Letters - 23 August 2013
From dilemmas to Gatesbield
Dilemma
The first four letters (2 August) gave Friends a dilemma. Their concerns were climate change, peace, population and God. It is no surprise that some religions ignore, or even oppose, a lower population through birth control and education – they would have less God-worshipping minds. Research has shown that more mammals (including humans) in a space increases conflict – or reduces peace. There are an increasing number of protests that highlight the competition for scarcer resources (for example, fishing quotas, rubbish and drilling at Balcombe).
Can God give us the wisdom to see the biological reality of too many dominant living creatures of the species Homo sapiens on planet earth?
Bob Booth
Revision of Quaker faith & practice
I fear that Carole Hamby (9 August) is misinformed about the process of revision.
I was a member of the Church Government Revision Committee from 1961-67 and, from that experience, can confirm that if a text from the past is felt to be spiritually relevant to present day Friends, despite its wording, it has to be quoted accurately. It cannot be tampered with – in case this changes the meaning that its author intended. We must each try to discern the meaning behind, sometimes outmoded, words that have been spoken or written by Friends of deep spirituality.
Quaker faith & practice is full of gems from the past and there is no way that any Revision Committee will be carrying out wholesale deletions on the basis that somebody somewhere might be offended. The same, of course, applies to newer texts that have yet to find their way into our book of discipline. My observation is that Quaker faith & practice is deeply loved by the Society as a whole and I have every faith that any Revision Committee will, in the end, produce a document that will be equally valued by us all. But we will, as ever, need to search for the meaning behind words that may sometimes be difficult for us.
Metford Robson
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