Tag Archives ⇒ Friend

Indigenous and Quaker Both

January 27, 2026
· Martin Kelley

There’s often an implied us-them dichoto­my when Quak­ers talk about Indige­nous Peo­ples so I’m fas­ci­nat­ed by com­mu­ni­ties that are both. My col­league Sharlee DiMenichi wrote about the hand­ful of month­ly meet­ings — and an entire year­ly meet­ing — in the U.S. that are major­i­ty Indige­nous.

I love com­pli­cat­ed iden­ti­ties like this. There’s a lot of dis­cern­ment that goes on about how to incor­po­rate Indige­nous and Quak­er ele­ments into life. For many, it seems a sur­pris­ing­ly nat­ur­al fit. This is true else­where, in parts of Africa and South Amer­i­ca, where mis­sion­ary Quak­ers’ beliefs meshed with the belief sys­tems of pre-colonial eth­nic groups, allow­ing an easy transition.

Also of inter­est is that these meet­ings are all Chris­t­ian, which demog­ra­phers tell us is the norm for Native Amer­i­cans today.1 Decolo­nial­ism means some­thing very dif­fer­ent for those who are com­mit­ted to hold on to Christianity.

Indigenous and Quaker Both
Indige­nous and Quak­er Both 

Explore how Native Quak­er com­mu­ni­ties hold onto their unique cul­ture while prac­tic­ing Christ-centered wor­ship cul­tur­al com­mon­al­i­ties, and shared…

Friends Journal Friends Journal 

Michael Jay on Cost of Compromise

August 11, 2025
· Martin Kelley

Lessons from 1842, when Indi­ana Friends were torn between anti­slav­ery and partisanship.

I’m start­ing to won­der if it’s time to revis­it that 19th cen­tu­ry advice, and step back. I’ve seen too much of the cor­rupt­ing influ­ence of par­ti­san­ship. I’ve seen too many argu­ments from peo­ple who know bet­ter about which peo­ple are not real­ly peo­ple. I’ve too many friends who have become polit­i­cal argu­ments which do not respect their humanity.

1842: The cost of compromise
1842: The cost of compromise 

Reflec­tions on Eli­jah and Levi Cof­fin after read­ing Eli­jah Coffin’s “Life with Reminiscence”

Michael's'Deep Thoughts' Michael’s ‘Deep Thoughts’ 

Back to Jesus

June 5, 2024
· Martin Kelley

Kevin-Douglas Olive, in Friend­ly Bible Study and Jesus my Friend, talks rec­on­cil­ing with the sto­ry of Jesus because of a meet­ing Bible study:

So who is this Jesus? The Jesus I know is the one who asks his fol­low­ers “Who do you say that I am?” The Jesus I am try­ing to fol­low is the one who tells me to DO what he says and I am his friend (hence the name of Quak­ers — Friends). He is the rad­i­cal rab­bi or prophet who turned con­ven­tion upside down and on whose teach­ings a new world reli­gion was formed (for bet­ter or worse). Through Jesus’ life and death, gone is the need for sac­ri­fice — it’s been done. Gone is the need to appease God, Jesus’ life and death does that. These ancient Jew­ish and pagan notions of god(s) and our rela­tion­ship to the Divine were made obso­lete. If we enter into the Life of Jesus, there will be cer­tain fruits of the spir­it which will man­i­fest through our walk in the Light.

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Vis­it­ing Kevin-Douglas in Bal­ti­more in 2010.

I’m old enough to remem­ber K‑D as the prankster­ish young adult Chris­t­ian Friend delight­ing in con­found­ing the Lib­er­al Quakes at the FGC Gath­er­ing and then lat­er, in 2008, as some­one try­ing to start some sort of Con­ver­gent Friends pres­ence in Bal­ti­more. I’m glad he’s been con­tin­u­ing to fol­low the light and that the Bible study has been ben­e­fi­cial. If you want more, there’s a 2017 Quak­er­S­peak inter­view, How I Became a Quak­er.

It’s also good hear in this post that Bal­ti­more’s Home­wood Meet­ing is attract­ing lots of new peo­ple under 40. I’ve been notic­ing that at my (tiny) meet­ing (a few weeks ago a few of the old­er Friends were off trav­el­ing and I looked around and real­ized the medi­an age was some­thing like 28). I’m hear­ing sim­i­lar sto­ries else­where. All anec­dotes but I’m start­ing to won­der if Quak­erism is hav­ing a bit of a moment.

Friendly Bible Study and Jesus my Friend
Friend­ly Bible Study and Jesus my Friend 

A blog about spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, social jus­tice, and liv­ing the life.

pilgrimstranger.blogspot.com pil​grim​stranger​.blogspot​.com

A more modern commission

March 7, 2019
· Martin Kelley

As an East Coast unpro­grammed Friend, Quak­er mis­sion work is still a bit exot­ic. We’re used to read­ing of well-meaning nine­teenth cen­tu­ry Friends whose atti­tudes shock us today. But here’s a sto­ry of some Mid­west mis­sion work with the Shawnee in the 1970s and 80s.

