Last week saw a remarkable ‘irruption of the Spirit’ in the Roman Catholic Church, one that could be instructive for Friends. The occasion was the release of pope Francis’s…
Quaker Action on Alcohol and Drugs (QAAD) held a lively discussion this year at Westminster Meeting House on the idea of drug ‘decriminalisation’. My experience, as a former…
In her 2013 James Backhouse lecture – ‘A Quaker Astronomer Reflects’ – Jocelyn Bell Burnell commented that, in another age, she would probably have been regarded as a…
For eighteen years I have been an attender. Recently, I was at Woodbrooke for an event that explored ‘What does membership mean today?’, the first stage of a consultation…
*Niets is kostbaarder dan de tijd, Want hij is de prijs van de eeuwigheid. *Netherlands proverb: Nothing is more precious than time, For it is the price of eternity. Rapt in…
On a recent Saturday afternoon a man and his thirteen-year-old daughter walked out of a shopping centre and climbed into their car. Moments later, the girl was shot in the leg…
To say anything at all is to risk being misunderstood. The consequences can be comic, tragic or merely annoying. Sometimes I have not been ‘misunderstood’ but, rather,…
In the Friend of 23 August Judy Kirby wrote ‘Quakers like to think of James Turrell, the installation artist, as theirs’. It often seems like that. James Turrell and his work…
What does it mean to be a Quaker today? Where does our special contribution to the life of faith lie? It is the radical manner of our living, out in the world but primarily…
The Reformation undermined the power of priesthoods and the ‘magical quality’ of their rituals, but in so doing buttressed ‘scriptural writings’ as the unchallenged ‘word…
What a day! What a match! The sun shone. The sky blazed blue. Only the cold flagstones gave the season. Kick-off was between Bradford’s lord mayor, Khadim Hussain, and Mark…
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