Quaker Theology

Chuck Fager

  • Theology & Peace Witness by Chuck Fager

    A Letter to the Next Director of Quaker House, Fayetteville-Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Here’s the job description in a nutshell: as the Director of Quaker House (QH), besides managing a small non-profit, the essence of the work a call to continue a protracted, hand-to-hand combat with the Spirit of War, operating behind the lines of…

  • Four-Track Mind: The True Story of the Brothers Doug by Doug Gwyn

    My early songwriting tended to be more jokey and satirical than more recent efforts. But from the beginning in 1977 to the present, I have worked with irony and paradox, humorous or not, to explore my experience of grace and my understanding of God as someone who subverts and overturns my human categories for the…

  • Editor’s Introduction, #33

    By Chuck Fager Twenty years and 32 issues ago, we asked “What is theology, and why should Friends be interested in it?” Read More

  • The Separation Generation

    By Chuck Fager; with material edited and adapted from previous issues of Quaker Theology. I – Background It’s not easy – in fact, impossible – to pick a starting date for what I call the “Separation Generation” in American Quakerism. My personal preference is July 1977, when the first major interbranch conference in decades, gathered in…

  • Editor’s Introduction, #29

        There’s some good news in American Quakerdom this fall: North Carolina Yearly Meeting (FUM), whose travails we have been following for two years, has decided not to split, and the two-year effort to purge its handful of “liberal” meetings has been given up. Instead, as our report here shows, it will undertake to “reorganize”…

  • Back From The Brink: North Carolina Yearly Meeting Says No To A Split

    Chuck Fager I North Carolina Yearly Meeting-FUM (NCYM) has ended the two-year effort to purge its “liberal meetings.” This seems to be the most definite outcome of its showdown annual session on August 13 and 14, 2016. It was a very close thing. The leadership wanted a purge disguised as a split, and the steamroller…

  • “Our Life is Love: The Quaker Spiritual Journey”* A Review

    The article reviews Marcelle Martin’s book *Our Life is Love: The Quaker Spiritual Journey*, highlighting its effort to elucidate ten essential elements of Quaker spiritual life through a blend of early Quaker history and contemporary voices. The review praises the book’s inclusiveness and historical clarity but critiques it for idealizing early Friends, underrepresenting non-mystic and…

  • “Quiet Heroes: A Century of American Quakers’ Love and Help for the Japanese and Japanese-American”* A Review

    Chuck Fager Want a good definition for “the middle of nowhere”? Try heading north on US Highway 395, almost 120 miles past Death Valley in California, and 100-plus from the eastern entrance to Yosemite. This is the Owens Valley. It’s home to bands of Paiute-Shoshone Indians, some hardy fruit farmers, cattle ranchers, and not much…

  • Editor’s Introduction, #28

    This issue covers a broad range of concerns and issues. An account of disciplined interreligious education and dialogue work opens the volume. It describes an approach that is informed by Quaker spirituality, across gaps of understanding and belief that often seem unbridgeable, but which grace and attention sometimes cross. Read More

  • Introduction to Issue #21

    This is a packed issue, full of high-content, substantive thought and reporting. First, there are two updates by Associate Editor Stephen Angell on the continuing conflict in Indiana Yearly Meeting. They continue our detailed coverage of this significant episode, a record not available elsewhere. Read More

  • 00. Can the American Friends Service Committee Get Its Quaker Groove Back?

    Chuck Fager Read More

  • Editor’s Introduction, #16

    This issue marks the tenth anniversary of Quaker Theology. It was in the autumn of 1999 when Ann Riggs and I set out on this continuing journey. Read More

  • Why Study Theology?

    Editor’s Introduction #2 By Chuck Fager. Read More

  • Some Quaker Reflections on the Kosovo War

    By Chuck Fager Read More

  • “The Creation of Quaker Theory: Insider Perspectives,”* A Review

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager The title of this book resonates with irony at several levels. On the surface, as the “insiders” who contributed to it are mainly academics, or serious scholars; the pages exude a guild mentality. Moreover, its contributors, at the one actual forum where three preliminary papers were delivered by three contributors from…

  • 06: AFSC and Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting & Association

    An Exchange About Numbers; (SAYMA), 2011-2012 From SAYMA’s minutes, 2011: [SAYMA =] Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting & Association June 9-12, 2011[Below: SAYMA’s logo & Map of Meetings] Read More

