New book on Quaker prophetic faith

July 9, 2024
· Martin Kelley

Real­ly excit­ed to see my friend Patri­cia Dall­man­n’s new book is avail­able! It’s called The Light That Is Giv­en. I read a pre-publication PDF ver­sion and was asked by the pub­lish­er to give a blurb. Here’s what I wrote: 

Patri­cia Dall­mann brings a mod­ern prophet­ic voice to Scrip­ture and ancient Friends’ texts. She care­ful­ly exam­ines the lan­guage of these sto­ries and brings new life to their teach­ings, but this is no exer­cise in mim­ic­ry. Dall­mann shares her own expe­ri­ences and shows us how tra­di­tion­al Quak­er beliefs have guid­ed her. This is an invalu­able resource for those want­i­ng to explore how tra­di­tion­al Friends’ faith and prac­tice can be lived out by spir­i­tu­al seek­ers today.

I see from Ama­zon that Dou­glas Gwyn and Stu­art Mas­ters gave even bet­ter blurbs so I’m in good company! 

It’s a great sum­mer for tra­di­tion­al Quak­er books, with this and Christo­pher Stern’s new mem­oir. I was­n’t able to make his book talk at the FGC Gath­er­ing last week but hope to catch up on it. I did final­ly pick up a copy of 2015’s Tra­di­tion­al Quak­er Chris­tian­i­ty to add to my list of books I real­ly real­ly want to read. This week I fin­ished Jean Soder­lund’s Lenape Coun­try: Delaware Val­ley Soci­ety Before William Penn, which dis­tills a lot of the myths of Penn and Quak­ers (she’ll have an arti­cle on some of this in the August issue of FJ!).

Traveling ministers and heartwarming elders

July 8, 2024
· Martin Kelley

I’m glad to see that Aus­tralian Friend David John­son is doing trav­el­ing min­istry in the U.S. I hope to join the wor­ship at Marl­bor­ough Meet­ing in Penn­syl­va­nia on July 28.

Doug Ben­nett wants us to redis­cov­er the tes­ti­mo­ny of equal­i­ty. I always think of equal­i­ty as being one of the new for­mu­la­tions of Quak­er tes­ti­monies brought to us by Howard Brin­ton and oth­ers in the mid-to-late twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, so I’m not such a stick­ler about defin­ing it but Ben­nett draws a dis­tinc­tion between it and equi­ty and some of the DEI work hap­pen­ing. Not sure I agree with every­thing he says but it’s an inter­est­ing perspective.

Real­ly hap­py to see Evan Welkin come in as FWCC-Americas head, fill­ing the very big shoes of my friend Robin Mohr. Evan vis­it­ed my house back in 2005 as part of a trav­el­ing min­istries project spon­sored by the Pick­ett Foun­da­tion (RIP) and mem­o­rably coined the term uberQuak­er in a guest post here on Quak­er Ranter. He’s writ­ten for Friends Jour­nal a few times, most per­son­al­ly and poignant­ly this 2014 arti­cle on addic­tion.

OMG, a pro­file of Ruth Peter­son in the New­town Patch! “Old Age is Not for Sissies” Says 100-Year-Old Ruth Peter­son. She was one of the first Quak­ers I met when I walked into the Abing­ton (Pa.) Meet­ing­house back in the late 1980s and she and her hus­band Char­lie were always so boun­ti­ful­ly sup­port­ive. When I took a year off after col­lege to get my head straight, many of the peo­ple in my fam­i­ly wor­ried about me but when I explained it to Ruth at cof­fee hour, she lit up and said “Oh, isn’t that so WONDERFUL!” Char­lie hooked me up with var­i­ous Quak­er oppor­tu­ni­ties in the area, which led to a chain of events that land­ed me my first job. This was writ­ten by Bar­bara Sim­mons and post­ed by Nor­val Reece, who does a great job let­ting peo­ple in Bucks Coun­ty know what’s hap­pen­ing with Friends.

Supping with the Spirit

June 11, 2024
· Martin Kelley

I talked this week with Bar­bara Birch, who has a great arti­cle, The True Last Sum­mer, in the cur­rent issue of Friends Jour­nal on George Fox’s view that the final last sup­per was the spir­i­tu­al one found in Rev­e­la­tion 3:20.

