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At Meeting for Worship recently a Friend read from Romans 7 on sin and it got me thinking about the words ‘forgive us our trespasses’… and then ‘thy kingdom come’. The kingdom that Jesus lived in was ruled from Rome by a polytheistic state. His aspiration was a kingdom ruled by God, as he conceived God, and it seems unlikely that the world of his ambition stretched much beyond the lands around him. When the prayer seeks ‘Thy kingdom come’ it seeks a world whose religious dispensation is that of Jesus.
The Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham, where birdsong overpowers the sound of traffic from the nearby main road, was again the setting for the annual conference of the Quaker Universalist Group. The theme chosen for the gathering, held between 5-7 May, was ‘Exploring the Mystery of Mysticism’ and this was looked at from the perspective of different faith traditions.
Despite the limited space available in the Thirsk Quaker Meeting House, we have a long tradition of sponsoring debates before national elections. These used to be held in The Golden Fleece hotel but in 2015, as part of a Churches Together initiative, we used St Oswald’s parish church. This year I was asked to chair the event.
I am sure that I am not alone in feeling uneasy at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre’s decision to drop the word ‘Quaker’ from its new logo. It has overtones of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, where the wording of the ‘seven commandments’ is subtly changed to accommodate Napoleon and his comrades’ subversion of the values of the founders of the farm’s take-over. Incrementally, since Woodbrooke College became the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, and now just Woodbrooke, its connection to George Cadbury’s great idea has become ever more tenuous.
In the article last week I outlined the problem: that we are followers of early Friends, who heard the voice of God, opened their hearts to it, accepted it and followed it; yet we live in a secular and scientific age where the ‘voice of God’ is cited by criminals, terrorists, and people we deem in need of psychiatric treatment. Despite the difficulties, we know that the writings of early Friends contain essential truths. But we also know that these truths must, in our age, be either expressed in other ways or be approached from a different angle.
My heart was gladdened when I read an article in the Guardian recently written jointly by Nicky Morgan (Conservative), Lucy Powell (Labour) and Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat) calling for an end to grammar schools. I had been dismayed to hear of Theresa May’s call for more grammar schools. It was refreshing to find three senior politicians setting out a cross-party case for more equality in education.
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