Issue 22-04-2022
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Kenneth Bird on Easter
‘Christ is risen! He is risen indeed’. So goes the paschal greeting that is exchanged on Easter Sunday in many churches. What meaning does it hold for us Friends?
Top stories
Hard act to follow: Elizabeth Coleman on Jesus
I am a follower of Jesus, inspired by the Gospels, and in particular the Sermon on the Mount. I do not accept the later teaching of the church, such as the incarnation and the trinity, or that Jesus’ death was a necessary sacrifice to save the world from sin. And...
Friends in XR ‘April Rebellion’ witness
Quakers were among those hanging banners across the UK this month to raise awareness of the climate crisis and the need to end investment in fossil fuels. Banners could be seen on motorways, bridges and outside places of worship.
Sale away: Jane Stephenson on how Bath Meeting came to sell its building
On York Street in Bath, if you look for the imposing building that was once the Friends Meeting House, you will now see a bookshop: Topping & Company Booksellers Ltd. Friends who enter the premises can hardly fail to be impressed by the sights that greet them. The building has...
Epistle: Over 50 young people attended Junior Yearly Meeting, the first in person for three years
‘During JYM, it became clear that Quakerism is a faith grounded in conscientious action and positive change. However, a significant undercurrent of our discussion was the question of how best to take action, and the effects of rushing into what we believe is right, without taking the time to listen....
Ukraine: A call for shared understanding by Frank Boulton and Sebastian Brixey-Williams
The world is again facing the stark prospect of nuclear war. Quaker testimonies about the causes of war have always meant that peace cannot be based on violence. A ‘credible nuclear deterrent’ is an oxymoron. By raising its nuclear level to ‘a special regime of combat duty’ Russia has tested –...
All articles
Friends celebrate Salter Centenary
The Salter Centenary steering group has developed a plan to create a green wildlife walkway next to Wilson Grove, the garden cottage estate built by Ada Salter.
Swastikas spray-painted outside US Meeting house
A Friends’ Meeting in the United States has reported two swastikas found spray-painted outside a Quaker cemetery in New Jersey.
Friend describes power of silence for BBC Mother’s Day service
A Welsh Quaker mother of two young children gave a moving reflection for the BBC on Sul y Mamau, Mother’s Day, focusing on the power of silence to help us listen to ourselves, and to God.
Quaker peace work in Spanish civil war
Quaker peace work in the Spanish Civil War is explored in a new book by the author Maggie Brookes-Butt. The novel Acts of Love and War draws on research from Friends House Library and follows three young British volunteers in the Spanish Civil War.
Quakers dismayed by energy strategy
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has said it is dismayed by the government’s British Energy Security Strategy published earlier this month.
Brought to heal: Tony Philpott reports from the Quaker Universalist Group (QUG) conference
Our last Woodbrooke conference was in 2019, and in the uncertain world of Covid we wondered whether we would ever return. We had to cancel in 2020 and went online in 2021, so it was a pleasure to return to Woodbrooke this month for our first ‘blended’ conference.
Paul Among the People: The apostle reinterpreted and reimagined in his own time, by Sarah Ruden
This book is an attempt to look again at the accusations of homophobia, excessive puritanism and general grumpiness that are routinely levelled against the apostle Paul. Sarah Ruden is a Quaker scholar, and her approach is to set Paul in the context of his time. This is not an attempt...
Peace in horror: Angela Greenwood shares her experience of an Experiment with Light
I did an ‘Experiment with Light’ meditation recently. When beginning, it was perhaps inevitable that my heart was full of pain around the conflict and suffering in Ukraine, and the unbearable pain and loss some of my close friends are experiencing.
The body of truth
Each season the cannibals selected one truth to kill. We eat its eyes, its lungs, the soft seed of the heart. They spoke to us so honestly we asked, ‘And how do you select which truth to sacrifice? The truth of hatred or of greed?’
Letters - 22 April 2022
Meeting for Worship I found Christine Habgood-Coote’s article on Zoom communication (8 April) quite challenging. On-screen connection has opened us to many opportunities we did not know existed and has also given us the chance to think seriously about closing Meeting houses. Yet many people find Zoom daunting or even...