Issue 12-08-2022

Featured story

Pig and bull story: Ben Evens’ Thought for the week

FREE 11 Aug 2022 | by Ben Evens

Last year I wandered into a rather posh shop. Among the goods for sale was a display of fine china. I was quite taken with the collection of farmyard animals. As I bent over to peer more closely at the exquisite detail, another customer started to edge past me in...

Read more

Top stories

Peeping at Tom, part one: Deak Kirkham looks at the Gospel of Thomas

11 Aug 2022 | by Deak Kirkham

‘The Gospel of Thomas stresses that light is part of what is inward.’ | Photo: by Olga Kononenko on Unsplash

The four canonical gospels of the New Testament are familiar: the synoptics (Matthew, Mark and Luke), which, broadly, have a similar structure and share a considerable amount of material; and the Gospel of John which differs in tone, style, theology and arguably in its view of Jesus. But these texts...

Read more

Dead end? More from Michael Saunders on ‘death of God’ theology

11 Aug 2022 | by Michael Saunders

‘I can place my faith in a God who died for love, and in a crucified Messiah who is vindicated in our loving.' | Photo: by Emily Crawford on Unsplash

Following my ‘Back from the death’ article (8 July), some Friends seem to have missed what I hoped was a positive vision. In one letter, a Friend even derided the phrase ‘death of God’ as a ‘weird oxymoron’. But isn’t this ‘weird oxymoron’ already suggested by Christian language about the...

Read more

In respect to Gaia: Kenneth Cukier celebrates the life of James Lovelock

11 Aug 2022 | by Kenneth Cukier

‘His Quakerism clearly influenced his work.’ | Photo: Kenneth Cukier (right) interviewing James Lovelock (left).

Gaia is the Greek goddess of Earth, the mother of life. It was thus a suitable name for a theory that the planet’s natural systems, from air and water currents to wetlands and volcanos, are not discrete phenomena but act as a self-regulating system, like a living organism. When...

Read more

French leave: Gillian Metheringham visits Maison Quaker

11 Aug 2022 | by Gillian Metheringham

'We explored the Maison’s grounds and wrote pieces inspired by what we found.' | Photo: Maison Quaker à Congénies

We knew it would be hot because the forecast had told us so, but even that didn’t prepare us for 40°C. Sheltering in the relative cool of the house, we peered out as the heat blazed on the flagstones and crisped the foliage. Fortunately the Quaker house at Cong...

Read more

Walks of life: Anne M Jones hikes with refugees

11 Aug 2022 | by Anne M Jones

‘‘‘To understand someone, walk a few miles in his shoes” is an old saying, but privileged people like me cannot do that.' | Photo: courtesy of Refugee Tales

Last month I went on a five-day ‘Refugee Tales’ walk, set up by the Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group. It is the fifth walk of this kind, inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer’s fourteenth-century account of pilgrims who walked from London to Canterbury. Just as it did 750 years ago, each evening ends...

Read more

All articles

Wandsworth Friends share energy ideas

FREE 11 Aug 2022 | by Rebecca Hardy

Wandsworth Quakers have issued guidance on reducing energy usage as the UK braces for soaring costs. The note, circulated around local Quakers, says that ‘with prices going up nine per cent a year at the moment… now is the time to look again at how we can save energy in...

Read more

‘Good progress’ on diversity and inclusion, says BYM

11 Aug 2022 | by Rebecca Hardy

Edwina Peart, Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM)’s diversity and inclusion coordinator, has said that the Quaker community has made ‘good progress’.

Read more

Seventeenth-century life reenacted for Almeley anniversary

FREE 11 Aug 2022 | by Rebecca Hardy

Almeley Friends held an enactment day last month for children to recreate life when the Quaker Meeting house opened.

Read more

FWCC attends World Council of Churches Assembly

11 Aug 2022 | by Rebecca Hardy

Quakers will take part in a meeting of the highest governing body of the World Council of Churches (WCC) this month in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Read more

Quakers call for nuclear disarmament

11 Aug 2022 | by Rebecca Hardy

Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has signed a joint letter calling on world leaders to phase out nuclear weapons.

Read more

I AM

11 Aug 2022 | by Derek Guiton

I am the adder under the stone, I am the mouseling, wary, alone, I am the sea-wave ready to strike, I am that rusty clapped out bike.

Read more

Letters - 12 August 2022

11 Aug 2022 | by The Friend

Reparations The slave trade was so brutal and horrible that no reparations can make up for it. The present financial situation for so many people in this country is challenging, so now is not the time to think of reparations in my opinion. Quakers have been involved for many years...

Read more