Category Archives: Hard-Core Quaker

Quaker FAQs #1-Why Don’t I Know Much About Quakerism?

From “Some Quaker FAQs” — So talking with people from such churches, we’ll likely be getting a lot of questions that include the phrase, “But the Bible says . . . .”

But wait: if something is “written in the Bible,” does that automatically make it true, or right?

It will be better if you can answer such questions based on your own study of the Bible. But it’s also a fair answer for a Progressive Quaker to say, “Suppose the Bible does say such and such. So what? For our kind of Quakers, we learn from the Bible, but the Bible is not the whole ‘TRUTH’ without any errors. It’s not the ‘complete source’ for our religion. It is not a substitute for God or the Inner Light or the Spirit for us.”

(Be advised, such an answer might shock some people. You might get a reply like, “But if you don’t believe in the Bible as all true, you’re going to burn in hell.” We’ll talk a little further on about this “burning in hell” idea. But don’t let it scare you.)

Norman Morrison’s Transcendent Language of Self-Immolation

On a chilly November day in 1965, a thirty-one year old Quaker pacifist named Norman Morrison, a father of three, left his home in Baltimore with his infant daughter Emily and drove forty miles to Washington, DC. Once there, as dusk settled over the capitol city, he drove to the Pentagon where he drenched himself in kerosene and struck a match on his shoe. It is not clear if he had handed Emily to someone standing nearby or had sat her down out of harms way. As Norman burned alive, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, looking out of his office window only yards away, was horrified. He watched as Pentagon attaches rushed to try to put out the flames, scorching themselves in the process.

Why Is North Carolina Yearly Meeting Like The Flint River?

So this proposal might be an interesting opener for broader discussion, but just a beginning. If the YM wants to set concrete standards of conduct (e.g., don’t steal YM money; don’t sexually abuse or harass others, especially children; respect your fiduciary duties), there are likely numerous specific infractions that could be agreed on.

But those who think they could now achieve a purge of meetings which have non-fundamentalist views about the Bible, social issues and other matters by tacking on these preliminary steps, will likely run into some stiff opposition, as they have before, pushing the purge idea from the YM floor.

Tom Fox Memorial Book Is Available Again

On November 25, 2005, Tom Fox was kidnaped in Baghdad, Iraq, along with three comrades. All four were members of a Christian Peacemakers Team, working to exhibit a spirit of peace and reconciliation in a land riven by war and terror.

His three colleagues were freed by British and U.S. troops on March 23, 2006. But almost two weeks earlier, on March 10, Tom’s body was found in a garbage dump in the city; he had been murdered.

My Recurring Quaker Nightmare — Every January 27th

Yes, January 27 is Mozart’s birthday. He would have been (and IS, in a real way) 250-plus years old today, give or take.

And the nightmare scenario just recounted haunts me because it brings home how drastically poorer my own life would be, had the musician by some miscarriage undergone the kind of conversion it imagines.

How much difference has it made? There was an underground comic strip back in the Sixties about several disreputable characters called the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. These fellows had a saying, that “Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope.”

For me, tho I enjoyed the Brothers in their time, a truer motto would be, MOZART will get you through times of no money better than MONEY will get you through times of no Mozart!”

And let the church say, “AMEN!”