Issue 06-11-2015
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Free will
Hurricane Patricia, in October, was the most powerful tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere. Fortunately, Patricia didn’t materialise as a killer. The most deadly hurricane was Bhola, in 1970, which hit Bangladesh and India and caused an estimated half million deaths. Why does God allow hurricanes, earthquakes and...
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The housing crisis
‘Housing crisis? Surely Syrian refugees constitute a crisis; housing may be a problem for a few, but it’s not the same.’ I encountered this comment a few weeks ago, as I attempted to explain – yet again – today’s UK housing problems. I’ve heard it again since, in a...
Milk for Babes and Meat for Strong Men
Previously, we considered James Nayler’s tract The Lamb’s War against the Man of Sin, which was written in prison following his brutal punishment for blasphemy (9 October). Milk for Babes and Meat for Strong Men was also written at this time and published posthumously in 1661. The title is a...
The worst of human failures
‘Support our Heroes’ the poster, emblazoned with the poppy logo, declared. On it there was a photo of a gun-carrying soldier in battle fatigues, striding manfully. How different, I reflected, to the earlier Remembrance Day parades that I recall, at which those who really had cause to remember collected in...
All roads lead to Birmingham
Driving rain failed to prevent sixty Quakers from finding their way to Bull Street Meeting House in Birmingham on 24 October, for the ‘Road Maps to Equality’ conference, organised by members of the Central England Peace Committee. Friends travelled there from across the country, making this very much a day of...
Trust welcomes clarification in judicial review
The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT) has issued a statement concerning its recent participation in a judicial review claim brought by the advocacy organisation Cage. The claim was heard in the High Court on 21 October. It concerned the Charity Commission’s actions towards the Trust and other charities in March...
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German Friends come together
German Yearly Meeting took place at the Quaker Meeting house in Bad Pyrmont, Lower Saxony, from 22 to 25 October. Some 180 Friends and attenders were present, among them children and Young Friends. The annual Cary Lecture was given by Esther Köhring, a Young Friend.
Leaveners bring hope
The Quaker arts group the Leaveners recently collaborated with Birmingham artists Jonathan Graney and Dale Hipkiss on a visual art installation called ‘Hope’.
Ipswich Quakers support interfaith initiative
The idea that Christian, Muslim and Judaic extremism play equally important roles in destabilising Middle Eastern societies was explored at a recent conference.
Historic Meeting house no longer ‘at risk’
The Blue Idol Meeting House in West Sussex has been taken off Historic England’s list of vulnerable historic buildings. The seventeenth century Meeting house had been on the register since 2012, when its condition was judged ‘very bad’.
Friends watch The Divide
Milton Keynes Friends recently held a public preview of the new film The Divide. The film looks at the growing gap between rich and poor, and its impact on society in Britain and the United States. It was inspired by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s 2009 book The Spirit Level.
Stage debut for The Silver Sword
A musical adaptation of Ian Serraillier’s much-loved children’s novel The Silver Sword has toured Britain. The novel tells the story of four Polish children’s struggles in the immediate aftermath of the second world war. It was written in 1956 and named by The Times as one of the...
A very Quakerly Humpty Dumpty
Would you welcome scientific proof for Quakerism? There is one, buried in the opening page of our Quaker faith & practice (1.01). Or, Option B, do you really cherish the sense of mystery, that bit of ‘unknowability’ always lurking in the offing? Or both?
Sunday morning
In Meeting for Worship this morning the question came up for me, when there are so many other religious and spiritual groups, why does the world need Quakers? The answer that came together was: Quakers see that of God in everyone.
Letters - 06 November 2015
Bad things: good people G Gordon Steel (16 October) poses an eternal question: why does God allow suffering? Or, put another way: Why do bad things happen to good people? This is the title of a very helpful book by Harold Kushner [an American rabbi aligned with the progressive wing of...