7thMo. 2012 Blog Posts (4)

Some Friends here may be aware of the problems we face with the BYM Quaker Forum of which I am a moderator. Basically it is very hard to find, and when you do, you have to join up to be able to even read it. For this reason it does not act as a very good Quaker outreach tool.

Nik Dadson of Quaker Communications at Friends House sent out a round-robin email in January suggesting that the forum might be closed down through lack of use. The users deny the lack of use, and are saying it…

I write about this problem of controversy over Christ among American Friends to encourage us who are Christian Quakers to face it head on. Let us labor with the other side in love. Recently a Friend told me that Jesus is welcome in Liberal Friends meetings, but we dare not say his name. This suppression of Christian language is the heart of the problem. Healing is the only way to solve it and to do that we need dialog.

             While on a private pilgrimage to northwest England several years ago, I was moved to climb Firbank Fell, the hill where the great spiritual movement of Quakerism began. The historical marker said that in 1652 one thousand people had gathered there to hear a sermon by George Fox, a young itinerant preacher.  I wondered, as I looked around, why so many people had climbed the steep hill to hear him? Later I discovered that they had come to the market fair at…

This may be the time-  a few days after returning from the New Foundation Gathering at Woodbrooke-  to express some thoughts  concerning both the past and the future.

It was good to meet, and spend time with, those who had given not only their time, but their lives, to carrying out the work which Lewis Benson and others started. It was clear that their commitment was beyond that which might be expected in the mundane affairs of everyday life. But they were not dealing with everyday…