Quaker Theology

9. Social Issues & Quakerism

  • Selected Correspondence-SAYMA

    CONTENTS I. Selected Correspondence since July 2020 II. Previous Blog Posts >> I. Selected Correspondence, July-September 21, 2020 (Scroll down to read) 1. H. Larry Ingle Email – July 10, 2020 2. Ron McDonald Email – August 7, 2020 3. Huntsville, Read More

  • The Ku Klux Klan by Daisy Douglas Barr

    Daisy Douglas Barr (1875-1938) was a popular preacher in Indiana Yearly Meeting. She served as pastor for at least six different Friends meetings/churches there. She was also a key figure in the statewide women’s counterpart Klan group, and a Vice-Chairmam [sic] of the state Republican party. She read this original poem at the national meeting…

  • Engaging Homelessness Behind the “Orange Curtain” By Joseph Pfeiffer

    Homelessness in Orange County, California, is only recently coming to light. Its rapid increase in the most affluent county in the U.S. is increasingly difficult to ignore, having swelled to over 7,000 in recent years, and with few resources allocated to cope with it (Replogle 2019a; 2019b). Attempts by county and local officials to make…

  • Editor’s Preface to “Engaging Homelessness behind the ‘Orange Curtain’” by Chuck Fager

    A bulletin from southern California: The biggest Quaker church in the world wants to shut down one of the smallest. The small church sued in late 2018 to stop the shutdown.But a hearing in Orange County Superior Court on January 31 could have locked their doors and; made the small church members and its pastors…

  • Editor’s Introduction by Chuck Fager

    To be candid, I’m not accustomed to being consulted by Evangelical Friends. I’m not one, and over the past forty years, I’ve often found myself on opposite sides from many vocal or leading Evangelicals. Nevertheless, I’ve learned things from Evangelicals, and on good Read More

  • Moment of Truth: Wilmington Yearly Meeting Divides over a Familiar Set of Issues

    By Stephen W. Angell Wilmington Yearly Meeting (WYM), assembled at the Friends Meeting in Maryville, Tennessee, on the last weekend of July, released five meetings (four monthly meetings and one preparatory meeting) that requested to sever connections with the yearly meeting. Read More

  • Faith, Power, and Trump

    [Originally titled: “Imminence, Rootedness, and Realism: Eschapocalyptic Action (or not) in the Age of Trump”] r. scot miller In this Age of Trump, two urgent questions have emerged for many Friends and Progressive Christians. Two common responses to our steadily deteriorating Read More

  • The Still Small Voice in the Wilderness: The Treatment of Silence in Two Abolitionist Quaker Narratives—Tracy Chevalier’s The Last Runaway and Linda Spalding’s The Purchase

    Reviewed by Selena Middleton The past year has seen the beginning of what could be a renaissance of Quakerism in the mainstream collective consciousness, from Martin McDonagh’s film Seven Psychopaths in which Christopher Walken plays a serene, yet foul-mouthed Quaker, to two books Read More

  • Some Quaker Reflections on the Kosovo War

    By Chuck Fager I. A Letter from Lincoln Reflecting on the Kosovo war as a Quaker, a recent joke came to mind: Question: What did one paradigm say to the other paradigm? Answer: Shift happens. What sorts of shifts does Kosovo confront us with? There are at least five that I have noticed and want…

  • Lucretia Mott & The Perils of Dissent – Excerpts from James & Lucretia Mott, Life & Letters.