As I admit in the author chat inter­view, this is one of my favorite passages:

Lis­ten! I am stand­ing at the door, knock­ing; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with you, and you with me… Let any­one who has an ear lis­ten to what the Spir­it is say­ing to the churches.”

Bar­bara’s using a mod­ern trans­la­tion. I must admit to being fond of the more archa­ic KJV’s “I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” What­ev­er the trans­la­tion, I find it a source of com­fort to know that the Heal­er, the Guide, the Christ Spir­it is right there want­i­ng to break bread with us. We are the lost sheep and He is out look­ing for us.

I think we mod­erns some­times believe that the Spir­it’s pres­ence is our midst is a rare occur­rence. We’re a skep­ti­cal peo­ple, ratio­nal and learned. We lock up poten­tial min­istry in sus­pi­cion and apply so many tests to our dis­cern­ment that we some­times fail to act at all. But what if com­mu­nion is just a qui­et knock away? What if the Com­forter is always near? A near­by pas­sage in Rev­e­la­tion says “because you are luke­warm and nei­ther cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth” and likens spir­i­tu­al gifts to a refin­er’s fire. “I reprove and dis­ci­pline those whom I love.”

On a warm day last year I was vis­it­ing the very love­ly Barnegat Meet­ing. I had been mulling this pas­sage the week before so laughed inward­ly with delight when I sat down and real­ized the promi­nence of doors on both sides open to the warm weath­er. I almost laughed out loud when a near­by wood­peck­er start­ed its rhyth­mic knock-knock-knock.

The True Last Supper: Barbara Birch
The True Last Sup­per: Bar­bara Birch 

A Quak­er author chat. Bar­bara Birch’s “The True Last Sup­per” appears in the June/July 2024 issue of Friends…
YouTube YouTube 

Meet me at the FGC Gathering

June 11, 2024
· Martin Kelley

I’m drop­ping in for a day at this year’s FGC Gath­er­ing at Haver­ford Col­lege. I’ll be there Mon­day, July 1. I’ve picked a morn­ing work­shop that allows one-day drop-ins but after that fin­ish­es I have no plans oth­er than wan­der­ing around and talk­ing with peo­ple. Look for me if you’re there and drop me a line at martink@friendsjournal.org if you want to set up a meet­ing time.

New Book: Who Turned on the Light?

June 11, 2024
· Martin Kelley

Con­grat­u­la­tions to my friend Chris Stern, whose mem­oir is final­ly avail­able. From the description:

Find­ing and pay­ing atten­tion to the Inner Voice of Love, he demon­strates how this jour­ney has led him to look at the world and those around him dif­fer­ent­ly, with more com­pas­sion and com­mon­al­i­ty. Christo­pher points us toward ways to over­come the divi­sions and hurts that divide us and to find a prac­ti­cal every­day faith that can help us to nav­i­gate a way toward Hope and Healing.

Chris has writ­ten many times for Friends Jour­nal. He has a great Quak­er­S­peak video about under­stand­ing Quak­er faith through George Fox’s Jour­nal. He also came to my meet­ing last year to talk about the cen­ter of Quak­er faith. He plans on hav­ing a live author talk Thurs­day at this year’s FGC Gath­er­ing (July 4).

Back to Jesus

June 5, 2024
· Martin Kelley

Kevin-Douglas Olive, in Friend­ly Bible Study and Jesus my Friend, talks rec­on­cil­ing with the sto­ry of Jesus because of a meet­ing Bible study:

So who is this Jesus? The Jesus I know is the one who asks his fol­low­ers “Who do you say that I am?” The Jesus I am try­ing to fol­low is the one who tells me to DO what he says and I am his friend (hence the name of Quak­ers — Friends). He is the rad­i­cal rab­bi or prophet who turned con­ven­tion upside down and on whose teach­ings a new world reli­gion was formed (for bet­ter or worse). Through Jesus’ life and death, gone is the need for sac­ri­fice — it’s been done. Gone is the need to appease God, Jesus’ life and death does that. These ancient Jew­ish and pagan notions of god(s) and our rela­tion­ship to the Divine were made obso­lete. If we enter into the Life of Jesus, there will be cer­tain fruits of the spir­it which will man­i­fest through our walk in the Light.

