Another Quaker-related lawsuit against immigration enforcement in houses of worship dropped today.
Other coverage:
Another Quaker-related lawsuit against immigration enforcement in houses of worship dropped today.
Other coverage:
From Craig Barnett:
“Most Quaker communities now have no children’s meeting, and this has come to seem normal. Many people who have joined in the last couple of decades have never seen a child in a Meeting House, and take it for granted that a Quaker Meeting is only for retired people.”
I don’t know the situation in the UK where Barnett lives but around me in the U.S. the cynical answer would be that they’re at soccer practice. All of the churches I know have seen sharply declining Sunday School classes in recent decades.
Because neither my wife’s churches or my Quaker meetings have provided good Sunday Schools, our family has long juggled services to be able to go elsewhere to provide our kids with a Sunday School class and friends. For the past number of years it’s been with a very friendly Moravian church over in the next town. We’ve been so involved that we think of them as our other church family and many of the members have become friends. We’ve known them through years, from births to marriage break-ups to kids graduating and going off to college. Just earlier this week I took three of our kids to their bowling outing. It’s really community and something I don’t see happening in any nearby Friends meeting.
But even at this church, with a strong, longstanding program going back over 100 years, it’s not hard to notice classes getting just a bit smaller every year and Sunday School teachers getting a little more thinned out. Even the children of core members will miss Sunday morning classes for weeks at a time because of Sunday morning sports.
My wife’s new Orthodox church has a Sunday School, which is nice, and a definite plus. Being even it doesn’t seem to be that large given the size of the congregation.
I’d like to build up a children’s program at the small Friends community that we’re rebuilding but I must admit to being unsure about what’s realistically even possible. This is a phenomenon far greater than any single congregation or denomination. Shout-out to the Children’s Religious Education Collaborative, who is trying to address these issues.
I had a nice interview with Wisconsin Friend Kat Griffith. She likes, even loves, going door-to-door in her “purple” district and talking politics to strangers. She’s a wonderful storyteller and it was hard not to laugh as she talked about some of these adventures (spoiler: she’s far braver than I am!). In a time of hyper-partisanship, it’s a good reminder to build our lives around curiosity and communication.
The February article we were talking about is “Rhapsody in Purple.” See also: Show notes for the video interview.
My introductory column in the February Friends Journal, regarding the lightning fast decision to file a Quaker lawsuit about immigration:
I think Quaker business meetings have another purpose: they give us practice in decision making, and we build trust in one another. When something extraordinary comes up that has to be dealt with immediately, we kick into action using the muscle memory from all of those Sunday afternoons spent talking about the finances. Because we’re a religious body that has taken the time to know one another, we can anticipate concerns and move surprisingly quickly.
Everything is moving crazy fast in the political world these days. That’s the plan, of course: to overwhelm us with the speed at which the federal government is being dismantled. But we are practiced; we too can respond with steadfast love and solidarity.
A reminder that you can follow my link shares much more quickly via my Bluesky account. If you’re there you should definitely follow my Quakers list for everything that Friends are talking about.
I also recommend Jason Kottke’s blog, long one of my favorites, who is turning it over to links and coverage about the coup in progress. Mike Masnick has been writing important stuff about the insanity of Musk’s twenty-something crew taking over and rewriting payment systems across various agencies (see, for example, “A 25-Year-Old Is Writing Backdoors Into The Treasury’s $6 Trillion Payment System. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”)
I wrote up a presentation that Sarah Clarke and Bo Méndez gave about their work with the Quaker United Nations Office.
Philadelphia-area Friend Tom Gates has started a blog. Tom’s a very grounded and thoughtful Friend and I’m glad to know we’ll be seeing more of his writings. From his intro:
Contemporary liberal Friends (Quakers), in common with other liberal denominations, have largely drifted away from the Bible, due in part to its seeming sanction of divine violence. Girard, by contrast, sees the overcoming of “sacred violence” as the central theme of the Biblical witness, and so can provide the means by which Quakers (and others) might reengage with the Scriptures. Girard’s claim that the biblical God has “nothing to do with violence” will resonate with Friends traditional commitment to nonviolence and peacemaking. His insights into “the scapegoat mechanism” can also help us to understand the witness of early Friends, who functioned as “the scapegoat caste” in 17th century England.
Craig Barnett on UK meetings that are attracting newcomers:
Newcomers need to be made welcome, including children. They need to find people who enjoy spending time together, who are open about their spiritual experience, and willing to share the riches of the Quaker way with them. They need to experience Quaker worship that is expectant and gathered, where people take the risk of openness to the Spirit that leads to deep and vulnerable spoken ministry.