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

Though Traditional Quaker Christianity is intended to convey the tradition among Conservative Friends, it may find readers among Liberals and Evangelicals. Should another generation of Quakers come forth and undertake the restoration of “the desolations of many generations,” they could find this book a resource for building up a Quaker Christian society.

I must admit that after spending my work days reading manuscripts and my commutes reading blog posts, the enjoyment of books has gotten a bit squeezed out. This looks like a useful one to try to fit it. Friend Marty Grundy reviewed this title for Friends Journal a few years ago. After posting the link to Patricia’s post, Mackenzie reminded me that Quaker Faith and Podcast has also been going through the book in recent episodes.

https://patradallmann.wordpress.com/2018/04/05/review-of-traditional-quaker-christianity/