FGC on Quaker Religious Ed

Martin Kelley — Thu, 12 Feb 2004 19:23:41 +0000

One of the pieces I helped put online in my role of FGC webmaster is FGC Religious Education: Lessons for the 21st Century, by Beckey Phipps. It’s definitely worth a read. It’s comprised of interviews of three Friends:

Ernie Buscemi: “It is the most amazing thing, all the kids that I know that have gone into [Quaker] leadership programs–they’ve disappeared. I see the same thing [happening] as a woman and person of color, we are doing something wrong.”

Marty Grundy: “Our branch [of Friends] has discarded the tools by which earlier Friends’ practices were formed. We’ve lost our understanding of what it is that we are about.”

Arthur Larrabee: “We need to tap into God’s energy and God’s joy. Early Friends had that energy, they had a vision, they had the connection with the inward Christ, a source of infinite energy power and joy.”

While I wish this could be extended a bit (e.g., why not ask the ‘kids’ themselves where they’ve gone), at least these are the right questions.

Signs of Hope

Martin Kelley — Wed, 26 Nov 2003 15:01:23 +0000

I think I sometimes appear more pessimistic than I really am. Here are some of this week’s reasons for hope.
* Being in touch with Jorj & Sue and Barb and Tobi because of these writings (could the “Lost Generation”:http://www.nonviolence.org/martink/archives/000147.php be muddling towards a new coalesence?)
* A small flurry of recent talks and pamphlets about rediscovering traditional Quakerism: Marty Grundy’s 2002 lecture _Quaker Treasure: Discovering The Basis For Unity Among Friends_, Paul Lacey’s _The Authority Of Our Meetings Is The Power Of God_ , and Lloyd Lee Wilson’s “Wrestling With Our Faith Tradition”:http://www.ncymc.org/journal/ncymcjournal3.pdf (PDF)
* Tony P. saying he was grieved that Julie has left the Society of Friends and caring enough to talk to her. Thank you.
* A flyer I saw this weekend, written by PYM Religious Education staff. It was a list of what they thought they should be doing and it was really pretty good (why don’t they’d print this in _PYM News_ , it’s much better than their boilerplate entries this issue). Even more I hope the work does take a move in that direction.
* Thomas Hamm’s The Quakers in America, which just came in yesterday. It’s perhaps a little too introductory but we need a good introduction and Hamm’s the one to write it. His book on Orthodox Friends, Transformation of American Quakerism is amazingly well researched and essential reading for any involved Friend who wants to understand who we are. He’s working on a companion history on the Hicksites, which is very much needed.

grundy - Quaker Ranter

FGC on Quaker Religious Ed

Signs of Hope