Quaker Theology

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  • An Argument for Comprehensive Religious Education of FGC Young Friends

    Joyce Ketterer I am a life-long Quaker and a product of ten years of formal Quaker education as well as nine years of Young Friends experience in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. In high school, I was not only an avid attendee of Young Friends but also a strong Quaker leader, Read More

  • Selected Excerpts from, To Be Broken and Tender: A Quaker Theology for Today

    “Waiting and Attending” One day in prayer I saw a mound of clay being worked by two hands, one the hand of a child, the other the hand of an adult. Then I saw the infinite faces of Jesus. Some faces were familiar— one, the face in the children’s book of my youth, another Read…

  • “Hostage In Iraq” & “118 Days: Christian Peacemaker Teams Held Hostage in Iraq”* Reviewed

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager This is a bad news-good news review. Bad news first: In US army jargon, the “Tooth-to-Tail-Ratio” describes the fact that for every armed soldier on the Baghdad streets or in Afghan mountains, there is a “tail” of eight to ten others, stretching Read More

  • “Spirit Rising, Young Quaker Voices”* A Review

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager “If we have done our job well,” the editors of Spirit Rising declare, “ . . .some pieces [in this book] may surprise, confuse, alarm or even offend you.” Well, that didn’t happen. And partly that’s because I couldn’t keep from seeing this Read More

  • “Study War Some More (If You Want to Work for Peace),”* A Review

    Reviewed by Doug Gwyn This small book of sixty pages offers a good mix of biblical reflection, lessons from Quaker history, and distillations from Chuck Fager’s years of work for peace.  It’s a call to Friends for a more rigorous and long-term Read More

  • Editor’s Introduction, #17

    By Chuck Fager Quaker scholars and academics take note: as we began work on this issue, news came that once again, Quaker Theology has been shown to wield a magical mystery mojo over the careers of some of its contributors. This phenomenon showed itself early on, after Issue #3 in the autumn Read More

  • Update & Preview Philip Gulley, Western Yearly Meeting, And An Excerpt from His Forthcoming Book

    Six years ago, in Quaker Theology, Read More

  • The Quaker Enterprise of Metaphor

    By Jnana Hodson In early Quaker usage, metaphor engages far more than its definition as a figure of speech would presuppose. The central overlapping images – principally Light and Seed, linked to a concept of Truth – advance a complex logic grounded in an outpouring Read More

  • Narrative Theology: from Psychological Warfare to Peace; My journey to/into Quakerism and nonviolence

    Jeanne-Henriette Louis My Ph.D. dissertation on the concepts of psychological warfare in the United States during the Second World War originated in the need to investigate the period corresponding to the first years of my life (I was born in 1938) but also to an extremely painful Read More

  • Howard Thurman and Quakers

    By Stephen W. Angell In 1955, the inaugural year of the Friends Journal, a special issue was published on the theme of the Wider Quaker Fellowship. One of the essays in that issue was excerpted from Deep River, a forthcoming book by Howard Thurman (1899-1981), eminent Christian Read More

  • Response to Thomas Hamm: Holiness 2.5 Cheers

    Carole Dale Spencer First of all, I want to dismiss any notions that my book was in any way an attack on Hamm’s Transformation of American Quakerism. While we disagree on a few issues, his work was an important catalyst for the beginning of my exploration of holiness Read More

  • Thomas Hamm Response to “Holiness, The Soul of Quakerism”*

    Holiness: 2.5 CheersThomas Hamm, Earlham College Thomas Hamm Those of us in the little world of Quaker historians have long known that this book was coming. I got an inkling in 1990, when the Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists was held at George Fox College and Carole Spencer presented a paper Read More

  • “Holiness: The Soul of Quakerism”*

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager It was the British historian John Punshon who told a large Quaker body in 2008 that: . . . one way of studying the Quaker past is to use it as a means of self-justification. At times, interpretations of our history have been produced that have been used in the doctrinal…

  • “Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship, Quakers, African Americans, and the Myth of Racial Justice”* A Review

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager Winston Churchill was once told, regarding another politician, that “Mr. X is a very modest man.” “Yes,” Churchill replied, “but then, Mr. X has much to be modest about.” Several times during eight years in North Carolina, I have been introduced Read More