    Anna Davis Hallowell. Boston Houghton Mifflin & Co., 1884 1860: “[The black abolitionist] Robert Purvis has said that I was “the most belligerent non-resistant he ever saw.” I accept the character he gives me; and I glory in it. I have no idea, because I am a non-resistant, of submitting tamely to injustice inflicted either Read…

  • Jim Corbett, Sanctuary Prophet of Post-Desert Quakerism

    Chuck Fager Friend Jim Corbett, of Pima Meeting in Tucson, died on his Arizona ranch August 2, 2001 after a short illness. He was 67. With his passing a quiet giant of Quaker resistance departed.     He was a founder of the 1980s Sanctuary movement, which helped save many Read More

  • The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist

    Reviewed by Stephen Angell A Review of Marcus Rediker, The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist. Boston: Beacon Press, 2017. $26.95, hardback. Marcus Rediker, Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University Read More

  • Excerpts from: ALL SLAVE-KEEPERS That keep the Innocent in Bondage, APOSTATES

     Pretending to lay claim to the Pure & Holy Christian Religion; of what Congregation so ever; but especially in their Ministers, by whose example the filthy Leprosy and Apostacy is spread far and near; it is a notorious Sin, which many of the true Read More

  • “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…

  • Attachments: NC Yearly Meeting Documents

    Attachments to North Carolina Yearly Meeting Split debate

  • Three Reflections on Same Sex Marriage

    Philip Gulley Why I Support Same Gender Marriage Several years ago, I was attending a Quaker conference north of Chicago and began talking with a man from Ohio, who spoke in the plain language of our Quaker ancestors. Lots of thee’s and thou’s. It seemed pretentious, as if he were subtly reminding 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

  • Response: Forgiveness and Letting-Go: An Inter-Religious and Internal Dialogue Sallie B. King

    Sallie B. King I thank Claire Ly for giving the interview, “Forgiveness: a journey or an obligation?” in which she shares her reflections upon her experience under the Khmer Rouge regime. Read More

  • “From Peace to Freedom: Quaker Rhetoric and the Birth of American Antislavery, 1657-1761″*

    Reviewed by H. Larry Ingle The British literary scholar Brycchan Carey avers in the first sentence of his Introduction to From Peace to Freedom, “almost everyone knows that Quakers were at the forefront of campaigns to abolish slavery Read More

  • “Remaking Friends: How Progressive Friends Changed Quakerism & Helped Save America, 1822-1940″* A Review

    Reviewed by Isaac May In his introduction to Remaking Read More

  • Links to NCYM-FUM letters online

    Protesting Letters Poplar Ridge Letter: https://afriendlyletter.com/files/Poplar-Ridge-Friends-NCYMFUM.pdf Pine Hill: https://afriendlyletter.com/files/Pine-Hill-Friends-NCYM-08-3024.pdf Deep Creek: https://afriendlyletter.com/files/Deep-Creek-Friends.pdf Hopewell: Read More

  • Separation Accomplished: New Beginnings for a New Association of Friends and a “Reconfigured” Indiana Yearly Meeting

    By Stephen W. Angell The disagreement became so sharp that they parted company; Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and set out, the believers commending him to the grace of the Lord. He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches. – Acts Read More

  • A Letter re: Kenya Quakers & Homosexuality

    by David Zarembka Dear Quaker Theology, I read with interest the various comments on the homosexuality issue in Kenya in the last issue of Quaker Theology [Issue #23]. I have some additional comments that might help clarify the situation. I was at the FWCC [Friends 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. But it was not to be. In July 2013, another American Friends church, this time in an Read…

  • 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-23 In 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 Read More

  • “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 Read More

  • Lopping Off a Limb?

    Indiana Yearly Meeting’s Troubled Relationship With West Richmond Monthly Meeting By Stephen W. Angell “There is a common misperception that West Richmond is a limb that is being lopped off. That is not the spirit of the recommendation of the Indiana Yearly Meeting task force. We’re  trying to help out the meetings that don’t fit.”…

  • My Theology of Peacemaking

    By David Zarembka Revenge or Reconciliation? Do you believe that reconciliation is possible between enemies? Is revenge and retaliation a basic human trait that makes true reconciliation remarkably unlikely? Western literature considers the discussion of “revenge” as a serious issue. Homer and the 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

  • “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

  • “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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • “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…