Reviews Articles
The Living Fountain: Remembrances of Quaker Christianity, by Benjamin Wood
Just look at these chapter headings: ‘The Problem of “Thin” Quakerism’, ‘The Romantic Quakerism of Rufus Jones’, ‘The Unquiet Presence of God’, ‘Recovering the Slow Jesus’, ‘Heaven: Walking the Road with Anne Conway’ – goodness! Who’s Anne Conway? I couldn’t wait, and frankly, now I can’t cope. I...
And This Shall Be My Dancing Day, by Jennifer Kavanagh
Jennifer Kavanagh’s publications on various aspects of Quaker spirituality will be well known to readers of the Friend. Her latest book is a novel, but it is nevertheless deeply imbued with Quaker sensibility – without ever explicitly mentioning Quakerism. It is an unusual, kind and uplifting book. It manages to...
Exploring Isaac Penington: Seventeenth-century Quaker mystic, teacher and activist, by Ruth Tod
Isaac Penington was one of Quakerism’s earliest, most articulate spokespeople, working deeply with images of the Inner Light and the seed. The son of a prominent Puritan, Penington spent his early adulthood carousing with the smart metropolitan set. Yet these fast times and high living didn’t lead to...
Friendless Childhoods Explain War, by Bob Johnson
Our friend Bob Johnson has produced something here that delights our sensitivities, and challenges our assumptions about international affairs. We expect Bob to be making connections, and we’ve certainly got that here. Reading though this short book made me stop, and stare, and think. In the end it made...
The Christian Quaker: George Keith and the Keithian Controversy, by Madeleine Ward
George Keith was an important early Quaker, but, as Madeleine Ward reminds us in this book, this fascinating Scot is little-known among modern Friends. Little-known and even worse understood: Ward implies that scholars have tended to get him wrong.
Earth’s Voices: Messages for our times from nature’s guardians, by Laura Newbury
As an art student, Laura Newbury tried to capture the beauty of nature around the River Nairn, in northern Scotland. Thirty years or so later she returned to the moors and began to converse with the ‘nature guardian’ of the area. She calls this guardian a deva: Immortelle, an angel...
Brought to book: Kate Macdonald on Elfrida Vipont and The Lark on the Wing
In the 1970s, when I was reading my way through Aberdeen Children’s Library, I discovered an old novel from the late 1940s. It was about a girl who decides she wants to be a singer, and all the characters wete Quakers. I had never heard of Quakers, but I...
Neoliberal Religion: Faith and power in the twenty-first century, by Mathew Guest
As a Quaker pacifist, I’ve been shocked by the militarism of some Anglican spaces and ceremonies. Here in Durham, one sometimes encounters solemn processions inside the cathedral, led not by a bishop with a crook, but by a man carrying a large sword, just like Penny Mordaunt in the...
Cherubims: Poems, by Edward Clarke
If you’ve ever sighed with relief when the children leave Meeting and go their own fidgety, smirking way, then shame on us all. Take a look at what we’re missing. Edward Clarke is happy running the Children’s Meeting, even when the kids are having tantrums, or interrupting...
Double exposure: Jonathan Doering starts a conversation about race
Covid lockdown was a strange time for everyone, but my family and I were lucky. My wife and I had jobs that were manageable from home, our son was well-provided with schoolwork, and we were living in a beautiful part of South Yorkshire. Our living-room window looked out over the...