Tag: Britain Yearly Meeting

Is love the central message of the New Testament? A comment on the 2025 BYM Epistle

Mark Russ12 Comments
An open Bible with the pages fanning out.

The BYM Epistle is a letter that attempts to capture the essence and important themes of the gathering. The Epistle is sent to many other Yearly Meetings around the world, and is often read aloud in local Quaker meetings throughout Britain. I want to remark on one sentence of the Epistle: ‘We are reminded that the central message of the New Testament is one of love.’ This statement may seem incredibly innocuous, or so obvious as to need no further comment. But this sentence needs our attention, as I think it’s haunted by the ghost of Judeophobia.

“Why do you call me good?”: Talking about whiteness and responsibility

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At the 2021 Britain Yearly Meeting Gathering, I gave a talk and workshop on behalf of Woodbrooke called '“Why do you call me good?”: Talking about whiteness and responsibility'. This video is now freely available to watch on the Woodbrooke YouTube channel, and I thought readers of my blog might appreciate it too.

Decentering ourselves: Reflections on Britain Yearly Meeting Gathering 2021

Mark Russ9 Comments

marginalised. When the consumption and comfort of the wealthy is centred, then the world’s poor suffer on the periphery. When whiteness is centred, blackness becomes the ‘other’. When cisgender and gender conformity is centred, gender diversity is seen as ‘deviant’.