  • About the Contributors, #16

    Stephen W. Angell, is Leatherock Professor of Quaker Studies at Earlham School of Religion. Chuck Fager, Editor of Quaker Theology, is Director of Quaker House in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Philip Gulley is pastor of Fairfield Friends Meeting in Camby, Indiana. Among his Read More

  • About The Contributors, #15

    George Amoss Jr., a member of Homewood Meeting in Baltimore, attends Little Falls Friends Meeting in Fallston, Maryland. A social worker and psychotherapist, he has served as editor of Universalist Friends, the journal of the Quaker Universalist Fellowship, Read More

  • Editor’s Introduction, #15

    This issue covers a wide spectrum. From reflections on John Wooolman’s visionary experiences, it ranges across an effort to reframe early Friends’ spiritual experiences in modern psychological terms, all the way to an exploration of the parallels between Read More

  • “Seeking Paradise: The Spirit of the Shaker”* Reviewed

    Reviewed by Robert Pierson “The peculiar grace of a Shaker chair,” wrote Thomas Merton, “is due to the fact that it was made by someone capable of believing that an angel might come and sit on it.” (p.85) Seeking Paradise reflects the Trappist monk’s Read More

  • “The Dark Side” and “Never Surrender”* Reviewed

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager Since I live and work next door to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, I looked forward to these two books. From very different angles, they shine sharp spotlights on Fort Bragg and its important role in our current war. Beyond that, they illuminate much of our Read More

  • Silence in Heaven: The Revelation to John Woolman

    We might call theology a conversation between present and past. Theology seeks to address contemporary concerns but does so as part of a historical community. So we look to our communal elders of ages past and to their gathered wisdom as a resource for our own theological work.

  • The Psychology of Salvation: Recovering, Reframing, and Reclaiming the Early Quaker Experience

    As it continues to lose its historic identity as a distinctive Christian movement, contemporary Quakerism becomes increasingly diffuse, a condition leading to diminished vitality, commitment, depth, community, and influence. Throughout the range from Christocentrism to nontheism, Friends express various views of what Quakerism is about, what its essential principles and practices are.

  • The Spiritual Similarities of Quaker Silence and Pentecostal Glossolalia in Worship

    By Ho Yan Au The means for worship and liturgy vary among Christian denominations. Traditional churches such as the Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Anglican/Episcopal Church promote a sensible sacredness and solemnity through symbolic rituals with materials such as incense, Read More

  • “Hideous Dream,” “Full Spectrum Disorder: the Military in the New American Century” & “Hold On to Your Humanity: An Open Letter to GI’s in Iraq”* Reviewed

    Reviewed by David Gosling In preparing this collective review of three written pieces by Stan Goff, a one-time Army Master Sergeant turned Socialist; I found myself simultaneously repulsed and intrigued, pushed and pulled, by his suggestions, opinions, insights, findings, memories, Read More

  • An Interview with David Gosling, Winter 2008

    Q. Can you tell us first a bit about your military service and your deployment to Iraq? A. I am an Infantry Captain in the U.S. Army and have been stationed with the 10th Mountain Division of the XVIII Airborne Corps for the past three years. Before Read More

  • “An Introduction to Quakerism” & “The Quakers: A Very Short Introduction”* Reviewed

    Reviewed by Doug Gwyn Over the past several years “Ben” Pink Dandelion has been party to a great deal of fresh Quaker research. His own sociological analysis of Friends in Britain has reframed our understanding of current liberal Quakerism on both sides of the Atlantic. Read More

  • Editor’s Introduction #14

    We don’t do “theme” issues here at Quaker Theology, but readers could be forgiven for thinking that this Issue #14 had a theme of Scriptural study and interpretation. The first piece, by our newly-appointed Associate Editor Stephen W. Angell (Welcome, Steve!), Read More

  • Opening the Scriptures, Then and Now

    By Stephen W. Angell From East Africa to the Midwestern United States, the first decade of the twenty-first century has proven to be a momentous time for the Religious Society of Friends. In Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting, to which I belong, Friends have been discussing whether Read More

  • A Quaker Perspective on the Qur’an and the Bible

    By Anthony Manousos George Bernard Shaw once observed that England and America are two countries separated by a common language. It could also be said that Christianity, Islam and Judaism are three religions separated by a common religious heritage. The three great monotheistic Read More

