FGC Gathering 2002 -- Workshop #43:
"Confronting the Peace Testimony: Quakerism 9-11"
Description of the workshop (Copied from the FGC webpage):
After the World Trade Center's destruction, the peace testimony is abruptly atop many Friends' agendas. But this "testimony" has not been a simple or unambiguous witness. We will look closely at the testimony's theology, history, evolution, and its challenges. Not protest planning or talking secular politics. High-content; advance readings.
The Quaker Peace testimony is a key element of Quaker faith and practice. Yet it is not one statement or position; it grew and changed as the Society developed; and this evolution continues. The testimony has also been subject to many interpretations and challenges over the centuries, both among Friends and outside our ranks.
All wars are not the same, and many Friends have reacted differently to such situations as:
popular vs. unpopular wars;
being in the territory of an aggressor, or of the aggressor's victims;
when Friends themselves were, or were not, wartime targets;
when they held public office in wartime, or not; and
when they were trying to prevent a war, stop a war that had already
begun, or bring relief and healing after a war.
This workshop will be heavily based on documents--many little-known today--produced by and among Friends over the centuries relating to war and peace, and how to bear a faithful peace witness. Through them we will try to enter empathetically into the experience and convictions of many who have gone before us.
On this base, we will think hard together about how the varied past witness of Friends might inform, inspire and caution us as we face the crises before us now. We will not expect to reach any consensus as to thinking or action; our paths will be discerned between each of us and the Spirit.
This workshop is based on the conviction that we are part of a faith community that
extends through time, and learning from the witness of those who have gone before is part
of what we are called to do today to develop our own faithful witness tomorrow.
<< Back
E-mail: quest@quaker.org