  • 07: A Flicker of Hope: A Friendly Letter

    Written & published by Chuck Fager Issue Number SevenTenth Month 1981 Read More

  • 08: Another False Dawn: AFSC, 1991-1992

    A Friendly Letter, Written & published by Chuck Fager, Issue #127, 12th Month 1991 As the Corporation and Board of the American Friends Service Committee gathered for its annual meeting on 11/15-17, AFSC was on the brink of important change: A new Board clerk has taken hold. A new Executive Secretary, the most pivotal Quaker…

  • 09: Introduction to Quaker Service at the Crossroads – 1988

    Chuck Fager There’s an old Quaker joke: a young woman attends her first business meeting as an adult member, looking to make her mark, and sits next to a weighty older Friend in a grey bonnet who is knitting quietly. An agenda item comes up which requires nominations to a new committee; the young Friend…

  • 10: Gilbert White & AFSC: A Letter to the Editor, Friends Journal, 2006

    H. Larry Ingle & Chuck Fager (Published in the April 2006 issue.) Read More

  • 11: Can the AFSC Get Its Quaker Groove Back?

    By Chuck Fager Adapted from Quaker Theology, Issue #18, 2010-2011 Read More

  • Is There Life after Death in Quaker North Carolina?

    Chuck Fager Demolishing a 320-Year-Old Meeting     At 10:58 Eastern time,  Seventh Day (Saturday), Eighth Month (August) 5, 2017, at Quaker Lake Camp near Liberty, NC, Clerk Michael Fulp asked, “Do you approve?” Read More

  • Editor’s Introduction, #30/#31

    This double issue is an effort to recover some momentum that’s been lost in the past year. The last issue, #29, appeared almost eighteen months ago. Yet our “mission statement” on the copyright page says our intention is to publish two issues per year. And we’ve kept up that pace fairly closely since beginning in…

  • An Increasingly Familiar Story: Northwest Yearly Meeting Expulsions & Sequelae

    Chuck Fager We’ve also been following the growing tensions in Northwest Yearly Meeting, out west (see Issue #24:, Issue #27  ; and Issue #28 ). Read More

  • Remembering Tom Fox Introduction to: Tom Fox Was My Friend. Yours, Too.

    Chuck Fager Christian Peacemakers Kidnapped in Baghdad John Stephens called me with the news: Tom Fox and three other members of the Christian peacemaker Teams’ group (CPT) in Baghdad had been kidnaped. It was just after Thanksgiving, late November, 2005. Read More

  • Study War Some More (If You Want to Work for Peace)

    Chuck Fager Introduction Why a study on Quaker peace strategy? From some current perspectives, laboring over the stra-tegy and history of Quaker peace work is a curiosity, if not a waste of time. Larger and more influential groups are at work on peace issues, especially in Washington DC; isn’t our main role is to support…

  • “No Country for Jewish Liberals,” “The Half Life of a Free Radical”* Two Reviews

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager These two autobiographical memoirs should be much more different.  They ended up in a stack of books by my recliner, and I was soon struck by a kind of spiritual resonance and counterpoint between them, across seemingly vast gaps of culture and personality. Neither is by or about a Quaker. But…

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

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager Reprinted from Quaker Theology #5, Autumn 2001 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…

  • Review Essay: Resistance Theology in Niebuhr, Barth, Rauschenbush & Dorrien; Irony & Living a Theological Saga

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager Adapted from Quaker Theology #11 – Spring-Summer 2005 Read More

  • Tom Fox: In Memoriam: Introduction

    by Chuck Fager Read More

  • North Carolina & Northwest Yearly Meeting Updates: Ambushed, Sandbagged, and Kicked Down The Road

    Chuck Fager I Have you seen moments like this in detective films, or in stories? When Sherlock, or whoever the sleuth is, hunches forward and shouts: “Good God, Watson! How could I be such a FOOL??” (Usually, it means things are about to get very interesting.) Read More

  • Editor’s Introduction, #27

    If there’s a keyword for this issue. It’s “Release.” As Stephen Angell points out in his report here, “release” has had an honorable heritage in the Quasker glossary, mainly referring either to the sending of a Friend (or Friends) on some mission on behalf of their home monthly or yearly meeting; or since the introduction…

  • Quakers and “Transformation”

    An Editorial Commentary You ask me, it’s a sure sign of a needed change coming: Read More

  • Part II: Northwest Yearly Meeting Elders “Release” (i.e., Expel) West Hills Friends Meeting

    Background On July 24, 2015, only hours after the annual NWYM sessions had adjourned, NWYM elders communicated to West Hills Friends Meeting (WHF) that they had been expelled, or, in the el­ders’ term, “released,” from the yearly meeting. Read More

