2019 FGC Gathering workshops announced

December 19, 2018
· Martin Kelley

It’s that time of year: FGC’s announced the work­shop list­ings for its annu­al Gath­er­ing, start­ing at the end of June at Grin­nell Col­lege in Iowa.

There are 48 work­shops to choose from this year, which is about the nor­mal num­ber for recent years. I used Archive​.org to look back and the biggest year I could dig up was 2006, when 73 work­shops were offered. Gath­er­ing atten­dance has dropped since then but I also sus­pect 73 selec­tions were a bit ambi­tious. The cur­rent nor­mal is more suit­ed to the Gath­er­ing size. There are lots of famil­iar work­shop lead­ers. Are there any that stand out for you? Fell free to drop rec­om­men­da­tions (or pro­mote your own work­shop if you’re doing one!) in the com­ment section.

https://​www​.fgc​quak​er​.org/​c​o​n​n​e​c​t​/​g​a​t​h​e​r​i​n​g​/​p​r​o​g​r​a​m​s​-​a​n​d​-​e​v​e​n​t​s​/​w​o​r​k​s​h​ops

A Space for Doubt

December 18, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Fea­tures on Friends Jour­nal this week, Jeff Rasley’s arti­cle on “stealth wor­shipers” and reli­gious doubt in the pro­fes­sion­al clergy:

Because I went to sem­i­nary, I came to know quite a few Chris­t­ian min­is­ters. As an attor­ney, I rep­re­sent­ed sev­er­al church­es and Chris­t­ian min­is­ters in legal mat­ters. Sev­er­al min­is­ters of Protes­tant denom­i­na­tions and two Catholic priests came clean with me about their per­son­al beliefs. I dis­cov­ered that when they were not “on,” many pas­tors would admit to the same doubts about the dog­mas and super­sti­tions of their church­es as I had about mine. 

Decem­ber’s issue is on Chris­tian­i­ty and there are opin­ions on var­i­ous sides of the issue but Rasley’s piece gets right to a core strength of Lib­er­al Quak­erism: its abil­i­ty to so eas­i­ly invite and engage with those unsure of their beliefs. Because of fam­i­ly, I get to a lot of non-Quaker ser­vices a lot and won­der how many of the peo­ple around me aren’t fol­low­ing their church’s teach­ings on var­i­ous issues. One way of order­ing Chris­t­ian denom­i­na­tions is to see if they pre­fer a tidy and pure but small con­gre­ga­tion or a messy big tent come-as-you-are congregation.

It seems like Quak­ers are tak­ing some­thing of a dif­fer­ent path: come but fol­low your own integri­ty and engage in the way that hon­ors what­ev­er lev­el of truth has been giv­en you. It’s a pret­ty pow­er­ful stance, though of course it gives us our own spe­cial set of headaches when it comes time to speak­ing in a col­lec­tive voice.


A Space for Doubt

A Space for Doubt 

When reli­gious ser­vices are stripped of doc­tri­nal claims, doubters and skep­tics can par­tic­i­pate with greater integrity.

Friends Journal Friends Journal 

British Friends survey on diversity

December 18, 2018
· Martin Kelley

From Britain Year­ly Meeting:

What ways are we already diverse? Where do our strengths and weak­ness­es lie in terms of inclu­sion? Both these ques­tions need to be answered if we are to under­stand the nature and make up of this old and impor­tant faith com­mu­ni­ty that has a his­to­ry of sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to British and inter­na­tion­al equality. 

This intro doc­u­ment leaves me lit­tle unsure what kinds of diver­si­ty they’re look­ing for. Demo­graph­ic? Spir­i­tu­al? Geo­graph­ic? The one quote sug­gests that some­one hopes the results might help advance their agen­da. Is this just a one-off Sur­vey­Mon­key or will there be more to it?


Diversity: where are we now?

Diver­si­ty: where are we now? 

​Quak­ers in Britain are tak­ing part in a sur­vey to map the diver­si­ty of their faith and influence…

Quakers Quakers 

A small break

December 13, 2018
· Martin Kelley

My apolo­gies for the radio silence on this so-called dai­ly site. A fam­i­ly vaca­tion took my atten­tion away from most things Quak­er and get­ting caught up on back work is keep­ing it away a few days. I should be up to speed by the weekend.

Dur­ing that time the domain reg­is­tra­tion for Quak­erQuak­er turned due. I must have missed the del­uge of email that its domain reg­is­trar usu­al­ly sends. I’ve paid the domain bill for anoth­er two years and it should be back up for everyone.

Traveling in the ministry in the “old style”

November 22, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Wess Daniels on Lloyd Lee Wilson’s trav­el­ing style

Most folks can guess what it means to trav­el in the min­istry. You vis­it dif­fer­ent church­es and meet­ings and share gifts of min­istry with the com­mu­ni­ty there. “In the old style” is a ref­er­ence to how many ear­ly Friends would trav­el, by sens­ing a call to go and wor­ship with Friends in oth­er parts of the coun­try and world, with no clear out­come or goal, and only trust­ing that by show­ing up and wor­ship­ing with Friends “some­thing divine­ly good would happen.” 

http://​gath​eringin​light​.com/​2​0​1​8​/​1​1​/​2​1​/​o​n​-​t​r​a​v​e​l​i​n​g​-​i​n​-​t​h​e​-​m​i​n​i​s​t​ry/

UK Quakers will not profit from the occupation of Palestine

November 20, 2018
· Martin Kelley

British Friends become first church in UK to pull invest­ments in com­pa­nies prof­it­ing from the occu­pa­tion of Pales­tine. From record­ing clerk Paul Parker:

As Quak­ers, we seek to live out our faith through every­day actions, includ­ing the choic­es we make about where to put our mon­ey. We believe strong­ly in the pow­er of legit­i­mate, non­vi­o­lent, demo­c­ra­t­ic tools such as moral­ly respon­si­ble invest­ment to realise pos­i­tive change in the world. We want to make sure our mon­ey and ener­gies are instead put into places which sup­port our com­mit­ments to peace, equal­i­ty and justice. 

As you’d might expect, there’s been back­lash. The Board of Deputies of British Jews has con­demned Britain Year­ly Meet­ing’s deci­sion as a “biased and petu­lant act.”.


Quakers will not profit from the occupation of Palestine

Quak­ers will not prof­it from the occu­pa­tion of Palestine 

Quak­ers in Britain has today become the first church in the UK to announce it will not invest…

Quakers Quakers 

Genesis: Outer Space and Inner Light, by

November 20, 2018
· Martin Kelley

John A. Mina­han has writ­ten this week’s fea­tured Friends Jour­nal arti­cle, a nice­ly paced explo­ration that touch­es on per­son­al mem­oir, human mile­stones, cul­tur­al mem­o­ry, and the Book of Genesis:

Now the astro­nauts had used that same rhetor­i­cal strat­e­gy but on a plan­e­tary and even inter­plan­e­tary scale. Speak­ing the words of Gen­e­sis, they sent a mes­sage of heal­ing to a wound­ed world; they expressed a cer­tain cos­mic humil­i­ty about our place in the uni­verse; and, most of all, they shared good­will, jaw-dropping in its sim­plic­i­ty, with “all of you on the good earth.” A moral and exis­ten­tial vision took hold of me in that moment and has nev­er let go. Though I couldn’t have artic­u­lat­ed it as such then, it was a real­iza­tion of orig­i­nal goodness. 


Genesis: Outer Space and Inner Light

Gen­e­sis: Out­er Space and Inner Light 

Out­er space and Inner Light

Friends Journal Friends Journal