Vis­it­ing Kevin-Douglas in Bal­ti­more in 2010.

I’m old enough to remem­ber K‑D as the prankster­ish young adult Chris­t­ian Friend delight­ing in con­found­ing the Lib­er­al Quakes at the FGC Gath­er­ing and then lat­er, in 2008, as some­one try­ing to start some sort of Con­ver­gent Friends pres­ence in Bal­ti­more. I’m glad he’s been con­tin­u­ing to fol­low the light and that the Bible study has been ben­e­fi­cial. If you want more, there’s a 2017 Quak­er­S­peak inter­view, How I Became a Quak­er.

It’s also good hear in this post that Bal­ti­more’s Home­wood Meet­ing is attract­ing lots of new peo­ple under 40. I’ve been notic­ing that at my (tiny) meet­ing (a few weeks ago a few of the old­er Friends were off trav­el­ing and I looked around and real­ized the medi­an age was some­thing like 28). I’m hear­ing sim­i­lar sto­ries else­where. All anec­dotes but I’m start­ing to won­der if Quak­erism is hav­ing a bit of a moment.

Friendly Bible Study and Jesus my Friend
Friend­ly Bible Study and Jesus my Friend 

A blog about spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, social jus­tice, and liv­ing the life.
pilgrimstranger.blogspot.com pil​grim​stranger​.blogspot​.com

Quakers’ War Problem

June 1, 2024
· Martin Kelley

A lot of modern-day Quak­ers like to think that Quak­ers have in all places and all times been clear­ly against all wars (see this recent Red­dit thread for evi­dence). JW at Places to Go blog tells some of the sto­ries that go against this myth.

Enough Quak­ers had qualms about paci­fism in the face of these two great evils that Meet­ings wres­tled with both mem­bers who chose to serve and fight against them, and the ortho­doxy enshrined against fight­ing. What I found most heart warm­ing was the Meet­ings who wel­comed back their vet­er­ans with love and under­stand­ing and for­give­ness. What I found dis­ap­point­ing was those Meet­ings which stripped those vet­er­ans of membership.

I myself am very much a paci­fist. I have faith that the spir­it of Christ will always pro­vide a third way between vio­lence and sur­ren­der. Is this trust war­rant­ed? Backed by polit­i­cal sci­ence or his­to­ry? Prob­a­bly not. My faith is the faith of a child, which my reli­gious tra­di­tion tells me is a mill­stone I should be ready to carry.

But I’m also a human who watch­es hor­rors hap­pen­ing all over the globe. I don’t pre­tend to know any secret prayer that will stop Russ­ian aggres­sion against Ukraine, much less the indis­crim­i­nate ter­ror of Hamas or the mass slaugh­ter being car­ried out by the Israeli Defense Forces. I can share my faith in the Prince of Peace with my fel­low humans but I can’t insist that they not strug­gle with it.

The mod­ern his­to­ry of the Quak­er peace tes­ti­mo­ny was shaped in part by the need for mem­bers of the his­toric peace church­es to pass the qual­i­fi­ca­tions for U.S. con­sci­en­tious objec­tion laws dur­ing the World Wars (though if I’m not mis­tak­en Friends helped draft those qual­i­fi­ca­tions). For CO sta­tus one needs to have a sin­cere reli­gious beliefs against all wars, con­text notwith­stand­ing. I was trained as a CO coun­selor many many years ago and this was an impor­tant point to get across (some of this strict­ness has changed over the years and I’m no expert in cur­rent reg­u­la­tions). Puri­ty is a hard stan­dard in the real world when our con­sciences are pricked by the injus­tice we see.

I’ve writ­ten about the peace tes­ti­mo­ny many times, of course, most recent­ly for Friends Jour­nal (“Wrestling with the Peace Tes­ti­mo­ny”) and on this blog (“Pre­sent­ing on the Peace Tes­ti­mo­ny”).

The Problem with Absolutes: Quakers and the Civil War
The Prob­lem with Absolutes: Quak­ers and the Civ­il War 

“Thou shalt not kill” — (unless I tell you to kill your son, Abra­ham!) All after­noon, I have…
historicplacessj.blogspot.com his​toric​placessj​.blogspot​.com