Given our recent theme of exploring non-theism and secularism, it seems useful to publish a slightly reedited version of this March 2012 review of George Levine’s The Joy of Secularism: 11 Essays for How We Live Now (2011) This collection of essays could be titled…

Brent Nongbri is a post-doctoral research fellow in early Christianity at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. His 2013 book, Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept , offers a corrective to the conventional modern uses of the term “religion.” The topic…

A Principled Stand: The Story of Hirabayashi v. United States , by Gordon Hirabayashi (University of Washington Press, 2013). In 1942, University of Washington student Gordon Hirabayashi refused to obey the curfew and mass removal of Japanese Americans on the West…

This review was originally published in Universalist Friends , Fall/Winter 2003, Volume 39. See Universalist Friends for other issues of that journal. Rhoda Gilman is a historian, a founding member of Quaker Universalist Fellowship, and a long-time…

A Quaker Prayer Life , by David Johnson (Inner Light Books, 2013; see excerpts). Johnson has a long commitment to nonviolence and opposing war and the arms trade, and has worked with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. He delivered the 2005 Backhouse…

The Essential Elias Hicks , by Paul Buckley (Inner Light Books, 2013; see excerpts). Paul Buckley attends Community Friends Meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is a Quaker historian and theologian, known among Friends of all stripes for his workshops, short courses, and…

Universe as Revelation: An Ecomystical Theology for Friends, by Jo Farrow & Alex Wildwood (London, U.K.: Pronoun Press, 2013) … Can one give an anthropic twist to the Big Bang? It has been tried, most notably in 1988 by physicist Brian Swimme and theologian Thomas…

Why Tolerate Religion?, by Brian Leiter (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012) The title of this new book by Brian Leiter, Why Tolerate Religion?, is not accurate, but the argument in this book should matter deeply to Quakers. A more accurate title…

Interfaith Just Peacemaking: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Perspectives on the New Paradigm of Peace and War , edited by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012) This review was originally published by Anthony Manousos on his LA Quaker blog on…

In the February 2013 issue of Friends Journal , Anthony Manousos offers valuable leadings about practical universalism within the Religious Society of Friends. Friend Manousos begins with familiar historical observations about the “Universalist Christian”…