Quakers

Written in 1976 for the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers), this volume analyzes the global and Middle East arms trade of that period. It addresses which countries are proviking the arms trade and which companies are making money from it.  It summarizes previous research by International Institute for Strategic Studies, the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and concludes that world militarization had reached instance proportions.  It further analyzes the trade in arms amongst the Arab countries and Israel in the mid-1970's.  The volume concludes with an analysis of the economic and social consequences, as well as a summary of learnings from the past (before 1970)

This essay reappraises the origins of French Quakerism based on new archival research conducted on both sides of the Channel. It identifies 34 Quaker missionaries in 17th- and early 18C France, sheds new light on the French reception of Quakerism and suggests possible connections with non-violent, charismatic movements in Languedoc.

“Christian Slavery” shows how Protestant missionaries in the early modern Atlantic World developed a new vision for slavery that integrated Christianity with human bondage. Quaker, Anglican, and Moravian missionaries arrived in the Caribbean intending to “convert” enslaved Africans to Christianity, but their actions formed only one part of a dialogue that engaged ideas about family, kinship, sex, and language. Enslaved people perceived these newcomers alternately as advocates, enemies, interlopers, and powerful spiritual practitioners, and they sought to utilize their presence for pragmatic, political, and religious reasons.

Protestant slave owners fiercely guarded their Christian rituals from non-white outsiders and rebuffed the efforts of Quaker, Anglican, and Moravian missionaries to convert the enslaved population. For planters, Protestantism was a sign of mastery and freedom, and most believed that slaves should not be eligible for conversion. The planters’ exclusive vision of Protestantism was challenged on two fronts: by missionaries, who articulated a new ideology of “Christian slavery,” and by enslaved men and women who sought baptism for themselves and their children.

In spite of planter intransigence, a small number of enslaved and free Africans advocated and won access to Protestant rites. As they did so, “whiteness” emerged as a new way to separate enslaved and free black converts from Christian masters. Enslaved and free blacks who joined Protestant churches also forced Europeans to reinterpret key points of Scripture and reconsider their ideas about “true” Christian practice. As missionaries and slaves came to new agreements and interpretations, they remade Protestantism as an Atlantic institution. 

Missionaries, meanwhile, argued that slave conversion would solidify planter power, make slaves more obedient and hardworking, and make slavery into a viable Protestant institution. They also encouraged the development of a race-based justification for slavery and sought to pass legislation that confirmed the legality of enslaving black Christians. In so doing, they redefined the practice of religion, the meaning of freedom, and the construction of race in the early modern Atlantic World. Their arguments helped to form the foundation of the proslavery ideology that would emerge in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Spanning denominations and continents and examining sources in English, German, Dutch, and Dutch Creole, Christian Slavery embraces the linguistic and imperial complexity of the early modern Atlantic World. I situate microhistorical analysis within the broad transatlantic context of British and Danish colonial ventures to reimagine the relationship between religion, race and slavery in two important ways. First, my project places religion at the core of Caribbean and Atlantic history. While scholars have been quick to regard the sugar islands as “irreligious,” I show that Christianity was central to West Indian culture. Second, I have found that missionaries were largely responsible for the development of race-based defenses of slavery. Faced with anti-conversion sentiment from the majority of Protestant slave owners, missionaries sought to convince masters that slave conversion would not lead to a loss of human property. The irony is dark and yet unambiguous: the most self-sacrificing, faithful, and zealous Christians in the Caribbean formulated and theorized powerful and lasting racial justifications for a brutal system of plantation labor. Once slaves were recognized as potential Christians, race became the most important bulwark of difference set immovably in place to separate the enslaved from their masters.

First published in 1982 by Barclay Press, the Meet the Friends Series has been a leading introduction to the Quaker movement. The third edition (2011, Newberg, OR: Barclay Press) makes a correction or two and illumines the complexion of Friends around the world, in addition to clarifying the difference between Christian Testimonies Friends have upheld and their distinctive expressions.

