By Oliver Robertson Quaker Faith & Practice, Britain Yearly Meeting’s book of discipline is revised each generation, incorporating fresh insights and revelations given to Friends. The last time this happened was in the early 1990s, and while I don’t believe we are yet in need of another wholesale revision, there are parts I have found…
Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre has announced that the 2014 Swarthmore Lecture will be given by Quaker author and academic Ben Pink Dandelion. Ben’s lecture will explore the theme of transformation, ending with a call for Quakers to return to a transforming and transformational faith. “I use the term ‘transforming’ to refer to how early Quakers…
TWIGA YOUTH DIALOGUE By Getry Agizah, Coordinator, Friends Church Peace Teams Introduction: On world peace day, Getty Agizah writes shares an example of how Quaker expertise in grassroots peacework is being utilized within local communities. When I did Civic Education with the County Councilors of Transzoia County, Kenya, they asked what other programs FCPT does.…
The 1944 Swarthmore Lecture by W Russell Brain, reviewed by John Hall Walter Russell Brain (1895-1966) joined the Friends’ Ambulance Unit in 1915 but did not become a Quaker until 1931, by which time he had been elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, specialising in neurology. Knighted in 1952, he was made…
by Rhiannon Grant I am a Quaker both by accident and by design. I didn’t set out to be born into a Quaker family (although perhaps my parents had it in mind!), but nevertheless I was, as it happened, a cradle Quaker. Later in life, I made a few half-hearted attempts to leave the Quaker…
by Jez Smith Gerald Hewitson, a Quaker based in Wales, is set to deliver the 2013 Swarthmore Lecture, A Journey to the Heart of the Quaker Experience. The lecture will be given during Britain Yearly Meeting at Friends House on 25/05/2013. Although the lecture will be delivered then, the Swarthmore Lecture is in the care…
The 1949 Swarthmore Lecture by Roger Cowan Wilson, reviewed by Jennifer Barraclough The joy of the Swarthmore Lectures is their continuing ability to illuminate, console and inform. Although Roger Cowan Wilson wrote about authority, leadership and concern in the context of Quaker relief work during and immediately after the Second World War, there is much…
by Sheila Hancock (from a radio interview, not written for Nayler) After I had cancer myself, I began to feel a lack of a spiritual element in my life… I went to a meeting of the Society of Friends – a Quaker meeting. I went for a weekend – they have weekend retreats. Instantly it…
By Hayley and Mia Hayley: We have been attending Quaker meetings for about a year and a half now. Mia has made friends and I often stay in the family room for the first part of the meeting to play games with the young ones. I found out about Quakerism through reading and researching on…
By Stephanie Grant Why am I a Quaker? because it’s where God wants me to be, because it’s a place I can work out how to follow the teachings of Jesus without the rituals and creeds that troubled me in other churches, because I feel it’s where I belong, because it gives me a safe…