Volume Twelve, Number Two
Summer-Fall 2013
Editor: Chuck Fager
Associate Editor: Steven Angell & Ann K. Riggs
ISSN 1526-7482

All the essays in this issue
are copyright © by the respective authors,
and all rights are reserved by them.

The views expressed in articles in Quaker Theology are those of the authors, and not necessarily those of the Editors, or Quaker Ecumenical Seminars in Theology.

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.     As a statesman, Mandela’s greatest achievement was the ending of apartheid, a seismic change achieved with a minimum of violence. …

Excerpts from “The Dance Between Hope and Fear,” by John Calvi

An Introduction and Review For some years now, a small chorus of people has nagged John Calvi to write a book. Finally, over the past year, he has heeded these calls. As will be explained further in the following excerpts, Calvi is a Quaker healer. And though he might quail at the term, I would …

“Quakers & Homosexuality Press Statement,” from Friends Church Kenya

Friends Church Kenya-vs-Homosexuals-Text-and-Responses-Quaker-Theology-Number-23In This Section: “Quakers & Homosexuality Press Statement,” from Friends Church Kenya Background & Context: Homosexuality, Law, Religion & Violence In Africa Today, by The Editors Responses to the FCK Statement:Pablo StanfieldCindy PerryRich LiversidgeDoug BennettMary HeathmanGeoffrey Kaiser Epistle to the 2012 World Conference of Friends, held in Kenya, from Friends for Lesbian, Gay, …

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) I want to say a few things about the 19th century Progressive Friends as a movement.     Ten things, to be exact. Few Quakers today are familiar with this yeasty group. And that’s a shame, because without question, …

The Battle for Battle Creek: Sectarian Competition in the Yankee West

Brian C. Wilson Battle Creek, Michigan, is famous as the 19th-century headquarters of Seventh-Day Adventism and its prophet, Ellen White, as well as for the Adventist-­inspired Battle Creek Sanitarium, superintended for years by the dynamic John Harvey Kellogg. Battle Creek also became nationally known for hosting a variety of alternative religions other than Seventh-Day Adventism. …

“Quaker Brotherhood: Interracial Activism and the American Friends Service Committee, 1917-1950″*

Reviewed by H. Larry Ingle Friends often are at their best when they have visible opponents who are deeply entrenched, respectable, and powerful but support some odious practice – think slaveholders. But the reality is that partially through dramatic Quaker pre-Civil War and wartime pressure, President Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery 150 years ago this year. …

“The Early Quakers and the Kingdom of God: Peace, Testimony and Revolution”*

Reviewed by H. Larry Ingle This hefty work serves to introduce Australian Friend Gerard Guiton to the Quaker scholarly world concerned with the origins of the Religious Society of Friends. It is heralded with sparkling back cover endorsements by three distinguished Friends of a programmed orientation, recorded ministers all, Douglas Gwyn, Englishman John Punshon, and …

About the Contributors

Doug Bennett is a convinced Friend, a member of Richmond, Indiana First Friends Meeting, part of the New Association of Friends taking shape in the Midwest. He now lives in Maine where he worships among Friends at Brunswick Friends Meeting. From 1997 to 2011 he was president and professor of politics at Earlham College. His …