Issue 27-11-2020
Featured story
Thought for the week: Frank Regan handles the truth
My friend Bob Lovett’s Thought for the Week (30 October) set me to thinking thoughts of lesser calibre. Bob raises a concern we should all have: how do we know the truth, and can we rely on our cultural resources to be reliable? The panorama becomes blurred when we remember...
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Artist Friend holds skybound exhibition
The Quaker artist Judith Bromley held an exhibition last month inspired by her lockdown sky-gazing.
All of a peace: Cyril Pearce on Friends’ work with other organisations to resist the first world war
Readers will likely be familiar with the broad issues of British Quakers’ response to the outbreak of war in 1914. Even the more recent work on their divisions, and Thomas Kennedy’s identification of ‘War Quakers’, has been absorbed into the narrative. What is less clearly understood is the extent to...
For heaven’s sake: Rebecca Hardy attends Salter Seminar on the radicalism of early Friends
The radicalism of early Quakers has ‘tattooed the skin of Quakerism’ said Stuart Masters in this year’s Salter Seminar, delivered online on 16 November. ‘And it bubbles up from time to time.’
Body building: Fred Ashmore sees London Quakers meet by Zoom
London Quakers ventured into the world of Zoom Meeting in October with a conference on ‘Build Back London Better’. Fifty-two Friends, plus visitors with an interest in the ‘99%’ workshop came together for two hours of talk, information and break-out workshops.
A History of the Bible: The book and its faiths, by John Barton
Two religions, Judaism and Christianity, draw their basic convictions from the Bible, yet each draws very different key ideas from the material they cherish.
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Quakers in climate year of action
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) joined more than seventy organisations in the COP26 Coalition to launch ‘a year of climate mobilisation from the ground up’.
Rise of white poppies in schools
The sharp rise in white poppy orders for schools can be attributed to a more ‘honest reflection about history’, peace campaigners have said.
Bristol Friends launch climate booklet
Bristol Area Meeting has published a new booklet to help Friends respond to the climate emergency. The Sustainability Advices and Queries booklet is intended to supplement Quaker Advices & queries. Barney Smith, from Bristol Area Meeting, told the Friend: ‘It is a one-off publication produced by a Climate Crisis Working...
Vaccine must be for world’s poorest too
Christian Aid has called for access to ‘any successful vaccine’ to be shared with the world’s poorest people and not become a ‘global postcode lottery’.
Warwick Friend writes on Quakerism in press
A Friend from Warwick Meeting wrote an article in a local newspaper about Quakerism. John Sheldon wrote on 25 September about ‘following the practices of being a Quaker everyday’ in the Leamington Courier. The article begins: ‘It is odd writing a piece called “I Believe” when my Quaker faith is not...
Online YM for 2021
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) is deciding whether to create an online festival for Yearly Meeting (YM) next year, due to uncertainty around public health restrictions for 2021. ‘Next year there would be a parallel programme for children and young people as well as the opportunity for Quakers to come together as...
Letters - 27 November 2020
An invitation to help The massive and devastating Port of Beirut explosion on 4 August, 2020 resulted in widespread damage and destruction of many homes and businesses in Beirut. Subsequently, many companies closed shop, and family breadwinners were laid off during already challenging social and economic circumstances brought on by the Covid-19...