This paper is about the position the American Revolution established for the Quakers. They were a known peaceful religious order which prided itself in their noninvolvement of the American Revolution. They refused to take an oath, join the ranks of the military service, and rescinded their financial support of any group which backed the effort of the revolutionary war. The American Revolution forced the Quakers to fully stand with their convictions of nonviolence and their pacifistic nature. They supported their stance through biblical teachings and a foundation set forth by their orders founder. The American Revolution required the Quakers to establish a new identity and society after they were exiled because of their nonviolent stance. Through banding together in a common belief and position they fortified their society under the teaching of peaceful resistance, a notion which stayed with the Friends throughout history.

From autumn 2015, Drs Rebecca Wynter and Sian Roberts, on behalf of Central England Quakers and the University of Birmingham’s School of Education, ran a collaborative project to research Quaker experiences of the First World War and its legacy. 'Quakers & the First World War: Lives & Legacies' worked with a group of volunteers to co-produce four booklets; 'The Friends' War Victims' Relief Committee' is one of the four. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Voices of War and Peace First World War Engagement Centre, the project built on the research undertaken for the exhibition Faith & Action: Quakers & the First World War held at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (January-June 2015).

This thesis is a geographic and temporal case study of the carpentry and joinery trades present in the Delaware River Valley region from the period of Anglo-European settlements in the 1660s to about 1740. This examination of the region’s craft traditions emphasizes what its colonies share: patterns of settlement, ethnicity, kinship, religion, material richness, and commercial interdependence.

This study closely examined the construction of and materials used in case furniture produced in New Jersey or Pennsylvania individually, or in the larger Delaware River Valley region as a whole, revealing the persistence of Anglo-European craft traditions in colonial America, and a relative stasis in internal casework construction as a result of the apprenticeship system.
The similarity of construction and material found in these objects indicates the shared cultural expectations of craftsmen and their patrons, illustrative of the craft tradition of the Delaware Valley Region, not of any one colony.  It also speaks to the significant role of New Jersey's timber in intercolonial commerce. This further suggests that extant furniture defined as made within Philadelphia or Pennsylvania without any further details of maker and place of manufacture could have been produced anywhere in the Delaware River Valley, including New Jersey, Chester County, and the Lower Counties (Delaware). In addition to case studies examining furniture of this region, this study identifies over two hundred and fifty members of New Jersey’s woodworking trades who utilized the colony's material wealth and interpersonal resources for individual success.

My article traces the changing attitudes toward slave conversion in seventeenth-century Barbados -from hesitant discomfort in the mid-seventeenth century, to virulent rejection in 1680 -and argues that the attempted rebellion of 1675, which was widely blamed on Quaker proselytising efforts, played a pivotal role in the development of an antagonistic attitude toward missionaries in Barbados. The 1675 attempted rebellion, I suggest, linked slave conversion with slave rebellion in a new and decisive way that had repercussions throughout the British West Indies.

The definition of "theocracy" has perplexed scholars for many centuries.  Some argue that theocracy exists only when religious leaders are also the actual, official political leaders and, as such, impose their particular theological views on the populace at large.  This essay argues that effective control of a polity by religious leaders and their theology is dispositive, regardless of the governmental organization that exists on paper.  For example, Roger Williams pointed out that in many theocracies (including that of seventeenth-century Massachusetts Bay) "the Magistrate is but the Ministers Cane through which the Clergy speaks . . . ."  "The Bloody Tenent Yet More Bloody" (London, 1652), 131.  The present essay was incorporated, with some additions and revisions, into Appendix B of Alan E. Johnson's book "The First American Founder: Roger Williams and Freedom of Conscience" (http://www.amazon.com/First-American-Founder-Williams-Conscience/dp/1511823712/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436397728&sr=1-1).  For a summary of some of the points in this book, see the author's YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOlUZaehYk7WmwW8v9oBMzQ) about Roger Williams, including an interview (https://youtu.be/mGRl5lIbdYY) with the author about this book.

