Issue 12-04-2024
Featured story
Minding the time: Bob Johnson’s Thought for the Week
Last week I had my eighty-seventh birthday. In three short years, I’ll be ninety. Why am I not a grumpy old man? There’s a host of things I can no longer do, so why hasn’t frustration built up? Well, one major blessing is Quakerism. Looking back over...
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Rough text? Elizabeth Coleman continues her search for the God of the Hebrew Bible
One of the things we may have learned at school and Sunday school is that the God of the Old Testament was a God of anger, while the God of the New Testament is a God of love. But is that fair? Who is the God of the Old Testament? ...
Bristol Friends focus on reparations
Bristol Quakers have been putting the issue of reparations under the spotlight. More than eighty people joined a two-part reparations workshop at Redland Meeting House on 24 February and 23 March.
Showing the way: Geoffrey Durham on ‘Discovering Quakers’
In his recent letter to this magazine (29 March) Gerard Bane asked some questions that matter to me. ‘Why are Quakers in decline?’, he writes. ‘Is it their aging population?… Are apparent outsiders put off by Quaker activism?… Are people put off because of Quaker beliefs? Or are people put off...
Good practice: Martin Schweiger & Melanie Jameson visit the Quakers in Criminal Justice annual confe
We gathered at Launde Abbey to explore the elements that make for successful rehabilitation. Daily prison populations are expected to increase to between 94,000 and 114,000 by 2027. How can rehabilitation be delivered in these circumstances? We heard of some glimmers of light. The 12 Step Programme, developed by Alcoholics Anonymous, is one. It...
Bayard Rustin: A legacy of protest and politics, ed by Michael G Long
Everybody knows something about the 1963 March On Washington, when Martin Luther King delivered his powerful ‘I have a dream’ speech. Fewer people know that it was organised by a black Quaker, Bayard Rustin. This new book of essays on Rustin reveals how, over five decades of activism, Bayard did even...
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Norwich Friends hold Quaker Question Time
Norwich Quakers invited local parliamentary candidates to a ‘Question Time’ last month, focusing on peace and the environment.
Friends call for end of weapons sales to Israel
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has reiterated its call for the UK government to suspend arms licences to Israel immediately. The demand came last week after it was revealed that seven aid workers were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza.
Lewes Meeting House refurbished
Lewes Meeting is holding a series of events to celebrate its reopening after fifteen months of major work. Chris Lawson, from the Meeting, told the Friend: ‘The aims of the work were to improve accessibility and sustainability, apart from essential repairs. A large foyer has been created, and all areas...
Wooldale Meeting celebrates George Fox in music
Wooldale Meeting is embarking on ‘a collaborative composition’ to mark the 400th anniversary of George Fox’s birth.
Negotiating With the Devil: Inside the world of armed conflict mediation, by Pierre Hazan
Winston Churchill is not the first person to come to mind when one thinks of a mediator. But something he said came to mind while reading this book.
Eye - 12 April 2024
Upholding the local community Joolz Saunders, of Wells-next-the-Sea Meeting, has shed light on how a Meeting house and our book of discipline have been used in unusual ways! ‘The oldest, and last, Men’s Discussion Group meets in Wells-next-the-Sea Meeting every Tuesday evening. ‘They were started in the 1920s by ...
Vantage point
If I need a better life, I build one, dig its foundations below the soles of my feet, plough the potholes with the heels of my shoes and, into the arms of a good neighbour, entrust my...
Letters - 12 April 2024
Message and experience I’m grateful for Gerard Bane’s questions about our Religious Society’s apparent decline (29 March). Of course, this decline is relatively local, and we might learn from that. In my experience, the lack of a clear Quaker message – one about God and our experience of being...