  • The Importance of Context

    Joe Franko “He has brought me to his banquet halland his banner over me is love.” – Song of Songs 2:4 “This is just my opinion. I could be wrong.” — Gay Spirituality by Toby Johnson On Being Gay and Quaker Above my desk as I write, there is a statue Read More

  • We Are the Missing Link Reflections on Walter Wink’s “The Human Being”

    Douglas Gwyn The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of the Man, Walter Wink. Augsburg Fortress, 368 pages, $26.00. When I began my seminary education at Union in New York in 1971, I took a New Testament survey course with Walter Wink. I vividly Read More

  • “Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality”* A Review

    Reviewed by H. Larry Ingle In the last two or more decades the word “spirituality,” as a substitute for religion, and even “spirit” has taken on a slightly “new age” connotation, with its vague usage making deep inroads among Friends. I haven’t Read More

  • Four Publications on Torture

    A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror. Alfred McCoy. Holt, 320 pages. Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA’s Rendition Flights. Trevor Paglen and A. C. Thompson. Melville House Publishing 208 pages. $23.00 Teaching About Torture, a Curriculum. Peggy Brick. 19 pages. The Quaker Initiative to…

  • “The Trouble with God: Building the Republic of Heaven”* A Review

    A theist Friend’s Appreciation of Quaker Non-theism

  • About The Contributors

    Stephen W. Angell, is Leatherock Professor of Quaker Studies at Earlham School of Religion. Chuck Fager, Editor of Quaker Theology, is Director of Quaker House in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Joe Franko, teaches mathematics at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, California. Read More

  • Editor’s Introduction #13

    This issue includes both new pieces and some followups. On the new side, Mennonite pastor Pearl Hoover offers a preliminary examination of Friend Tom Fox’s evolving spirituality, a process of growth and reflection that led him to the Christian peacemaker teams, Baghdad, Read More

  • The Sermon on the Mount in the Life and Death of Tom Fox

    Pearl Hoover [Editor’s Note: This essay is adapted from a presentation at a memorial session for Tom Fox at Baltimore yearly meeting, in Harrisonburg, Virginia, August 4, 2006.] This paper encompasses the life of Tom Fox, from his earliest decision to give his life Read More

  • “Putting the Bible into Perspective: Hicksites and the Theological Treatment of the Bible in Progressive Reform”

    Jody Cross-Hansen This article is part of one chapter of my doctoral dissertation–a work-in-progress in which I am examining the Nancy Hewitt hypothesis that perhaps the Hicksite schism was a positive event because it led to liberal reform among women. The jury is still Read More

  • The Baptisms of John and Jesus: An Exegesis of John 1:19-34

    Lloyd Lee Wilson Introduction to the Problem A distinctive of early Friends which they frequently defended in debates with other English Christians in the 17th century was their rejection of water baptism as a necessary part of the Christian life. Not only was it unnecessary, these Friends argued, Read More

  • Melting Icebergs Don’t Scream: A Response to Keith Helmuth’s: “The Angel of History, the Storm of Progress, And the Order of the Soul”

    By Chuck Fager In Quaker Theology #12, we published an essay by Keith Helmuth, which offered a theological interpretation of our environmental Read More

  • “Godless For God’s Sake: Nontheism In Contemporary Quakerism”* — A Review

    What have we come to in Friends religious thought, when the most exciting book of Quaker theology I’ve read in years is produced by a bunch of Quaker non-theists–twenty-seven in all?

  • “Wrestling With Our Faith Tradition”* A Review

    A review of Conservative Quakerism on the Rise

  • Apocalypse – Later*

    A Postscript by Chuck Fager As noted in our review of this novel in QT #12, the author had used the novel form to spread a prophecy that the real town of Farmington, Maine would be transformed into the New Jerusalem, Read More

  • About The Contributors

    Jody Cross-Hansen is a doctoral candidate in U.S. History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, specializing in American religious history. She is an adjunct assistant professor in the Religion department at Hofstra University where she Read More

  • Editor’s Introduction #12

    We admit it – we’re proud of this issue. It centers on two of the most substantive and challenging essays we have published in a long time. To lead off, we have heard many mediocre efforts to relate environmental concerns and theology; but Keith Helmuth’s presentation Read More

  • The Angel of History, the Storm of Progress, And the Order of the Soul

    Keith Helmuth He who fights the future has a dangerous enemy. The future is not; it borrows its strength from the man himself, and when it has tricked him out of this, then it appears outside of him as the enemy he must meet. attributed to Soren Kierkegaard Anyone who has felt Read More