Note:  The sentence and citation on page 5, n.1, in this article referring to John M. Barry's book on Roger Williams should be qualified by Barry's remarks elsewhere in his book:  "Technically, the Bay was not a theocracy. Consistent with the admonition to render unto Caesar the things that were Caesar’s, and to God those which were God’s, the plantation prohibited a minister or church officer from simultaneously holding a government office. (For this reason some historians have argued that Puritan Massachusetts actually advanced the concept of separation of church and state.) But if not a theocracy, Massachusetts was theocentric."  Barry, Roger Williams, 169.  As discussed in this article, I disagree with the position that Massachusetts Bay was not a theocracy.

This paper looks at the history of the Quaker community of Baltyboys, which is located in the Kings River valley, about 30 km south-south-east of Dublin, Ireland.  The first Quaker family to settle there was that of Peter Peisley and his wife Anne Wills, who came in 1678.  They were soon followed by the Barkers and by other members of the Wills family.  The Quakers settled initially at Baltyboys Upper, which is located centrally within the Kings River valley, and they acted as local agents for Dublin wool-merchants.  Early in the 1700s they established a carding, spinning and weaving industry based around the putting-out production system.  The community spread into the more remote townlands around the valley with individual Quaker families settling at Ballyknockan, Ballynastockan, Carrigacurra, Annacarney, etc.  As the industrial revolution progressed, tuck mills and warping mills were constructed.  The Quaker community reached its peak numbers around 1750, but in the following two decades it suffered heavily from disownments which depleted numbers and led to migration away from the valley.  The United Irish Rebellion of 1798 had a severe impact on the community.  Quaker meetings for worship ceased at this time and most of the community left, with only a few members remaining during the first decade or so of the 1800s.

Annales Universitatis Paedagogicae Cracoviensis  2017/2
The aim of the article “The Relations Between Puritans and Quakers in 17th Century New England” is to analyze very complicated relations between two specific religious groups after their migration to the “New World”. The author presents history of both religious movements and circumstances of their settlement in America. She also explains how political structures created there by the Puritans influenced the situation of the Quaker missionaries. The main part of the article is an analysis of the reasons behind a profound Puritan hostility towards Quakers. The author divides these reasons into three categories: theological, theological-political, and socio-political, stressing the importance of the last category. Finally, she tries to explain how Quaker presence and attitude influenced future development of American political system.

Streszczenie: Celem artykułu jest ukazanie skomplikowanych relacji między purytanami a kwakrami w kolonialnej Nowej Anglii, zwłaszcza w drugiej połowie XVII wieku. Autorka przedstawia genezę obydwu ruchów religijnych i okoliczności przybycia członków tych wspólnot do kolonii w Ameryce Północnej, omawia struktury polityczne stworzone tam przez purytanów oraz wyjaśnia, jakie miejsce zostało w nich przypisane kwakrom. Analizuje też przyczyny szczególnej niechęci purytanów do kwakrów, wyodrębniając wśród nich trzy kategorie (teologiczne, teologiczno-polityczne oraz społeczno-polityczne) i podkreślając znaczenie tych ostatnich. Ponadto, wskazuje na wpływ, jaki pojawienie się kwakrów wywarło na kolonie purytańskie, a także na przyszłe amerykańskie rozwiązania prawne dotyczące relacji państwo–Kościół. Słowa kluczowe: purytanie, kwakrzy, kolonialna Nowa Anglia, prześladowania religijne, radykalizm społeczny

