With this post we begin our October conversation about Judaism and Quakerism. Friend Clem Gerdelmann is a member of Chester (PA ) Monthly Meeting and a contributor to QuakerQuaker and Springfield Patch. He will be sharing a series of posts with us this month. The…
Friends, In preparation for our October topic of Judaism and Quakerism, here are several queries, ones which we hope both Jewish and non-Jewish readers can consider. You need not answer all or any of them, but perhaps they will suggest an opening for you. Contact us…
Many of us have come to Quakerism as a safe refuge and home in which we can give voice to those heart-deep truths we reclaim from our birth religions, without needing to draw boundaries defining “right doctrine.” … Many others have come to trust Quakerism as a safe…
I have a personal blog called The Empty Path in which I publish my concerns and openings as a “Christocentric-Universalist” Quaker. A passage by Stephen Jay Gould sets the tone: Our mind works largely by metaphor and comparison, not always (or even…
Two Quakers walk into a bar. The first Quaker says to the bartender, “I’ll have a Quaker… a double.” … The bartender says, “A Quaker is a person who identifies as pursuing a spiritual path through life with primary affinity for the historic and…
Republishing Cat Chapin-Bishop’s “Open Letter to my Christian Quaker Friends” (Part 1 and Part 2) as guest posts is part of our effort to expand both the audience for Quaker Universalist Conversations and its pool of writers. Cat practices what she…
I am beginning to suspect that we Quakers have a disturbing tendency to objectify, through our pity or our zeal, those we want to feel ourselves to be “helping.” I think I’ve seen us do it to our youth; I think I’ve seen us do it around race; I think…
What is required is to stay low to the Truth, not to hide it or apologize for it…. Do not share one syllable more of your Scriptures than the “Spirit that gave them forth” is speaking in you—but equally, do not share one syllable less. When speaking from…
Phil H. Gulley is pastor of Fairfield Friends Meeting in Camby, IN (Western Yearly Meeting of Friends Church). This is an excerpt from his January 2011 Friends Journal article, an edited version of the Elizabeth Watson lecture, sponsored by the Quaker Universalist Fellowship…
How can the Society of Friends be both authentically Christian and meaningfully universalist? I am not sure of the answer, beyond the conviction that this is the right question to be grappling with. —Chuck Fager, “Robert Barclay, Theologian of Quaker Universalism,” Universalism…
