Best of the blog

On this page you can find the best of the Jolly Quaker blog, organised by theme.

Quaker theology for beginners

Here are posts for those new to Quakerism or Quaker theology:

Power and privilege

I’ve written many posts about inclusion, power and privilege, both in general, and specifically in relation to whiteness and queerness.

Whiteness and racism

  • In 2016, I first began to think about whiteness after hearing from an all black panel at the Greenbelt festival. Here is the blog post it inspired.
  • Thinking about whiteness took my back to the early Quaker understanding of sin. In this blog post I explore the relationship between white privilege and the Quaker image of ‘the seed of the serpent‘.
  • Here are my thoughts on how to set aside white guilt.
  • In 2020, I discovered the theology of James Cone. Here’s my first attempt to bring his insights to bear on liberal Quakerism.
  • In this post, I reflect on institutional racism and Quakers.
  • Here’s a book review of ‘The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race’ by Willie James Jennings.

Queer theology

General Quaker theology

  • Sometimes Quakers struggle with the word theology, in this post I explain how theology is my ministry, and share my love for the work of the German Reformed theologian Jürgen Moltmann.
  • How might Quakerism be renewed in Britain today? In this post I suggest that we need a Quakerism that is lived, local, liberated and logical.
  • The 2014 Swarthmore Lecture by Ben Pink Dandelion had a big impact on me, and I wrote a 3-part blog post to process my reflections. In part 1 I look at what it means to be a Quaker. In part 2 I look at how we tell the Quaker story, and in part 3 I think about Quakerism as a living tradition.
  • In 2018, Britain Yearly Meeting agreed to review its ‘book of discipline‘. In this blog post, I reflect on how we can move forward with this task.
  • In the 2017 George Gorman Lecture, Tim Gee proposed that Quaker meetings include a ‘World Religions Bible‘ on the meeting table. In this blog post I share my difficulties with this.
  • In this post called ‘I’m religious, not spiritual‘, I explain the theological movement known as postliberalism, and what it has to say to Quakers.
  • In ‘Rethinking the Liberal Quaker Jesus‘ I take a critical look at the Christology of early liberal Quaker Edward Grubb.
  • What does ‘Quaker Faith and Practice’ say about sin and evil? Find out in this post.
  • In this book review of ‘Seeking Paradise’ by Stephen Lingwood, I reflect on Quaker theology and ‘outreach‘.

Being a faith community

Reflections on the essentials of Quaker community, and my experience of other intentional communities.