  • “Holy Nation: The Transatlantic Quaker Ministry in an Age of Revolution”* Reviewed

    The review critically examines Sarah Crabtree’s book “Holy Nation,” which argues that early Quakerism was shaped by a “Zion tradition” viewing Quakers as a chosen people, analogous to biblical Israel. While the thesis sheds light on a neglected aspect of Quaker identity and activism, the book suffers from numerous factual inaccuracies, weak research, and a…

  • Editor’s Introduction, #26

    This issue is the longest in Quaker Theology’s sixteen-year tenure. It wasn’t intended to be that. But both weighty events and substantive material kept accumulating, and here we are. Read More

  • A Review, “Personality and Place, the Life & Times of Pendle Hill”

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager Read More

  • “A Convergent Model of Renewal: Remixing the Quaker Tradition in a Participatory Culture”*

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager There’s more than little déjà vu about A Convergent Model of Renewal. Quakerism, Wess Daniels argues, will be renewed by the coming together of Friends from the fringes of the various branches, particularly younger members and seekers. Or as he puts it: “It could be said that convergent Friends signal the emergence of a…

  • An Excerpt from Remaking Friends: How Progressive Friends Changed Quakerism & Helped Save America, 1822-1940

    By Chuck Fager FIVE: “Oh! No, It Cannot, Cannot Be – My Darling Babe Will Live . . .” Read More

  • Editor’s Introduction, #24

    Chuck Fager We are very pleased to publish, in this issue, the oldest piece of original theological writing so far (157 years) by our oldest contributor, who clocks in at the ripe age of 205. Or at least, she would be that age if she hadn’t died in 1879. Read More

  • “The Oxford Handbook of Quaker Studies”*

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager Oxford Handbook of Quaker Studies Too Expensive Advice to Meetings: Don’t buy this book. The full retail price is $175, and Amazon only knocks it down to $128.48; even its paper-free Kindle edition is $99.99. Read More

  • Northwest Yearly Meeting and “Shattering” Conflict: Chapter One

    Chuck Fager with Jade Souza With the schism in Indiana Yearly Meeting over one meeting’s open welcome to LGBT persons now complete, one could have thought this journal would have a break from coverage of such events. Read More

  • Progressive Friends: The Top Ten Reasons Why They’re The Most Interesting Quakers We Never Heard Of

    Chuck Fager (Adapted from a presentation at the Conference of Quaker Historians & Archivists, Sixth Month 2012) Read More

  • Editor’s Introduction #23

    I     As this issue took shape, much of the world was keeping vigil while Nelson Mandela, the liberator of South Africa, seemed to be finishing the course of his dramatic, 94-year life pilgrimage. Read More

  • Introduction to Issue #22

    This issue is the largest we have ever published. It wasn’t planned that way: good stuff just kept coming in. And it covers a wide range of topics and concerns, from Quaker peace work in Kenya, to the theological character of a recent award-winning novel about a Quaker who becomes a slaveowner. There is also…

  • Questions for Howard: Being a Kind of Review of the New Biography of Howard & Anna Brinton

    By Chuck Fager “The time has come–indeed, it is long overdue–for a critical assessment of Howard’s major works: Friends for Three Hundred Years (1952) and Guide to Quaker Practice (1943), which continue to be best sellers among liberal Friends.” Read More

  • “A Peace of Africa, Reflections on Life In The Great Lakes Region”

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager In the US, the career track for “development work” is pretty well laid out: it starts with a degree from a “quality” college. Season that with a bit of “on the ground” foreign experience (the Peace Corps will do). From there, snag a slot at a NGO (nongovernmental organization), hang on…

  • “350 Years of the Society of Friends in North America: 1661-2011″*

    The post reviews Geoffrey Kaiser’s detailed and provocative “Quaker Family Tree Chart,” which visually represents 350 years of Quaker history in North America, highlighting numerous schisms and theological tensions. Kaiser’s perspective emphasizes Robert Barclay’s theology, particularly the universality of the Inner Light, and contrasts the numerous evangelical splits with the more stable liberal Quaker tradition.…

  • The Proposed Split of Indiana Yearly Meeting: What Its Monthly Meetings Say

    By Stephen W. Angell Read More

  • “American Religion, Contemporary Trends”*

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager Read More

  • “Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet”*

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager Read More

  • From the Editor, #20

    This is a compact, but packed issue: it opens with a new dispatch by Associate Editor Stephen Angell on the ongoing saga of approaching division in Indiana Yearly Meeting. This is our third update on the situation, and there has been plenty of action and discussion since our previous effort. And while there is plenty…

