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Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns is a North American Quaker faith community that affirms that of God in all people. Gathering twice yearly for worship and play, we draw sustenance from each other and from the Spirit for our work and life in the world. We are learning that radical inclusion and radical love bring further light to Quaker testimony and life. [More]

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•Midwinter Gathering will be held at the Burlington Meeting House, Burlington, NJ. February 13-16, 2015

•Our Epistle sent to the World Conference of Friends 2012



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Mid-Winter Gathering is held over the long weekend surrounding U.S. President's Day (February).
 Summer Gathering is held at the larger Friends General Conference Gathering the first week in July.

The next gathering where FLGBTQC will have a presence will be Midwinter Gathering, February 13-16, 2015 at the Burlington Meetinghouse, Burlington, NJ
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Here is a copy of an epistle written at our 2013 Midwinter gathering in northern Pennsylvania.
We have an active email list, for all who have come to our Gatherings.
We are collecting Marriage Minutes written by Quaker Meetings affirming same-sex Quaker marriages and other commitment ceremonies.
We are collecting Minutes that welcome and affirm transgender people on a new page of our website.
Each of Us Inevitable is a collection of keynote addresses presented at past Mid-Winter gatherings.




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FLGBTQC appreciates donations to support our community. We accept donations by mail.
This 2009 document summarizes some of the important elements of the Leading that shapes FLGBTQC and asks each of us to consider thoughtfully several ways to support the Leading -- including financial gifts. [PDF, DOC]
This document is a template you could adapt and use to ask your Meeting to consider supporting FLGBTQC.Ê Many Meetings so approached are touched to be able to support an organization important to the spiritual journey of a member. [PDF, DOC]





Contacting Us


http://flgbtqc.quaker.org/









What is FLGBTQC 
Gatherings 
Outreach/Resources
Contacting Us 
Front Porch 
FLGBTQC Home 

 
A few faces of FLGBTQC
Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns is a North American Quaker faith community that affirms that of God in all people. Gathering twice yearly for worship and play, we draw sustenance from each other and from the Spirit for our work and life in the world. We are learning that radical inclusion and radical love bring further light to Quaker testimony and life. [More]

NEW STUFF

•Midwinter Gathering will be held at the Burlington Meeting House, Burlington, NJ. February 13-16, 2015

•Our Epistle sent to the World Conference of Friends 2012



Gatherings


Mid-Winter Gathering is held over the long weekend surrounding U.S. President's Day (February).
 Summer Gathering is held at the larger Friends General Conference Gathering the first week in July.

The next gathering where FLGBTQC will have a presence will be Midwinter Gathering, February 13-16, 2015 at the Burlington Meetinghouse, Burlington, NJ
Sign up here to receive updates and notifications for future FLGBTQC events.



Outreach and Resources


Here is a copy of an epistle written at our 2013 Midwinter gathering in northern Pennsylvania.
We have an active email list, for all who have come to our Gatherings.
We are collecting Marriage Minutes written by Quaker Meetings affirming same-sex Quaker marriages and other commitment ceremonies.
We are collecting Minutes that welcome and affirm transgender people on a new page of our website.
Each of Us Inevitable is a collection of keynote addresses presented at past Mid-Winter gatherings.




Donations
FLGBTQC appreciates donations to support our community. We accept donations by mail.
This 2009 document summarizes some of the important elements of the Leading that shapes FLGBTQC and asks each of us to consider thoughtfully several ways to support the Leading -- including financial gifts. [PDF, DOC]
This document is a template you could adapt and use to ask your Meeting to consider supporting FLGBTQC.Ê Many Meetings so approached are touched to be able to support an organization important to the spiritual journey of a member. [PDF, DOC]





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Accepting the Challenge of Non-theism
Posted by John Cowan on June 6, 2014 in Blog Posts, Personal Journeys, Uncategorized

John Cowan Second Month 2014
This has been a journey.
The journey began with my increasing discomfort at the presence of non-theists in my monthly meeting, Twin City Friends, located in St.Paul, Minnesota. These non-theists were not only Quakers, but some of our most beloved members, constant attenders, holding responsible positions. I have only been attending a decade, a member for half that time, and as I during my first two years peppered the meeting’s website with penetrating questions and cries of distress at the odd and annoying behavior of my fellow participants. I was met consistently with wisdom, patience and sometimes humor by the person who had been assigned the daunting task of novice master. I discovered in time that this was not a pastoral position but my guru was the webmaster responding not as an expected function of the job but because he was there. And although a bona fide Quaker, he was the leader of an interest group called: Quakers without God. Thus I was introduced to Quaker non-theists.
My reason for concern was that this group of people were not being incorporated into the meeting because their belief system fit the nature of Quakerism, but because they were likeable, active, and good people, and because they wanted to belong. I never did anything about this, learning by casual inquiry of other theistic Friends that I was a minority of perhaps one in any willingness to discuss who belongs and who does not. It did not take long for the good sense of avoiding that discussion to come clear to me also.
My sticking point was neither an absence of friendship or a disrespect for the desires of others but: How do people who are worshiping a personal God, people who believe in the supernatural, worship with people who do not believe in a personal God. How can non-theists even worship? Ignoring this question as unimportant seems to me disrespectful, first of all to the non-theists who I assume are taking a principled stand, and deserved to be heard for that stand, and second of all to theists who after all came to this meeting to join a group of God worshippers, or at least I did. The quote inside our front door from Philadelphia Faith and Practice says we are seeking awareness of the presence of God. But we have some members who seem to think that not possible.
Despite the reluctance to in any way alienate anyone, there was support for simply bringing the issue of our belief to the surface, talking about it some, both among theists and non-theists. We have begun that.
During a round of email exchanges among some of the important people in my life, one person reported that he was a theist because he experienced being guided through life whenever he was willing to listen for guidance. And I thought, “That’s me too!”
The voice inside has directed me since childhood, often by a quiet baseless conviction arising from nowhere, often through the voices of others, sometimes in dreams, a couple of times by what seems a real voice in my ear, and three times by a fleeting vision. When following that guidance I am often pleasantly startled by the synchronicity of support and opportunity arising from odd places, as if my canoe has been directed from the eddies into the current.
Beyond that I have since the 1950’s been convinced of the general accuracy of Teilhard d’ Chardin’s , (the Jesuit paleontologist) vision of the cosmos under God’s direction hurrying (over eons) towards consciousness. Since then, despite the horrors we humans have created, I have seen evidence that we move persistently toward the good. I attribute that consistent movement to guidance, and assume a source for that guidance, which most of the time I call God.
In summary, I have been guided personally, and I have seen in history the guidance of the human race.
One of our non-theists, explaining non-theism to a visitor, said that non-theists were people who unlike theists did not believe in an angry God, judging people, and sending them to hell. Since she is a justly revered and ancient person among us and these after all were visitors not looking to participate in a local quarrel, I waited until later to send her an email pointing out that I was a theist and knew hundreds of theists and while I am sure some theists fit her definition of a theist, it did not fit me nor did it fit anyone I knew personally. But that got me thinking.
First, that if you define yourself as “not this group” you are tied to the other group’s definition of what they are for your definition of who you are. The definition of theism I learned seventy years ago has moved considerably and diversified. The “angry God” which is a fair enough description of the God of 1940’s Catholicism and the “Ground of Being” or the accidental God of process philosophy, or the God of Liberation Theology, or the God of Creation Theology are dissimilar to say the least. Yet, they are all persons, and therefore all theistic Gods. When I hear the word non-theist, I assume the speaker is opposed to my latest version of God. That may not be so. And she may think that the God she is denying is the God I am affirming. In this case at least, not so.
The second thought was what are the odds that a person such as I who has spent decades accepting huge hunks of Buddhism, the Vedas, Navajo spirituality, and a small shot of Wicca still is a theist? I realized that I may have stretched the definition of theism beyond that already extended by theologians simply to keep myself in the boundaries. If I am fair to the expressed if ill defined stretching, should I not be outside it? Am I a non-theist? Is Brahman, one of my model Gods, a theist’s God?
During this process I was in regular correspondence with Howard Vogel on this topic. He is a respected friend from the meeting and our dialogue is intense enough that he almost deserves co-authorship of this essay. (If I could write calmly from an objective viewpoint he would have that title.) He pushed upon me two books.
One was Godless for God’s Sake: Nontheism in Contemporary Quakerism. It was helpful in that it made me aware there might not be a coherent position to be found among non-theists. (Please remember that I have already admitted to the absence of a coherent position among theists.) Also I was alerted by this book to the fact that non-theists have been Quakers from the beginning. And at least in surveys taken in Britain, Friends tend towards non-theist positions much more than followers of other religions. So despite the signs on the wall at my Meeting, these Friends are not newcomers.
The other book, Atheism: A Guide for the Perplexed, by Kerry Walters I also found helpful. Non-theism and atheism are not the same, but at least here I find a systematic presentation of the difference between theism and a long term defined movement that has been defended by eminent philosophers over the ages and by an author determined to treat all arguments with respect never displaying which position he might hold. (I had him figured as a well-mannered atheist, until I googled him and found him an Episcopal priest.)
I realized that I felt neither supported nor attacked in my belief by anything that was said in hundreds of pages. The God the author both attacked and supported in descriptions, explanations and arguments was a complex of attributes and the God I now realized I pledged fealty to was simply the source of my experience of guidance both in my life and in the whirling of the planet. Behind the experience must be something providing direction and since the act of guiding presumes intelligence the guide deserves the distinction of being called a “person” although in all probability the guide is not a bit like any person I have ever met. I will never know the guide as person. I only experience the effect, guidance.
The God we have been disagreeing about may not be my God at all.
At this point in our dialogue, Howard dropped me an email challenging the usefulness of clinging to the idea of the supernatural. I had just finished reading a short web essay entitled “Awakening Sight” by David Ulrich. As a young man he lost his right eye. He thought that would be the end of his career as a photographer. You lose an eye, you should see less. Is that not correct?
Nevertheless, he struggled to see as well with one eye as he had seen with two. He found that with attention he now saw more. He could “see” where in his body colors affected him. He could feel colors. He could “see” what other people were feeling. He could “see” that something was on his right side in a place that his left eye could not see. He could see things that the rest of us could see also if we were but to pay attention. Well, pay very close attention.
I experimented with blinding one eye by dropping the category called the “supernatural.” As I look at reality without the supernatural, creation is a whole and guidance is a fact of creation built into the system. The guide may have a separate existence outside of creation, that I do not know, but the guide exists in creation in its effect, guidance, and that I can access simply through paying attention, very deep attention to baseless convictions, the voices of others, dreams, voices in my ear, visions. In other words, Quaker Worship, in the Meeting and out.
I now present the theism, non-theist conversation differently. The first issue is can you hear the guidance. I say it is a matter of attention. I say, along with centuries of others, that I can hear it. Can you? Second, do you think there is a guide, and if so, how do you name the guide. This is a theoretical question. I would do nothing differently, if I answered it differently. I think there is a guide. It seems reasonable.
If you cannot hear the guidance, I cannot bend to your reality for I have heard it. But I cannot ask you who have not heard guidance to trust me that the voice is there. If you hear the guidance but attribute it to another source than a guide, I cannot argue. A personal guide seems reasonable to me. But maybe you are correct. I have no idea how I or you can run an experiment on this. (Note here that I am not talking about belief. Since I belong to an experimental religion I am not embarrassed to not rely on belief.)
So am I a theist or a non-theist? Although my reasonable supposition of a personal guide probably makes me a theist the designation makes little pragmatic difference. And am I concerned any longer about non-theists in the Monthly Meeting? About the same as I am about some theists. All I now need when we gather for Worship is that I am surrounded by people willing to exercise the Quaker discipline of silence and surrender as they wait for guidance.
I am indebted to the challenge of non-theism for moving me from a comfortable home base to a clearer and more secure position. My thinking at this point of the journey is:
1.As far as worshiping together theist and non-theist Quakers have a common ground. We can seek guidance by sitting together in silence and surrender. We may differ on the existence of a guide, or the shape and characteristics of the guide, but that is less of a difference to bridge than the existence and characteristics of a supernatural abstraction, the result of eons of theological tinkering. To worship together does not require resolving this difference. This difference may yet prove to be advantageous in the following of the truth. My conversation with myself on this topic instigated by the presence of non-theists is one example of the advantage.
2.I have not had to surrender my Quaker history. The ideas expressed are consonant with the language of 17th century Quakers. “The Christ within,” “give up your own willing,” “the inward light,” “the seed.” To refer to “guidance” actually seems to me closer to the rigorous scrubbing of the “inward light” of the 17th century than the gentle presence of “the inner light” of the 21st. I have given “guide” and “guidance” preeminence in my lexicon, but continue to comfortably use the older terms. They are a link to the vision of 1652 that promised the enlightenment of the world, and I am still hoping.
3.I have removed the supernatural from my lexicon. As Occam’s razor rules: “distinctions are not to be multiplied unnecessarily.” There is one reality.
4.I now have an elegant theory that describes not what I believe, but what I know from experience.
I have four concerns:
1.Is this at all helpful to non-theists? Or do my words come off as blathering, arrogant blathering at that? Do non-theists see this approach as a bridge worth crossing? Or have they already crossed it and nobody told me?
2.It would seem to me that even if we are comfortable seeking guidance together there is a surrender that is central to theists’ seeking that may be incompatible with the philosophy of non-theists. Is that problematic?
3.How far am I moving away from my theist friends? Will they accept this as useful? Or treason?
4.Am I by this stance distancing myself from evangelicals beyond hope of a continuing connection? After wondering for years that we unprogrammed Quakers struggled to maintain this connection, I came to realize that the evangelicals have something that we do not. I cannot define it. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they sing. Or more broadly put, that they accept and participate enthusiastically in the myths we have denied. Maybe we should have done that less successfully. Perhaps the cloud of unknowing requires mythology as the closest approximation to understanding for our health and sanity.
So it is a journey. I am still on it. My thinking is as unfinished as the conclusion of this article. Not a period, but a comma.
John Cowan, St. Paul Minnesota, Twin City Friends, stillsittingjohn@gmail.com






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Related Posts:
• Quaker and Naturalist Too: a new NTF book
• Reviews of Publications on Quaker Nontheism in the 2010s
• Reviews of Publications on Quaker Nontheism in the 1960s
• Revealing Our True Selves
• Conference of the Nontheist Friends Network at Woodbrooke, March 9-11 2012: MINUTE AND EPISTLE

  


