Reviews Articles
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins is not at all the misanthrope, thinking poisonous thoughts about humanity, which some people suppose. On the contrary; he loved his parents, his boyhood in Africa, Oxford, science, poetry, music and many of his colleagues. He had fond parents. His father, a botanist who had studied at...
Two worlds or one?
A play about the experiences of wounded soldiers, in their own words, is currently touring. The Two Worlds of Charlie F won an Amnesty Freedom of Expression award. A documentary about it was shown on BBC1. The drama is based on interviews with thirty-two wounded veterans, mostly from Afghanistan....
The historical Jesus
I am part of a small Quaker group using the ‘Friendly Bible Study’ method to study Mark’s gospel. Often we come across problems relating to our lack of knowledge of the context in which Bible stories are set; for example, why was Jesus visiting people who herded pigs? I...
Money for everyone
A citizen’s income (CI) is an unconditional, non-withdrawable income paid by the state to every individual as a right of citizenship in addition to other forms of income. Money for Everyone: Why we need a citizen’s income by Malcolm Torry demonstrates how such a policy can solve many...
The Forty Rules of Love
The Forty Rules of Love is a fictionalised account of the encounter in the year 1244 between the Dervish, Shams of Tabriz, and the Turkish theologian Jalaluddin Rumi in Konya. The account is woven around the story of Ella Rubinstein, wife of David, a successful Massachusetts dentist, who comes to realise...
A speaking silence
Delight first, followed by analysis. A speaking silence: Quaker poets of today is a grand subtitle to a collection that is the first of its kind in Britain for more than a century. The anthology, which is edited by RV Bailey and Stevie Krayer, gives Friends a timely opportunity to...
Remembrance today
Autumn rushes ever onwards. The weather has changed. The leaves that gave such a brilliant display of colour only a few days ago are now cascading down like the poppies at the Festival of Remembrance in the Albert Hall. Remembrance Sunday has gone with its solemnity, ceremony and massed crowds...
The burning question
…avoiding unacceptable risks of catastrophic climate change means burning less than half of the oil, coal and gas in currently commercial reserves – and a much smaller fraction of all the fossil fuels under the ground. This warning is from the first paragraph of The Burning Question: We can’t...
From Beatrice to Beatrix
I recently came into Quaker membership and my Area Meeting clerk asked if I would like Quaker faith & practice as a gift. It was lovely to know that my becoming a Quaker would be marked in this way, but I already had a copy and, so, proposed an alternative:...
The history of silence
Sometimes, as Quakers, we may be inclined to think that we have a corner in silence, that this marks our special place within the broad range of Christian practice. But that is hardly so and this remarkable book puts us in our place. It is the latest work by Diarmaid...