Katolik Kilisesi’nin siyasal etkinliklere eğilim göstererek halkı dinsel ve ekonomik açıdan zorlaması sonucunda gelişen Protestan Reformu, 17. yüzyılda Kilise’nin mutlak otoritesine alternatif sunabilecek başka spesifik mezheplerin de ortaya çıkmasına zemin oluşturmuştur. Avrupa’nın tinsel revizyon süreci olarak deneyimlediği mevcut şartlar altında temelleri atılan ve yeryüzünde daha muntazam bir toplumsal kurgu yaratabilmenin mümkün olduğuna inanan Shakerların tarihsel gelişimlerinden -kanonik inançları ile biçimlendirdikleri- özgün tasarım anlayışlarına kadar tanıklık ettiği tüm süreç mekân ölçeğinde mobilya gelenekleri üzerinden değerlendirilmiştir. Araştırma konusunun kuramsal sınırlılıklarına yeni bir bakış açısı kazandırmak maksadıyla kapsamlı literatür taraması yapılmış ve mevcut tarihsel süreç içerisinde Shaker tasarım kültürünün oluşumuna yönelik kabul gören tüm yaklaşımlar tanımlı hale getirilerek tinsel öğretilerin mobilya ile temsil edilmesine yönelik pratikler detaylandırılmıştır. Bu bağlamda Shakers hareketinin ruhsal motivasyonu ile tasarım yaklaşımları arasında mobilya ölçeğinde iletişim kurabilmek maksadıyla alegorik ve hermenötik yöntemlerden yararlanılmıştır. Tarihsel model kullanılarak gerçekleştirilen bu nicel araştırmanın sonucunda; spiritüel yaklaşımlarını tasarım alışkanlıklarına aktaran ve mekânsal yönelimlerini manevi dünyalarının önemli katmanlarından biri haline getiren Shakers hareketinin benzersiz tasarım reflekslerini 20. yüzyılın fayda, basitlik ve güzellik gibi yol gösterici prensipleriyle kesiştiren mekânsal donatı ve mobilya örnekleri üretildiği dönemin dinsel, kültürel ve sosyal koşulları dikkate alınarak irdelenmiş ve günümüze ulaşan dizgesiz birçok bilgi sentezlenerek konuya ilişkin mevcut yazına katkı sağlamak amaçlanmıştır.

This thesis discusses how British Quaker women negotiated relinquishing their religiously prescribed Plain dress from 1860 to 1914 in the context of developments in Quaker feminine identity. This thesis approaches its subjects by examining the primary source of surviving Quaker garments in British dress collections. These items provide the basis from which research methodologies and the personal narratives of Quaker women and their case studies are developed. Surviving garments, alongside historical letters, diaries, religious texts, department store catalogues, photographs and period dress illustrations are analysed in order to understand how women Quakers practised their religion and organised their public appearance through dress during this period.
The original quality of this research is the outcome of an interdisciplinary approach. No other research project in the international dress history or religious history fields has discussed and critically considered the identity of British Quaker women through an analysis of their surviving clothing between 1860 and 1914. This aspect of British social history and therefore British identity has until now remained unexplored and unacknowledged.
By 1860 Quakerism had undergone extreme doctrinal upheaval, which had led to the abandonment of those rules which enforced Plainness of speech and apparel that same year. Even prior to 1860, this thesis reveals that some women were incorporating fashion into their religious Plain dress, by using fashionable silhouettes and high-quality fabrics albeit eschewing bright colours and ornamentation. After 1860 however, male and female Quakers had complete individual freedom of choice in their clothing.
During this period of religious turmoil, female Victorian Quakers vocalised a range of opinions on women's emancipation, education and welfare, on their role within the religious society and their opinions concerning dress through published correspondence in Quaker journals. This thesis identifies a variety of views concerning dress between 1860 and 1914, as Quaker women negotiated their individual freedom of choice in attire in a ternary manner. Moreover, this thesis proves that this ternary interpretation was acknowledged by Quakers themselves and discussed within Quaker journals in the 1860-1914 period.
Quakers of the period identified these ternary interpretations as ascetic, moderate and fashionable. This thesis proposes a new set of classifying terms, Non-Adaptive, Semi- Adaptive and Fully-Adaptive, in reflection of the extent to which Quaker women adapted their religious clothing to incorporate fashion alongside their differing interpretations of Quaker belief. Four case studies illustrate further these three adaptive interpretations, and show how individual Quaker women chose to present themselves to their religious community and wider society.