 Quaker and Naturalist Too: a new NTF book




6 Responses to Accepting the Challenge of Non-theism



James Riemermann June 6, 2014 at 2:56 pm # 

John,
I appreciate hearing your thoughts on this subject, and particularly the way your thoughts have evolved. Some of my comments will be about the earlier frame of mind you describe in this piece, despite the fact that your frame of mind has changed in some ways.
To be honest, I was surprised when I began reading and learned of your early “increasing discomfort at the presence of non-theists”. There are a small handful of people at Twin Cities Friends Meeting (http://www.tcfm.org) who have expressed such discomfort publicly; I never thought of you as one of them. I knew our perspectives on God questions were different in some significant ways, but I had no idea that had ever been a problem for you. It has never been a problem for me; in fact there are Friends in our meeting whose religious ideas are much further from my own than yours are, with whom I feel completely easy as a coreligionist–as I do with you.
Basically, I’ve come to disagree, quite vehemently, with the common notion that religions are best described in terms of commonly held religious beliefs. Non-Quaker churches describe themselves that way, but I think that in the real world, that is not primarily what brings people in the door and keeps them coming week after week, year after year. Many stay involved for decades despite very serious disagreements, mostly unvoiced, with the expressed doctrine or dogma or creeds of their churches. They come because of what happens in the church, and the people among whom it happens. They belong to their religion because they show up and take part.
What distinguishes Quakers (one of many things that distinguish Quakers) from these other churches is not our diversity of belief, but the fact that we sometimes speak about that diversity of belief out loud. Some consider that a weakness; I consider it one of our greatest strengths, as a community and as a religion, that we are able to disagree openly about questions we find important, and still be F/friends together.
You ask “How can non-theists even worship?” In my early years I would have said, I don’t, and I was a bit perplexed by how much I nonetheless loved meeting for worship. Over time I have gotten comfortable with describing what I do in that meeting as worship, but my ideas of what that word can mean have evolved considerably. I no longer think of worship as an exclusively transitive verb. A Friend can worship God, or simply worship, in the same way a person can listen to the wind in the trees, or simply listen, with no particular object of that worship or listening. I see it primarly as a way of being especially attentive, not to one thing but to whatever is there, inside and out.
I am delighted that you are for “simply bringing the issue of our belief to the surface, talking about it some, both among theists and non-theists.” I have been doing that, in fact thinking of it as central to my role in our meeting, for a very long time. I began Quakers without God not to separate that group, but to make us visible and allow a more honest and conscious integration than had previously been the case. I don’t mean to take more responsibility for that work than I deserve, but it is no accident that these conversations are taking place more often and more deeply than they used to.
For that and other reasons, my response to your first concern is, yes, your words and your perspective is quite helpful. I find our common humanity a sufficient bridge between us, along my experiential knowledge, not belief, that you and I can be in religious community and care for one another genuinely and with great depth. I doubt many things, but I do not doubt our friendship.
I probably agree that there is guidance to be heard; I probably disagree as to where that guidance comes from. I believe in a deep, powerful and active unconscious in every person, completely naturalistic and in no way supernatural, which has guided humans for a very long time. I believe that unconscious draws on everything we have ever experienced individually, and a good deal of what our species has experienced for millions of years. I prefer spiritual metaphors of depth over metaphors of height, metaphors of inwardness over metaphors of outwardness. But I think they are all metaphors.
I believe there are a great many mysterious voices within, and we need to use our intelligence and compassion and community discernment to figure out which voices to honor and which to challenge and possibly reject. Our worship, our attentiveness, helps us to do that. But I don’t think I can envision it as a surrender, as you apparently do. I think we also have to think critically, to try to poke holes in our “guidance” to get a sense of how solid and wise it is. It is easy to make mistakes.
Your friend,
James
Reply
  



John Hunter June 7, 2014 at 1:49 am # 

Thank you, John Cowan, for this wonderful exposition of your experience and process with Quaker theism and nontheism.
Most all religious people seem to have a story of their unfolding belief and how they have grown in their religious and spiritual lives. This has taught me that in a person’s life beliefs change. Some of what we may have believed decades ago has been discarded and new views of reality or truth have come into focus. I long ago concluded that this was a natural process for open minded people and it made sense to embrace the notion that this process is unending and will influence us as we grow yet older. So I have become quite confident (like James and others) that “belief” is most certainly not the foundation of religion even as many would assert the contrary.
Like you, I have had a number of experiences in my life that I could not readily explain. I am aware that for many others unexplainable positive experiences are attributed to God, but for me this is too great a leap. I am aware enough of human history to know that many events and experiences that once were thought to most certainly be the handiwork of God have been conclusively shown to be natural and predictable processes both in the world at large and in our brains and personal experience.
I do not begrudge others who are inclined to attribute the unexplained to God. I full-well understand that (especially) some internal perceptions are powerfully experienced as “being led” by a benign and loving presence, and if the result of that experience supports a loving, compassionate, and generous person, then I can only rejoice at the good fortune for us all. In our secular and religious communities we need to accept that each of us is an experiencing being and that it is no insult to any of us that others will have a different sense of attribution to an experience surrounding a mystery. In particular, theists and nontheists can respect one another even as we might disagree on some currently unknowable causality.
I have been a Friend for 50 years and count myself as very lucky to have stumbled upon Quakers from my traditional mainline Christian upbringing. Liberal Quakerism suits me to a tee. I so enjoy being in community with Friends who are committed to an openness to guidance as perceived within and tested by a time honed process. I love being associated with people who are open to “continuing revelation” as an underlying tenet of truth. (Beliefs change!) It is marvelous to be held accountable to our consciences and best lights by a wonderful history of our traditional testimonies. And I love the notion that a nonthiest can sit in worship and and hone a powerful connecting spirituality by listen carefully to his deepest stirrings while sitting next to his theist friend who is also attending carefully with the same focus even if we may attribute the origins differently. That human difference really does not matter in the end.
As to your four concerns… Nontheists (like theists) come in all stripes and are at many different places in their journeys. But I would say that a good proportion of Quaker nontheists have already crossed the bridge you describe. We are committed to strengthening the Religious Society of Friends by dealing openly with our differences even as we generally do not find it important to emphasize them.
As to “surrendering” in worship, I do not think that that language is problematic at all. Every experienced Friend has his or her own language and metaphors for describing the process of “going deep.” Regardless of theist or nontheist orientation, each individual’s worship experience will be different both day to day and over time. Such different worship experiences, while they may be intellectually interesting, are absolutely meaningless if the result is recognized as loving, connecting, or otherwise valuable to the individual and supports him or her within the religious community.
I would certainly hope that your honest examination of your personal relationship with theism and nontheism would not cause you to be seen as a “traitor” to some unmentioned code. I think that, ultimately, we respect each other for who we are within our communities and not for what we happen to believe at the time.
Perhaps most vexing is your concern that in open mindedly exploring your personal relationship with your theism and nontheism you will have cut yourself off from continuing a meaningful relationship with evangelicals. Certainly, from your own perspective, this exploration has probably brought you closer such goals, but it may be out of your hands as to whether a closer relationship is welcomed. On the other hand, as in approaching any person or group, it is you that can choose to emphasize or de-emphasize what it is that is important or unimportant. In this light your personal exploration might not make any difference as to whether a more firm relationship can be cemented.
Kindest regards,
John Hunter
 Durham Meeting (NC)
Reply
  



Trevor Bending June 12, 2014 at 10:30 pm # 

Thank-you John.
 I think this article is very helpful to non-theist (and theist) Friends.
 Your question with “a surrender that is central to theists’ seeking that may be incompatible with the philosophy of non-theists. Is that problematic?” I think it may be problematic for some non-theists but certainly not for others.
the ideas of seeking, surrender and guidance are all of central importance to understanding what we might mean by ‘God’ or ‘not God’.
Another term is ‘transcendence’ and that is very problematic for non-theists who are ‘super naturalists’ (like Os Cresson, NOT ‘supernaturalists’) ie. it is problematic if you totally deny any possibility of something ‘beyond’ the natural world. If we don’t know what god is then perhaps he/she/it is a power, process or force within the natural world – the very basis of the universe (a creative force perhaps if not a creator).
I’m a non-theist leaning former atheist who thinks it may be possible that I am mistaken and it may be possible that that the spirit, or the divine presence, or transcendence is a fact and not just a possibility.
I feel sure that some, theists or not, do (think they) know ‘God’ or transcendence or the light or the spirit or, now you have given me the term guidance and a guide (known only by its effects as guidance). If guidance comes from a ‘place’ then perhaps the guide is a place and not a person?
I do not know or experience that guide but I attend meeting for worship hopefully and am glad you have been able to resolve your own earlier problems with non-theist Friends. I am sure there are biblical references for the guidance you describe – perhaps the ‘Paraclete’ and Jesus’s injunction not to blaspheme against (or deny) the spirit. I hope my non-theist friends will not deny (at least the possibility of ) the spirit.
As for Evangelical (Friends) maybe yes you part company at least with ‘non-Friend’ evangelicals but you might find the new publication by the UK Quaker Universalist Group ‘From Christian to Quaker – a spiritual journey from evangelical christian to universalist quaker’ of interest.
http://qug.org.uk/?p=842 don’t know if it’s otherwise available in the US.
 In Friendship
 Trevor Bending
Reply
  



John Cowan July 9, 2014 at 1:41 pm # 

My thanks to James, John and Trevor for their kindly, cogent and helpful replies.
You said or implied what your practice is! I may have missed it in the times I have read about or heard about non-theism, but this is the first time to my knowledge a non-theist has told me what they are doing during meeting for worship.
You say that you are going deep. You may doubt that that deepness is a way of touching the guiding hand of a personal God. You may have varying degrees of difficulty with the concept of “surrender” to the call from the depths and you may insist on applying a critical judgment to the validity of that which rises, but, so do I. I just do it at a different level. While I hold that that is the guiding hand of God, I recognize that I could be wrong. And while I accept much that arises from my depth, I certainly check to insure that it is not the product of an over-heated imagination.
My concern about non-theists is not who they are or even what they believe, but in what they practice. To what extent are we doing the same thing? Your descriptions of your practice make me comfortable. Would you ask more non-theist Quakers to describe their practice?
Now to some other thoughts, none of which alter my new cheerfulness about non-theists. These thoughts while they rise from our conversation could have arisen from other than this Theism/Non-theism discussion.
James, you are much more comfortable than I with the fact, which I acknowledge as fact, that people join religions for reasons other than belief. Since I consider belief to be conjecture that does not bother me. But to translate a wee, they join religions for other than the practice. I think that in that process they diminish the religion.
In the second and third centuries many Christians entered the early movement of Jesus to find a safe home in a perilous world without safety nets. The church made a great safety net. Take care of others when you had your act together and if your world fell apart the church would take care of you. But when faced with the spare teachings of Jesus these people lobbied and voted for more ritual and more belief, taking their old practices and beliefs, shifting a few words, and creating a Christianity that the Christ would not recognize. They were not there to follow Jesus, they were there for financial protection. They did not want their Jesus to remain crucified; they wanted him resurrected. (There was a long period in early Christianity when the cross disappeared from sculptures and friezes.)
Because of our kindly approach to all who want to come through the door, and our broad acceptance of alternate beliefs and practices we risk being pulled apart by incompatible motivations. We have hints at Twin City Friends Meeting of where the breaks may come: Christians are frightened to speak of their Christianity for fear of offending the minority. A member attends Quakerism 101 and says he will walk out if Theism is taught. The First Day School stews over how to present or if to present topics like the bible for fear that the child atheist will be upset. I have my own personal non-theist heckler who, immediately after I have spoken, enjoys rising to contradict me usually on issues where what I have said echoes the founders of Quakerism.
In the long run the kindly strategy of openness to all may very well make TCFM a place where I and those like me who need to hear other voices speaking from the depths cannot worship. That is my fear. Those who think the gate to Quaker status, whether those who wish to join, or those who allow them to join, should swing casually open do not know what they do. They take us down a path they do not intend.
John, you mistake my concern about Evangelicals and as I read what I wrote there is good reason for that. I misled you. My concern, not exactly what I said, is that by distancing myself from Evangelicals, I am leaving behind a vital, living, breathing, bleeding reality that our silent service and our unemotional approach cannot replace.
I am disconnecting myself from the God of my grandmother whose Jesus was displayed just to the right of her bible-reading chair in a huge portrait standing on the back of a boat, calming the stormy waters for his frightened disciples. Since my life of calm in frightening circumstances is rooted in that picture, despite my denying the metaphysical reality it portrays, further disconnection is a risky business.
As a pleasant result of our conversation I now have two discs in my car’s CD player which contain fifty gospel songs as sung by George Beverley Shea, Billy Graham’s soloist. When I get in the car I punch one up. I do not believe with Shea and Graham that it is Jesus who walks with me and talks with me but someone does walk with me and talk with me. I know because I hear him. It makes me feel very good to be reminded of that.
Not very rational is it?
But then George Fox once quite rationally discussed the heck out of his religious plight and only came to peace when an interior voice informed him that “there is one, even Jesus Christ, who can speak to thy condition.” He went on to follow that voice. Not rational either. Even less rational than I. History is replete with examples of people who gave up on the mind as a solution to life and emerged into the Kingdom of God.
The heart has its own intelligence.
Thank you for allowing me to join your dialogue.
Reply
  



Doron Antrim July 26, 2014 at 12:12 pm # 

John,
I have just been directed to your posting by a fellow Quaker in our discussion group on non-theism, and hasten to let you know that I am a passionate activist for the Divine Guidance cause (see my Web).
One perhaps difference in our perceptions of reality: you see one reality and I see two (but my two are joined into one). My realities fit perfectly the Yin-Yang symbol. The white portion is our perceptual reality, that which enters our consciousness from our five senses. Our reactions to this reality govern most of our behavior. The black portion of the yin-yang symbol I call the Unseen Reality. It is the very real universe of energy fields in which we are immersed, fields that include a love energy and divine guidance energy yet to be identified by science, but unquestionably real as could be proven by anecdotal evidence such as you and I have experienced in our lives.
I am in the process of planning a mega-activism project that would use scientific methods of conducting studies to collect credible anecdotal evidence from huge populations of people like you and me. I believe that digital technology makes such studies possible for the first time in human history. I also believe that such studies would provide overwhelming evidence that Divine Guidance is a reality. And my hope is that such evidence may help others to embrace this reality and prompt them into the practice regimens that can bring the reality into their lives. In short, I believe that enhancing public awareness of the reality in which we live can lead us away from the myths, misconceptions, and partial conceptions of theism that have kept us locked in negative behaviors toward each other and toward ourselves — and away from the joy of an enlightened life.
Doron Antrim
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John Cowan September 19, 2014 at 2:51 pm # 

The following was written for a Friend who is puzzling over the same problem. (Excuse my use of the word “problem,” I spent many years working with engineers and have an engineer’s personality. We like problems and see life as problems to solve, and a life devoid of problems we would find empty.) I thought it might be helpful, so if James concurs that it is helpful here it is:
I would say that all I can know experientially is that on occasion I am driven by something much deeper than my rational self. This seems to me something that transcends, penetrates from outside, my boundaries. While I can worship with someone who hears the deeper guidance but attributes it to say the unconscious since both of us are listening to the voice, I cannot readily account for the novelty of the direction if it comes from a source bounded by the boundaries of my “self.” This does not mean I am correct in my take on the situation and they are incorrect, that I cannot know experientially. And as to listening to their reports of their voice, while I think they are mistaken in the source, the voice is the voice, and worthy of being heard. I hope they do me the courtesy of allowing, although they consider me a wee deranged, my words to penetrate their boundaries.
As to worshiping with someone who is working from the rational only, I think that weakens the groups worship, and such rationality comes both from theists and non-theists. I quote a query i read recently, “Did your words come from the Spirit, or from NPR?”
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Accepting the Challenge of Non-theism
Posted by John Cowan on June 6, 2014 in Blog Posts, Personal Journeys, Uncategorized

