Issue 05-05-2017
Featured story
Thought for the Week: An ocean of light
I am lying on my back in the garden, looking up through a froth of plum blossom to the piercing blue sky above. A field mouse perches confidently on a twig beside the bird feeder, takes his fill of peanuts, and quickly scampers down the tree and into the undergrowth....
Top stories
Robert Barclay and The Donald
Robert Barclay’s An Apology for the True Christian Divinity (1676) is a central text in the history of Quakerism, as Mark Frankel highlighted in a recent ‘Thought for the Week’ (3 March). Here I want to examine the light that Barclay’s text can shed on Donald Trump’s evangelical power...
Words, faith and action: The Anti-War
‘…this is a time for Friends to take their bearings anew with the peace testimony, to explore the meaning of anti-war as a noun and not only as an adjective. An adjective modifies a noun; it qualifies something that is. But what are we as Friends today?’ Douglas Gwyn, The...
Affirming young children
How do we affirm the value of our young children and parents in Local Meetings? The children and young People’s advocates at Finchley Meeting booked a Quaker Life workshop in order to address this question. It was held at Finchley Meeting House on 11 March and proved extremely productive. The...
Prejudice and equality
My Friend prefers First Class on the train, especially after a group of youths in the vestibule began shouting abuse. ‘It’s a Tranny!’ And: ‘It’s a Man!’ They kept shouting until they got off the train. That might be described as societal transphobia, where boisterous young men think...
Miracles of transformation
There is no denying the fact that it is difficult to find ‘that of God’ in some prison inmates. We have to hope that with help they can change for the better. Jürgen Moltmann, in his book Theology of Hope, reminds us how hope strengthens and increases our faith...
All articles
Quaker activist answers bail
QUAKER activist Sam Walton and Dan Woodhouse, a Methodist minister, answered bail on 27 April following their arrest on 29 January for entering BAE Systems’ Warton site with the aim of disarming warplanes bound for Saudi Arabia.
Woodbrooke announces 2017 Eva Koch scholars
Three Eva Koch Scholars will spend six weeks at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre between July and August exploring subjects and issues of relevance and importance to Friends in Britain and beyond.
Arms protest in London
Members of London Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) protested outside Lockheed Martin’s offices on Lower Regent Street, London on 27 April.
Prisons reform legislation a casualty of general ection call
The decision to call a general election has stopped work on the Prisons and Courts Bill. This ‘resets the clock on much needed prison reform plans and creates uncertainty about the future of the Bill’, according to the Prison Reform Trust.
Countdown to polling day
Quakers across Britain are engaging with the general election, called for Thursday 8 June. The campaign is an opportunity to highlight Quaker concerns, particularly on important topics like nuclear weapons, immigration, climate change and human rights.
Children and families day at Friends House
Families and children with an accompanying adult will be welcomed to a day visit at Friends House on Friday June 2.
Early history of the Quakers
Lancaster University and the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre have teamed up again to offer a free online course exploring the beginnings of Quakerism as it emerged in seventeenth century England.
That’s music
Feet tapping, fingers clicking, Swaying and dancing. That’s Music. Sorrowful dirge, mourning lament, Slow march for the dead. Sad Music.
Eye - 05 May 2017
A terrier for tales A thwarted search for the bones of her ancestors left one visitor to Beccles none the wiser. Thankfully help was at hand when a Friend forwarded her message to Jill Allum. With twenty years of experience as Beccles Meeting’s archivist, Jill promptly rolled up her...
Letters - 05 May 2017
Taking sides Peter Boyce (21 April) wrote, of demonstrations such as the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, that: ‘To me these represent the politics of hate, confrontation and violence’. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have just taken part in a reading where six women recalled their experiences...