Culture Articles
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...
Staging a Meeting
How does your average audience member respond when they enter a theatre and find a Quaker Meeting in progress on the stage? They chat to their neighbour and fiddle with their phone, presumably. But no, apparently not. Rather, they fall silent and uphold the Meeting. And maybe, even, this reflective...
My Old Execrable
And the earth gave way unexpectedly like a newly arthritic knee and left me
Poacher’s pilgrimage
Alastair McIntosh, a Scottish Quaker, writer, broadcaster and activist, records, in Poacher’s Pilgrimage, a twelve-day trek from the bottom of the Isle of Harris to the top of Lewis in the Hebrides.
Camel scorpions
Albert Delma’s new work, Camel Scorpions, is a weighty book of almost 600 pages, which rapidly becomes really entertaining, readable and informative. The main character is a country vicar, Martin Kimpton, from Herefordshire, who has developing doubts about the historical authenticity of Jesus. He focuses his attention on the period...
Life in uncertainty
See here – a new born child Created by love into the world. Brought from timeless eternity Into uncertainty. The illusion of time and space Now fuels the human race, Needing an identity in every place, Creating uncertainty.
The email and the picture / The picture and the email
The email and the picture Aaaargghhhh! They’ve done it again! What a ridiculous email! Don’t they think about others?!! Why doesn’t someone speak to them?!!!
First confession
Chris Patten, perhaps best known as the last British governor of Hong Kong, was also an MP for thirteen years and held ministerial posts under Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher and John Major. Later, he was a commissioner in the EU, chairman of the BBC Trust and chancellor of Oxford University....
Jesus, revolutionary of the poor
In his most recent book, Jesus, Revolutionary of the Poor: Matthew’s Subversive Messiah, Quaker prison chaplain and Bible scholar Mark Bredin presents Friends and the wider Christian church with the uncompromising message of Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus, Revolutionary of the Poor reveals a God who identifies with the poor,...
Travels of a TEFL teacher
Pat Stapleton’s name will be familiar to many Friends, as she and her husband were the first representatives at the Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) Brussels office from 1979 to 1983. Her internationalist outlook goes back further in her life, however, and is fully evident in the delightful book Travels...