The Friends of God


Bill Bingham asks: What does Love require of thee?

Etching of Michael Servetus by Christian Fritzsch in 1600s. | Photo: WIkimedia Commons.

The Friends of God were a lay organisation that arose in Germany in the fourteenth century. Martin of Mayence once observed that ‘the Friends’ were ‘more in harmony with the ways of Jesus than any of the Church authorities’. They were vigorously denounced by the Inquisition in 1390 – a familiar experience for those who choose to ‘live adventurously in the world’.

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