Reviews Articles
What does love require of us?
David Brown’s new booklet What does love require of us? Quaker promptings towards love in action, another in the excellent series produced by the Kindlers, is a gem.
Words, faith and action: Testimony
‘The task of testimony is the task of speaking and doing God’s truth, of coming to the light and walking in the Light…’ - Rachel Muers in Testimony: Quakerism and Theological Ethics In her book, Testimony: Quakerism and Theological Ethics, Rachel Muers offers a fascinating and important exploration of...
Children of the Stone
‘Children of the Stone’ is a phrase used to describe the young Palestinians of the First Intifada (1987-93) who threw stones at the Israeli invaders of their country because they could think of no other way of defending their land after the invasion of 1987. Sandy Tolan, in his book of...
Words, faith and action: Our Life is Love
Comprehending how Quakers have experienced the spiritual journey can help everyone understand and cooperate more fully in the movement of the Spirit that wants to transform the human race now, as we face the challenges of our day. Marcelle Martin, Our Life is Love: The Quaker Spiritual Journey
Words, faith and action: The Anti-War
‘…this is a time for Friends to take their bearings anew with the peace testimony, to explore the meaning of anti-war as a noun and not only as an adjective. An adjective modifies a noun; it qualifies something that is. But what are we as Friends today?’ Douglas Gwyn, The...
Faith in practice
Over the last decade or so, David Rubinstein has written a number of booklets on Quaker topics. But booklets by their nature are short-term reads so he has collected and published them as a 300-page book with the title Essays in Quaker History. This will give them the permanence they...
People Power: Fighting for Peace
In the past hundred years the world has experienced conflict, warfare, worldwide destruction and violent death. It has also seen the growth of a mass mobilisation of people opposed to settling conflict by violent means – a rejection of war. The Imperial War Museum (IWM) in London was set up in 1917...
A bundle of insights
‘What is most personal is most universal,’ said Carl Rogers, the well-known psychologist. We can discover the truth of this in the new play by Lynn and Dave Morris, The Bundle. It follows one woman’s journey from a heartless home and abusive marriage in Chechnya through her escape to...
Beyond belief
Hugh Mackay has written a new book, Beyond Belief: How we find meaning, with or without religion, that contains much interesting information about the current state of religion in Australia: only about eight per cent of the population, for example, go to church each week; about twenty per cent go...
Out of the silence
There is a light that shines from Terry Waite’s new book Out of the Silence. It is the light of hope – a light that sustained him throughout his prolonged period of captivity between 1987 and 1992. He was in solitary confinement for four of these years, often chained, beaten and blindfolded,...