John Cowan Second Month 2014
This has been a journey.
The journey began with my increasing discomfort at the presence of non-theists in my monthly meeting, Twin City Friends, located in St.Paul, Minnesota. These non-theists were not only Quakers, but some of our most beloved members, constant attenders, holding responsible positions. I have only been attending a decade, a member for half that time, and as I during my first two years peppered the meeting’s website with penetrating questions and cries of distress at the odd and annoying behavior of my fellow participants. I was met consistently with wisdom, patience and sometimes humor by the person who had been assigned the daunting task of novice master. I discovered in time that this was not a pastoral position but my guru was the webmaster responding not as an expected function of the job but because he was there. And although a bona fide Quaker, he was the leader of an interest group called: Quakers without God. Thus I was introduced to Quaker non-theists.
My reason for concern was that this group of people were not being incorporated into the meeting because their belief system fit the nature of Quakerism, but because they were likeable, active, and good people, and because they wanted to belong. I never did anything about this, learning by casual inquiry of other theistic Friends that I was a minority of perhaps one in any willingness to discuss who belongs and who does not. It did not take long for the good sense of avoiding that discussion to come clear to me also.
My sticking point was neither an absence of friendship or a disrespect for the desires of others but: How do people who are worshiping a personal God, people who believe in the supernatural, worship with people who do not believe in a personal God. How can non-theists even worship? Ignoring this question as unimportant seems to me disrespectful, first of all to the non-theists who I assume are taking a principled stand, and deserved to be heard for that stand, and second of all to theists who after all came to this meeting to join a group of God worshippers, or at least I did. The quote inside our front door from Philadelphia Faith and Practice says we are seeking awareness of the presence of God. But we have some members who seem to think that not possible.
Despite the reluctance to in any way alienate anyone, there was support for simply bringing the issue of our belief to the surface, talking about it some, both among theists and non-theists. We have begun that.
During a round of email exchanges among some of the important people in my life, one person reported that he was a theist because he experienced being guided through life whenever he was willing to listen for guidance. And I thought, “That’s me too!”
The voice inside has directed me since childhood, often by a quiet baseless conviction arising from nowhere, often through the voices of others, sometimes in dreams, a couple of times by what seems a real voice in my ear, and three times by a fleeting vision. When following that guidance I am often pleasantly startled by the synchronicity of support and opportunity arising from odd places, as if my canoe has been directed from the eddies into the current.
Beyond that I have since the 1950’s been convinced of the general accuracy of Teilhard d’ Chardin’s , (the Jesuit paleontologist) vision of the cosmos under God’s direction hurrying (over eons) towards consciousness. Since then, despite the horrors we humans have created, I have seen evidence that we move persistently toward the good. I attribute that consistent movement to guidance, and assume a source for that guidance, which most of the time I call God.
In summary, I have been guided personally, and I have seen in history the guidance of the human race.
One of our non-theists, explaining non-theism to a visitor, said that non-theists were people who unlike theists did not believe in an angry God, judging people, and sending them to hell. Since she is a justly revered and ancient person among us and these after all were visitors not looking to participate in a local quarrel, I waited until later to send her an email pointing out that I was a theist and knew hundreds of theists and while I am sure some theists fit her definition of a theist, it did not fit me nor did it fit anyone I knew personally. But that got me thinking.
First, that if you define yourself as “not this group” you are tied to the other group’s definition of what they are for your definition of who you are. The definition of theism I learned seventy years ago has moved considerably and diversified. The “angry God” which is a fair enough description of the God of 1940’s Catholicism and the “Ground of Being” or the accidental God of process philosophy, or the God of Liberation Theology, or the God of Creation Theology are dissimilar to say the least. Yet, they are all persons, and therefore all theistic Gods. When I hear the word non-theist, I assume the speaker is opposed to my latest version of God. That may not be so. And she may think that the God she is denying is the God I am affirming. In this case at least, not so.
The second thought was what are the odds that a person such as I who has spent decades accepting huge hunks of Buddhism, the Vedas, Navajo spirituality, and a small shot of Wicca still is a theist? I realized that I may have stretched the definition of theism beyond that already extended by theologians simply to keep myself in the boundaries. If I am fair to the expressed if ill defined stretching, should I not be outside it? Am I a non-theist? Is Brahman, one of my model Gods, a theist’s God?
During this process I was in regular correspondence with Howard Vogel on this topic. He is a respected friend from the meeting and our dialogue is intense enough that he almost deserves co-authorship of this essay. (If I could write calmly from an objective viewpoint he would have that title.) He pushed upon me two books.
One was Godless for God’s Sake: Nontheism in Contemporary Quakerism. It was helpful in that it made me aware there might not be a coherent position to be found among non-theists. (Please remember that I have already admitted to the absence of a coherent position among theists.) Also I was alerted by this book to the fact that non-theists have been Quakers from the beginning. And at least in surveys taken in Britain, Friends tend towards non-theist positions much more than followers of other religions. So despite the signs on the wall at my Meeting, these Friends are not newcomers.
The other book, Atheism: A Guide for the Perplexed, by Kerry Walters I also found helpful. Non-theism and atheism are not the same, but at least here I find a systematic presentation of the difference between theism and a long term defined movement that has been defended by eminent philosophers over the ages and by an author determined to treat all arguments with respect never displaying which position he might hold. (I had him figured as a well-mannered atheist, until I googled him and found him an Episcopal priest.)
I realized that I felt neither supported nor attacked in my belief by anything that was said in hundreds of pages. The God the author both attacked and supported in descriptions, explanations and arguments was a complex of attributes and the God I now realized I pledged fealty to was simply the source of my experience of guidance both in my life and in the whirling of the planet. Behind the experience must be something providing direction and since the act of guiding presumes intelligence the guide deserves the distinction of being called a “person” although in all probability the guide is not a bit like any person I have ever met. I will never know the guide as person. I only experience the effect, guidance.
The God we have been disagreeing about may not be my God at all.
At this point in our dialogue, Howard dropped me an email challenging the usefulness of clinging to the idea of the supernatural. I had just finished reading a short web essay entitled “Awakening Sight” by David Ulrich. As a young man he lost his right eye. He thought that would be the end of his career as a photographer. You lose an eye, you should see less. Is that not correct?
Nevertheless, he struggled to see as well with one eye as he had seen with two. He found that with attention he now saw more. He could “see” where in his body colors affected him. He could feel colors. He could “see” what other people were feeling. He could “see” that something was on his right side in a place that his left eye could not see. He could see things that the rest of us could see also if we were but to pay attention. Well, pay very close attention.
I experimented with blinding one eye by dropping the category called the “supernatural.” As I look at reality without the supernatural, creation is a whole and guidance is a fact of creation built into the system. The guide may have a separate existence outside of creation, that I do not know, but the guide exists in creation in its effect, guidance, and that I can access simply through paying attention, very deep attention to baseless convictions, the voices of others, dreams, voices in my ear, visions. In other words, Quaker Worship, in the Meeting and out.
I now present the theism, non-theist conversation differently. The first issue is can you hear the guidance. I say it is a matter of attention. I say, along with centuries of others, that I can hear it. Can you? Second, do you think there is a guide, and if so, how do you name the guide. This is a theoretical question. I would do nothing differently, if I answered it differently. I think there is a guide. It seems reasonable.
If you cannot hear the guidance, I cannot bend to your reality for I have heard it. But I cannot ask you who have not heard guidance to trust me that the voice is there. If you hear the guidance but attribute it to another source than a guide, I cannot argue. A personal guide seems reasonable to me. But maybe you are correct. I have no idea how I or you can run an experiment on this. (Note here that I am not talking about belief. Since I belong to an experimental religion I am not embarrassed to not rely on belief.)
So am I a theist or a non-theist? Although my reasonable supposition of a personal guide probably makes me a theist the designation makes little pragmatic difference. And am I concerned any longer about non-theists in the Monthly Meeting? About the same as I am about some theists. All I now need when we gather for Worship is that I am surrounded by people willing to exercise the Quaker discipline of silence and surrender as they wait for guidance.
I am indebted to the challenge of non-theism for moving me from a comfortable home base to a clearer and more secure position. My thinking at this point of the journey is:
1.As far as worshiping together theist and non-theist Quakers have a common ground. We can seek guidance by sitting together in silence and surrender. We may differ on the existence of a guide, or the shape and characteristics of the guide, but that is less of a difference to bridge than the existence and characteristics of a supernatural abstraction, the result of eons of theological tinkering. To worship together does not require resolving this difference. This difference may yet prove to be advantageous in the following of the truth. My conversation with myself on this topic instigated by the presence of non-theists is one example of the advantage.
2.I have not had to surrender my Quaker history. The ideas expressed are consonant with the language of 17th century Quakers. “The Christ within,” “give up your own willing,” “the inward light,” “the seed.” To refer to “guidance” actually seems to me closer to the rigorous scrubbing of the “inward light” of the 17th century than the gentle presence of “the inner light” of the 21st. I have given “guide” and “guidance” preeminence in my lexicon, but continue to comfortably use the older terms. They are a link to the vision of 1652 that promised the enlightenment of the world, and I am still hoping.
3.I have removed the supernatural from my lexicon. As Occam’s razor rules: “distinctions are not to be multiplied unnecessarily.” There is one reality.
4.I now have an elegant theory that describes not what I believe, but what I know from experience.
I have four concerns:
1.Is this at all helpful to non-theists? Or do my words come off as blathering, arrogant blathering at that? Do non-theists see this approach as a bridge worth crossing? Or have they already crossed it and nobody told me?
2.It would seem to me that even if we are comfortable seeking guidance together there is a surrender that is central to theists’ seeking that may be incompatible with the philosophy of non-theists. Is that problematic?
3.How far am I moving away from my theist friends? Will they accept this as useful? Or treason?
4.Am I by this stance distancing myself from evangelicals beyond hope of a continuing connection? After wondering for years that we unprogrammed Quakers struggled to maintain this connection, I came to realize that the evangelicals have something that we do not. I cannot define it. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they sing. Or more broadly put, that they accept and participate enthusiastically in the myths we have denied. Maybe we should have done that less successfully. Perhaps the cloud of unknowing requires mythology as the closest approximation to understanding for our health and sanity.
So it is a journey. I am still on it. My thinking is as unfinished as the conclusion of this article. Not a period, but a comma.
John Cowan, St. Paul Minnesota, Twin City Friends, stillsittingjohn@gmail.com






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6 Responses to Accepting the Challenge of Non-theism



James Riemermann June 6, 2014 at 2:56 pm # 

John,
I appreciate hearing your thoughts on this subject, and particularly the way your thoughts have evolved. Some of my comments will be about the earlier frame of mind you describe in this piece, despite the fact that your frame of mind has changed in some ways.
To be honest, I was surprised when I began reading and learned of your early “increasing discomfort at the presence of non-theists”. There are a small handful of people at Twin Cities Friends Meeting (http://www.tcfm.org) who have expressed such discomfort publicly; I never thought of you as one of them. I knew our perspectives on God questions were different in some significant ways, but I had no idea that had ever been a problem for you. It has never been a problem for me; in fact there are Friends in our meeting whose religious ideas are much further from my own than yours are, with whom I feel completely easy as a coreligionist–as I do with you.
Basically, I’ve come to disagree, quite vehemently, with the common notion that religions are best described in terms of commonly held religious beliefs. Non-Quaker churches describe themselves that way, but I think that in the real world, that is not primarily what brings people in the door and keeps them coming week after week, year after year. Many stay involved for decades despite very serious disagreements, mostly unvoiced, with the expressed doctrine or dogma or creeds of their churches. They come because of what happens in the church, and the people among whom it happens. They belong to their religion because they show up and take part.
What distinguishes Quakers (one of many things that distinguish Quakers) from these other churches is not our diversity of belief, but the fact that we sometimes speak about that diversity of belief out loud. Some consider that a weakness; I consider it one of our greatest strengths, as a community and as a religion, that we are able to disagree openly about questions we find important, and still be F/friends together.
You ask “How can non-theists even worship?” In my early years I would have said, I don’t, and I was a bit perplexed by how much I nonetheless loved meeting for worship. Over time I have gotten comfortable with describing what I do in that meeting as worship, but my ideas of what that word can mean have evolved considerably. I no longer think of worship as an exclusively transitive verb. A Friend can worship God, or simply worship, in the same way a person can listen to the wind in the trees, or simply listen, with no particular object of that worship or listening. I see it primarly as a way of being especially attentive, not to one thing but to whatever is there, inside and out.
I am delighted that you are for “simply bringing the issue of our belief to the surface, talking about it some, both among theists and non-theists.” I have been doing that, in fact thinking of it as central to my role in our meeting, for a very long time. I began Quakers without God not to separate that group, but to make us visible and allow a more honest and conscious integration than had previously been the case. I don’t mean to take more responsibility for that work than I deserve, but it is no accident that these conversations are taking place more often and more deeply than they used to.
For that and other reasons, my response to your first concern is, yes, your words and your perspective is quite helpful. I find our common humanity a sufficient bridge between us, along my experiential knowledge, not belief, that you and I can be in religious community and care for one another genuinely and with great depth. I doubt many things, but I do not doubt our friendship.
I probably agree that there is guidance to be heard; I probably disagree as to where that guidance comes from. I believe in a deep, powerful and active unconscious in every person, completely naturalistic and in no way supernatural, which has guided humans for a very long time. I believe that unconscious draws on everything we have ever experienced individually, and a good deal of what our species has experienced for millions of years. I prefer spiritual metaphors of depth over metaphors of height, metaphors of inwardness over metaphors of outwardness. But I think they are all metaphors.
I believe there are a great many mysterious voices within, and we need to use our intelligence and compassion and community discernment to figure out which voices to honor and which to challenge and possibly reject. Our worship, our attentiveness, helps us to do that. But I don’t think I can envision it as a surrender, as you apparently do. I think we also have to think critically, to try to poke holes in our “guidance” to get a sense of how solid and wise it is. It is easy to make mistakes.
Your friend,
James
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John Hunter June 7, 2014 at 1:49 am # 