  • Historical and Theological Origins of Assemblies of God Pacifism

    Paul Alexander Introduction The General Council of the Assemblies of God changed their official position regarding war from absolute pacifism to freedom of conscience in a mere fifty years.(1) They stated their early adamant stance in the following resolution during World War One: Therefore, we, as a Read More

  • “America’s Providential History, Including Biblical Principles of Education, Government, Politics, Economics, and Family Life,”* A Review

    Reviewed by H. Larry Ingle At a superficial level, America’s Providential History seems to be a textbook: a large format paperback, it looks like a text; it has the feel of one; and it has wide enough margins for the interested student to make copious notes on its pages. Read More

  • “Farmington! Farmington!” A Review*

    Licia Kuenning and her prophecy.

  • About the Contributors

    Paul Alexander is Associate Professor of Bible and Theology at Southwestern Assembly of God University in Waxahachie, Texas, near Dallas. Chuck Fager is Editor of Quaker Theology and Director of Quaker House in Fayetteville-Ft. Bragg NC. Keith Helmuth helped Read More

  • Editors’ Introduction #11

    In this issue, we note some important landmarks, as well as taking some new looks at perennial theological issues. The first landmark is the centennial of the founding of North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative) in 1904. NCYM (C) may be the most viable of the remaining Read More

  • A Conservative Yearly Meeting is Born

    Lloyd Lee WilsonAdapted from Remarks at Representative Body, North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative), 10/30/2004 Several years ago, Wil Cooper gave a plenary address to our yearly meeting sessions. After his prepared remarks, a member of the audience (not a Friend) rose to ask a question. Friends, this man observed, in his experience talked about themselves…

  • The Core Quaker Theology: Is There Such a Thing?

    Chuck FagerAdapted from a presentation atAmawalk Meeting, New York, 8th Mo 14, 2004 When I hear or read of questions about such things as “normative Quakerism,” or “authentic Quakerism” or “traditional Quakerism,” it usually means one of two things: either a person or group feels very much confused Read More

  • “Many Friends do not know ‘where they are’: Some Divisions in London Yearly Meeting During the First World War”

    Thomas Kennedyauthor of British Quakerism 1860-1920 Late in 2001 in the terrible aftermath of the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center, Scott Simon, newsman and commentator for National Public Radio who claims membership in the Society of Friends, presented solemn public testimony Read More

  • In Search of Religious Radicalism

    By Charley Earp 1. The Radicalization of a Preacher’s Kid A Long Strange Trip At the very core of my being, I have undergone an earth-shaking religious transition in the past few years. Less than nine years ago, I was a passionately committed Bible-believing Christian. Not that I was a conventional evangelical by any stretch…

  • The Spiral Staircase

    “My Climb Out of Darkness” and “Grace Notes” Reviewed* Reviewed by Ellen McCambley The Spiral Staircase is the latest book written by scholar and author Karen Armstrong, who presents it as a “sequel” to her earlier book, “Through the Narrow Gate,” which documents her early years in a Catholic convent. Karen is Read More

  • Taking Up Niebuhr’s Irony: Living a Theological Saga: Review Essay

    Six Books by Gary Dorrien Published by Westminster John Knox, Louisville: The Making of American Liberal Theology: Imagining Progressive Religion, 1805-1900. 2001, 494 pages. The Making of American Liberal Theology: Idealism, Realism & Modernity, 1900-1950. 2003, 666 pages. The Word As True Myth: Interpreting Modern Theology. 1997, 287 pages. The Remaking of Evangelical Theology. 1998,…

  • About the Contributors

    Charley Earp is a father, husband, and erstwhile theologian. He is a member of Northside Meeting in Chicago, with a day job in the travel business. Chuck Fager is Editor of Quaker Theology and Director of Quaker House in Fayetteville NC. Thomas Kennedy is Professor Read More

  • The Journeyman – The Making of a Muslim Quaker

    Brent Miller-White How does a person start out as a liberal Protestant Christian, follow doubts about Christian orthodoxy into Quakerism, move from there to becoming a Muslim – and through Islam find a way back to understanding and valuing Jesus? That’s my story, a journeyman’s story, Read More

