In the light of our high ideals, it can be hard for individual Quakers not to feel inadequate. I certainly do. We’re exhorted to “let our lives speak”, and I often feel like my life doesn’t have much to say. But I am a writer. As a community that listens patiently for the truth, Quakers provide a unique place for creativity. The faith that can sit through hours of Meeting – through boredom, frustration, distraction – is the same thing that keeps me going when I’m struggling for my next idea. We worship in silence, but we’re waiting for words, which somehow gives me faith that, if I wait in front of a blank page for long enough, the right story will come.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/09/top-10-quakers-in-fiction?CMP=twt_gu

The Quakers’ lack of ceremony and liturgical clutter gives them a point from which to view the no man’s land between faith and non-faith that is the “new religiosity”. A dwindling 40% of Britons claim to believe in some form of God, while a third say they are atheists

The piece is sure to get everyone’s dander up. It feels to me as if Jenkins is chasing the headline to advance his own argument without regard to how his statement might polarize Friends. But this is one of the rarer instances in which it’s worth digging through the comments on this one; some are better than the article itself.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/04/quakers-dropping-god?CMP=share_btn_fb