The book describes the adventures of two Quaker women, Sarah Cheevers and Katherine Evans, who left England at the end of 1658 for Alexandria with the aim of publishing the gospel of the “Light within” in Egypt. They arrived in Malta and were arrested and tried by the Holy Office of the Island, headed at that time by the future Cardinal Girolamo Casanate. The two women remained in prison for more than three and half years and, eventually, were released in 1663, possibly thanks to the intervention of the Jansenist d’Aubigny, Lord Almoner to Queen Henrietta Maria. Between the end of 1661 and the beginning of the following year, the Quaker Daniel Baker went to the Island to pursue Evans and Cheevers’ cause. In 1662, a little before the two women were released, Baker published in London a report of their arrest and of their detention, based on the documents and the accounts given to him by the two Quakers: This is a short Relation of some of the Cruel Sufferings (For the Truths sake) of Katharine Evans and Sarah Cheevers in the Inquisition of the Isle of Malta. The book was republished in London in 1663, perhaps edited by Evans herself, just after her and her companion’s return to England, with the title A True Account of the Great Tryals and cruel Sufferings undergone by those two faithful Servants of God Katherine Evans and Sarah Cheevers. The volume of 1663 also included the story of what happened to the two women after the departure of Daniel Baker and, as a kind of appendix, two theological texts written by Evans and Cheevers, and the account of the misadventures of a young Quaker missionary in the Holy Land. The book, edited by Stefano Villani is organized in three parts: In the first part, the story of the two women is reconstructed from the extensive research undertaken by Villani in Italy, Malta and England. In the second part the entire unabridged English text of A True Account of the Great Tryals and cruel Sufferings of 1663 is published. The third part consists of the trial documents kept in the Inquisition archives of Malta at Mdina.

For American Quakers during the seventeenth century, a careful moral calculus permeated the Society’s negotiations between their twin goals of spiritual reflection and economic sustenance—balancing one’s metaphorical plantations, both ‘‘inner’’ and ‘‘outer.’’ In Barbados, where the Society of Friends had attracted a large following by the 1660s, slaveholding and plantation culture were facts of life that dominated effort to implement universalist ideals without threatening social control. Many leading West Indian Quakers embraced a paternalistic evangelization campaign to the enslaved in an effort to ease the consciences of individual masters, to create a consensus among the Society’s members, and to help Friends in the colonies build up a stock of ‘‘moral capital’’ to be used against their non-Quaker peers. Although some Friends experimented with the idea that particular enslaved individuals could redeem themselves through ‘‘moral’’ behavior or industriousness, the process of legal racialization virtually negated the concept of free will, the heart of non-Calvinist Protestant conversion. In following the migratory patterns of wealthy Barbadian Friends to the North American Middle Colonies, this article demonstrates the depth of their influence in promoting African slavery and quelling critiques of the institution.

From autumn 2015, Drs Rebecca Wynter and Sian Roberts, on behalf of Central England Quakers and the University of Birmingham’s School of Education, ran a collaborative project to research Quaker experiences of the First World War and its legacy. 'Quakers & the First World War: Lives & Legacies' worked with a group of volunteers to co-produce four booklets; 'Conscientious Objection & Conscription' is one of the four. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Voices of War and Peace First World War Engagement Centre, the project built on the research undertaken for the exhibition Faith & Action: Quakers & the First World War held at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (January-June 2015).

Amnesty International estimated in 1977 that between 600,000 and 750,000 Indonesians had been or were still imprisoned as a result of the Army-led anti-communist violence in Indonesia in the mid-1960s. This article charts the relationship between members of Amnesty International and the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) with a political prisoner on death row in East Java, Gatot Lestario, a former leader of the Indonesian Communist Party. This article draws on the letters he wrote over a period of three years before his execution in 1985 and interviews with his pen pals. It traces the ways in which he encouraged his pen pals to advocate for human rights in Indonesia and their responses, as well as his own involvement in political prisoner advocacy. This case study illustrates the disappearance of Indonesia's previously close and solidary relationship with the socialist world and its replacement at the people-to-people level with human rights activism involving Western activists. This is particularly evident in the increasingly important role played by members of Amnesty International, the Quakers and other overseas organizations concerned with Indonesia. Finally, the article assesses Gatot Lestario's impact, after his execution, on the development of a long-term advocacy network for Indonesia's political prisoners.

