Culture Articles
The Joy of Tax
Richard Murphy’s new book, The Joy of Tax, is subtitled ‘How a fair tax system can create a better society’. The author’s intriguing title conceals a carefully crafted discussion of the central importance of tax within a nation’s economy and social policy. Tax is little discussed or...
World in chains
It has always intrigued me that we Quakers manage so seamlessly to bridge the split between the nurture of our worshipping community and our concern to confront the ills of the wider world (specific ‘concerns’, of course, are tested by the worshipping community in Meetings for Church Affairs).
A little book of Unknowing
‘Cogito, ergo sum.’ I think, therefore I am. René Descartes came to this memorable conclusion after subjecting his ‘world’ to the most rigorous, uncompromising doubt. Even his senses, he believed, could deceive him. What could he be certain of?
A Man that Looks on Glass
In this searching and provocative new book (the title is taken from a poem by George Herbert), Derek Guiton diagnoses a crisis among British Quakers; that of ‘growing secularisation, the emergence of incompatible belief systems and a readiness, in very many cases, to embrace ideology as a substitute for faith’.
Twelve Quakers and prayer
Prayer, writes one of the contributors to Quaker Quest’s latest pamphlet, is ‘an intimate experience of the heart’ that can leave you feeling ‘naked and exposed’. This makes the contributions in Twelve Quakers and Prayer even more impressive, for their honesty and clarity on a topic that is, in...
Stories to grow on
Books are low on many children’s Christmas wish lists, but we continue to give them as presents. Nothing else has such power to take children into the lives of other people and enlarge their sympathies. The quality of writing for children has never been higher. Here we offer suggestions...
As we live…
Antony Barlow’s new book is an account of the service and lives of various branches of his family over several hundred years and encompasses many of the better-known Quaker names.
Not in God’s name
While former chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks does not give answers as to how the violence and atrocities being perpetrated by Islamic State might actually be stopped, he does suggest how they arise, how wrong are the reasons given by the perpetrators and how, when all their bloodletting is done, they...
Women of courage
On the door of one of the prison cells in the former Inquisitor’s Palace in Birgu, Malta, there is an unexpected notice. The first lines read: Sarah Cheevers, 50 years of age British Quaker from Wiltshire, wife of Henry Katherine Evans, 40 years of age British Quaker from Somerset, wife of...
Voices of Kagisong
There is something totally serene about the colour photo of Kagisong on the cover of Voices of Kagisong: History of a Refugee Programme in Botswana. There are some trees coming into fresh spring leaf; sundry dogs; a few 200-litre oil drums to remind us of the transience of piped water...