  • Editors’ Introduction, #10

    By Chuck Fager & Ann Riggs The theological history of American liberal Quakerism has not been examined in any comprehensive way; it has been terra incognita to those both within and without its fold. But in recent years several researchers, including your Editor, have been at work Read More

  • Lucretia Mott, Liberal Quaker Theologian

    Chuck Fager Let me begin by posing a question: If Lucretia Mott had ever been arrested for being a liberal Quaker theologian, would there have been enough evidence to convict? Of course, she would have loudly protested that she was no such thing, that in fact she roundly despised theology, Read More

  • Messiahs of Every Age: A Theological Basis of Nineteenth-Century Social Reform

    Priscilla Elaine Eppinger At the age of 87 Lucretia Mott attended the 1880 Philadelphia Quaker Yearly Meeting. The representative committee reported that although the issue of temperance had been before them, the “way did not open for them to take Read More

  • Questions for the Movement: Property Damage as a Tactic in Nonviolent Actions

    Dean J. Johnson[Note: A quote below includes strong profanity] The paper that follows explores questions of nonviolence and property damage as they pertain to nonviolent actions aimed at radical social change. In times of great duress, which are not always ripe for revolutionary turn-abouts, the use of property damage Read More

  • “Towards Tragedy/Reclaiming Hope,”* a Review

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager Is tragedy dead? If so, is this a “tragic” loss for our culture? And does the scope of the presumably disastrous effects of its presumed demise include the Religious Society of Friends? If so, is there any prospect for regaining the tragic Read More

  • “The Passion of the Christ,” a Movie Review

    By Gulielma Fager In Mel Gibson’s February, 2004 interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC, he responded to the rampant pre-release criticism of his movie, The Passion of the Christ, by saying, “Critics who have a problem with me don’t really have a problem Read More

  • About the Contributors, #10

    Priscilla Elaine Eppinger is Assistant Professor of Religion at Graceland University, Lamoni Iowa. Her fields of interest include Ecological Theology, Ministries of the Church, and Christian Feminist Theologies. Her doctoral dissertation was Lucretia Read More

  • Editors’ Introduction #9

    By Chuck Fager & Ann Riggs We are pleased to offer here a wide-ranging selection of the thought and work active among Friends. The issue begins with Stephen Angell’s scholarly examination of George Fox’s efforts at basic religious education, and then jumps to a very personal “oral history” Read More

  • The Catechisms of George Fox

    Why they were written in the first place, what was contained in them, what use was made of them, And what we can learn from them today By Stephen W. Angell Catechisms are out of fashion in the twenty-first century, perhaps because of a perceived rigidity or undue conformity that seems to many to be…

  • Friendly Healing in Frampton and the Forest

    By Richard Lee Frampton on Severn was around before William the Conqueror and his Normans conquered England. It is an old village on the edge of the Royal Forest of Dean. Still, no one knows for sure just how old Frampton is. It was in Frampton where my Ol’ Gran taught Read More

  • Nimrod and the Tower of Babel: Genesis 10-11 in Seventeenth-Century Quaker Writings

    By Esther Greenleaf Murer This paper grows out of the Quaker Bible Index, an attempt at a comprehensive Scripture index to make readily available Seventeenth and Eighteenth-century Quaker writings. The first version, which appeared in 1993 and is available on CD-ROM, included about Read More

  • The Church: Called, Gathered, and Faithful

    a response to The Nature and Purpose of the Church: A Stage on the Way to a Common Statement (World Council of ChurchesFaith and Order Paper No. 181, Nov. 1998) by Friends United Meeting Ecumenical Task Group February, 2002 Friends United Meeting commits itself to energize and equip Friends through the power of the Holy…

  • “If Grace Be True: Why God Will Save Every Person*” and “A Treatise on Atonement*” Reviewed

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager Dissident Quaker Meetings in Indiana Almost two hundred years ago, Hosea Ballou foretold what would befall two Quaker pastors in Indiana, Philip Gulley and his good friend James Mulholland, in 2002: To profess universal salvation,” Ballou wrote, “will subject some to excommunication from regular churches; Read More

  • “Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power In a Violent World” a Review

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager I First a bit of autobiography: Jean Bethke Elshtain and I were both undergraduates at Colorado State University, and late in my time there, we became acquainted. I recall with a smile a party where she, a known intellectual, amazed me by dancing wildly to the Beatles, at a Read More