[Quaker Women in the Seventeenth Century]. The article describes the central role of women in the origin and development of the Quaker movement from the 1640s to the 1660s, noting how their zealous missionary activity and insistence that women be permitted to preach the gospel met with violent reactions throughout Europe and the New World. Following their persecution and imprisonment in England during the 1650s, many Quakers traveled to New England, where they also faced persecution, arrest, violent penalties, and often expulsion from the colonies. Some Quaker women undertook missions in Ireland and throughout the Mediterranean, undaunted by the violent repression of the Counter-Reformation. A survey of public and theological reactions to the early Quaker movement suggests that the public activity of women was one of the primary reasons for open hostility toward the movement. Following the Restoration, male leaders began to consolidate the movement and restrict women’s activities to more peripheral duties. Despite this shift, the early Quaker emphasis on egalitarianism and the participation of women irrevocably shaped the fundamentals of Quakerism.

In 1664, after the English conquered New Netherland, King Charles II granted the former Dutch territories as a proprietary colony to his brother James, Duke of York, who later became King James II. The Duke divided the colony into New York and New Jersey, reserving New York for himself as the “Duke’s province” and giving New Jersey to his friends John, Lord Berkeley, and Sir George Carteret. Berkeley and Carteret eventually sold their shares to other investors, called proprietors, resulting in the
division in 1676 of the colony into East and West Jersey.

From the outset of the grant from the Duke of York to Berkeley and Carteret, jurisdictional disputes arose between New York and New Jersey. Before he learned about the gift to Berkeley and Carteret, Governor Richard Nicolls of New York made land grants in New Jersey to some New Englanders, causing a confusion of
land titles that lasted into the eighteenth century. There was also a question of whether the grant to Berkeley and Carteret included the right to govern, which led to the arrest of Governor Philip Carteret of East Jersey and John Fenwick of Salem by a later New York governor, Sir Edmund Andros.

During this period the population of New Jersey diversified. Besides Europeans, there were Native–Americans, who were the original settlers, and African–Americans, who first were brought into the colony by the Dutch. To this racial diversity was added ethnic and religious diversity. In addition to the Dutch, Swedish, and Finnish,
there were English and Scottish settlers.

Among the religious denominations there were the Dutch Reformed, Puritans, Quakers, and Anglicans. In East Jersey resentment accompanied the passing of power from the English
Puritans in Newark and Elizabeth to the Scottish Presbyterians in Perth Amboy. In West Jersey, the Quakers resented the growing influence of the Anglicans.

Finally, the proprietors of both East and West Jersey gave up their efforts to govern this disorderly, heterogeneous society. In 1702, they petitioned the crown to take over the colony, while retaining their rights to the land. This brought to an end the period of the two New Jerseys.

To view the video go to:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_h5DHn8PRIv-tN2pKUHv_g

The attached PDF contains the title page, copyright page, epigraphs, and table of contents for "The First American Founder: Roger Williams and Freedom of Conscience" by Alan E. Johnson (available in paperback and Kindle editions at Amazon websites throughout the world).  For additional information, see http://www.amazon.com/First-American-Founder-Williams-Conscience/dp/1511823712/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436397728&sr=1-1.

[The Quakers against the Pope. Some Seventeenth-century English Pamphlets between Falsehood and Truth]. The Irish Quaker John Perrot, who was confined in an insane asylum by Pope Alexander VII, published upon his return to England Propositions to the Pope in 1661, in which he denounced his treatment, attacking the Catholic religion, and challenged the pontiff to have a hundred theologians debate with him. A reply by pseudo-Alexander VII published in 1662, the appearance of The Tryal of John Love (1661) concerning John Luffe, who was arrested with Perrot and died in prison, and a pamphlet on the “adventures” and “martyrdom” of four Quakers printed in 1673 each combined fact with invention and were probably published with a mocking and defamatory intent.

Of his 37 books, A Place to Stand is the most important book written by D. Elton Trueblood--regarded "the dean of American religious writing" in the mid-late 20th century. Written as a philosophic sequel to Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis, this challenge to intellectually inadequate rejections of theism remains a classic of modern religious literature. This revised edition is the second of several of Trueblood's most important works being re-issued by HarperOne--available now in e-book format.

