Tag: theology

Should Quakers drop “worship” to be more inclusive?

Mark Russ12 Comments

I hear, through social media, the letters page of the Friend, and conversations with Quakers in my Meeting, a steady trickle of Quaker voices rejecting various bits of religious vocabulary, including “prayer”, “faith”, and particularly the word "worship". This is framed in terms of "inclusivity", even "radical inclusivity". The more religious words we eliminate from our vocabulary, the more inclusive we will be of those who are put off by religion. As someone who longs for a rich shared theology, I don't experience it as inclusion.

Jolly Quaker Podcast 01 – In conversation with Ben Wood (1/3)

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I recently met with fellow Quaker theologian Ben Wood to talk about our upcoming books that both reflect on Quakerism and Christianity. We originally meant our conversation to be one long video, but after recording we realised it’d be better offered as a series of three shorter podcast episodes. So in this first part of our conversation we talk about what prompted us to write our books, our difficulties with universalism and our approaches to Jesus.

When do Quakers celebrate Easter?: The Quaker testimony against “times and seasons”

Mark Russ2 Comments

Quakers in the past may have had a ‘testimony against times and seasons’, but this is no longer true in Britain today. Many Quaker meetings, including my own, will have Christmas-themed worship in December. We have abandoned referring to Monday as ‘second day’ and June as ‘sixth month’, except in some formal documents like marriage certificates. In practice the testimony has fallen away, but nothing positive has replaced it. We find ourselves in a half-way house, with no clear corporate answer on the place of times and seasons in the Quaker faith. If we take a look at why Quakers opposed times and seasons in the first place, we might be able to construct an approach that makes sense for us today.

A God who remains: ‘The Dark Womb’ by Karen O’Donnell

Mark Russ1 Comment

In her new book, ‘The Dark Womb’, Karen O’Donnell writes openly about her traumatic experience of miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy (when a fertilised egg implants itself outside of the womb) and infertility. She describes how her church community at the time failed to respond to her trauma in a theologically helpful way. This book emerges from wrestling with the disconnect between her experience and the theology on offer in the church. This book will speak particularly to those who have first- or second-hand experience of reproductive loss, but O’Donnell also invites theologians to use reproductive loss as a lens to see theological questions in a fresh way.

‘They know not what they do’: James Baldwin and the crime of innocence

Mark Russ1 Comment

Jesus says of his crucifiers ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing’ (Luke 23:34)... I’ve been helped to read these words by the writer James Baldwin. In his book ‘The Fire Next Time’ (1963) Baldwin offers an important perspective on the crime of ignorance, the crime of not knowing what we are doing.