Reviews Articles
Not in God’s name
While former chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks does not give answers as to how the violence and atrocities being perpetrated by Islamic State might actually be stopped, he does suggest how they arise, how wrong are the reasons given by the perpetrators and how, when all their bloodletting is done, they...
Women of courage
On the door of one of the prison cells in the former Inquisitor’s Palace in Birgu, Malta, there is an unexpected notice. The first lines read: Sarah Cheevers, 50 years of age British Quaker from Wiltshire, wife of Henry Katherine Evans, 40 years of age British Quaker from Somerset, wife of...
Voices of Kagisong
There is something totally serene about the colour photo of Kagisong on the cover of Voices of Kagisong: History of a Refugee Programme in Botswana. There are some trees coming into fresh spring leaf; sundry dogs; a few 200-litre oil drums to remind us of the transience of piped water...
While it is yet day
In an afterword to While it is yet Day: The story of Elizabeth Fry Averil Douglas Opperman, an Irish journalist brought up in a Quaker family in Dublin, sets out her hopes for her version of the life of Elizabeth Fry. She wishes to keep the story ‘light’ in order...
Inequality: What can be done?
Professor Anthony Atkinson is the author of a hefty new volume called Inequality: What can be done? The book is well known to many politicians and many more economists throughout Europe and America. I suspect that it is already an irritant to a certain class of politician. It is interesting...
With a tender hand
On the cover, it is subtitled ‘a resource book for eldership and oversight’. In her Epilogue, the author calls it ‘a toolkit for discernment’. I would go further than both. I have read Zélie Gross’s With a tender hand three times now, twice from cover to cover, once...
Being Christian
Rowan Williams, in his book Being Christian, has some thought processes and ways of articulating his religion that are alien to someone with my scientific background. I found it, however, a fascinating and sometimes amusing work that contains a clever juggling with ideas. In my teens I was a born-again...
Love matters
Now that he has retired from life as a professional economist, David Cadman wants to talk to us about the power of Love. In his book, Love Matters, he tells us ‘in Earth days I am old. And I love according to my age – foolishly, deeply and without condition’. All...
A Sustainable Life
A year or so ago I was chatting with a Friend about our Quaker engagement with sustainability. He said: ‘it’s part of our DNA now.’ And it is. It has long been the focus of conversations in Local Meetings about what it means to ‘let your life speak’. It...
Fields of Blood
There is much in Karen Armstrong’s new book Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence that is of importance to Quakers. The author says that she embarked upon writing it in order to counteract the common misconception that wars and large-scale violence are caused by religion. In...