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  • To what extent is Israel a “racist state”?

    Since I work in IT I’ve had dealings with Israeli companies, staffed by Israelis, and…they never struck me as being the monsters that are portrayed as typical of Israeli people and culture in much discourse in the UK in Quaker and Quaker-adjacent spaces. And, I have Jewish friends, and Jewish Friends, who look at much…

  • Truth and orthodoxy

    A much reduced edit of this piece appeared as a letter in the 22 May 2026 edition of the Friend. In spoken ministry at Britain YM in session in May 2026 we heard of aletheia, truth. It’s used in the Gospels, and in the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible. This was during a session asking…

  • Titles

    Fretting About the Title for the new Book of Discipline Some Friends seem to be concerned about what words are or aren’t in the proposed title for Britain Yearly Meeting’s draft revised Book of Discipline. It’s “Our Quaker Way.” But how much are we wedded to the exact words in the titles of our books…

  • We’re not all a little bit God.

    That of God in Every One: Fox v. Jones An edited version of this text was “Thought for the Week” in the 1 May 2026 edition of the Friend. There is that of God in every one. Therefore, there is that of God in Donald J. “grab ’em by the pussy” Trump, apparently. What does…

  • Why don’t Quakers go to prison any more?

    Early Quakers and Imprisonment Why don’t Quakers go to prison any more? Well, they do. One of the longest-lasting British Quaker institutions is Meeting for Sufferings. It has picked up, and laid down, many functions since it was founded in 1675, and will itself be laid down next year, 2026, but the original purpose was…

  • Left-wing Antisemitism

    This letter appeared in ‘the Friend’ on 21 October 2022 Antisemitism is racism, and an anti-racist church should work against it, as much as it should against racism targeting any other group. In what ways might the Religious Society of Friends’ (RSoF) institutional beliefs about Israel and Jews be shaped by the kind of thinking…

  • Where’s the “Jesus”?

    This letter appeared in the Friend on 16 June 2023 in reply to a previous letter by a Friend who was concerned that the Society had abandoned its Christian roots, as might be suggested by the vocabulary used by Friends. The name ‘Jesus’ appears about seventy-five times in the fifth edition of Quaker faith & practice.…