Issue 29-11-2019
Featured story
‘You know how these things go; no one else has clocked the obvious disaster ahead.’
I don’t know about you, but most of my bad dreams seem to involve helplessness. Here’s one: I’m on a coach going down a motorway. I’ve got the seat just behind the driver, with plenty of legroom, and I’m comfortable, even serene. Then I become...
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‘Different doesn’t necessarily mean wrong.’
Something I have learned during my years of service for Friends is the constant unfolding of religious understanding gained through working with other churches and faiths. Our common ground is that we acknowledge humanity to have a spiritual dimension. Quakers express that knowledge through language such as: ‘That of God...
‘Now Joseph was a righteous man.’ (Matthew 1:19)
In a Roman Catholic church in the Netherlands I once saw a statue of Joseph with the infant Jesus. Carved from wood, as befits a carpenter, and unpainted, it showed big rough workman’s hands tenderly holding a baby. There were candles burning in front of it, but nowhere near...
‘Decision-making is such a fundamental part of how an organisation functions.’
There’s a lot of discussion around the Quaker Business Method (QBM) at the moment. After all, it’s one of those things that makes Quakers different, one that separates us from the mainstream.
‘We feel it is wrong to impose particular religious beliefs on those who do not share them.’
Our concern arises from a compassion for those terminally-ill people who are beyond the reach of palliative care, who suffer intolerably and desire the relief of death but are unable to attain it. We strongly support palliative care. The hospice movement has transformed the experience of dying. But in the...
‘Ahab’s fate, our fate, and yours are all of a piece.’
What is hell? I will tell thee friend. And where is hell? I will tell you that also, but first I will give you the answer the demon Mephistopheles gave to Faustus: ‘Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed in one self-place; but where we are is hell, and where...
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Quaker in same-sex marriage blocked as CTE president
Quakers have expressed their deep sadness and anger that a Friend has had her appointment as a Churches Together in England (CTE) president blocked because she is in a same-sex marriage.
Tom Shakespeare to give 2020 Swarthmore Lecture on ‘hope’
Woodbrooke has announced that the 2020 Swarthmore Lecture will be given by Tom Shakespeare. A member of Norfolk and Waveney Area Meeting, Tom Shakespeare is a sociologist, broadcaster, campaigner for disability rights and writer on disability, genetics and bio-ethics. According to Woodbrooke, his lecture will address hope: ‘How do we face...
Friends gather for Inter Faith Week
Preston Quakers held an open event, ‘People who inspire my Quaker faith’, to mark this year’s Inter Faith Week. Three Preston Quakers spoke, including Janet Thomas, who took inspiration from the way Elizabeth Fry’s Quaker principles led to a lifetime of work helping poor and imprisoned women.
BYM condemns ‘irresponsible US announcement on Israeli settlements’
BYM has restated its view that Israel settlements on occupied Palestine land are a ‘serious obstacle to peace’ following the US government’s recent announcement that they are not necessarily illegal.
Bolton Meeting feels heat of blaze
Bolton Meeting House found its car park was a much-needed hub of refuge for the dozens of students who were forced to flee a blaze that ripped through a six-storey accommodation block.
JRF list best policies for low-income votes
The Quaker-founded Joseph Rowntree Foundation has issued a briefing on what policies politicians should be pushing to address ‘the acute concerns’ of low-income voters. Citing figures such as the fourteen million people ‘locked in poverty across the UK, including nearly one in three children’, researcher Helen Barnard calls on politicians...
Letters - 29 November 2019
Change is the priority Recently I listened to Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web. He spoke enthusiastically about the opportunities for freedom and democracy that this technology offered for free – yet he was only too aware that this system was being misused, manipulated by totalitarian governments, and abused...