Issue 30-04-2021
Featured story
Thought for the week: Abigail Maxwell’s divine intervention
In John 10, Jesus justifies his claim that ‘The Father and I are one’ by quoting Psalm 82: ‘I say, “You are Gods’”. We are children of the Most High. In John 17, Jesus says that God will be in his followers, and those who learn from them, in the same way as...
Top stories
Everyone’s task: Carrie Comfort says all Friends should play their part in eldership
Eldership is everyone’s task. As one of Britain Yearly Meeting’s local development workers, I’ve become convinced of that.
Hope, resurrection and community: Rachel Kirk-Smith reports from Ireland Yearly Meeting
The main theme of this year’s Ireland Yearly Meeting (IYM) was ‘A Time to Act Together in Faith and Hope’. It was held online. Friends differ in their views on the kind of ‘God’ we should place our faith in, but could we all put our faith in the...
XR Quaker found ‘not guilty’
Six Extinction Rebellion (XR) protesters – including Quaker XR co-founder Ian Bray – have been cleared of causing £25,000 worth of damage to the Shell headquarters in London.
Pride and prejudice: Stevie Krayer tests herself on racism
The government’s recent race report has been widely condemned. It seems to have been written with the conscious intention of inhibiting any further work on racism in Britain. One response that particularly made me think was from Wendy Williams, author of the independent review into the Windrush scandal: ‘There...
The Denial of Death, by Ernest Becker, and Death: The end of self-improvement, by Joan Tollifson
According to William Hazlitt in his 1827 essay ‘On the feeling of immortality of youth’, ‘No young man believes he shall ever die. Death, old age, are words without a meaning, a dream, a fiction, with which we have nothing to do.’
All articles
Swarthmore Lecture 2021 announced
Woodbrooke has announced that Thomas Penny will be delivering this year’s Swarthmore Lecture ‘Kinder ground: Creating space for truth’.
MP attacks charities’ ‘woke’ ideas
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has backed a call to defend charities after a Conservative MP criticised the sector, following scrutiny of the controversial race report.
Welsh government called to act on school military visits
The Peace Pledge Union (PPU) has joined two other NGOs in urging Welsh politicians to commit to taking action on armed forces’ visits in schools, which they claim are a ‘fig leaf’ for military recruitment. The call follows a new report from the three NGOs which says that their evidence...
Loving Earth project goes to COP26
The Quaker Arts Network (QAN) is planning to take its travelling exhibition of the Loving Earth project to the twenty-sixth UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow in November.
BYM criticises prime minister on Palestine
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has joined other UK charities in criticising the prime minister for opposing an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into alleged grave crimes committed in occupied Palestine.
Remarks on colour
for Graham Shaw, author of ‘God in our Hands’ See! Our bio pod, the Earth, compendium of hot colour, all tricked out in oriflamme, in indigo, in ruby, its spinach-green grasses, jasper soils, its verdigris, their slow-burn insouciance, their flair.
Letters - 30 April 2021
Naming of rooms Three thoughts occur to me from the report on Meeting for Sufferings’ (MfS) discussion about the William Penn Room (16 April). First, as a Society that holds firmly to equality, it ill behoves us to create an elite, be they prophets, weighty Friends or icons. To do...