Issue 30-06-2023
Featured story
Speak of the devil: Tony D’Souza’s Thought for the week
It was an inconspicuous entrance, raising hardly a speck of dust, but it was him alright. The prince of darkness: tall, handsome and well dressed, standing at the cave entrance.
Top stories
On the road: Robert Ashton considers his travel choices
We’ve just bought an electric car. We’re putting solar panels on the roof to charge it, so, for all but the longest journeys, we will be fuelled by the sun rather than nuclear or gas-fired power stations. I don’t expect to use a public charging point more...
Jamaican Christians talk reparations at Friends House
Jamaican church leaders visited Friends House last week to discuss reparations for the transatlantic slave trade with Quakers.
Beyond hope: Paul Hodgkin seeks joy and courage
Hope has been making me uneasy. It’s begun to feel like an obligation, something I have to do: if I’m not hopeful then somehow I’m letting the side down. It seems impossible to get the balance right. There are so many reasons not to be hopeful, but...
Food for thought: Martyn Kelly visits Wuhan
Unless your Mandarin is good, I recommend shelving your plant-based diet before visiting China. That rich umami flavour in a tofu dish might come from monosodium glutamate, but it is equally likely to derive from pork. In any case, you might not have much choice: it is considered rude to...
A facility for science: Jo Peel & Mahalla Mason celebrate a Quaker’s work
Earlier this month the Don Mason Flow Cytometry Facility was inaugurated at the University of Oxford. Donald W Mason, who died in 2021, was a Witney Quaker. The facility is a testament to his groundbreaking research in the field of immunology.
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Friends stand for peace on Armed Forces Day
Quakers witnessed for peace last weekend as the annual Armed Forces Day (AFD) took place. Marketed as ‘family-friendly fun’, the day is really ‘a desperate recruitment drive with the 10,000+ annual military visits to schools and the increasing influence of arms company money in our education system’, said Lesley Chandler from...
Quaker-inspired artist on Turner Prize shortlist
Rory Pilgrim, an artist with Quaker links, has been nominated for the Turner Prize 2023.
New plaque for George Fox
A new plaque for George Fox was unveiled last week in Fenny Drayton, the Quaker founder’s birthplace.
Quakers mark Pride Month
Friends across the UK celebrated Pride Month this year by joining marches and holding talks. Helen Carter-Shaw, from Canterbury Meeting, told the Friend that people from the LGBTQ+ community, as well as ‘straight allies’, took part in the city’s Pride celebrations, where they ‘proudly marched with two specially-designed and...
United front: Marian Liebmann visits the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice
Every year in Vienna, a small group of Quakers, who are experienced in criminal justice, attends a session of the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. Friends World Committee for Consultation has ‘general status’ with the UN, which means we have the right to attend sessions and speak....
Neoliberal Religion: Faith and power in the twenty-first century, by Mathew Guest
As a Quaker pacifist, I’ve been shocked by the militarism of some Anglican spaces and ceremonies. Here in Durham, one sometimes encounters solemn processions inside the cathedral, led not by a bishop with a crook, but by a man carrying a large sword, just like Penny Mordaunt in the...
Letters - 30 June 2023
Quaker governance I was heartened by the recent letters (16 June) that recalled us to our theistic wellsprings. Our very basis of Quaker governance rests upon ‘be still, and know that I am God’. And this, a waiting on the Spirit that goes beyond the ego of the ‘me’, beyond even...
Eye - 30 June 2023
On 21 May almost forty people packed the upstairs room at the Sheffield Central Meeting House, as ten Friends took to the floor to read the words of the Victorian Quakers Pen and Pencil Club. Alice Collins, of Sheffield Central Meeting, told Eye that the extracts were written in 1887, at the...