Thank you, John Cowan, for this wonderful exposition of your experience and process with Quaker theism and nontheism.
Most all religious people seem to have a story of their unfolding belief and how they have grown in their religious and spiritual lives. This has taught me that in a person’s life beliefs change. Some of what we may have believed decades ago has been discarded and new views of reality or truth have come into focus. I long ago concluded that this was a natural process for open minded people and it made sense to embrace the notion that this process is unending and will influence us as we grow yet older. So I have become quite confident (like James and others) that “belief” is most certainly not the foundation of religion even as many would assert the contrary.
Like you, I have had a number of experiences in my life that I could not readily explain. I am aware that for many others unexplainable positive experiences are attributed to God, but for me this is too great a leap. I am aware enough of human history to know that many events and experiences that once were thought to most certainly be the handiwork of God have been conclusively shown to be natural and predictable processes both in the world at large and in our brains and personal experience.
I do not begrudge others who are inclined to attribute the unexplained to God. I full-well understand that (especially) some internal perceptions are powerfully experienced as “being led” by a benign and loving presence, and if the result of that experience supports a loving, compassionate, and generous person, then I can only rejoice at the good fortune for us all. In our secular and religious communities we need to accept that each of us is an experiencing being and that it is no insult to any of us that others will have a different sense of attribution to an experience surrounding a mystery. In particular, theists and nontheists can respect one another even as we might disagree on some currently unknowable causality.
I have been a Friend for 50 years and count myself as very lucky to have stumbled upon Quakers from my traditional mainline Christian upbringing. Liberal Quakerism suits me to a tee. I so enjoy being in community with Friends who are committed to an openness to guidance as perceived within and tested by a time honed process. I love being associated with people who are open to “continuing revelation” as an underlying tenet of truth. (Beliefs change!) It is marvelous to be held accountable to our consciences and best lights by a wonderful history of our traditional testimonies. And I love the notion that a nonthiest can sit in worship and and hone a powerful connecting spirituality by listen carefully to his deepest stirrings while sitting next to his theist friend who is also attending carefully with the same focus even if we may attribute the origins differently. That human difference really does not matter in the end.
As to your four concerns… Nontheists (like theists) come in all stripes and are at many different places in their journeys. But I would say that a good proportion of Quaker nontheists have already crossed the bridge you describe. We are committed to strengthening the Religious Society of Friends by dealing openly with our differences even as we generally do not find it important to emphasize them.
As to “surrendering” in worship, I do not think that that language is problematic at all. Every experienced Friend has his or her own language and metaphors for describing the process of “going deep.” Regardless of theist or nontheist orientation, each individual’s worship experience will be different both day to day and over time. Such different worship experiences, while they may be intellectually interesting, are absolutely meaningless if the result is recognized as loving, connecting, or otherwise valuable to the individual and supports him or her within the religious community.
I would certainly hope that your honest examination of your personal relationship with theism and nontheism would not cause you to be seen as a “traitor” to some unmentioned code. I think that, ultimately, we respect each other for who we are within our communities and not for what we happen to believe at the time.
Perhaps most vexing is your concern that in open mindedly exploring your personal relationship with your theism and nontheism you will have cut yourself off from continuing a meaningful relationship with evangelicals. Certainly, from your own perspective, this exploration has probably brought you closer such goals, but it may be out of your hands as to whether a closer relationship is welcomed. On the other hand, as in approaching any person or group, it is you that can choose to emphasize or de-emphasize what it is that is important or unimportant. In this light your personal exploration might not make any difference as to whether a more firm relationship can be cemented.
Kindest regards,
John Hunter
 Durham Meeting (NC)
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Trevor Bending June 12, 2014 at 10:30 pm # 

Thank-you John.
 I think this article is very helpful to non-theist (and theist) Friends.
 Your question with “a surrender that is central to theists’ seeking that may be incompatible with the philosophy of non-theists. Is that problematic?” I think it may be problematic for some non-theists but certainly not for others.
the ideas of seeking, surrender and guidance are all of central importance to understanding what we might mean by ‘God’ or ‘not God’.
Another term is ‘transcendence’ and that is very problematic for non-theists who are ‘super naturalists’ (like Os Cresson, NOT ‘supernaturalists’) ie. it is problematic if you totally deny any possibility of something ‘beyond’ the natural world. If we don’t know what god is then perhaps he/she/it is a power, process or force within the natural world – the very basis of the universe (a creative force perhaps if not a creator).
I’m a non-theist leaning former atheist who thinks it may be possible that I am mistaken and it may be possible that that the spirit, or the divine presence, or transcendence is a fact and not just a possibility.
I feel sure that some, theists or not, do (think they) know ‘God’ or transcendence or the light or the spirit or, now you have given me the term guidance and a guide (known only by its effects as guidance). If guidance comes from a ‘place’ then perhaps the guide is a place and not a person?
I do not know or experience that guide but I attend meeting for worship hopefully and am glad you have been able to resolve your own earlier problems with non-theist Friends. I am sure there are biblical references for the guidance you describe – perhaps the ‘Paraclete’ and Jesus’s injunction not to blaspheme against (or deny) the spirit. I hope my non-theist friends will not deny (at least the possibility of ) the spirit.
As for Evangelical (Friends) maybe yes you part company at least with ‘non-Friend’ evangelicals but you might find the new publication by the UK Quaker Universalist Group ‘From Christian to Quaker – a spiritual journey from evangelical christian to universalist quaker’ of interest.
http://qug.org.uk/?p=842 don’t know if it’s otherwise available in the US.
 In Friendship
 Trevor Bending
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John Cowan July 9, 2014 at 1:41 pm # 

My thanks to James, John and Trevor for their kindly, cogent and helpful replies.
You said or implied what your practice is! I may have missed it in the times I have read about or heard about non-theism, but this is the first time to my knowledge a non-theist has told me what they are doing during meeting for worship.
You say that you are going deep. You may doubt that that deepness is a way of touching the guiding hand of a personal God. You may have varying degrees of difficulty with the concept of “surrender” to the call from the depths and you may insist on applying a critical judgment to the validity of that which rises, but, so do I. I just do it at a different level. While I hold that that is the guiding hand of God, I recognize that I could be wrong. And while I accept much that arises from my depth, I certainly check to insure that it is not the product of an over-heated imagination.
My concern about non-theists is not who they are or even what they believe, but in what they practice. To what extent are we doing the same thing? Your descriptions of your practice make me comfortable. Would you ask more non-theist Quakers to describe their practice?
Now to some other thoughts, none of which alter my new cheerfulness about non-theists. These thoughts while they rise from our conversation could have arisen from other than this Theism/Non-theism discussion.
James, you are much more comfortable than I with the fact, which I acknowledge as fact, that people join religions for reasons other than belief. Since I consider belief to be conjecture that does not bother me. But to translate a wee, they join religions for other than the practice. I think that in that process they diminish the religion.
In the second and third centuries many Christians entered the early movement of Jesus to find a safe home in a perilous world without safety nets. The church made a great safety net. Take care of others when you had your act together and if your world fell apart the church would take care of you. But when faced with the spare teachings of Jesus these people lobbied and voted for more ritual and more belief, taking their old practices and beliefs, shifting a few words, and creating a Christianity that the Christ would not recognize. They were not there to follow Jesus, they were there for financial protection. They did not want their Jesus to remain crucified; they wanted him resurrected. (There was a long period in early Christianity when the cross disappeared from sculptures and friezes.)
Because of our kindly approach to all who want to come through the door, and our broad acceptance of alternate beliefs and practices we risk being pulled apart by incompatible motivations. We have hints at Twin City Friends Meeting of where the breaks may come: Christians are frightened to speak of their Christianity for fear of offending the minority. A member attends Quakerism 101 and says he will walk out if Theism is taught. The First Day School stews over how to present or if to present topics like the bible for fear that the child atheist will be upset. I have my own personal non-theist heckler who, immediately after I have spoken, enjoys rising to contradict me usually on issues where what I have said echoes the founders of Quakerism.
In the long run the kindly strategy of openness to all may very well make TCFM a place where I and those like me who need to hear other voices speaking from the depths cannot worship. That is my fear. Those who think the gate to Quaker status, whether those who wish to join, or those who allow them to join, should swing casually open do not know what they do. They take us down a path they do not intend.
John, you mistake my concern about Evangelicals and as I read what I wrote there is good reason for that. I misled you. My concern, not exactly what I said, is that by distancing myself from Evangelicals, I am leaving behind a vital, living, breathing, bleeding reality that our silent service and our unemotional approach cannot replace.
I am disconnecting myself from the God of my grandmother whose Jesus was displayed just to the right of her bible-reading chair in a huge portrait standing on the back of a boat, calming the stormy waters for his frightened disciples. Since my life of calm in frightening circumstances is rooted in that picture, despite my denying the metaphysical reality it portrays, further disconnection is a risky business.
As a pleasant result of our conversation I now have two discs in my car’s CD player which contain fifty gospel songs as sung by George Beverley Shea, Billy Graham’s soloist. When I get in the car I punch one up. I do not believe with Shea and Graham that it is Jesus who walks with me and talks with me but someone does walk with me and talk with me. I know because I hear him. It makes me feel very good to be reminded of that.
Not very rational is it?
But then George Fox once quite rationally discussed the heck out of his religious plight and only came to peace when an interior voice informed him that “there is one, even Jesus Christ, who can speak to thy condition.” He went on to follow that voice. Not rational either. Even less rational than I. History is replete with examples of people who gave up on the mind as a solution to life and emerged into the Kingdom of God.
The heart has its own intelligence.
Thank you for allowing me to join your dialogue.
Reply
  



Doron Antrim July 26, 2014 at 12:12 pm # 

John,
I have just been directed to your posting by a fellow Quaker in our discussion group on non-theism, and hasten to let you know that I am a passionate activist for the Divine Guidance cause (see my Web).
One perhaps difference in our perceptions of reality: you see one reality and I see two (but my two are joined into one). My realities fit perfectly the Yin-Yang symbol. The white portion is our perceptual reality, that which enters our consciousness from our five senses. Our reactions to this reality govern most of our behavior. The black portion of the yin-yang symbol I call the Unseen Reality. It is the very real universe of energy fields in which we are immersed, fields that include a love energy and divine guidance energy yet to be identified by science, but unquestionably real as could be proven by anecdotal evidence such as you and I have experienced in our lives.
I am in the process of planning a mega-activism project that would use scientific methods of conducting studies to collect credible anecdotal evidence from huge populations of people like you and me. I believe that digital technology makes such studies possible for the first time in human history. I also believe that such studies would provide overwhelming evidence that Divine Guidance is a reality. And my hope is that such evidence may help others to embrace this reality and prompt them into the practice regimens that can bring the reality into their lives. In short, I believe that enhancing public awareness of the reality in which we live can lead us away from the myths, misconceptions, and partial conceptions of theism that have kept us locked in negative behaviors toward each other and toward ourselves — and away from the joy of an enlightened life.
Doron Antrim
Reply
  



John Cowan September 19, 2014 at 2:51 pm # 

The following was written for a Friend who is puzzling over the same problem. (Excuse my use of the word “problem,” I spent many years working with engineers and have an engineer’s personality. We like problems and see life as problems to solve, and a life devoid of problems we would find empty.) I thought it might be helpful, so if James concurs that it is helpful here it is:
I would say that all I can know experientially is that on occasion I am driven by something much deeper than my rational self. This seems to me something that transcends, penetrates from outside, my boundaries. While I can worship with someone who hears the deeper guidance but attributes it to say the unconscious since both of us are listening to the voice, I cannot readily account for the novelty of the direction if it comes from a source bounded by the boundaries of my “self.” This does not mean I am correct in my take on the situation and they are incorrect, that I cannot know experientially. And as to listening to their reports of their voice, while I think they are mistaken in the source, the voice is the voice, and worthy of being heard. I hope they do me the courtesy of allowing, although they consider me a wee deranged, my words to penetrate their boundaries.
As to worshiping with someone who is working from the rational only, I think that weakens the groups worship, and such rationality comes both from theists and non-theists. I quote a query i read recently, “Did your words come from the Spirit, or from NPR?”
Reply
  

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Nontheistfriends.org presents the work of Friends (Quakers) who are more concerned with the natural than the supernatural. Some of us understand “God” as a symbol of human values and some of us avoid the concept while accepting it as significant to others. We differ greatly in our religious experience and in the meaning we give religious terms.
We are not a pressure group trying to move Quakerism toward nontheism. We bless what our theist brothers and sisters bring to Quaker meetings and worship. All Friends have much to learn from each other. We hope to strengthen the Quaker tradition of welcoming people of diverse religious experience and to show by example that this can include nontheists.
We are part of meeting communities that include theists and nontheists. Together we worship and love and cooperate, even as we differ on the particulars of our religious experience. Quakerism has been changing ever since George Fox had his first opening on Pendle Hill, becoming deeper and richer. We are all part of this living faith.
On this website we seek to explore our own perspectives and to reflect on the meaning and implications of nontheism in the context of Quakerism. This is also a place where theist Friends may come to understand us better and to join in a deeper conversation. Please submit writings for posting. We also hope you will use the “comments” link at the end of each article to express your views.h

 
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Welcome!

Nontheistfriends.org presents the work of Friends (Quakers) who are more concerned with the natural than the supernatural. Some of us understand “God” as a symbol of human values and some of us avoid the concept while accepting it as significant to others. We differ greatly in our religious experience and in the meaning we give religious terms.
We are not a pressure group trying to move Quakerism toward nontheism. We bless what our theist brothers and sisters bring to Quaker meetings and worship. All Friends have much to learn from each other. We hope to strengthen the Quaker tradition of welcoming people of diverse religious experience and to show by example that this can include nontheists.
We are part of meeting communities that include theists and nontheists. Together we worship and love and cooperate, even as we differ on the particulars of our religious experience. Quakerism has been changing ever since George Fox had his first opening on Pendle Hill, becoming deeper and richer. We are all part of this living faith.
On this website we seek to explore our own perspectives and to reflect on the meaning and implications of nontheism in the context of Quakerism. This is also a place where theist Friends may come to understand us better and to join in a deeper conversation. Please submit writings for posting. We also hope you will use the “comments” link at the end of each article to express your views.h

 
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Reviews of Publications on Quaker Nontheism in the 1960s
January 14, 2014


Class at Woodbrooke Study Centre, UK: The Birth of Liberal Quakerism, 1861-1921
June 1, 2013


Revealing Our True Selves
March 31, 2012


Conference of the Nontheist Friends Network at Woodbrooke, March 9-11 2012: MINUTE AND EPISTLE
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The Religious Society of Friends
  



Navigating this web site: Entries are not in alphabetical order but instead age order. New entries are added to the bottom of each section. Use the search function of your browser to locate entries.
Quaker blogs may be found at Planet Quaker.
Index
•Introductory Items
•Quaker Organizations
•Quaker Meetings
•Quaker Nursing/Retirement Homes
•Quaker Meetinghouses
•Writings of Historical Friends
•Writings of (or about) Contemporaneous Friends
•Peacemakers
•Quaker History
•Quaker Genealogy
•Links to other sites
•Young Friends
•Miscellaneous
•Quakers from A to Z (but not X)
•Quaker-run businesses
•Quaker links totally (but totally) unrelated to the RSOF
•Quaker Oats Gets Its Own Section
•Quaker-named sites without a clue
•Newsgroups
•Mailing lists
•Contributors

Introductory Items
 •Curious? Want to attend a Quaker meeting?
•Ted Hoare's introductory pamphlet on the RSOF
•Hans Weening's Meeting the Spirit
•Joel Gazis-Sax's book list.
•Dan Schlitt's Bibliography of vocal ministry
•Ed Dommen's Glossaire Quaker Glossary (French and English)
•Descriptions of Religions and Ethical Systems, of the Quaker flavor
•How a Quaker Meeting for Business works.
•Quakers and the Political Process - an exhibit by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
•Videos of Quakers speaking from their experience.
Quaker Organizations

Categories of organizations
•Quaker-originated schools
•Quaker-originated colleges and universities
•Quaker bookstores
The big three umbrella organizations
•Friends General Conference
•Friends United Meeting
•Evangelical Friends International
•Friends World Committee for Consultation •Africa Section
•Section of the Americas
•Asia/West Pacific Section
•Europe & Middle East Section
•Europe & Middle East Section
•Quaker Retreat Centers •Pendle Hill
•Ben Lomond Quaker Center
•Powell House, the NYYM retreat center.
•A retreat program of NEYM for children in grades two through six.
•Woolman Hill, a Quaker retreat center.
•Woodbrooke, a Quaker Study and retreat center in Birmingham, England.
•Glenthorne Quaker Guest House and Conference Centre, Grasmere, England
•Michigan Friends Center
•Claridge House Healing Centre
•Woolman - Sierra Friends Center (goes by both names) (blog), also hosts the Woolman Semester.
•Swarthmoor Hall.
•The Conference Center at Quaker Hill, Richmond, IN.
•Friends Committee on National Legislation
•Friends Committee on Legislation of California
•Quaker Universalist Fellowship
•Quaker Universalist Group (UK)
•Friends for a Non-Violent World
•Friends Service Committees •American Friends Service Committee
•Canadian Friends Service Committee
•German Friends Service Committee
•[mailto:] Quaker Service Australia
•Quaker Service Norway (Kvekerhjelp)
•AVP International •AVP Germany 
•AVP USA
•AVP Britain
•AVP New Hampshire
•Friends for a Nonviolent World
•Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns - formerly FLGC
•Quaker House of Fayetteville NC
•Peaceworkers
•Friends Council on Education
•Friends Committee to Abolish the Death Penalty (no longer active) •See: The Religious Organizing Against the Death Penalty Project

