Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has a page devoted to issues of faith and next year’s presidential elections.
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2012 Presidential Candidates Religious Backgrounds | Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
Interested in how religion could affect the 2012 election? Learn about the 2012 presidential candidate’s religious backgrounds in Pew Forum online biographies.
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“The drafters of the statement included Quaker Symon Hill who has written of the statement: “As one of the drafters of the statement, I want to make clear that we want to act in solidarity with people of other religions and of none, not impose our religion on them or claim to be a more important part of the movement than they are. This point is made in the opening line of the statement.“
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A Quaker presence at Occupy London
Almost 100 Quakers attended a Meeting for Worship on the steps of saint Paul’s cathedral in London on Sunday afternoon. The Meeting for Worship took place in support of the Occupy London movement that…
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It’s up on the sidebar and featured on QuakerQuaker, but I want to give an added boost to my friend Kevin-Douglas’ post “Why I bother with religion.” I’ve written about the Emergent Church / Quaker experiment that Kevin-Douglass is helping to organize down in Baltimore. Check out their new’ish website, http://www.setonhillfriends.org/
Here’s a snippet of today’s post:
Organized religion is based in community. Being in a community challenges me. Simply hanging out with my friends and engaging my family isn’t enough. The risks of such an intentional community and the support available therein offer so much more than if I just do what comes easily or go along with what exists around me. I’m challenged in community. I’m held accountable. And while it could be said that I could get this out of a gay rights group, or being part of an ethical society, the truth is that in a religious community, we all seek to go much deeper than the psychological or emotional levels. We seek to understand that Mystery — God. We seek to understand that transformative and healing power that comes from that Mystery.
Kevin-Douglas originally posted it to Facebook earlier today and I asked if he would sign up to QuakerQuaker and post it there. There’s a lot of great stuff that goes up on Facebook and it’s a useful tool for keeping in touch with friends, but most posts are not visible beyond your own Facebook friends list (it depends on your privacy settings). If you post something really good about Friends or belief on Facebook, seriously consider whether you might repost it somewhere more public. If you don’t have a blog handy, you can do what KD did and post it on QuakerQuaker, where every registered user has blogging capabilities (it creates a bit of a metaphysical connundrum for the QuakerQuaker editors, as it means we’ll be linking QQ posts to the QQ site, but that’s fine).
Survey: More have dropped dogma for spirituality in U.S. — USATODAY.com
“Every religious group has a major challenge on its hands from all directions,” says [Pew Forum director Luis] Lugo. When he factors in Pew’s February findings that 44% of adults say they’ve switched to another religion or none at all, Lugo says, “You have to wonder: How do you guarantee the integrity of a religious tradition when so many people are coming or going or following ideas that don’t match up?”
Lugo’s questions is particularly relevant for Friends, as many of us are converts. But the general turn toward a more experiential religiosity points to possibilities for further outreach. Don’t have the time to check the survey itself but USAToday looks to have some good graphs about it.
