.
When I started writing this piece, the BBC was under fire again for giving Nigel Lawson, the former chancellor of the exchequer, peak airtime on the Today programme, no less, to peddle a whole bunch of falsehoods about climate change. It matters not that the following day (at 6.50am, not 8.15 am) they gave an expert the chance to debunk them, nor indeed that within a week the body he chairs, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), admitted at least one claim he made was false; nor even that the GWPF has fewer members than my little climate care charity in Shropshire. As we all know, it’s the big lie, told big, that embeds itself in the public consciousness.
Pierre-Simon Laplace, an influential French mathematician, physicist and astronomer, when asked by Napoleon why he had not mentioned the author of the universe in his book about the system of the world, replied: ‘I had no need of that hypothesis.’
Manchester and Warrington Friends have joyfully played a part in the annual Manchester Pride events for the last ten years. In that time Friends have walked with banners in the Pride parades, danced at the Quaker ceilidhs, prayed in outdoor Meetings for Worship, listened deeply and shared information at the Quaker stalls. We have also organised and run a Pride Quaker Quest series and a conference celebrating fifty years of Quaker concern for gay equality, and published two books on Quaker involvement in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues.
Between twenty and twenty-five Friends took part in Manchester’s annual Pride parade on Saturday 26 August.
Friends from Manchester and Warrington were joined by others from York, Cheshire, London and the Isle of Man.
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