•Quaker Volunteer Service and Training
•Friendly FolkDancers
•William Penn House
•Jeanes Hospital - a Quaker Acute Care Hospital in Philadelphia.
•Casa de los Amigos in Mexico City.  
•Friends Association of Higher Education
•Barclay Press
•Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology
•Western Friend (formerly Friends Bulletin)
•Quaker Information Center
•New Foundation Fellowship (UK)
•New Foundation Fellowship (USA)
•Quaker Lesbian Conference
•Friends Peace Teams •African Great Lakes Initiative
•Fellowship of Quakers in the Arts
•Washington Quaker Workcamps
•Si a la Vida - a four-year old project to rescue and rehabilitate glue-sniffing street-kids in Managua, Nicaragua.
•Friends Committee on Washington State Public Policy
•Quaker Peace Centre, Cape Town, South Africa
•Quaker Experiential Service and Training, Seattle 
•QUIP is Quakers Uniting In Publishing, a consortium of Quaker Publishers.
•Northern Friends Peace Board, UK
•Quaker United Nations Offices
•Quaker Council for European Affairs
•The James Nayler Foundation for the treatment of violent behaviour and severe personality disorder
•Clarence and Lilly Pickett Fund for Quaker Leadership
•The Tract Association of Friends
•Friends House Moscow (US supporters)
•Beacon Hill Friends House
•Friends International Library - International Childrens Peace Project
•The Leaveners, Quaker Performing Arts Project.
•Friends Christian Ministries, Conservative Friends in Greece.
•The Dallas Peace Center
•Quaker Social Witness Committee of the Central & Southern Africa Yearly Meeting
•QUEST: Quaker Ecumenical Seminars in Theology
•Right Sharing of World Resources
•Evangelical Friends Mission
•The Coalition for Hispanic Ministries 
•Quakerdale, a family service organization in IA.
•Women's Goals 2000
•Fellowship of Friends of African Descent 
•Friends Fiduciary Corporation
•Friends Committee on Scouting
•Friends Services for the Aging
•Quaker Theological Discussion Group
•Friends Center of Ohio Yearly Meeting
•Quaker Conflict Resolution Network (forming)
•Quaker G.O.P., Guerilla Outreach Project
•North Carolina Friends Historical Society
•School of the Spirit Ministry
•Quaker Bolivia Link
•Friends Afghan Concern
•Project Lakota
•World Gathering of Young Friends, Lancaster University, August 2005
•Nontheist Friends
•White's Residential and Family Services, Inc., a Quaker child care agency of Indiana Yearly Meeting.
•Arlington Friends House, a cooperative near Boston
•ProNica supplies funds, equipment and information to established community organizations in Nicaragua.
•Quaker Initiative to End Torture
•Northern Spirit Radio
•Southern Appalachian Young Friends
•Friends Center home of AFSC, PYM, CPMM, and others.
•Quaker Esperanto Society
•Palo Alto Friends Meeting El Salvador Projects
•Bolivian Quaker Education Fund
•Quaker Voluntary Service
Friends and Nature
 •Friends Energy Project
•Quaker Earthcare Witness
•PYM Committee in Unity with Nature
Quaker Meetings
 A more or less comprehensive listing of Yearly, Monthly and Quarterly  Meetings organized by location of meetinghouse.
Quaker Nursing/Retirement Homes
 Note that Friends Services for the Aging has their own list. •Friends Fellowship CommunityContinuing Care Retirement Community, Richmond, IN
•Friends House of Santa Rosa, California
•Friends House Retirement Community, of Sandy Spring, Maryland
•Foulkeways at Gwynedd, Pennsylvania
•Medford Leas, New Jersey
•Pennswood Village, Pennsylvania
•Foxdale Village, State College, PA 
•Kendal Communities, multiple locations.
•The Hickman, West Chester, PA
•Friendsview Retirement Community, Newberg, OR
•Friends Home and Friends Village, Bucks Quarterly Meeting, PA
•Quaker Heights Care Community, Waynesville Meeting, IN
•Quaker Gardens Senior Living, Stanton, CA
•Walton Retirement Home, Barnesville, Ohio
Historical Quaker Meetinghouses
 Some of these are still active meetinghouses; some not. All are much, much older than the Internet. •Burlington (NJ) Meeting House
•Philadelphia Free Quaker Meeting House
•Plainfield, NJ Meeting House and its cemetary map
•The Friends' Meeting House on Quaker Hill, Uxbridge Township
•Brierfield, near Pendle Hill, England
•Radnor, PA Meeting House
•Great Friends Meeting House, Newport, RI
•Merion Meeting, Merion Station, PA
•Birmingham Meeting, Birmingham, PA
•Old Kennett Meeting, Kennett, PA
•Maison Quaker, Congenies France
•Wooldale Meeting House, near Holmfirth, UK
•1758 Randolph Friends Meeting House, Randolph, NJ
•Flushing Quaker Meeting House, Flushing, NY
•Centre Quaker Meetinghouse, Hopewell Centre, VA
•Winchmore Hill Meeting House
•Miami Monthly Meeting's White Brick Meetinghouse.
Writings of Historical Friends
 •Autobiography of George Fox
•Journal of John Woolman
•Another Journal of John Woolman
•George Keith. New-England's spirit of persecution. [New York], 1693.
•Travels in Virginia and North Carolina. George Fox. 1672. 
•Lucretia Mott
•William Penn -- America's First Great Champion for Liberty and Peace
•Pirates of Penn's-ance 
•The Richmond Declaration
•Alice Stokes Paul
•Rev Thomas Beals, first Friends minister in Ohio
•Susan B. Anthony
•Thomas S. Clarkson, Abolitionist, author of A Portraiture of Quakerism.
•Wordsworth and the Problem of Action: The White Doe of Rylstone -- also contains a reference to the above Thomas Clarkson's book A Portraiture of Quakerism.
•Larry Kuenning's collection of historical Quaker e-Texts
•The Quaker Writings Home Page, Peter Sippel, editor.
•Margaret Fell's essay "Women's Speaking Justified, Proved, and Allowed of by the Scriptures, All such as speak by the Spirit and Power of the Lord Jesus. And how Women were the first that Preached the Tidings of the Resurrection of Jesus, and were sent by Christ's own Command, before he Ascended to the Father, John 20. 17" (written about 1666 or 1667).
•The Memoirs of Sunderland P. Gardner
•U of Mich Quaker Collection
•Herstory -- interesting little stub of a page
•Quakers and the Arts Historical Sourcebook
•The Record of a Quaker Conscience: Cyrus Pringle's Diary -- A Vermont Quaker in the Civil War.
•Voltaire and the Quakers -- about, not by.
•The New Foundation Fellowship (UK), proclaiming the Christian Quaker message.
•James Nayler's Spiritual Writings 
•Earlham School of Religion has scanned many texts which are free of copyright restrictions and made them available online in their Digital Quaker Collection.
•LeavesofGrass is devoted to the Quaker testimony in Walt Whitman's life and poetry.
•Records and library at Pickering College
•The Flushing Remonstrance, a 350th Anniversary of a step towards religious freedom for Quakers and all in America.
Free books by Elton Trueblood available
"We have been blessed with a number of his books that are out of print - they are free for the asking - but donations for shipping would be greatly appreciated." Contact Sue Kern - Center for Quaker Thought and Practice, Earlham Drawer 104 Richmond, IN 47374 or quakercenter@earlham.edu • The Essence of Spiritual Religion
• The Encourager
• A Place to Stand
• Basic Christianity
• The Future of the Christian
• Your Other Vocation
• A Philosopher's Way
Writings of (or about) Contemporaneous Friends
 •Chuck Fager's Bit of Quaker Bible Study
•One Quaker's approach to the Bible
•Glenside Friends Meeting's paper on disownment  
•The Declaration of Life -- an anti-death-penalty request
•Chuck Fager's position paper against the Richmond Declaration.
•Peter Sippel's "Quaker Bible Study of Jonah"
•Hans Weening's Meeting the Spirit: An introduction to Quaker beliefs and practices
•Bibliography for Christology and the historical Jesus
•Davide Melodia's Il Signore del Silenzio / The Lord of Silence
•Chuck Fager's missive on why liberal Quakers are authentic Quakers.
•Movies on Peace and War Issues Recommended by Quakers
•"Without Apology" -- Larry Ingle reviews Chuck Fager's new Book
•Thou and You -- an article by Alan Firth on the demise of thee/thou in the English language
•NYYM Renewal Report
•A list of Quaker periodicals
•Quaker Electronic Archive
•Jim Flory's Contemplative Quakerism page
•Tom Cunliffe's Journey of Life  
•Advertising blurb for R. Charles Stevens's Letters from Viet Nam - the author's experience in Viet Nam during 1962-4 serving as concientious objector.
•Quaker Science Fiction
•Merle Harton publishes The New Quaker
•Herb Lape wrote a case study describing how NYYM has dealt with minutes on sexuality.
•Eden Grace has a paper explaining Quaker decision-making practice and its theological presuppositions.
•Bill Samuel maintains a Quaker Information site.
•Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. 
•Geraldine Glodek's Friends and Fragrances
•The AFSC's seminal pamphlet, Speak Truth to Power
•Quaker humor, some in Danish.
•The Quaker Economist -- economics with a Quaker twist.
•Quaker and Ecumenical Essays by Eden Grace
•A Gay Quaker Timeline, 1820s-1950s
•Thoughtful, compassionate, and generous: American Heroes of the Asian Prodigal
•Confronting the Powers that Be: A Study Guide by Vern Rossman
•A World of Love and How to Get There
•A Short History of Conservative Friends
•Quaker Pamphlets •William Penn Lectures
•Pendle Hill Pamphlets
•Quaker Universalist Pamphlets
•Letters from Viet Nam, a book by Charles Stevens.
•A Statement from Leaders of Friends Organizations in the U.S.
•A Quaker in the Military -- Reflections of a Pacifist among the Warriors
•Quakers in the News -- a blog format summary of news that mentions Quakers
•Tony Junker's historical sea novel with Quaker themes.
•Philadelphia Reflections - William Penn's Quaker Colonies
•Hall V. Worthington's interpretation of Fox's Journal
•Quakers and slavery in New England
•The Generous Qur'an, by Michael Sells.
•Reducing Poverty, Building Peace, by Coralie Bryant and Christina Kappaz.
•"What I believe and Why!" by Earl J Prignitz
•Vickie's father's letters home from CPS camp, plus her thoughts
•Quakers in Old Wilmington, by Susan Taylor Block
•Salon for the Soul by Cathy Barney.
Peacemaker sites
 •Anti-war -- antiwar news.
•CCCO -- Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors.
•Western Peacemakers
•Ann Arbor Friends Peace Committee
•Landmine Action
•PeaceWeb
•Future of Freedom Foundation
•AbuSaleh
•Peaceful Tomorrows
•the Peace Tax Fund -- put your taxes to peaceful purposes.
•The Center on Conscience & War
•Beyond War
•Nonviolent Peace Force
•Fellowship of Reconciliation
•Preparing for Peace is a project run by Westmorland Quakers.
•Peace Rider -- On Horseback For Peace
•The Peace Party -- does your EU representative stand for peace?
•Pacifist Party of America
•From Warriors to Resisters
•Friends Peace Center, San Jose, Costa Rica.
Quaker History
 •Chuck Fager's Landmarks and Heroes of Liberal Quaker History
•David Murray-Rust's booklet about Quaker history and practice.
•Anglicans, Puritans, and Quakers in Seventeenth-Century Newfoundland
•The Quaker Religion (in re architecture)
•Quakers [Society of Friends] in Illinois
•Frontier Press - Quaker Ancestry
•Quaker Dates - 1st month used to be March!
•Sharon Temple -- Sharon, Ontario, Canada
•List of Some Quaker Monthly Meetings (historical)
•Woodbridge & Vicinity - a History of New Jersey Quakers from 1686 to 1788
•Street Corner Society -- Levellers, Diggers, early Quakers, and others 
•History of the Friends Meeting at Lobo Township, Middlesex County, Ontario, Canada. 
•Allen Smith's recent Quaker History article.
•Friends Historical Association
•Story of Mary Dyer, martyr for religious freedom
•Biography of William Penn
•The Iron Bridge, a novel about eighteenth-century Quaker ironmasters.
•Pendle, England, birthplace of the Religious Society of Friends.
•A Brief History of Quakerism in Japan
•Ham Sok Hon - weighty Korean Quaker
•The Quaker Tapestry is made in a form known as a narrative crewel embroidery. As with the famous Bayeux Tapestry it is a hanging which tells a story - the story of the Quaker movement over nearly 350 years. 
•Wyck, a historic house, home to nine generations of the same Quaker family.
•Several maps of Early Quakers in England and Wales
•Yorkshire (UK) Quaker Heritage Project
•A Western Quaker Reader
•Friends in Korea, written in 1969
•Flushing: From Quakers to Asians: Welcome
•A dramatic troupe of players whose repertoire includes The Sword Of Peace, a tribute to the RSoF.
•Some African-American members of the RSoF
•Kouroo Quaker History, has many pages put online by Austin Meredith.
•Bent on Having Their Own Way: Three Women Journalists of the Civil War
•Fair Hill Burial Ground in Philadelphia.
•Swarthmoor Hall.
•Monthly Meetings in North America: A Quaker Index.
Quaker Genealogy
 •The Quaker Corner
•The Quaker Research Guide
•Cindi's List
•Katie's Surnames
Links to other sites
  •A Peace Antiwar Homepage  
•soc.religion.quaker FAQ
•Sea of Faith Network
•Canadian Council of Churches, of which Canadian Yearly Meeting is a member.
•Some pages on Peace Pilgrim, maintained by a pair of Quakers.
•The Mennonites, another historic peace church.
•An atheist's struggle for Conscientious Objector status 
•Consensual Decision-Making
•a minute on Living in Unity with Nature approved by Acadia Friends Meeting in Bar Harbor, Maine
•The Arms Sales Monitoring Project, which works for restraint in the global production and trade of weapons.
•Positive Church Online, Santa Fe, NM
•Norbert's Bookmarks For a Better World
•Christian Quakers in Australia and the Asian Region 
•Yahoo directory listing for Friends 
•Peace Church Bible Study
•A Quaker Cantata
Young Friends
 •Phila. Young Adult Friends 
•Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Young Friends
•NYYM Powell House Young Friends
•Young Friends General Meeting, Britain
•Northwest Yearly Meeting Young Adult Friends 
•Baltimore YM Young Adult Friends
•Young Adult Friends Email Contacts Worldwide
•Baltimore Yearly Meeting Young Friends
•[mailto:] Baltimore Yearly Meeting Young Friend Discussion List - to subscribe write with message subscribe bym-yf in the body.
•Australian Young Friends
•Quaker Service Opportunities
•NC Yearly Meeting Young Friends
•FCNL's Young Adult Friends
•FriendLink
•European and Middle East Young Friends
Miscellaneous
  •The Quaker Peace Fair, in Buckingham, PA.
•Quaker Storytellers, told by Tom and Sandy Farley.
•Positions available for Friends, attenders, and/or people with a Quaker education.
Quakers from A to Z (but not X)