This is the final instalment of a paper about Charles and Anne Steinkopff in London and a network that reached to Australia and New Zealand.  (Other references include America, Canada, Ireland, Prussia, Hungary, Hong Kong/China...). 'Stepping stone capsules' are included in the essay to illustrate the bridge to Australasia. This includes the Anglican-Prussian Bishopric, the German Hospital at Dalston, Hymnody and translation, the Evangelical Alliance, German emigration to Victoria and the Chinese Society for Furthering the Promotion of the Gospel to China...
I also offer some musings and reflections.

Orientalist and colonial representations of harems have resulted in the association of North African women with domestic confinement. North African authors such as Assia Djebar (1980), Malek Alloula (1981) and Fatima Mernissi (1994), however, suggest that this view is biased. While focusing largely on Fatima Mernissi's memoir, Dreams of Trespass, this article builds on these authors' exploration of the various ways in which women of the Maghreb are portrayed, in order to provide a clearer understanding of the dynamics of women's space in the context of colonial North Africa.

This article argues that the term missional is an expression of the global shift towards a
theocentric (rather than ecclesiocentric) understanding of mission. A Missional Community
is a concrete, local embodiment of this missional ecclesiology and it comes to be through
discerning its particular and ongoing vocation in the cosmic missio Dei. It is for this reason that
we argued that communal vocation discernment lies at the heart of the Missional Community’s
life and practice. This practice births, energises and renews the Missional Community in the
wake of the boundary-breaking Spirit’s work in the local neighbourhood or context. Because
communal vocation discernment is central to Missional Communities it seemed prudent to ask
which other communities or traditions see discernment as central to their life and practice. In
Western Christianity, the Quakers stand out as a significant example of communal discernment
as their normal way of making decisions. We sought to answer whether the Quaker practice
of communal discernment, in the Meeting for Worship in which Business is Conducted, is a
suitable model for communal vocation discernment in Missional Communities. We suggested
that it was not suitable in so far as it did not express an explicit commitment to being
grounded and connected to a place or neighbourhood as a prerequisite for discernment. We
suggested that it was suitable in so far as it continually reminds the community that communal
discernment is not simply about making decisions or finding your vocation but at its heart is an
act of worship. This awareness in the Quakers is primarily achieved through naming communal
discernment spaces as worship spaces and through the strategic use of silence. We also suggested
that the Quaker commitment to unity and dissent creates space for belonging, agency and
responsibility in the community and that this is something which Missional Communities
would do well to appropriate in their own communal vocation discernment.

From autumn 2015, Drs Rebecca Wynter and Sian Roberts, on behalf of Central England Quakers and the University of Birmingham’s School of Education, ran a collaborative project to research Quaker experiences of the First World War and its legacy. 'Quakers & the First World War: Lives & Legacies' worked with a group of volunteers to co-produce four booklets; 'The Friends' Ambulance Unit' is one of the four. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Voices of War and Peace First World War Engagement Centre, the project built on the research undertaken for the exhibition Faith & Action: Quakers & the First World War held at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (January-June 2015).

This book is about Roger Williams (ca. 1603-83), who was banished from the colony of Massachusetts Bay for advocating freedom of conscience, separation of church and state, Native American rights, and related matters.  He founded the town of Providence in what became Rhode Island on the basis of full liberty of conscience and complete separation of religion and government.  For additional information, see the uploaded PDF and links.

The book is available in paperback and Kindle e-book editions at Amazon websites throughout the world.  The paperback is also available at some other websites and bookstores.

See also my YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOlUZaehYk7WmwW8v9oBMzQ) about Roger Williams, including an interview (https://youtu.be/mGRl5lIbdYY) with me about this book.

For Errata and Supplemental Comments, see the separate document uploaded at https://www.academia.edu/13798228/Errata_and_Supplemental_Comments_to_The_First_American_Founder_Roger_Williams_and_Freedom_of_Conscience.

