Issue 23-09-2016
Featured story
Thought for the Week: A simple message
Quakers were born and began in times of much greater crisis than we are experiencing right now. When George Fox, founder of the Quaker movement, preached in Malton in North Yorkshire in 1651, resulting in what could be argued was the first organised Quaker group, it was just two years after...
Top stories
A difficult word
Faith is a difficult word. I looked it up in a dictionary to check what it means: the confidence or trust in a person or a thing, or a deity or teachings of a religion. What do I truly have faith in? Whatever I have faith in, it must surely...
The power of the group
How can we harness the power of the group? Scottish Friends, meeting in Aberdeen on 10 September, heard a provocative address from Glasgow Friend Michael Hutchinson challenging us to help renew, once again, our Religious Society.
Friends stand with Standing Rock Sioux
American Quakers staged a protest in New York City on 13 September in solidarity with Standing Rock Sioux, who are battling efforts to build an oil pipe-line through their ancestral lands.
Borderless Friendship flourishes
The plight of refugees was highlighted when Friends gathered recently for the River Rhine Border Meeting.
Meeting in the Sky
Twenty Friends held Meeting for Worship in the James Turrell designed Deer Shelter Skyspace at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in West Bretton, near Wakefield, on Friday 9 September.
All articles
Quakers in France reflect on slavery
A commemoration of the abolition of slavery in the past and a recognition of slavery in the world today was part of France Yearly Meeting held at the Centre des Naudières near Nantes in late July.
Quaker Meeting in new television crime thriller
Several scenes in the new eight-part ITV/Netflix conspiracy thriller Paranoid have been filmed in Frandley Meeting House in Cheshire.
Scottish Friends back petition
Quakers in Scotland and ForcesWatch presented a petition to the Scottish Parliament on Thursday 15 September calling for greater scrutiny, guidance and consultation on the visits of armed forces to schools in Scotland.
Friends open doors
More than forty Meeting houses opened to the public during Heritage Open Days, from 8-11 September.
Claridge House welcomes visitors again
Claridge House, the Quaker retreat centre between Dormansland and Lingfield, has reopened after being closed for six months due to an extensive programme of refurbishment.
Changing the narrative for peace
The need to ‘change the narrative for peace’ via the media will be addressed by Friends in Darlington in a conference organised by the Northern Friends Peace Board.
Inter Faith Week celebrates eighth year
National Inter Faith Week takes place this year from 13-20 November.
Sustainability gathering
The future development of the Living Witness group and how Friends address the challenges of implementing the Canterbury Commitment is to be addressed by Friends.
Break up the banks?
The contentious, difficult, knotty and puzzling issues of how money does and doesn’t work for people are to being addressed by London Quakers in early October.
Friends urged to be creative in Quaker Week
Quakers throughout Britain will be marking the ninth annual Quaker Week from 1-9 October by welcoming visitors to share the stillness of silent Quaker worship in their Meetings and putting on a wide range of outreach activities.
The Quakers
I didn’t join the Quakers; After Mass I attended their Sunday service. ‘Isn’t Mass enough for you?’ I understood Colleen’s question.
The most good you can do
The intent behind The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically, by the controversial philosopher Peter Singer, is deeply constructive. It is arguing for a new ethical ideal: that people do the most good they can. The book is directed particularly at giving,...
Godhead and Trinity
Michael Servetus (‘The Friends of God’, 8 July) was a polymath who realised that the theological concept of the Trinity was a product of Greek philosophy and not of the Bible. He dared to publish his belief, was condemned by Protestant and Catholic alike, and for his heresy was burnt at...
Eye - 23 September 2016
The kindness of strangers Unforeseen floral offerings moved Friends in Norwich recently. Bob Ward, of Norfolk and Waveney Area Meeting, set the scene: ‘The Gildencroft in Norwich is an extensive Quaker burial ground graced with mature trees along with a surfeit of scruffy nettles. Normally the walled area is locked...
Letters - 23 September 2016
Re-defining anti-Semitism Bob, a dear Jewish friend of mine, was born in Vienna about 1927. With the rise of Nazism in 1939 he came to Britain, but because his family were very poor they could only afford to send their youngest son. His parents and his beloved sister died in the Holocaust. ...