[mailto:] Ask for a listing here.
The listing is only available for non-bulk email use. If you agree not to use it to send mail to everyone on the list, you can see the list.
Quaker-run businesses

Computer Businesses
•Crynwr Software
•Support Engineering
•Harmonic Functions, Inc. Digital Audio Software
•Desert Dragon SOHO Solutions Small Office Computer Solutions
•Friendly Systems, a business software developer and reseller.
•Dan Cooperstock's DONATION, an inexpensive software program for churches and charities to track donors and donations and issue receipts.
•2-Minute-Website.com, web design for small businesses and organisations.
•Educational Simulations.
•AngelFish Media, UK based web designers, IT support and security
•Some Creative Guys
•David Chandler, websites.
•Sane Planet Web Design.
•Arthur Fink Consulting, User interfaces, database design, whole systems
•David Woolley, Thinkofit.com, Web conferencing and online community consultant
•Ecotypes, websites and graphics.
•Vonn New Technology, specializing in Drupal websites.
•CAPFLEX Networking Web Hosting, Web Design, Photography, Technical Support, Computer sales and service, Secure Cloud Backup.
Communications
 •Ford Public Relations
•Art & Design from MOTTASIA's Studio
•Ethnoscope Film & Video
•McGuire & Spickard: Writers, Researchers, Consultants
•Blot Publishing does publishing on paper and on the web.
•Friendly Spirit Ltdlow maintenance web site help business.
 •Posti Communications
•Pam Rider copyediting, indexing, writing.
•Rathmann-Fronberry LLC
•Ron Cooper, Publicity Guy P.R. consultant/writing and editing.
Health Practitioners
•Ann Foster - Shiatsu / Acupressure
•[mailto:] Mary Grimes is a Gestalt Psychotherapist with a private practice in Manhattan.
•Marcia V. Ormsby, M.D. -- physician, plastic surgeon.
•Dr. Tanya R. English -- chiropractor.
•Robbin Phelps -- certified massage therapist in Washington, D.C.
•Beacon Health Care Associates -- Asheville, NC
•The Davis Pain Clinic -- Davis, CA
•The Healing Way -- London, UK
•Barbara M. Simmonds -- Post-Trauma Healing & Reiki
•Lynn Patricia -- Massage Geek
Consultants
  •Delta Environmental Consulting
•Aetheling
•Max Hansen, leadership development and innovation management
•Full Circle Group, mediation services.
•Vickey Kaiser, Professional Organizer.
•Community Well, Research and Evaluation, Inc.
•Van Temple, Management and Organizational Development.
•JSpear, environmental engineering.
•Kingsbury International Ltd., economic and business consulting
•GRE Consulting (Samuel Mahaffy), Process facilitation for community and faith-based organizations.
•Uncle Neil (Neil Fullagar), nanny / childcare / teacher / early interventionist.
•Insight and Clarity -- Creativity & Business coaching ("clarifying"), help with listening
Performing and Visual Artists and Musicians
•John McCutcheon, Hammer Dulcimer Musician
•Aaron Fowler: Interactive programs (having nothing to do with compute for teachers, parents and students.
•Aaron Fowler & Laura Dungan, music that leads the listener to be attentive and appreciative of one's place in the world, examine matters of the heart and conscience, and lend courage to take next steps on the journey.
•Carrie Newcomer, Folk Musician
•[mailto:] Piano Classic Restorations...by Terry Farrell, offering complete rebuilding of fine grand pianos.
•Bill Harley, singer/storyteller.
•Women's History ALIVE! One woman plays by Sandra Hansen on famous women in American history.
•Sara & Kamila (Singer-Songwriters)
•Bonnie Raitt, singer, songwriter, activist. 
•Quaker Wedding Certificates by Jennifer Snow Wolff, Calligrapher & Artist,
•Wynne Llewellyn, calligrapher, specializing in Marriage Certificates and Naming documents
•Mercedes Walker - documentary filmmaker, singer, musician & activist
•Kat Burke - singer, songwriter, performer.
•Melanie Weidner - artist.
•Arthur Davenport has a CD out.
•Joyce Rouse, aka EarthMama.
•Spontaneous Combustion Storytellers - Tom & Sandy Farley - performances, workshops, CD
•Dan Gilliam
•Arthur Fink Photography: people, places, objects, events
•Adrian Martinez
•Quaker Wedding Certificates, by Sally Sanders-Garrett
•Annie and Peter Blood-Patterson - of Rise up Singing fame.
•Benjamin Lloyd - artist.
•Mark Holdaway
•Bull and Mouth Records - A coalition of young musicians (Friends and friends) started in 2006 by Quaker musician Jon Watts at Pendle Hill
•Saundra Sturdevant Photography
•Alfred Muma, Among Friends Studio
•Caroline Jariwala, Visual artist
•Philip Gulley, Author
•Sundog, featuring Dan Caldwell.
•Vonn New, electro-acoustic ambient music that arises from worship.
•Jon Watts.
•Homegrown String Band, a postmodern neo-traditional old time (Quaker) family string band
•Bonni McKeown
•Roger Vincent Jasaitis, artist.
•Sahara Jane, Singer-songwriter from Nova Scotia with a diverse range of musical influences.
Publishers & Bookstores
QUIP is a consortium of Quaker Publishers. Bookstores have their own page. •Pittenbruach Press
•Kimo Press
•Boundless Books
•David Chandler Company designs and markets astronomy-related educational materials and software.
•Canmore Press
•Friendly Spirit Cards
•interFriend Publisherthe "wit, wisdom, and religious experience" of Quakers in Ireland.
•Blot Publishing does publishing on paper and on the web.
•Bob Jolly has self-published his book about hiking and biking trails in the Bay Area, Leave Your Car At Home.
•Good Read Press
•Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax Ltd
•Intentional Productions
•The Capital Citizen Newspaper, Washington D.C.'s advocate for political freedom, speaking truth to power, holding the people of Washington in the light.
Summer Camps
•Camp Katahdin - run by Douglas W. Crate Sr.
•Friends Camp, a Quaker summer camp for youth.
•Friends Music Camp, meets each summer at Olney Friends School in Barnesville, OH
•Camp Onas
•Camp Woodbrooke
•Farm & Wilderness
•Catoctin, Shiloh, Opequon, Teen Adventure, and Teen Adventure Bike, all run by Baltimore Yearly Meeting.
•Camp Quaker Haven, Kansas.
•Ben Lomond Quaker Center, a week-long preteen camp.
•Sierra Friends Camp, in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California.
•Camp NeeKauNis, in Ontario, Canada.
•Camp Dark Waters, New Jersey
•Quaker Haven Camp, Indiana
Other Businesses
•investing ethically, ltd
•Creative Investment Research, an investment research and management company.
•Davoll's General Store, Dartmouth, MA
•Blue Water Property, Rob Patterson's independent real estate brokerage on the coast of Maine
•The Octavia Hill Association, Inc. is a real estate management and residential multifamily development business.
•Law Offices of Thomas N. Rothschild, Esq., Law, Mediation, and Conflict Resolution.
•Kristina Elaine, Life Coaching for Adults with Asperger's Syndrome.
•W.W. Lee & Son, Family Insurance
•The Life Altaring Institute
•Forest Echo Farm offers three rental cabins near Ludlow, VT.
•[mailto:] Sandhill Services, for the real property owner
•Smile Herb Shop
•Kingston Friends Mediation, providing mediation services and training in the UK and overseas.
•Sturge Conservation Studio - A specialist conservation and restoration service for historic leather.
•Old Harbor Capital Mgmt, investment management focused on Friends principles.
•Acorn Timber Frames
•Spanish For Social Change, Sara Koopman, Translator (written) and interpreter (oral).
•Anne Henslee, Realtor, Baltimore, MD.
•Baby gear for the last frontier
•Academy for Professional Hypnosis Training, Mary Elizabeth Raines.
•TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles, Alleson Kase
•Newstead On The James, a wedding / event venue in Virginia, Carol Carper Wright.
•The Culture Palette School, peace and understanding through cultural exchange, Mercedes Walker
Quaker links totally (but totally) unrelated to the RSOF

Quaker Oats Gets Its Own Section

Quaker-named sites without a clue
 I've moved these off into a separate file. There's just too many non-Religious-Society-of-Friends groups which use the "Quaker" name.
Newsgroups
 •news:soc.religion.quaker, and Google Groups Usenet archives. You can also post at that URL.
•soc.religion.quaker FAQ, and an HTML version of same.
•news:bit.listserv.quaker-p -- no longer active.
Mailing lists
 •Mailing lists on quakerlists.org
•Quaker-L-moderated.
•Quaker-Canadian.
•Quaker-P-peace-n-justice concerns.
•FCNL-News-FCNL Alerts. Send a message saying "subscribe FCNL-News".
•Friends-Church-evangelical.
•[mailto:] Quaker-Spectrum-unmoderated. Send a message saying "subscribe quaker-spectrum".
•Quaker-B Mailing list.(Britain Yearly Meeting) This serves (but is not exclusive to) British Friends. Subscribe to the Quaker-B mailing list go to
•Q-Light A list for queer (lesbian, gay male, bisexual, transgendered or questioning) Quakers and interested guests to discuss issues relating to being queer, being a Friend, and the intersection thereof. Discussion will be respectful and non homo-/bi-/transphobic.

•Quaker-Roots, a list for Quaker genealogists. Send a message with "subscribe" in the body of the message (not the subject line).
•Quaker Family History Society (mail mode)  (digest mode). Send a message with "subscribe" in the body of the message (not the subject line).
•Friends-Theology This conference was designed for evangelical, Christ centered Friends to discuss theology and biblical interpretation with each other. Those interested in a discussion focusing more on the practical side of ministry as well as current topics in the Friends church might wish to subscribe to Friends-Church@XC.org For further questions, please contact [mailto:] Joe Ginder.
•[mailto:] BYM-News-news for and about members of Baltimore Yearly Meeting (BYM). Send a message to subscribe.
•"EFM-MEN is the email conference for EFM MEN. EFM MEN was created to encourage men to become involved in the world ministries of the Evangelical Friends International. Men are motivated to seek practical and direct involvement, using their skills and abilities to assist and support missions. The principal work will be to raise mission awareness through existing yearly meeting structures for men, bringing national recognition to mission efforts arising from those yearly meetings. This will be done through work crusades, prayer journeys and innovative stateside projects." The list also welcomes interested men who are not members of EFI meetings.
To subscribe, send the message
SUBSCRIBE EFM-MEN
to: hub@xc.org
•FCUN
FCUN was created "for Friends (and friends of Friends) of the environmental persuasion." It discusses the Friends Committee in Unity with Nature (FCUN) and other environmentally-related topics. Begun July 31, 1997. Visit the FCUN list's web page for more information.
•QVSTC
This is a list to facilitate communication among those interested in Quaker volunteer service, training and witness.
To subscribe, send the message
subscribe qvstc Yourfirstname Yourlastname
To: listproc@list.serve.com
•Friends Council on Education
The Friends Council on Education Technology Committee has established this list of educators in Friends schools and Friends in non-Friends schools.
To subscribe, send an e-mail message with your name and relation to Quaker education
to: fce-web@forum.swarthmore.edu
•Michigan Quaker Teens
We're a small group largely based in Ann Arbor, Michigan with members from all around lower michigan (namely Troy, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, and the Traverse city area). We hold quarterly retreats and we run a mailing list. To subscribe to the list send an empty message.
•Quaker Books For Friends
Quaker Books for Friends is distributed free of charge as an independent monthly newsletter featuring eclectic reviews of books of interest to Christian Friends. Each issue features two or more contemplative reviews of books for enlightened Christian readers. The newsletter has no commercial connection with any bookstore or publisher, and the mailing list is unpublished and carefully-supervised.
•Young Adult Quakers.
•[mailto:] ERAF -- Ending Racism Among Friends
The ERAF list provides on-line networking for Friends with a concern for issues of race, diversity, inclusiveness and privilege, especially as they play out in the Society of Friends. It is one of several activities to follow up on the April 1999 Friends Gathering with a Concern for Issues of Racism, Diversity and Inclusiveness.
To subscribe, send a blank email to ending-racism-subscribe@quaker.org.
•Canadian Young Friends  -- This list is focused on Canadian young and young adult Friends. We hope to use it to help (A)YFs keep in touch and to provide a way of letting (A)YFs know about service opportunities, retreats etc. To subscribe, go to http://quakerlists.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/quaker-cyf. Please introduce yourself upon subscribing.
•Yahoo Groups for Friends
•Q-trans -- Quaker TransPeople - a discussion group to support transsexual and transgender people in the Society of Friends.
•Quaker-MM, for discussion of Monthly Meeting Clerking Issues.
•Google Group for San Francisco Bay Area Quakers
Contributors
 •Ken Sutton, of Friends Journal, Friends Journal pages
•Randy Oftedahl, FCADP pages
•Dick Bellin, FCRP pages
•Simon Grant, FWCC pages
•Chuck Fager, various writings including the Pendle Hill pages
•Chris Faatz, QUF and Lucretia Mott pages
•Reuben Snipper, William Penn House page
•the late David Washburn, Pirates of Penn's-ance page
•Alice Drewery, YFGM pages
•Jennifer Snow Wolff, Quaker-run business reorganization
•Paul Sladen, for many URL updates.
•...and anyone else I may have missed [mailto:]
Please email suggestions and contributions. Quakerism is a multifarious religion. Everything on these pages should be considered representative of some but not all Quaker thought. Free web space is available on this server for any meeting-sponsored Quaker activity.
Isn't it amazing how fast this page loads, with only one image?

