Letters - 19 July 2024
From going green to Meeting for Sufferings
Going Green
There is a bond of trust between readers and contributors to the Friend. We have a testimony to the truth, indeed our very name reflects our claim to be Friends of the Truth. So we should be able to trust contributors to be factually accurate and not lay the burden of fact checking on the editors.
In a recent issue (13 June) there was an article ‘Going Green: Abigail Maxwell finds a party’. In the last paragraph Abigail claims ‘The Green Party was founded by Quakers’. This surprised me as I have been a Quaker attender and an enthusiastic Ecology Party supporter since the mid-1970s, but I recall no such confluence of these two streams. I spent the day searching for evidence of this without success.
However, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence so I posted queries online asking if Friends could confirm Abigail’s assertion. No Friends who responded and who were active at that time recall any such connection.
One other Friend and I have both commented on the Friend online on the original article questioning Abigail’s assertion. Comments have been silent for three weeks and no one has provided evidence of her assertion.
The internet is fertile ground for misinformation, I hope Friends will not add to it but stay faithful to our testimony when claiming to state facts.
Ol Rappaport
Editor’s note: The privilege of fact-checking does lie with the editors, and we apologise for letting this one pass us by. The origin of the error is likely an innocent mix-up between the Green Party and Greenpeace, which was co-founded by Friends Dorothy and Irving Stowe.
British Quakerism
I am unhappy about the forthcoming conference on the future of British Quakerism. This is an existential issue which should be discussed and decided by Yearly Meeting in session following the sort of consultation that was done prior to publication of Quaker faith & practice.
We have a tradition of not lobbying but this will be a lobby par excellence. Although they do not have the right formally to decide the issue, they will be very effective in influencing the outcome.
To add insult to injury, the fees for attending are high. But it is clear that Woodbrooke is filling a gap left by Quaker Life Central Committee, which should have been leading such a discussion. Shame on it!
Stephen Petter
Meeting for Sufferings
There seems to be a growing number of members not happy about the proposed changes.
Can the Friend devote a special issue almost completely on this important subject – commissioning/inviting articles, telling of how other Yearly Meetings develop policies and so on?
Eric Walker
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