Category Archives: Social Justice

The Fight Over the Supreme Court is not Over — Just Ask Sheldon Whitehouse

Flashbacks: an article in the August 17 (2019) Washington Post, about a donnybrook developing around the vacationing Supreme Court, is giving me flashbacks: It seems like a century ago — October 4, 2018. The first day of hearings on the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination. Everybody was waiting for the predicted bombshell sexual assault testimony … Continue reading The Fight Over the Supreme Court is not Over — Just Ask Sheldon Whitehouse →

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A Delightful Sketch of John Woolman

The African Saint started Western Europe on the downward course of religious persecution proper. Before him there had, indeed, been persecution of religions for racial or political reasons, but St. Augustine was perhaps the chief of those who supplied the religious motive for religious persecution, and turned God Himself into Moloch, a feat which no one but a really “good” man could have performed. Thenceforth, until the age of the much abused Whigs and sceptics, all the best people in the world were engaged in torturing each other and making earth into hell. It was through St. Augustine rather than through Constantine that the Church drank poison. The torch was handed down from him through St. Dominic and St. Ignatius till it scorched the hand of St. John [Calvin] of Geneva by the pyre of [Michael] Servetus. They were all, at least after their conversions, unusually “good” men, but not good all through like John Woolman.

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Abortion & Civil War – 2019 Update; 2021 Postscript

In 1988 I wrote a substantial essay laying out my views about abortion, and describing how they had evolved over time. The piece also considered the increasing parallels, both rhetorical and political,  between this struggle and the Civil War. Thirty-plus years later, despite some continuing evolution and updates, much of the piece still seems relevant, … Continue reading Abortion & Civil War – 2019 Update; 2021 Postscript →

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Now Online: “Quaker Theology” #33 — 20th Anniversary Issue

Theology as self- and group-defense was part of our 1999 response to the opening query about “Why theology”? It was current then; it was imminent when I visited that school; and it is immediate now.
But I also insisted there were positive reasons to write, read and talk about theology, which we defined as

“the ongoing work of self-examination and definition which any living faith community faces. This ever-unfinished work is at the center of Quaker Theology’s efforts; indeed, it provides us with our working definition of theology, which is: disciplined reflection and continuing conversation about individual and communal religious experience. It seems to us that such disciplined reflection is part of our religious duty. After all, in Matthew 22:37, Jesus includes in the first Great Commandment the imperative to love the Lord “with all your mind”; we think Friends today could do better at following this call.”

These positive reasons for theology are also still relevant, if seemingly sidelined by the rush of current events. It’s often been a struggle to make room for it, but we’ve worked at it.

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