Featured Clara Ione Cox – A Little Quaker Pastor Inspiration During Pride Month This is a post I wrote as a part of series we’re working on at Friends Center to celebrate Pride by lifting up Quakers who were also part of the LGBTQIA+ family. I first met Clara when I visited the Quaker Archives at Guilford College shortly after my arrival
Convergent Friends Convergent Friends: A Handbook – An Introduction to Convergence (Pt. 1) In this online handbook you will find a variety of articles written by convergent Friends. This is by no means an exhaustive collection of writings but rather it is meant to function as an introduction to the concept of convergent Friends and part two of the handbook is meant to
Featured The Convergence of Quakerism – Ephesians 2:11ff The text from my message given to Camas Friends Church June 6, 2010 Personal Histories In the last couple weeks, I have been reflecting a lot on my own history, my own personal narratives that have shaped my life. With having recently gone home this probably doesnt come as
Featured Liturgies of Quakerism Review in The Friend For all those of you who get a copy of The Friend, the only weekly Quaker publication in the world, you will see my review of the Ben Pink Dandelion’s 2005 book Liturgies of Quakerism in this week’s edition. It’s pretty neat to finally get something in
Featured From The ‘Kitchen’ to the ‘Parlor’ This past spring I had the great opportunity to participate in leading a workshop on convergent friends in Providence with a dear friend, and some new friends we met there: David and Shawna. Afterwards Robin was contacted about writing an article for The Friends Journal on the workshop and she
Featured Tradition, Mission and Innovation (OYM) This past friday Martin Kelley, David Male and I all talked about Convergent Friends: Seeking a Deeper Spiritual Experience Across the Branches of Friends at Ohio Yearly Meeting in Barnesville. David Male and Shawna Roberts, both from OYM, were the brains behind the Convergent Friends Workshop that Robin and I
Featured An Apologetic for a Quaker Theology | Do We Need It (or want it)? This is a response to a comment I received yesterday about Quaker theology. The comment was good enough that I decided to write a post about it, because I know that many people have the same questions and challenges it brought up. Theology should be done in a way that
Blog Entries Life At Woodbrooke | 5 weeks Deep Part 1 I’ve been in the UK for almost 5 weeks now and it feels like the time is flying (I arrived on May 2nd). My Wife, Emily, will be here in approximately 22 days, 11 hours 53 min and 39 seconds. Of course, that was when I wrote that sentence,
Blog Entries Young Friends In Newcastle and Some Highlights This past weekend I had the opportunity to go to Newcastle and hang out at the Young Friends General Meeting. Simon and I stopped on the way up north (Newcastle is about 3.5 hours north of Birmingham) in Durham for some lunch and to take a look at the
Featured Meeting House Innovative? | Visual Arts and Creativity in Quakerism Recently I had a great talk with a woman from Essex, and she goes to a Quaker meeting that’s doing some really cool stuff. I asked her about her meeting and she told me that there are about 35 people there and they have unprogrammed worship every week. But
Featured Towards a Post-Foundationalist Quaker Theology: Slavoj Zizek, Quietism and Pink Dandelion Accepting the whole of a tradition and not just the parts I found Slavoj Zizeks opening to his book The Fragile Absolute, to be instructive for a present day study of Quaker theology. He begins by presenting the challenge of two choices: How is a Marxist to counter all
Featured Open Anabaptism and a Community of (in)outsiders I’ve been meaning to comment on Jarrod McKenna’s thought worthy post which looks at the “Emerging Peace Church Movement” or what he likes to call “Open Anabaptism.” Through his various travels and meeting with all kinds of Christians McKenna writes, What people might not be aware of is
Blog Entries @BYM – How to Track the Britain Yearly Meeting Online We’ve begun Britain Yearly Meeting today and the blog is up and running full steam ahead. We’ve added some links, pictures, and the Quaker logo on the sidebar and there are at least six new posts just from today. There are five of us writing and if you’
Featured Quakers and Coffee A few weeks ago I decided to create a few new names for some of my favorite coffee drinks just for fun. I work at Fuller’s Bookstore, and attached is a really great coffee shop ingenuously named “Coffee by the Books.” What this means for me is a steady
Featured Trends within the Convergent Friends Conversation Last week I went to a Friends conference (FWCC) in Rhode Island, and have already talked about it at some length. But the point of this short post was to point out a number of trends, or characteristics that I saw beginning to frame the overall conversation of convergent Friends.
Featured FAQ: Are There Modern Day Prophets? Frequently Asked Questions (of a theologian) is a series I do from time to time as a means of answering good questions that come across my desk. Sometimes I answer the questions, sometimes others do, if you’re interested in seeing some other Q & A’s check it out
Featured Winds of the Spirit: Convergent Friends Workshop (Providence 2007) As most of you know by now I spent the end of last week in Providence Rhode Island helping with a workshop about convergent Friends. I wanted to give an overview of what we did there so that those of you who are curious can be in the know. There
Featured I am Heading (Providence) Rhode Island: FWCC Convergent Friends Conference This weekend I have a great opportunity to spend some time with a group of ecumenical Quakers. I am flying to Providence Rhode Island to participate in the Friends World Committee for Consultation, an ecumenical group of Friends who have been trying to help bridge the gap between the various
Featured Transitioning in A Global Information Age: Questions For Church Traditions As a follow up to my reflections on Quaker Heritage Day I wanted to post a list of Questions I’ve been thinking about, many of which came because our travels to the north and many because of what I have been studying over the past quarter. The Church in
Featured Learning a New Language While Building a House: Reflections on Quaker Heritage Day Psa. 127:1 Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain. This past weekend my wife and I visited Berkeley California for a gathering called “Quaker Heritage Day.” It’s not unlike any
Blog Entries Britain Yearly Meeting Blog Is Up and Almost Running John Fitzgerald from Britain Yearly Meeting has set up a blog for this year’s yearly gathering and has invited Simon, Jez and me to be the ‘official bloggers’ of the event. John said, “This should be a great way of expanding the experience of Yearly Meeting to reach those
Featured The Questions Pacifists Always Get Asked I found this article “Five Questions Your Pacifist Friends Are Tired of Answering” from the Burnside Collective. The article, written by Jonathan Fitzgerald, is an easily accessible article on specific questions that pacifists often get asked. Fitzgerald introduces his article by saying, “What follows are five questions about/arguments against
Featured 5 Streams of The Emerging Church and Convergent Friends (?) My Friend Jarrod McKenna sent me a link to this article the other, it’s written by Scot McKnight, professor of religious studies at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago. The Article is called “Five Streams of the Emerging Church.” Here is a long quote from the article: To define
Featured Reading for Renewal within A Tradition I’ve compiled some questions from my notes I took while reading Alasdair MacIntyre’s Whose Justice, Which Rationality? As I read Quaker history and theology I try to keep in mind these questions because they help to get at some essential issues that my tradition faces. Find the Primary
Featured FAQs: What is Worship? (Pastoral Quaker Perspective) In reading Thomas Hamm’s absolutely wonderfulQuakers in America I came across a good quote about how virtually all pastoral Friends today would agree on what the Richmond Declaration says about worship, the statement comes from the Declaration which is actually highly disputed but Hamm believes most would get behind