In case any liberal U. S. Friends haven’t yet noticed, FGC (aka Friends General Conference) is flailing. Its crowning event, the annual Gathering, is on life support; the prognosis is grave. As at Balmoral Castle a week or so ago, key “family” members are gathered: some keeping vigil at the bedside, as others huddle over … Continue reading FGC: Can This Quaker Gathering Be Saved?
An Excerpt From, “What Church Splits Can Teach Us About a Dividing America,” Russell Moore, in Christianity Today: “I asked a pastor of a large Methodist congregation what took the churches in the denomination so long to figure out that they must go in different directions. He responded, “You are looking at this wrong, and … Continue reading Russell Moore on Current U. S. Church splits, and their wider implications
NOTE: “Don’t Say ‘Gay’”? Smacking around Disney’s Mouse?? Bullying teachers??? Squashing Drag Storytime?? Hectoring trans folk??? Guv, you must have a secret stash of the more colorful works of William Prynne (1600-1669). Back in The Day, old Willie P. Knew how to put the Pew and the Pure back into Puritanism. Let’s hear a bit … Continue reading Memo to Florida Gov. DeSantis: DON’T You DARE Read This!
In 1848 Quaker farmer Jonathan Roberts moved his family south from New Jersey to a new farm in northern VA in 1848. He arrived with high hopes and even higher ideals. The new spread adjoined George Washington’s Mt. Vernon plantation, already a historic site for the still-young nation. Yet with its distinguished lineage, the property … Continue reading The “Quaker Scout”: Highlighting A Very Relevant Piece of Quaker History
[NOTE: This review does not mention that amid the spreading devastation of the English Civil War, which in 1649 led to the execution of the defeated Charles I, a new radical religious group, derisively called Quakers, was coming into being. The earliest Friends were at least in sympathy with Cromwell’s anti-monarchical “Commonwealth,” and not a … Continue reading Quakerism was born in a terrible civil war. Could it survive another one?