My Quaker Talk interview with S.E.W. Smith, in which we talk about living with the eternal now and 200-year present. His article, Restore the Time, appears in the October issue of Friends Journal.
Quaker Ranter
A Weekly Newsletter and Blog from Martin Kelley
Tag Archives ⇒ Friend
“Creationtide” and the Seasons of the Church and Earth
September 6, 2026
A beautiful meditation by Brian Drayton on Quakers softening on the ideas of times and seasons and how he (and I suspect many other Friends) have come to more fully embrace the seasons of both the wider Christian Church and also the natural seasons of the earth and cosmos.
Tim Gee tracks down Ann Lee’s Quaker connection
March 17, 2026
I always love a little sleuthing and all the better if it argues against some poorly researched report that made its way to Wikipedia.
The claim is that Shaker leader Ann Lee was born a Quaker. The Wikipedia entry says: “Her parents were members of a distinct branch of the Society of Friends (a sect of Quakers) and too poor to afford their children even the rudiments of education.” The source of this is given in the citation: a 1879 encyclopedia article, a copy of which is hosted on Wikisource: “Her parents were members of a distinct branch of the society of Friends, and too poor to afford their children even the rudiments of education.” A source for this claim was never given in the encyclopedia, though later on it does reference Frederick William Evans, a much later Shaker figure.
That is the Tim Gee compiles five pieces of evidence that together feel very convincing.
There are of course influences but that’s to be expected. Every religious movement of the Second Great Awakening had some relationship to Quakers. The Methodists, Mormons, Holiness, Adventists all have some connections. When you tour the “1652 Country” area of England, where George Fox first brought Quakers together, you’ll keep running into signs about John Wesley doing the same for Methodists a century later, and here in South Jersey where I live a whole slew of Quakers became Methodists in the early 1800s. At least one early Mormon evangelist in Ohio essentially went from Quaker town to Quaker town trying to recruit people. The Quaker defense of female leadership and the principle that women can preach obviously rubbed off on the Shakers and other movements.
The idea that the British colonies in America were some pure land where we could reinvent a primitive Christianity was a powerful meme (if you will) at the time and certainly drew Ann Lee to cross over and plant a religious movement here. But Ann Lee picked one of the least Quaker areas to plant her community and drew early members from New England millennialist revivalists. She definitely wanted to build something distinct from Friends.
Indigenous and Quaker Both
January 27, 2026
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.
Michael Jay on Cost of Compromise
August 11, 2025
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.
Back to Jesus
June 5, 2024
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.
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.
pilgrimstranger.blogspot.comA more modern commission
March 7, 2019
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.liberalfirst.com/opinion/our-great-commission
The Religious SocieChildren of Prophets or Children of Propheticide?
February 19, 2019
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?