Russell Nelson
  Last modified: Sat Nov 16 14:32:15 EST 2013    

http://www.quaker.org/#3






The Religious Society of Friends
  



Navigating this web site: Entries are not in alphabetical order but instead age order. New entries are added to the bottom of each section. Use the search function of your browser to locate entries.
Quaker blogs may be found at Planet Quaker.
Index
•Introductory Items
•Quaker Organizations
•Quaker Meetings
•Quaker Nursing/Retirement Homes
•Quaker Meetinghouses
•Writings of Historical Friends
•Writings of (or about) Contemporaneous Friends
•Peacemakers
•Quaker History
•Quaker Genealogy
•Links to other sites
•Young Friends
•Miscellaneous
•Quakers from A to Z (but not X)
•Quaker-run businesses
•Quaker links totally (but totally) unrelated to the RSOF
•Quaker Oats Gets Its Own Section
•Quaker-named sites without a clue
•Newsgroups
•Mailing lists
•Contributors

Introductory Items
 •Curious? Want to attend a Quaker meeting?
•Ted Hoare's introductory pamphlet on the RSOF
•Hans Weening's Meeting the Spirit
•Joel Gazis-Sax's book list.
•Dan Schlitt's Bibliography of vocal ministry
•Ed Dommen's Glossaire Quaker Glossary (French and English)
•Descriptions of Religions and Ethical Systems, of the Quaker flavor
•How a Quaker Meeting for Business works.
•Quakers and the Political Process - an exhibit by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
•Videos of Quakers speaking from their experience.
Quaker Organizations

Categories of organizations
•Quaker-originated schools
•Quaker-originated colleges and universities
•Quaker bookstores
The big three umbrella organizations
•Friends General Conference
•Friends United Meeting
•Evangelical Friends International
•Friends World Committee for Consultation •Africa Section
•Section of the Americas
•Asia/West Pacific Section
•Europe & Middle East Section
•Europe & Middle East Section
•Quaker Retreat Centers •Pendle Hill
•Ben Lomond Quaker Center
•Powell House, the NYYM retreat center.
•A retreat program of NEYM for children in grades two through six.
•Woolman Hill, a Quaker retreat center.
•Woodbrooke, a Quaker Study and retreat center in Birmingham, England.
•Glenthorne Quaker Guest House and Conference Centre, Grasmere, England
•Michigan Friends Center
•Claridge House Healing Centre
•Woolman - Sierra Friends Center (goes by both names) (blog), also hosts the Woolman Semester.
•Swarthmoor Hall.
•The Conference Center at Quaker Hill, Richmond, IN.
•Friends Committee on National Legislation
•Friends Committee on Legislation of California
•Quaker Universalist Fellowship
•Quaker Universalist Group (UK)
•Friends for a Non-Violent World
•Friends Service Committees •American Friends Service Committee
•Canadian Friends Service Committee
•German Friends Service Committee
•[mailto:] Quaker Service Australia
•Quaker Service Norway (Kvekerhjelp)
•AVP International •AVP Germany 
•AVP USA
•AVP Britain
•AVP New Hampshire
•Friends for a Nonviolent World
•Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns - formerly FLGC
•Quaker House of Fayetteville NC
•Peaceworkers
•Friends Council on Education
•Friends Committee to Abolish the Death Penalty (no longer active) •See: The Religious Organizing Against the Death Penalty Project

•Quaker Volunteer Service and Training
•Friendly FolkDancers
•William Penn House
•Jeanes Hospital - a Quaker Acute Care Hospital in Philadelphia.
•Casa de los Amigos in Mexico City.  
•Friends Association of Higher Education
•Barclay Press
•Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology
•Western Friend (formerly Friends Bulletin)
•Quaker Information Center
•New Foundation Fellowship (UK)
•New Foundation Fellowship (USA)
•Quaker Lesbian Conference
•Friends Peace Teams •African Great Lakes Initiative
•Fellowship of Quakers in the Arts
•Washington Quaker Workcamps
•Si a la Vida - a four-year old project to rescue and rehabilitate glue-sniffing street-kids in Managua, Nicaragua.
•Friends Committee on Washington State Public Policy
•Quaker Peace Centre, Cape Town, South Africa
•Quaker Experiential Service and Training, Seattle 
•QUIP is Quakers Uniting In Publishing, a consortium of Quaker Publishers.
•Northern Friends Peace Board, UK
•Quaker United Nations Offices
•Quaker Council for European Affairs
•The James Nayler Foundation for the treatment of violent behaviour and severe personality disorder
•Clarence and Lilly Pickett Fund for Quaker Leadership
•The Tract Association of Friends
•Friends House Moscow (US supporters)
•Beacon Hill Friends House
•Friends International Library - International Childrens Peace Project
•The Leaveners, Quaker Performing Arts Project.
•Friends Christian Ministries, Conservative Friends in Greece.
•The Dallas Peace Center
•Quaker Social Witness Committee of the Central & Southern Africa Yearly Meeting
•QUEST: Quaker Ecumenical Seminars in Theology
•Right Sharing of World Resources
•Evangelical Friends Mission
•The Coalition for Hispanic Ministries 
•Quakerdale, a family service organization in IA.
•Women's Goals 2000
•Fellowship of Friends of African Descent 
•Friends Fiduciary Corporation
•Friends Committee on Scouting
•Friends Services for the Aging
•Quaker Theological Discussion Group
•Friends Center of Ohio Yearly Meeting
•Quaker Conflict Resolution Network (forming)
•Quaker G.O.P., Guerilla Outreach Project
•North Carolina Friends Historical Society
•School of the Spirit Ministry
•Quaker Bolivia Link
•Friends Afghan Concern
•Project Lakota
•World Gathering of Young Friends, Lancaster University, August 2005
•Nontheist Friends
•White's Residential and Family Services, Inc., a Quaker child care agency of Indiana Yearly Meeting.
•Arlington Friends House, a cooperative near Boston
•ProNica supplies funds, equipment and information to established community organizations in Nicaragua.
•Quaker Initiative to End Torture
•Northern Spirit Radio
•Southern Appalachian Young Friends
•Friends Center home of AFSC, PYM, CPMM, and others.
•Quaker Esperanto Society
•Palo Alto Friends Meeting El Salvador Projects
•Bolivian Quaker Education Fund
•Quaker Voluntary Service
Friends and Nature
 •Friends Energy Project
•Quaker Earthcare Witness
•PYM Committee in Unity with Nature
Quaker Meetings
 A more or less comprehensive listing of Yearly, Monthly and Quarterly  Meetings organized by location of meetinghouse.
Quaker Nursing/Retirement Homes
 Note that Friends Services for the Aging has their own list. •Friends Fellowship CommunityContinuing Care Retirement Community, Richmond, IN
•Friends House of Santa Rosa, California
•Friends House Retirement Community, of Sandy Spring, Maryland
•Foulkeways at Gwynedd, Pennsylvania
•Medford Leas, New Jersey
•Pennswood Village, Pennsylvania
•Foxdale Village, State College, PA 
•Kendal Communities, multiple locations.
•The Hickman, West Chester, PA
•Friendsview Retirement Community, Newberg, OR
•Friends Home and Friends Village, Bucks Quarterly Meeting, PA
•Quaker Heights Care Community, Waynesville Meeting, IN
•Quaker Gardens Senior Living, Stanton, CA
•Walton Retirement Home, Barnesville, Ohio
Historical Quaker Meetinghouses
 Some of these are still active meetinghouses; some not. All are much, much older than the Internet. •Burlington (NJ) Meeting House
•Philadelphia Free Quaker Meeting House
•Plainfield, NJ Meeting House and its cemetary map
•The Friends' Meeting House on Quaker Hill, Uxbridge Township
•Brierfield, near Pendle Hill, England
•Radnor, PA Meeting House
•Great Friends Meeting House, Newport, RI
•Merion Meeting, Merion Station, PA
•Birmingham Meeting, Birmingham, PA
•Old Kennett Meeting, Kennett, PA
•Maison Quaker, Congenies France
•Wooldale Meeting House, near Holmfirth, UK
•1758 Randolph Friends Meeting House, Randolph, NJ
•Flushing Quaker Meeting House, Flushing, NY
•Centre Quaker Meetinghouse, Hopewell Centre, VA
•Winchmore Hill Meeting House
•Miami Monthly Meeting's White Brick Meetinghouse.
Writings of Historical Friends
 •Autobiography of George Fox
•Journal of John Woolman
•Another Journal of John Woolman
•George Keith. New-England's spirit of persecution. [New York], 1693.
•Travels in Virginia and North Carolina. George Fox. 1672. 
•Lucretia Mott
•William Penn -- America's First Great Champion for Liberty and Peace
•Pirates of Penn's-ance 
•The Richmond Declaration
•Alice Stokes Paul
•Rev Thomas Beals, first Friends minister in Ohio
•Susan B. Anthony
•Thomas S. Clarkson, Abolitionist, author of A Portraiture of Quakerism.
•Wordsworth and the Problem of Action: The White Doe of Rylstone -- also contains a reference to the above Thomas Clarkson's book A Portraiture of Quakerism.
•Larry Kuenning's collection of historical Quaker e-Texts
•The Quaker Writings Home Page, Peter Sippel, editor.
•Margaret Fell's essay "Women's Speaking Justified, Proved, and Allowed of by the Scriptures, All such as speak by the Spirit and Power of the Lord Jesus. And how Women were the first that Preached the Tidings of the Resurrection of Jesus, and were sent by Christ's own Command, before he Ascended to the Father, John 20. 17" (written about 1666 or 1667).
•The Memoirs of Sunderland P. Gardner
•U of Mich Quaker Collection
•Herstory -- interesting little stub of a page
•Quakers and the Arts Historical Sourcebook
•The Record of a Quaker Conscience: Cyrus Pringle's Diary -- A Vermont Quaker in the Civil War.
•Voltaire and the Quakers -- about, not by.
•The New Foundation Fellowship (UK), proclaiming the Christian Quaker message.
•James Nayler's Spiritual Writings 
•Earlham School of Religion has scanned many texts which are free of copyright restrictions and made them available online in their Digital Quaker Collection.
•LeavesofGrass is devoted to the Quaker testimony in Walt Whitman's life and poetry.
•Records and library at Pickering College
•The Flushing Remonstrance, a 350th Anniversary of a step towards religious freedom for Quakers and all in America.
Free books by Elton Trueblood available
"We have been blessed with a number of his books that are out of print - they are free for the asking - but donations for shipping would be greatly appreciated." Contact Sue Kern - Center for Quaker Thought and Practice, Earlham Drawer 104 Richmond, IN 47374 or quakercenter@earlham.edu • The Essence of Spiritual Religion
• The Encourager
• A Place to Stand
• Basic Christianity
• The Future of the Christian
• Your Other Vocation
• A Philosopher's Way
Writings of (or about) Contemporaneous Friends
 •Chuck Fager's Bit of Quaker Bible Study
•One Quaker's approach to the Bible
•Glenside Friends Meeting's paper on disownment  
•The Declaration of Life -- an anti-death-penalty request
•Chuck Fager's position paper against the Richmond Declaration.
•Peter Sippel's "Quaker Bible Study of Jonah"
•Hans Weening's Meeting the Spirit: An introduction to Quaker beliefs and practices
•Bibliography for Christology and the historical Jesus
•Davide Melodia's Il Signore del Silenzio / The Lord of Silence
•Chuck Fager's missive on why liberal Quakers are authentic Quakers.
•Movies on Peace and War Issues Recommended by Quakers
•"Without Apology" -- Larry Ingle reviews Chuck Fager's new Book
•Thou and You -- an article by Alan Firth on the demise of thee/thou in the English language
•NYYM Renewal Report
•A list of Quaker periodicals
•Quaker Electronic Archive
•Jim Flory's Contemplative Quakerism page
•Tom Cunliffe's Journey of Life  
•Advertising blurb for R. Charles Stevens's Letters from Viet Nam - the author's experience in Viet Nam during 1962-4 serving as concientious objector.
•Quaker Science Fiction
•Merle Harton publishes The New Quaker
•Herb Lape wrote a case study describing how NYYM has dealt with minutes on sexuality.
•Eden Grace has a paper explaining Quaker decision-making practice and its theological presuppositions.
•Bill Samuel maintains a Quaker Information site.
•Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. 
•Geraldine Glodek's Friends and Fragrances
•The AFSC's seminal pamphlet, Speak Truth to Power
•Quaker humor, some in Danish.
•The Quaker Economist -- economics with a Quaker twist.
•Quaker and Ecumenical Essays by Eden Grace
•A Gay Quaker Timeline, 1820s-1950s
•Thoughtful, compassionate, and generous: American Heroes of the Asian Prodigal
•Confronting the Powers that Be: A Study Guide by Vern Rossman
•A World of Love and How to Get There
•A Short History of Conservative Friends
•Quaker Pamphlets •William Penn Lectures
•Pendle Hill Pamphlets
•Quaker Universalist Pamphlets
•Letters from Viet Nam, a book by Charles Stevens.
•A Statement from Leaders of Friends Organizations in the U.S.
•A Quaker in the Military -- Reflections of a Pacifist among the Warriors
•Quakers in the News -- a blog format summary of news that mentions Quakers
•Tony Junker's historical sea novel with Quaker themes.
•Philadelphia Reflections - William Penn's Quaker Colonies
•Hall V. Worthington's interpretation of Fox's Journal
•Quakers and slavery in New England
•The Generous Qur'an, by Michael Sells.
•Reducing Poverty, Building Peace, by Coralie Bryant and Christina Kappaz.
•"What I believe and Why!" by Earl J Prignitz
•Vickie's father's letters home from CPS camp, plus her thoughts
•Quakers in Old Wilmington, by Susan Taylor Block
•Salon for the Soul by Cathy Barney.
Peacemaker sites
 •Anti-war -- antiwar news.
•CCCO -- Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors.
•Western Peacemakers
•Ann Arbor Friends Peace Committee
•Landmine Action
•PeaceWeb
•Future of Freedom Foundation
•AbuSaleh
•Peaceful Tomorrows
•the Peace Tax Fund -- put your taxes to peaceful purposes.
•The Center on Conscience & War
•Beyond War
•Nonviolent Peace Force
•Fellowship of Reconciliation
•Preparing for Peace is a project run by Westmorland Quakers.
•Peace Rider -- On Horseback For Peace
•The Peace Party -- does your EU representative stand for peace?
•Pacifist Party of America
•From Warriors to Resisters
•Friends Peace Center, San Jose, Costa Rica.
Quaker History
 •Chuck Fager's Landmarks and Heroes of Liberal Quaker History
•David Murray-Rust's booklet about Quaker history and practice.
•Anglicans, Puritans, and Quakers in Seventeenth-Century Newfoundland
•The Quaker Religion (in re architecture)
•Quakers [Society of Friends] in Illinois
•Frontier Press - Quaker Ancestry
•Quaker Dates - 1st month used to be March!
•Sharon Temple -- Sharon, Ontario, Canada
•List of Some Quaker Monthly Meetings (historical)
•Woodbridge & Vicinity - a History of New Jersey Quakers from 1686 to 1788
•Street Corner Society -- Levellers, Diggers, early Quakers, and others 
•History of the Friends Meeting at Lobo Township, Middlesex County, Ontario, Canada. 
•Allen Smith's recent Quaker History article.
•Friends Historical Association
•Story of Mary Dyer, martyr for religious freedom
•Biography of William Penn
•The Iron Bridge, a novel about eighteenth-century Quaker ironmasters.
•Pendle, England, birthplace of the Religious Society of Friends.
•A Brief History of Quakerism in Japan
•Ham Sok Hon - weighty Korean Quaker
•The Quaker Tapestry is made in a form known as a narrative crewel embroidery. As with the famous Bayeux Tapestry it is a hanging which tells a story - the story of the Quaker movement over nearly 350 years. 
•Wyck, a historic house, home to nine generations of the same Quaker family.
•Several maps of Early Quakers in England and Wales
•Yorkshire (UK) Quaker Heritage Project
•A Western Quaker Reader
•Friends in Korea, written in 1969
•Flushing: From Quakers to Asians: Welcome
•A dramatic troupe of players whose repertoire includes The Sword Of Peace, a tribute to the RSoF.
•Some African-American members of the RSoF
•Kouroo Quaker History, has many pages put online by Austin Meredith.
•Bent on Having Their Own Way: Three Women Journalists of the Civil War
•Fair Hill Burial Ground in Philadelphia.
•Swarthmoor Hall.
•Monthly Meetings in North America: A Quaker Index.
Quaker Genealogy
 •The Quaker Corner
•The Quaker Research Guide
•Cindi's List
•Katie's Surnames
Links to other sites
  •A Peace Antiwar Homepage  
•soc.religion.quaker FAQ
•Sea of Faith Network
•Canadian Council of Churches, of which Canadian Yearly Meeting is a member.
•Some pages on Peace Pilgrim, maintained by a pair of Quakers.
•The Mennonites, another historic peace church.
•An atheist's struggle for Conscientious Objector status 
•Consensual Decision-Making
•a minute on Living in Unity with Nature approved by Acadia Friends Meeting in Bar Harbor, Maine
•The Arms Sales Monitoring Project, which works for restraint in the global production and trade of weapons.
•Positive Church Online, Santa Fe, NM
•Norbert's Bookmarks For a Better World
•Christian Quakers in Australia and the Asian Region 
•Yahoo directory listing for Friends 
•Peace Church Bible Study
•A Quaker Cantata
Young Friends
 •Phila. Young Adult Friends 
•Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Young Friends
•NYYM Powell House Young Friends
•Young Friends General Meeting, Britain
•Northwest Yearly Meeting Young Adult Friends 
•Baltimore YM Young Adult Friends
•Young Adult Friends Email Contacts Worldwide
•Baltimore Yearly Meeting Young Friends
•[mailto:] Baltimore Yearly Meeting Young Friend Discussion List - to subscribe write with message subscribe bym-yf in the body.
•Australian Young Friends
•Quaker Service Opportunities
•NC Yearly Meeting Young Friends
•FCNL's Young Adult Friends
•FriendLink
•European and Middle East Young Friends
Miscellaneous
  •The Quaker Peace Fair, in Buckingham, PA.
•Quaker Storytellers, told by Tom and Sandy Farley.
•Positions available for Friends, attenders, and/or people with a Quaker education.
Quakers from A to Z (but not X)

