Quaker Theology

Peacemaking

  • 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…

  • From “The Church, the Draft Board, and Me” by George Amoss, Jr.

    This recounts my conflicts with the Catholic Church, whose ethics were called into question by the war in Vietnam, and the U.S. Selective Service System, which refused to honor my conscientious objection to participation in war. In telling that story, it sketches my evolution, despite encounters with predatory priests and a vindictive draft board, from…

  • Joseph Southall & The Ghosts of the Slain:

    A Quaker Artist Takes on World War One    Editor’s Note: Joseph Southall (1861-1944) was a successful British artist, who was at the peak of his renown and productivity when World War One began. A lifelong Quaker pacifist and socialist, he set aside much of his conventional work to make drawings Read More

  • Everyday/Extraordinary Resistance: Two True Stories from the Vietnam Years

    Leafleting a Meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marion Anderson By 1970, I had been organizing against the war full-time for five years. First, in Washington where I was an organizer of the televised National Teach-In which was watched by about ten million Americans and then in Michigan as chairman of Michi-gan Clergy Read…

  • 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.     That summer of 2005 John had been an intern at Quaker Read More

  • The Quaker Peace Testimony as Questing Beast

    The 1995 Roundtable was sponsored by the Pendle Hill Issues Program, for which I was then the coordinator. I asked Chel to prepare an overview of the Quaker Peace Testimony, because I was looking, quite frankly, for “new talent” and new thinking in the field.

  • 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 Read More

  • 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 Six Books by Gary Dorrien, published by Westminster John Knox, Louisville:     The Making of American Liberal Theology: Imagining     Progressive Religion, 1805-1900. 2001. 494 pges..    Read More

  • Forgiveness over Khmer Rouge: a journey or an obligation? A Beginning of Dialogue

    Editor’s Introduction: Forgiveness is a frequent topic of discussion among Friends these days. For American Quakers, most of whom live in relatively comfortable circumstances, the issue is typically posed in personal terms: as a means of coping with lingering grievances, failed Read More

  • “Paper Trail: Writings from the Front Line of Peace Action, Quaker House/Fort Bragg, 2001-2012″* A Review

    Reviewed by John Kiriako This is an eminently readable first-person account of a daily fight for peace during what is arguably the most militarily active period of the past two generations. First, the reader should know what the book is NOT. It is not anti-military. (In fact, 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 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

  • 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

  • “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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • Quaker Peace Witness After 9/11 – A Resource List

    By Chuck Fager Quaker Thoughts on September 11 Terrorism The shocks of 9/11, the September 11 attacks, on and their aftermath have abruptly put Read More

  • “Refiner’s Fire: A Religious Engagement with Violence”* a Review

    Reviewed by Jeffrey Gros An African American Womanist Perspective on Violence The African American “Womanist” perspective, developed in this volume, is an important explication from within a culture that has been the recipient of violence. It provides both a critique of society’s violent culture and of those whose Read More

  • The Bible & Peacemaking — A Response

    By Chuck Fager Are there other ways of looking at the Bible and what it may have to teach us about Peacemaking? In particular, are there other ways to take the Bible seriously, on this topic? Ron Mock invites his readers to develop alternative approaches, and here I’ll attempt to sketch Read More

  • What Can The Bible Teach Us About Peacemaking?

    (Originally presented at the Quaker Peace Roundtable 2001) By Ron Mock I. Introduction I have been asked to bring to the 2001 Quaker Peace Roundtable a reflection on what the Bible teaches about peacemaking. I accepted the task with some reservations. For one thing, among the peace churches (at least) the subject has gotten a little…