  • Reviews: “A Stone Bridge North,” by Kate Maloy & “Driving By Moonlight” by Kristin Henderson*

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager Living out a faith is the substance of narrative theology, and memoir is one of the best forms through which we can glimpse this theology taking shape, with all the accompanying struggle and exaltation. Two recent memoirs by Quaker women name and present this process superbly, Read More

  • About the Contributors, #9

    Stephen W. Angell is the Leatherock Professor of Quaker Studies at the Earlham School of Religion. Chuck Fager is Editor of Quaker Theology and Director of Quaker House in Fayetteville, North Carolina. His most recent books include Shaggy Read More

  • Editor’s Introduction, #8

    By Chuck Fager Much of Quaker theology is inextricably interwoven with our history. This is a truism fitting most if not all religions; yet it is especially true of the Religious Society of Friends, because of our relative paucity of formal theologizing. Hence it felt natural, Read More

  • Quaker History & Theology: Three Interviews

    By Chuck Fager Editor’s Introduction: In Tenth Month 2002, some very interesting people gathered at Swarthmore College for a Conference on George Fox’s Legacy. Numerous papers were delivered, many of which will be published presently in Quaker History, the journal Read More

  • A Quaker in a Material World: A Materialist Perspective

    Osborn Cresson I am a Quaker and a materialist. That is, the only reality I know is the physical world of cause and effect, and yet Quakers and their practices are fundamental to my life. People are surprised by this combination of the secular and the Quaker. They ask, can materialism lead Read More

  • Peace Theology and Foundations for Ecumenical Dialogue

    Lauree Hersch Meyer Editor’s Introduction: In 1999, the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches invited WCC member churches and others who share their concerns to participate in a decade of work to overcome violence in our world. Giving shape and direction to the Read More

  • Milton Mayer, Quaker Hedgehog

    A Review and Profile, by H. Larry Ingle State Authority Over the Individual Oxford-educated political scientist Isaiah Berlin, in his minor classic “The Hedgehog and the Fox” (1953), divided people into two groups, those who understood one big thing like the hedgehog and those, like the fox, who knew many things. The Read More

  • Review: “A Catholic’s Journey through Quakerism*

    Reviewed by Jeffrey Gros This fascinating pilgrimage will be of interest to all Friends and to Christians beyond the boundaries of Quakerism. The author offers her text particularly to those traditions that have nurtured her own very full life: “I hope that Catholics Read More

  • About Contributors, #8

    Osborn Cresson, of Mount Holly Monthly Meeting, is a retired special education teacher who lived in Monteverde, Costa Rica, for many years. He has just published a book about his family’s experiences in Afghanistan (www.quaker.org/afghanistan). Chuck Fager Read More

  • About the Contributors, #8

    Osborn Cresson, of Mount Holly Monthly Meeting, is a retired special education teacher who lived in Monteverde, Costa Rica, for many years. He has just published a book about his family’s experiences in Afghanistan (www.quaker.org/afghanistan). Chuck Fager Read More

  • About the Contributors #7

    Chuck Fager is a member of State College (PA) Meeting, and Director of Quaker House in Fayetteville, NC. He is Editor of Quaker Theology, and his most recent book is The Harlot’s bible. Stanley Hauerwas is Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity Read More

  • Quakers and The Lamb’s War: A Hermeneutic for Confronting Evil, Non-Violent Resistance

    By Gene Hillman A paper presented at the International Historic Peace Church Consultation Bienenberg Theological Seminary, Switzerland, June 25-28, 2001 As they war not against men’s persons, so their weapons are not carnal nor hurtful to any of the creation; for the Lamb Read More

  • Friends for 350 Years Howard H. Brinton. Historical update and notes by Margaret Hope Bacon.

