Issue 05-10-2018
Featured story
Thought for the Week: God is love
I thought about what’s changed for me since I became a Quaker at Easter this year, after around sixty years in more conventional churches, most Methodist. I could say what’s changed in me, but perhaps that change made me a Quaker. It’s deeply and fundamentally personal, because...
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Speaking of God – or not
Just before Yearly Meeting this year, a headline appeared in a national newspaper: ‘The Quakers are right. We don’t need God’, with the strapline: ‘The group is considering dropping God from its meetings guidance as it makes some feel uncomfortable…’
Building bridges
Hope for the future, joy in the present, enjoyment in the company of friends… These words were spoken by one Friend in worship at the end of an energetic and engaging General Meeting for Scotland held in Glasgow on 15 September.
Travelling through time
In my hall there is a grandfather clock. On the clock face is a painting of a woman resting her chin on her hand. I think, perhaps, she is day-dreaming. I used to watch my grandfather, and later my father, wind the clock each night before he went to bed....
‘Art the Arms Fair’ are ’New Radicals’
The launch of the next ‘Art the Arms Fair’ exhibition got off to a good start last week as it celebrated its ‘New Radicals’ award.
Manifesto for wildlife march
Quaker Concern for Animals (QCA) were among around 10,000 who took part in the march through London to launch A People’s Manifesto for Wildlife. The march, on 22 September, was coordinated by TV naturalist Chris Packham, who drafted the manifesto along with seventeen experts. It calls on the government to bring...
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Churches together
Quakers played an important role in an interchurch gathering which saw the Archbishop of Canterbury apologise for the treatment by the Church of England of black migrants in the 1950s and 1960s.
Working with Greenbelt
This year, Quakers were ‘Partners and associates’ with Greenbelt, the liberal Christian festival. My Area Meeting paid for my ticket on the basis that I volunteered at the Quaker tent. The festival was held in the grounds of Boughton House, near Kettering in Northamptonshire. I got to hear Carol Ann...
Sing John Ball
I suggest that the phrase ‘Quakers believe everyone is equal’ needs the concluding words: ‘before God.’ It then stands as a fundamental Quaker belief. The problem in adding Jesus as a fundamental, I feel, is that we are straying into avoidable dogma, as some believe and some don’t. The...
Friends come together for Quaker Week
Quakers are celebrating Quaker Week this year with a range of events and faith-inspired action. The week, themed ‘Room for More’, is being marked across the UK from 29 September to 7 October with discussions, displays, vigils and other initiatives.
Dorking Friends hold Bertha Bracey exhibition
More than sixty visitors came to an exhibition exploring the Kindertransport at Dorking Meeting House.
Friend puts together George Fox video series
A Friend from Rochester Meeting acted out the role of George Fox in a re-enactment of episodes from Fox’s life at the Glenthorne Quaker Centre and Guest House in Grasmere.
Quaker YA writer gives talk
The Quaker Young Adult (YA) writer Sara Barnard gave a talk at the Quaker Centre this week as part of Quaker Week celebrations.
Open House London
Several Meeting houses took part in the recent Open House London event. Friends from Blackheath Meeting showed off their 1970s Brutalist Meeting house on 22-23 September, while Winchmore Hill Meeting attracted more than seventy people.
Letters - 5 October 2018
Inclusive communities Recently, while on a walk in the countryside around Ledbury, Herefordshire, we walked past the noticeboard of a parish church. We stopped to see if the notices told us something interesting and were struck by a colourful one talking about the ‘Inclusive Church’. The notice read: ‘We believe...