[mailto:] Ask for a listing here.
The listing is only available for non-bulk email use. If you agree not to use it to send mail to everyone on the list, you can see the list.
Quaker-run businesses

Computer Businesses
•Crynwr Software
•Support Engineering
•Harmonic Functions, Inc. Digital Audio Software
•Desert Dragon SOHO Solutions Small Office Computer Solutions
•Friendly Systems, a business software developer and reseller.
•Dan Cooperstock's DONATION, an inexpensive software program for churches and charities to track donors and donations and issue receipts.
•2-Minute-Website.com, web design for small businesses and organisations.
•Educational Simulations.
•AngelFish Media, UK based web designers, IT support and security
•Some Creative Guys
•David Chandler, websites.
•Sane Planet Web Design.
•Arthur Fink Consulting, User interfaces, database design, whole systems
•David Woolley, Thinkofit.com, Web conferencing and online community consultant
•Ecotypes, websites and graphics.
•Vonn New Technology, specializing in Drupal websites.
•CAPFLEX Networking Web Hosting, Web Design, Photography, Technical Support, Computer sales and service, Secure Cloud Backup.
Communications
 •Ford Public Relations
•Art & Design from MOTTASIA's Studio
•Ethnoscope Film & Video
•McGuire & Spickard: Writers, Researchers, Consultants
•Blot Publishing does publishing on paper and on the web.
•Friendly Spirit Ltdlow maintenance web site help business.
 •Posti Communications
•Pam Rider copyediting, indexing, writing.
•Rathmann-Fronberry LLC
•Ron Cooper, Publicity Guy P.R. consultant/writing and editing.
Health Practitioners
•Ann Foster - Shiatsu / Acupressure
•[mailto:] Mary Grimes is a Gestalt Psychotherapist with a private practice in Manhattan.
•Marcia V. Ormsby, M.D. -- physician, plastic surgeon.
•Dr. Tanya R. English -- chiropractor.
•Robbin Phelps -- certified massage therapist in Washington, D.C.
•Beacon Health Care Associates -- Asheville, NC
•The Davis Pain Clinic -- Davis, CA
•The Healing Way -- London, UK
•Barbara M. Simmonds -- Post-Trauma Healing & Reiki
•Lynn Patricia -- Massage Geek
Consultants
  •Delta Environmental Consulting
•Aetheling
•Max Hansen, leadership development and innovation management
•Full Circle Group, mediation services.
•Vickey Kaiser, Professional Organizer.
•Community Well, Research and Evaluation, Inc.
•Van Temple, Management and Organizational Development.
•JSpear, environmental engineering.
•Kingsbury International Ltd., economic and business consulting
•GRE Consulting (Samuel Mahaffy), Process facilitation for community and faith-based organizations.
•Uncle Neil (Neil Fullagar), nanny / childcare / teacher / early interventionist.
•Insight and Clarity -- Creativity & Business coaching ("clarifying"), help with listening
Performing and Visual Artists and Musicians
•John McCutcheon, Hammer Dulcimer Musician
•Aaron Fowler: Interactive programs (having nothing to do with compute for teachers, parents and students.
•Aaron Fowler & Laura Dungan, music that leads the listener to be attentive and appreciative of one's place in the world, examine matters of the heart and conscience, and lend courage to take next steps on the journey.
•Carrie Newcomer, Folk Musician
•[mailto:] Piano Classic Restorations...by Terry Farrell, offering complete rebuilding of fine grand pianos.
•Bill Harley, singer/storyteller.
•Women's History ALIVE! One woman plays by Sandra Hansen on famous women in American history.
•Sara & Kamila (Singer-Songwriters)
•Bonnie Raitt, singer, songwriter, activist. 
•Quaker Wedding Certificates by Jennifer Snow Wolff, Calligrapher & Artist,
•Wynne Llewellyn, calligrapher, specializing in Marriage Certificates and Naming documents
•Mercedes Walker - documentary filmmaker, singer, musician & activist
•Kat Burke - singer, songwriter, performer.
•Melanie Weidner - artist.
•Arthur Davenport has a CD out.
•Joyce Rouse, aka EarthMama.
•Spontaneous Combustion Storytellers - Tom & Sandy Farley - performances, workshops, CD
•Dan Gilliam
•Arthur Fink Photography: people, places, objects, events
•Adrian Martinez
•Quaker Wedding Certificates, by Sally Sanders-Garrett
•Annie and Peter Blood-Patterson - of Rise up Singing fame.
•Benjamin Lloyd - artist.
•Mark Holdaway
•Bull and Mouth Records - A coalition of young musicians (Friends and friends) started in 2006 by Quaker musician Jon Watts at Pendle Hill
•Saundra Sturdevant Photography
•Alfred Muma, Among Friends Studio
•Caroline Jariwala, Visual artist
•Philip Gulley, Author
•Sundog, featuring Dan Caldwell.
•Vonn New, electro-acoustic ambient music that arises from worship.
•Jon Watts.
•Homegrown String Band, a postmodern neo-traditional old time (Quaker) family string band
•Bonni McKeown
•Roger Vincent Jasaitis, artist.
•Sahara Jane, Singer-songwriter from Nova Scotia with a diverse range of musical influences.
Publishers & Bookstores
QUIP is a consortium of Quaker Publishers. Bookstores have their own page. •Pittenbruach Press
•Kimo Press
•Boundless Books
•David Chandler Company designs and markets astronomy-related educational materials and software.
•Canmore Press
•Friendly Spirit Cards
•interFriend Publisherthe "wit, wisdom, and religious experience" of Quakers in Ireland.
•Blot Publishing does publishing on paper and on the web.
•Bob Jolly has self-published his book about hiking and biking trails in the Bay Area, Leave Your Car At Home.
•Good Read Press
•Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax Ltd
•Intentional Productions
•The Capital Citizen Newspaper, Washington D.C.'s advocate for political freedom, speaking truth to power, holding the people of Washington in the light.
Summer Camps
•Camp Katahdin - run by Douglas W. Crate Sr.
•Friends Camp, a Quaker summer camp for youth.
•Friends Music Camp, meets each summer at Olney Friends School in Barnesville, OH
•Camp Onas
•Camp Woodbrooke
•Farm & Wilderness
•Catoctin, Shiloh, Opequon, Teen Adventure, and Teen Adventure Bike, all run by Baltimore Yearly Meeting.
•Camp Quaker Haven, Kansas.
•Ben Lomond Quaker Center, a week-long preteen camp.
•Sierra Friends Camp, in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California.
•Camp NeeKauNis, in Ontario, Canada.
•Camp Dark Waters, New Jersey
•Quaker Haven Camp, Indiana
Other Businesses
•investing ethically, ltd
•Creative Investment Research, an investment research and management company.
•Davoll's General Store, Dartmouth, MA
•Blue Water Property, Rob Patterson's independent real estate brokerage on the coast of Maine
•The Octavia Hill Association, Inc. is a real estate management and residential multifamily development business.
•Law Offices of Thomas N. Rothschild, Esq., Law, Mediation, and Conflict Resolution.
•Kristina Elaine, Life Coaching for Adults with Asperger's Syndrome.
•W.W. Lee & Son, Family Insurance
•The Life Altaring Institute
•Forest Echo Farm offers three rental cabins near Ludlow, VT.
•[mailto:] Sandhill Services, for the real property owner
•Smile Herb Shop
•Kingston Friends Mediation, providing mediation services and training in the UK and overseas.
•Sturge Conservation Studio - A specialist conservation and restoration service for historic leather.
•Old Harbor Capital Mgmt, investment management focused on Friends principles.
•Acorn Timber Frames
•Spanish For Social Change, Sara Koopman, Translator (written) and interpreter (oral).
•Anne Henslee, Realtor, Baltimore, MD.
•Baby gear for the last frontier
•Academy for Professional Hypnosis Training, Mary Elizabeth Raines.
•TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles, Alleson Kase
•Newstead On The James, a wedding / event venue in Virginia, Carol Carper Wright.
•The Culture Palette School, peace and understanding through cultural exchange, Mercedes Walker
Quaker links totally (but totally) unrelated to the RSOF

Quaker Oats Gets Its Own Section

Quaker-named sites without a clue
 I've moved these off into a separate file. There's just too many non-Religious-Society-of-Friends groups which use the "Quaker" name.
Newsgroups
 •news:soc.religion.quaker, and Google Groups Usenet archives. You can also post at that URL.
•soc.religion.quaker FAQ, and an HTML version of same.
•news:bit.listserv.quaker-p -- no longer active.
Mailing lists
 •Mailing lists on quakerlists.org
•Quaker-L-moderated.
•Quaker-Canadian.
•Quaker-P-peace-n-justice concerns.
•FCNL-News-FCNL Alerts. Send a message saying "subscribe FCNL-News".
•Friends-Church-evangelical.
•[mailto:] Quaker-Spectrum-unmoderated. Send a message saying "subscribe quaker-spectrum".
•Quaker-B Mailing list.(Britain Yearly Meeting) This serves (but is not exclusive to) British Friends. Subscribe to the Quaker-B mailing list go to
•Q-Light A list for queer (lesbian, gay male, bisexual, transgendered or questioning) Quakers and interested guests to discuss issues relating to being queer, being a Friend, and the intersection thereof. Discussion will be respectful and non homo-/bi-/transphobic.

•Quaker-Roots, a list for Quaker genealogists. Send a message with "subscribe" in the body of the message (not the subject line).
•Quaker Family History Society (mail mode)  (digest mode). Send a message with "subscribe" in the body of the message (not the subject line).
•Friends-Theology This conference was designed for evangelical, Christ centered Friends to discuss theology and biblical interpretation with each other. Those interested in a discussion focusing more on the practical side of ministry as well as current topics in the Friends church might wish to subscribe to Friends-Church@XC.org For further questions, please contact [mailto:] Joe Ginder.
•[mailto:] BYM-News-news for and about members of Baltimore Yearly Meeting (BYM). Send a message to subscribe.
•"EFM-MEN is the email conference for EFM MEN. EFM MEN was created to encourage men to become involved in the world ministries of the Evangelical Friends International. Men are motivated to seek practical and direct involvement, using their skills and abilities to assist and support missions. The principal work will be to raise mission awareness through existing yearly meeting structures for men, bringing national recognition to mission efforts arising from those yearly meetings. This will be done through work crusades, prayer journeys and innovative stateside projects." The list also welcomes interested men who are not members of EFI meetings.
To subscribe, send the message
SUBSCRIBE EFM-MEN
to: hub@xc.org
•FCUN
FCUN was created "for Friends (and friends of Friends) of the environmental persuasion." It discusses the Friends Committee in Unity with Nature (FCUN) and other environmentally-related topics. Begun July 31, 1997. Visit the FCUN list's web page for more information.
•QVSTC
This is a list to facilitate communication among those interested in Quaker volunteer service, training and witness.
To subscribe, send the message
subscribe qvstc Yourfirstname Yourlastname
To: listproc@list.serve.com
•Friends Council on Education
The Friends Council on Education Technology Committee has established this list of educators in Friends schools and Friends in non-Friends schools.
To subscribe, send an e-mail message with your name and relation to Quaker education
to: fce-web@forum.swarthmore.edu
•Michigan Quaker Teens
We're a small group largely based in Ann Arbor, Michigan with members from all around lower michigan (namely Troy, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, and the Traverse city area). We hold quarterly retreats and we run a mailing list. To subscribe to the list send an empty message.
•Quaker Books For Friends
Quaker Books for Friends is distributed free of charge as an independent monthly newsletter featuring eclectic reviews of books of interest to Christian Friends. Each issue features two or more contemplative reviews of books for enlightened Christian readers. The newsletter has no commercial connection with any bookstore or publisher, and the mailing list is unpublished and carefully-supervised.
•Young Adult Quakers.
•[mailto:] ERAF -- Ending Racism Among Friends
The ERAF list provides on-line networking for Friends with a concern for issues of race, diversity, inclusiveness and privilege, especially as they play out in the Society of Friends. It is one of several activities to follow up on the April 1999 Friends Gathering with a Concern for Issues of Racism, Diversity and Inclusiveness.
To subscribe, send a blank email to ending-racism-subscribe@quaker.org.
•Canadian Young Friends  -- This list is focused on Canadian young and young adult Friends. We hope to use it to help (A)YFs keep in touch and to provide a way of letting (A)YFs know about service opportunities, retreats etc. To subscribe, go to http://quakerlists.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/quaker-cyf. Please introduce yourself upon subscribing.
•Yahoo Groups for Friends
•Q-trans -- Quaker TransPeople - a discussion group to support transsexual and transgender people in the Society of Friends.
•Quaker-MM, for discussion of Monthly Meeting Clerking Issues.
•Google Group for San Francisco Bay Area Quakers
Contributors
 •Ken Sutton, of Friends Journal, Friends Journal pages
•Randy Oftedahl, FCADP pages
•Dick Bellin, FCRP pages
•Simon Grant, FWCC pages
•Chuck Fager, various writings including the Pendle Hill pages
•Chris Faatz, QUF and Lucretia Mott pages
•Reuben Snipper, William Penn House page
•the late David Washburn, Pirates of Penn's-ance page
•Alice Drewery, YFGM pages
•Jennifer Snow Wolff, Quaker-run business reorganization
•Paul Sladen, for many URL updates.
•...and anyone else I may have missed [mailto:]
Please email suggestions and contributions. Quakerism is a multifarious religion. Everything on these pages should be considered representative of some but not all Quaker thought. Free web space is available on this server for any meeting-sponsored Quaker activity.
Isn't it amazing how fast this page loads, with only one image?

Russell Nelson
  Last modified: Sat Nov 16 14:32:15 EST 2013    

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