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager There is really no honest way to say this but straight out: Except for its handsome new cover design, this reissue of Howard Brinton’s Friends for 300 Years is an utter embarrassment. For the sake of Pendle Hill’s reputation, and out of respect for Brinton’s Read More

  • The Making of “The Tree Of Life” in Indigenous Mexican Beliefs

    By Bruce “Pacho” Lane Quakerism and Mexican Indian Religious Beliefs This is a story about learning to put Quaker faith into practice in a way George Fox never anticipated, while making a film about a Mexican Indian religious belief and ritual. I’m a “birth-right” Friend. My father, Ralph Lane, was convinced while in college at…

  • From Reason to Truth to Mystery: An Odyssey to Orthodoxy

    By John W. Oliver Some days ago an off-the-cuff reference to myself as a former Evangelical Friend caused a slight stir. Chuck Fager said, “You must do an article.” Jerry Frost (retiring Director of the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College) said, Read More

  • Real Presence and First-Day Pitch-Ins: Why Quakers Are, and Must Be, a Eucharistic People

    By Patrick J. Nugent “Wait upon God for the Living Bread, that never fades away.” George Fox “I myself am the Bread of Life. Whoever comes to me will never hunger: whoever trusts in me will never thirst.” (John 6:51) I. A Eucharistic Theology for Quakers? In a recent paper, Scott Holland, Read More

  • Abolishing War? An Appeal to Christian Leaders and Theologians

    By Stanley Hauerwas and Enda McDonagh As Christians called to serve the Church in differing Christian traditions we appeal to our Christian sisters and brothers to join a campaign to abolish war as a legitimate means of resolving political conflict between states and within them. Although Read More

  • Editor’s Introduction, # 7

    By Chuck Fager This issue of Quaker Theology is one of the most exciting that it has been my privilege to work on. In it the work of serious religious thought is tackled from several strikingly different but revealing directions. We begin with with an appeal by two distinguished Read More

  • Contributors, Issue Six

    Chuck Fager is Editor of Quaker Theology. He serves as Director of Quaker House in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and is Clerk of the Fellowship of Quakers in the Arts. Robert Griswold is also the author of an article, “No Creed Is Not the Same as No Theology,” Read More

  • A Great Deep: The Peace Testimony and Historical Realism

    By Chuck Fager Walking in the Way of Peace: Quaker Pacifism in the Seventeenth Century. Meredith Baldwin Weddle. Oxford University Pres, 2001 British Quakerism 1860-1920: the Transformation of a Religious Community. Thomas C. Kennedy. Oxford University Press, 2001. Re-examing Quaker Peace Testimony In Read More

  • Herrymon Maurer and the Tao of Quakerism

    by Anthony Manousos “When I first read Herrymon’s version of the Tao The Ching, I was bowled over,” recalls Steve Penningroth, a biochemist from Princeton University. “What struck me was the commentary. Without it I was Read More

  • Friends’ Theological Heritage: From Seventeenth-Century Quietists to A Guide to True Peace Though Silent Worship

    By Dianne Guenin-Lelle Quaker Theology and Silent Worship The purpose of this paper is to re-establish an historical link between Quaker theology and practice of silent worship and the Quietist movement of seventeenth-century Europe, especially France, Italy and Spain. The most evident Read More

  • “Condition” in Quaker Theology and George Fox

    By Robert Griswold Save us from what our own hands might do; lift the veilbut do not tear it.Save us from the ego; its knife has reached our bones.Who but You will break these chains?Let us turn from ourselves to YouWho are nearer to us than Read More

  • Friends for 350 Years

    George Fox, Firbank Fell, England, 13th of Sixth Month, 1652: While others were gone to dinner, I went to a brook, got a little water, and then came and sat down on the top of a rock hard by the chapel. In the afternoon the people gathered about me, with several of their preachers. It…

  • Editor’s Introduction (Issue #6)

    By Chuck Fager “There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition.” It’s a familiar, and central, quote from the Journal of George Fox. But most attention to the sentence has been focused on Jesus, the “speaker,” Read More

  • Shaggy Locks & Birkenstocks

    a paper delivered at a Swarthmore College Symposium on the Legacy of George Fox, October 2002

  • “Mim and the Klan: A Hoosier Quaker Farm Family’s Story,”* a Review

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager Shameful History of Quaker Involvement with the Klan Besides producing an interesting story for young readers, Cynthia Stanley Russell has also done something very important for adults in this debut novel: she has written as a Quaker about the reality of Quaker involvement in the Ku Klux Klan. This is the…

  • Ham Sok Hon: “Voice of the People and Pioneer of Religious Pluralism in Twentieth Century Korea;” Biography of a Korean Quaker.*

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager Early in the morning of Second Month 4, 1989, Kim Sung Soo learned that Ham Sok Hon had died. “When I looked at him in his coffin,” Kim writes, “I felt it was as if a part of myself had died. Faced with his death my mind began to wander Read…