Letters - 02 May 2025

Seeking sanctuary

In her letter of 11 April, Rachel Bennett expresses alarm that many people saw the police raid at the Westminster Meeting House as an attack on the Meeting House rather than on the group hiring the room. While I would point out that officers did attack the Meeting House (the broken door), it’s not good enough to apparently excuse police raiding such a premises because it isn’t more sacrosanct than elsewhere. My home isn’t more sacrosanct than anywhere either, but if officers burst into it under these repressive Acts my good spirit would nevertheless be shattered. 

My Meeting house is very much my spiritual home, of course it is, regardless of where else I see the divine presence, and I would feel spiritually and religiously violated if it was also loutishly invaded by the police, for whatever reason. 

Andrew Sterling

More demand

I would like to respond to last week’s comments on my letter of the previous week (Final Demand?, 11 April). In January 2025, Youth Demand defied a police order intended to protect Jewish worshippers at Central Synagogue in London on Shabbat. The Metropolitan Police imposed restrictions under the Public Order Act to prevent pro-Palestinian protests near the synagogue, citing the risk of intimidation and disruption. Despite this, Youth Demand supporters staged a demonstration outside BBC headquarters, near the synagogue, and were arrested for violating the restriction.

While the group claimed their protest targeted the BBC’s Gaza coverage and framed it as a civil liberties issue, their decision to defy a restriction protecting Jewish worshippers demonstrated a disregard for Jewish community safety and dignity. Their protest occurred at a time and place where it could be seen by synagogue attendees, many of whom felt threatened.

Youth Demand’s actions contributed to an atmosphere of fear, particularly amidst rising antisemitism. Their choice of location and timing – close to a Jewish place of worship on a holy day – was at best reckless and insensitive. Choosing to go ahead amounted to conduct many rightly see as antisemitic in effect, if not openly in intent. 

Identifying antisemitism among Palestine Solidarity Campaign marchers does not mean I oppose Palestinian rights. I am a member of Progressive Jews for Justice in Israel/Palestine, and I support The Parents Circle – Families Forum, Road to Recovery and Combatants for Peace initiatives. I’m not just a protester.

Ol Rappaport

Green for go

With the Quaker Earthcare Gathering in October, now is as good a time as any for green spirituality to infuse the Quaker vocabulary – and all Quaker spaces, for that matter.

All Quaker testimonies are in need of a green revision and update. The Peace Testimony itself needs to go further than ‘we oppose all wars’ to ‘we oppose all violence to humans, animals, nature and Mother Earth herself’.

Green Quaker vocabulary can embrace a truly green language and green spirituality, such that we can speak of brother sun, sister moon, sister air, sister soil, brother and sister animals, brother and sister insects, sister trees, sister water, brother mountains.

Seeing all creation as brothers and sisters would change our relationship to Mother Earth and all her earthlings, and develop true regard and custodianship to the whole of creation, protecting all and exploiting none, and in the words attributed to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, ‘Living simply that others may simply live.’

Gerard Bane 

Venue planning

When Quakers organise gatherings, what are our criteria when choosing and booking a venue? I hope that we would try to ensure that the ethos and operation of the venue were in line with Quaker testimony. This is of particular concern to me at the moment because, having recently stayed at The Hayes (run by the Christian Conference Trust (CCT)) I had cause to make a complaint on an issue relating to the ethos of their operation. It’s an ongoing issue I had previously encountered along with other Friends three years ago, one which I’m now aware has been raised by others.

I twice requested the CCT’s complaints policy, using the email address listed on the Charity Commission, but was not sent it. I made my complaint anyway, marked FAO trustees and received a reply from the operations director which barely acknowledged the issue and misrepresented me. And I doubt whether it’s been logged as a complaint so it probably won’t come to the attention of CCT trustees.

When I read Mark Dibben’s letter (11 April) I recognised what I’d encountered as ‘managerialism’. Mark’s letter ends with the sentence, ‘It can be beguiling and subtle but, when you do see it, put a stop to it.’

I can’t put a stop to it myself but I’m aware that both Woodbrooke and Britain Yearly Meeting are in contact with The Hayes about bookings. Could they work with the CCT to put a stop to it and bring about a higher standard of integrity? Then the issue that Friends and others have been trying to raise, relating to another aspect of Quaker testimony, might receive proper consideration.

And if not, then perhaps we shouldn’t use a centre whose ethos and operation aren’t in line with Quaker testimony.

Wendy Pattinson

Pop: the question

In the course of the last year, the Friend has published two letters from me. Pointing to the Quaker concern about sustainability, I asked in both of them: do Friends consider that a population of 8.2 billion, continuing to grow rapidly, is sustainable?

Unless I missed it, these two letters did not get a single reply. Yet all that was necessary to answer was a simple ‘Yes’, ‘No’ or ‘Don’t know’.

So I ask the question again: Do Friends consider that a population of eight billion and growing rapidly is sustainable? I hope some Friends will reply to this question.

Roger Plenty

Pro protest

I was intrigued by the letter of Stephen Feltham (18 April), in which he protests against the word ‘protest’. The word derives from the old French and is related to the idea of making a witness or declaration concerning the payment or non-payment of bills.

We can, however, also see the word as pro-test, in the sense of a witness in favour of a particular way of life or ideal. In this it is related to the word testimony, a word I do not think Friends would wish to discard.

‘Protestants’ could be said to be those witnessing in favour of a

particular view of the church, by dissenting from one they viewed

negatively. I have longed believed that Quaker testimonies were protests against inauthentic ways of living as a witness to what Friends believed were divinely inspired ones. Our Peace Testimony was once described as a testimony against war; our belief in the sacramentality of everyday life was called a testimony against times and seasons. Today we wish to emphasise the positive visions we share, but this will often entail a witness against what we regard as inauthentic and life-denying, even as against the will of God.

Harvey Gillman

Talking points

Thank goodness for Friends like Simon Risley (18 April). I agree with him that knitting needles can become the most terrible weapons in the wrong hands and should be handed in at the door of our Meeting houses together with everyone thinking of using them at some future date. Perhaps a little list of these wrongdoers would not go amiss so that we can ban such people from actually doing and saying or making anything upsetting in the future.

Thank you for your marvellous letter, Friend. I’m sure George Fox would have enjoyed your epistle and found it laudable as well as laughable. However I do have an idea that your colleagues at The Barking Institute for Social Change will not like it, and when they decide you are not suitable for their institution they may want to eject you. Be watchful.

Jennifer Bell