  • Editor’s Introduction: Divorce in Indiana – Quaker Style

    Divorce is not as traumatic an experience as it once was. In fact, today most spouses resolve to part peaceably. No-fault laws and mediators can smooth the way to property and custody agreements. The results are still wrenching, but civilized, and much better for the children. Not only couples, but countries have managed this: in…

  • About the Contributors

    Stephen Angell, is the Leatherock Professor of Quaker Studies at Earlham School of Religion, Richmond Indiana. Read More

  • “To Change the World, The Irony, Tragedy, & Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World”* A Review

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager Read More

  • Editor’s Introduction, #18

    Okay, readers, here’s a pop quiz: What is UP with Indiana pastoral Friends? Can AFSC get its mojo back? Read More

  • Editor’s Introduction, #19

    Does it mean that Quaker Theology has “arrived” when it becomes part of the opening prayer at Indiana Yearly Meeting? Well, that’s what happened, according to more than one credible witness: our cover “teaser” reference in Issue #18 to “Indiana Trainwrecks” was mentioned in an appeal there for divine guidance and protection. Read More

  • Collected Essays of Maurice Creasey, A Review

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager Read More

  • About The Contributors

    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, and he established the Quaker Electronic Archive Web site at http://www.quakerarchive.org. Read More

  • The Quest for an Authentic French Quakerism: A Conversation with Jeanne-Henriette Louis

                       Chuck Fager Read More

  • “Climate Wars” & “The Green Zone”* Reviewed

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager Read More

  • About The Contributors

    Stephen W. Angell, is Leatherock Professor of Quaker Studies at Earlham School of Religion. Read More

  • “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 back to the states, and typically including civilians. Read…

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

    Reviewed by Chuck Fager Read More

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

    Reviewed by Doug Gwyn Read More

  • “Holiness: The Soul of Quakerism”*

    This post is a detailed review of Carole Dale Spencer’s book “Holiness: The Soul of Quakerism,” which argues that holiness is the central theme of Quaker theology and history. The reviewer critiques Spencer’s interpretation, particularly her emphasis on mystical holiness as the defining essence of Quakerism, and contrasts it with other scholarly works, highlighting the…

  • “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.” 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, and he established the Quaker Electronic Archive Web site at http://www.quakerarchive.org. His earlier essay for Quaker Theology,…

  • 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 Quaker silence and Pentecostal speaking in tongues. 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 common landscape in the United States…

  • “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. It has also inspired a number of similar, sociological approaches.…

  • 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. 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 heard anyone propose that the Religious Society of Friends change its name to…

  • 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 Read More

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

    A theist Friend’s Appreciation of Quaker Non-theism

  • 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, kidnapping, and martyrdom. We hope that Tom’s life and witness will be studied…

  • 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 plight, its associated crises and very uncertain outlook. Your editor praised the piece highly, as offering a superior quality of analysis and articulation of this very difficult situation. 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

    This review critically examines Lloyd Lee Wilson’s collection of essays promoting what he calls the “classic Quaker tradition.” The review highlights Wilson’s blend of traditional Conservative Quakerism with selective modern theological influences, and questions his narrow, individualistic approach to peace testimony and communal Quaker polity. It further challenges Wilson’s dismissive attitude toward liberal Quakerism and…

  • 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, free of death, sin, and illness, on June 6, 2006, at dawn. The transformation…

  • 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 has been teaching for twenty years. She is also an ordained minister in the New…

  • 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. Read More

  • “Farmington! Farmington!” A Review*

    Licia Kuenning and her prophecy.

  • Editors’ Introduction #11

    In this issue, we note some important landmarks, as well as taking some new looks at perennial theological issues. Read More

  • 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 and at sea, and is honestly looking…

  • 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. 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 making forays into this unknown territory and bringing…

  • 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? 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 sense, and thus regaining hope? 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 Mott: Theology is Reform’s Foundation. 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” account by Richard Lee of his family’s…

  • “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: 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 time when…

  • 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. Read More

  • Editor’s Introduction, #8

    By Chuck Fager Read More

  • Quaker History & Theology: Three Interviews

    This post features three in-depth interviews exploring Quaker history and theology. Thomas Hamm discusses contemporary American Quaker diversity and challenges such as membership decline and authority issues. Thomas Kennedy examines the theological struggles within British Quakerism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including evangelical influence and the peace testimony. Erin Bell focuses on…

  • 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: 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. 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 Read More

  • 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,” especially the familiar debates about how “Christian” Quakerism, was, is, or should be. Read More