Alan E. Johnson

"In August 1661 the Quaker community of London was set in turmoil by the arrival of their fellow Irishman John Perrot. The Quaker was a veteran of three years imprisonment in Rome where he had arrived in June of 1658 along with John Luffe with the intention of spreading the Creed of the Inner Light in Italy perhaps with the hope of converting the Pope. Immediately upon their arrival they had in vain asked for an audience with Pope Alexander VII and, instead, were that evening arrested by the Inquisition. Perrot was released after three years, in June 1661. During the long period of captivity Perrot had managed to get his writings to England. One of these documents fueled much discussion among the English Quakers leading to a deep schism within the movement. This document was a letter stating it was lawful for men to keep a hat on during prayer. This innovation proposed by Perrot was hardly a secondary issue: one must not forget that clothing was of great religious and civil symbolic significance that to some extent continues even in today’s secularized Europe as evidenced for example by the recent controversy on the chador. The violence of the divisions aroused by this proposal are stupefying especially considering that the Quakers, based as they were on the theology of the Inner Light had eliminated rituals and conceptions Christian tradition always considered essential (including baptism and the Eucharist). Perrot, however, did not insist on replacing the obligation of taking one’s hat off during prayer with the obligation to keep it on, but merely to contemplate the possibilities for those unwilling to take it off to remain covered if the spirit moved them to do so. Among his first supporters was Benjamin Furly, who lived in Rotterdam in 1659, who was likely in England when John Perrot entered into a collision course with the leading group of the movement. In 1662, just when the controversies surrounding the hat were at their height, Furly published a pamphlet in Dutch entitled De eere des werelds ontdeck, in which he, with a firm attitude, defended the Quakers’ right not to take off their hats in front of their superiors. The years that followed saw Furly in an eminent position among the Quakers. But from 1689 no traces of his active role inside the movement are to be found and around 1692 it is known his relationships with the Dutch Quakers were conflictual. From 1693, they did not consider him a Quaker anymore, accusing him of being worldly. The Quaker that thirty years before had written a book against the use of taking off the hat as a form of salute was accused of uncovering his head in the court and doing so for the ignoble reason of wanting to marry a rich widow. In fact, Furly, on 10 November 1693, married the widow Susanna Huis at the Stadhuis of Rotterdam. The civil wedding was not preceded by a Quaker matrimonial ceremony.
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Truth has an interesting history. Tracking Truth over time reveals how the long arc of history is shaped by the particular concept of Truth. Our idea of Truth is one of the strongest determinates of the evolution or collapse of a society.
The driving query of this pamphlet is: What distinguishes concepts of Truth resulting over time in virtuous interactions influencing our ideas of order, freedom and liberty or the vicious cycles producing mass violence, dehumanization and tyranny? This pamphlet provides two concrete examples of Truth and its consequences. It compares and contrasts the differing architecture and models of Truth in the Religious Society of Friends of Truth (Quakers) versus the State Ideologies of Fascism and Communism. (Draft)

This book explores the religious concerns of Enlightenment thinkers from Thomas Hobbes to Thomas Jefferson. Using an innovative method, the study illuminates the intellectual history of the age through interpretations of Jesus between c.1650 and c.1826. The book demonstrates the persistence of theology in modern philosophy and the projects of social reform and amelioration associated with the Enlightenment. At the core of many of these projects was a robust moral-theological realism, sometimes manifest in a natural law ethic, but always associated with Jesus and a commitment to the sovereign goodness of God. This ethical orientation in Enlightenment discourse is found in a range of different metaphysical and political identities (dualist and monist; progressive and radical) which intersect with earlier ‘heretical’ tendencies in Christian thought (Arianism, Pelagianism, and Marcionism). This intellectual matrix helped to produce the discourses of irenic toleration which are a legacy of the Enlightenment at its best.

We are a group of people who have come together to help and encourage each other in our spiritual life, following Quaker Process.  Quakers use a particular Way to become conscious of “God” and to get help.

We find this contributes to individual growth, happiness and a healthy society.  The Quaker way is a way of life.

Southern African Quaker News (SAQN) is based on sharing our life stories. living the testimony.