All posts by Chuck Fager

Re-Re-Re-Inventing The Wheel: 170 Years of “Convergent” Quakerism

As Robin Mohr, the younger Friend who coined the “Convergent” label put it, the idea appeals to “Friends from the politically liberal end of the evangelical branch, the Christian end of the unprogrammed branch, and the more outgoing end of the Conservative branch.”

But what has happened repeatedly is that the “politically (and theologically) liberal end of the evangelical branch” gets lopped off, and those involved either hunker down, or join an exodus.

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An Anti-Abortion Meme & My Reply

Notwithstanding my bias toward preserving life, I am clear that legal bans on abortion are bad & counterproductive public policy, in much the same way that Prohibition was the wrong answer to the “right” question of alcohol abuse (a question still very much with us, and still essentially unanswered).
Most Americans today have very little notion of just how disastrously deep and lasting was the social damage done by Prohibition.

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Lunch With the Anti-Christ at Western Quarterly Meeting

Wayne Lamb compared the Spring Letter to the teachings and practice of David Koresh (of the Waco cult which left more than 80 dead, including many children, in a 1993 shootout with authorities), and Jim Jones (of the Peoples Temple cult, which killed more than 900 people, also including many children, in a 1978 massacre). Similarly abusive (not to say slanderous) language and accusations, it is clear, have not been absent from the debates that have been ongoing over diversity of beliefs in NCYM.

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