I’ve chosen nonviolence and nonviolent action as a means of social change partly because I believe that we’re all God’s children. We’re all brothers and sisters, and an injury to any person is an injury to me. We’re all related. So it’s morally right and it’s trying to walk our talk that love is not just something to talk about with your little family—the world is our family.

David’s all over the Friends Journal websites right week. Last week the magazine published his account of needing emergency heart surgery while on a friendship visit in Iran. True to form, he made it a teachable moment by using it to explain how American sanctions hurt everyday Iranians (I’m happy to report everything turned out okay). His most recent book is Waging Peace; FJ’s former senior editor Bob Dockhorn reviewed it in 2015.

http://quakerspeak.com/the-power-of-loving-your-enemy/

Penn was a man of paradoxical qualities. He espoused a radically egalitarian Quaker theology, insisting that something divine resided within each individual, yet he owned slaves on his American estate. He praised representative institutions such as parliament and the jury system, but spent years in hiding for his loyalty to an absolutist king. ‘I am like to be an adopted American,’ he wrote shortly after arriving in Pennsylvania in 1682, but spent only four of his remaining 36 years there. And he was chronically incapable of managing money, spending eight months in an English debtors’ prison in his 60s, even while his colony quickly became a commercial success.

https://aeon.co/ideas/hes-not-the-guy-on-quaker-oats-hes-much-more-interesting

Princeton villagers and members of the Continental Congress beheld the arrival of an unusual delegation of somberly dressed men astride horses. They had come from Philadelphia to raise an issue that the Continental Congress did not wish to address: the plight of half a million American residents — one-fifth of the people — who had been listening to memorable words about inalienable rights and how America would usher in a new age of freedom and justice, but who were condemned along with their children to lifelong slavery. The four men carried a parchment titled “The Address of the People Called Quakers.”

The author, Gary Nash, has a book out about Walter Mifflin, one of the four, which Friends Journal reviewed this April.

As I recall, the transatlantic slave trade went into overdrive in the newly independent United States. If the Continental Congress has listened, the complexion and character and history of the U.S. would be far different.
 
https://paw.princeton.edu/article/moment-nassau-hall

Standing up for peace means standing on the side of the oppressed, not throwing them into the lion’s mouth in the name of civility. And interrupting racist violence takes more than civil discourse: active disruption is needed in order for racism to be revealed and dismantled. What good is ineffective pacifism? My commitment to nonviolence is about saving lives.

I gave my take on Cadbury’s speech back in June. I was a little easier on Cadbury, mostly because I think we need to understand the Quaker worldview out of which he was speaking. It’s never good to lecture the oppressed on their oppression, but the classic Quaker idea of speaking truth to all sides still holds value and is something I think we miss sometimes nowadays.

Just a moment…

www.friendsjournal.org

Friends Meeting of San Antonio finds the policy of the present administration of separating children from their families at the border to be shameful and contrary to American values. Further, using the Gospel to claim that “God has ordained” such actions is appalling to us as a people of faith.

A few years ago Friends Journal ran an article on the border humanitarian crisis, co-written by one of San Antonio’s clerks, so we’ve added this weekend’s statement to the article for context.

Just a moment…

www.friendsjournal.org

It seems that this perpetual cynicism may be the greatest threat of our era. Is the child of irony? The grandchild of government conspiracy theories? Maybe the cause doesn’t matter as much as the effect.

The mob thrives on chaos. It likes chaos. It likes to be the alternative authority that you go to because you can’t get anything done through the legitimate state. For that very reason, I think there’s no doubt that it promotes that chaos. It likes civic distrust. It likes cynicism. It can profit from that. I think the great tragedy of Italy is that, to a large extent, it’s kind of succeeded.

I think that if we wanted to construct a Quaker critique of the current American government–and the type of corporatized corruption we see in Russia and the petrostates, it would best start with the political culture that deny basic facts, gaslight citizens with ever-changing rationales, and creating chaos that can let financial hucksters reap billions. These are not governments based on integrity and fair playing fields.

The Mafia Is More Powerful Than It’s Ever Been

If you think of violent, influential organized crime in Italy as a thing of the past, think again.

Slate Magazine

Adria Gulizia guest posting on Johan Maurer’s blog: It is hard to talk about God, Jesus and the spiritual life in this moment in American history. Many of our non-Christian neighbors find the little they know about Jesus to be attractive or intriguing, but they know enough about the failings of the church to have very negative opinions about actual Christians. If we do have non-Christian friends, it may be despite our Christian faith rather than because of it — we may be seen as the exception that proves the rule.

https://blog.canyoubelieve.me/2018/05/adria-gulizia-spirit-led-evangelism.html

Adria Gulizia guest posting on Johan Maurer’s blog: It is hard to talk about God, Jesus and the spiritual life in this moment in American history. Many of our non-Christian neighbors find the little they know about Jesus to be attractive or intriguing, but they know enough about the failings of the church to have very negative opinions about actual Christians. If we do have non-Christian friends, it may be despite our Christian faith rather than because of it — we may be seen as the exception that proves the rule.

https://blog.canyoubelieve.me/2018/05/adria-gulizia-spirit-led-evangelism.html