Issue 08-07-2022
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In practice: Pam Sellman’s Thought for the Week
In Meeting for Worship recently we were reminded to ‘Respect the wide diversity among us’ (Advices & queries 22). Within the diversities that seem to separate us, there are similarities which connect us. I have found many of these through a diverse set of practices, which also encourage me to connect...
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Back from the death: Uniting theists and non-theists by Michael Saunders
God – or at least a certain image of God – has died for Quaker Meetings. This kind of death was once welcomed by a radical and predominantly Christian theological grouping: the ‘death of God’ movement of the 1960s. It counted among its members such theologians as Thomas JJ Altizer, William Hamilton,...
Article of faith: Abigail Maxwell is in the flow
I am an atheist materialist. I do not believe in God the father almighty, the creator, the ‘uncaused cause,’ or the ‘God in everything’ of panentheism. I believe all my words and acts are the products of my neurons, not Spirit separate from matter. And I am a Quaker. Quaker...
Art of the possible: The Pity of War Working Group
In 1651, George Fox said that he ‘lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars… I was come into the covenant of peace which was before wars.’ To pursue similar aims, Pity of War is a Quaker-inspired charity attempting to install a...
Exeter Quakers celebrate diversity
Exeter Quakers took part in the city’s weekend-long Respect Festival, designed to promote peace and tolerance. Friends hosted a tent and two days of Meeting for Worship. Despite ‘limited interest’, there were ‘moving conversations’, said Bob Lovett from Exeter Meeting, showing ‘there is spiritual hunger out there’.
Ukraine
In the market place Where the few stalls left Are flanked by the rubble Of shopping centres, apartment blocks And a still smouldering maternity clinic, The longest queues are for seeds.
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New protest powers come into effect
Protestors should be aware that new protest restrictions have now come into place, Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has warned.
Quaker exposes emotional toll of care home workers
A Quaker comedian has railed against the understaffing, emotional toll, poor pay and exhaustion affecting carers, in a book based on his decade
Northumberland Friends in climate festival
Quakers took part in a four-day climate justice festival in Northumberland last month. Rebecca Woo, campaigns and advocacy coordinator for Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), spoke at the event in Alnwick giving a brief history of climate justice from slavery to the present day.
Quaker Social Action highlights life on the streets
The reality of life on the streets was put under the spotlight this week at a talk hosted by Quaker Social Action (QSA).
Bristol peace lecture inspires anti-racism poetry
The Quaker who delivered this year’s annual Bristol Peace Lecture has released a video of poetry and music based on her performance.
Meeting for Sufferings: Truth, Integrity and Democracy
The first main item on the agenda arose from a conference of the recently-formed Quaker Truth and Integrity Group in April, which issued ‘A Rallying Call for Quakers’ in its final statement.
Meeting for Sufferings: Speaking out
The Friends House Communications team then gave a presentation on its ‘Speaking out’ work.
Meeting for Sufferings: Friends consider simplification
Simplification was the next big agenda item. Lesley Richards, clerk of Symud Ymlaen (Moving Forwards) and Helen Drewery, clerk of Pan London Governance Steering Group, spoke on the proposals for different configurations for Area Meetings (AMs). Friends heard that in London and Wales and the Marches there are plans to...
Meeting the challenge: Deak Kirkham wants a name change
The phrase ‘Meeting for Worship’ trips off the Quakerly tongue so easily and automatically as to merit no reflection. But reflection – and, I believe, modification – are exactly what the term deserves.
Until We Reckon: Violence, mass incarceration, and a road to repair, by Danielle Sered
The movement for prison abolition has a strong voice in this book. Danielle Sered offers pragmatic alternatives, meeting the needs of survivors and suggesting ways for people who have committed violence to repair harm. She argues that reckoning is owed not only by people who have caused violence, but by...
Letters - 08 July 2022
Good and evil In response to the difficult question of how the God of Love and Prince of Peace can be reconciled with the suffering that evidently exists in God’s creation, I am reminded of what God Himself says about this, in Isaiah chapter 45 verse 7: ‘I form the light...