Their “mis­sion” work con­sists of farm­ing, teach­ing, music and wood­work­ing and lan­guage trans­lat­ing, lots of trans­port­ing chil­dren and teens. It also involves preach­ing each week, and par­tic­i­pa­tion in funer­als, wed­dings, and oth­er tra­di­tion­al pas­toral duties, all aimed at intro­duc­ing peo­ple to Jesus.

Their “mis­sion” work con­sists of farm­ing, teach­ing, music and wood­work­ing and lan­guage trans­lat­ing, lots of trans­port­ing chil­dren and teens. It also involves preach­ing each week, and par­tic­i­pa­tion in funer­als, wed­dings, and oth­er tra­di­tion­al pas­toral duties, all aimed at intro­duc­ing peo­ple to Jesus. 

http://​www​.lib​er​al​first​.com/​o​p​i​n​i​o​n​/​o​u​r​-​g​r​e​a​t​-​c​o​m​m​i​s​s​ion

The Religious SocieChildren of Prophets or Children of Propheticide?

February 19, 2019
· Martin Kelley

A stren­u­ous­ly and lengthi­ly argued dun­ci­a­tion of the fal­l­en­ness of mod­ern Friends, this piece is argued almost exclu­sive­ly from books. It’s inter­est­ing (and much of it is unde­ni­ably true) though the author seem unable to imag­ine thst there might be some sparks of authen­tic­i­ty and propheti­cism still burning.

The fol­low­ing post was writ­ten by Blake Everitt, a Friend the UK and mem­ber of the newly-formed Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Quak­ers. This essay explores the prophet­ic and apoc­a­lyp­tic nature of ear­ly Quak­erism, and sketch­es out how mid­dle class revi­sion­ism took over the Reli­gious Soci­ety of Friends. 

The Reli­gious Soci­ety of Friends: Chil­dren of Prophets or Chil­dren of Propheticide?

At 95, Ned Rorem Is Done Composing. But He’s Not Done Living

October 23, 2018
· Martin Kelley

The Times has a nice pro­file of the not-dead Pulitzer Prize com­pos­er and gay icon. The piece doesn’t men­tion his Quak­er roots (he was born in Rich­mond, Indi­ana and raised as a Friend) but an embed­ded playlist includes “Mary Dyer did hang as a flag,” a piece from his 1976 com­po­si­tion A Quak­er Read­er.

I don’t know much about Rorem or the extent or ongo­ing­ness of his Quak­er iden­ti­ty (if any­one wants to share more in the com­ments that would be great). I keep a list I call “Sur­pris­ing Unex­pect­ed Unlike­ly Quak­ers” for names peo­ple give me of famous’ish peo­ple with Quak­er con­nec­tions. Who’s your favorite unlike­ly Quaker?


At 95, Ned Rorem Is Done Composing. But He’s Not Done Living. (Published 2018)

At 95, Ned Rorem Is Done Com­pos­ing. But He’s Not Done Liv­ing. (Pub­lished 2018) 

As the com­pos­er, writer and gay icon lives qui­et­ly on the Upper West Side, his music and books…

www.nytimes.com www​.nytimes​.com

Ben Woods; Liberal Quakerism and the Need for Roots

September 21, 2018
· Martin Kelley

On our rela­tion­ship with Christianity:

In this vein, for ear­ly Friends, ‘being a Chris­t­ian‘, was more than sim­ply assent­ing to the­o­log­i­cal abstracts. To live as a ‘Friend of the Truth’ was to expe­ri­ence direct­ly the claim that God loves the uni­verse per­pet­u­al­ly in Christ. In this respect, ‘Quak­er’ Chris­tian­i­ty is more than a the­o­ry or phi­los­o­phy of things, but a prac­ti­cal rela­tion­ship with a liv­ing per­son. To walk with Jesus of Nazareth meant to live with the same man­tle upon one’s shoul­ders, to teach, to heal, and to restore. 

Reflec­tions on Lib­er­al Quak­erism and the Need for Roots

Autopsy of a Deceased Church

July 26, 2018
· Martin Kelley

From a book review by Macken­zie Mor­gan on the Quak­er Out­reach site:

Often church­es that fail to reflect their chang­ing local com­mu­ni­ty die off in a gen­er­a­tion or two. Implic­it bias has been a point of dis­cus­sion in some year­ly meet­ings in recent years, and this is related.

In fact, a Friend once told me they’d been asked, “can we tar­get these Face­book ads only to peo­ple who are just like us?”

Actu­al­ly, Face­book can cre­ate what they call looka­like audi­ences. It’s very cool and very creepy at the same time. It’s part of the suite of fine-grain tar­get­ing tools that’s let­ting polit­i­cal pro­pa­gan­dists and lifestyle-focused com­pa­nies con­trol our media con­sump­tion at the social feed lev­el and rein­force liked-minded group­think. Atten­tion silos are dan­ger­ous for our democ­ra­cy and they’re no good for our church­es. If the Quak­er good news has any mean­ing left in it, it has to be wide­ly applic­a­ble out­side of our cul­tur­al, style bubbles.

Autop­sy of a Deceased Church