High Profiles magazine has published a nice interview with Alastair McIntosh, a Quaker academic, author, and activist. It’s not all about his Quakerism but then it’s nice to see someone using it as a just a piece of their identity. I love seeing our roots laid out in the same sentence as a critique of the Murdoch press, etc.
The North is the part of England to which the radicals retreated under Norman violence, and I suspect that’s part of why the more radical side of England comes out there. Quakerism developed mainly in the north and west of England and I suspect that nonconformity comes out of that radical spirit – which needs to be rekindled, not in ways manipulated by the Murdoch press or the Conservative Party or Ukip but much more in the way that William Blake understood, of connecting with the spirit of the land.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t add that we ran a nice piece by McIntosh in the February issue of Friends Journal. He talked about Thomas Merton, the Catholic monk with Quaker roots. Again, our spirituality in context.