I interviewed September FJ author Scotty Utz about Guns-to-Garden Movement. Fascinating witness and some heartbreaking stories. From my intro:
One of the most profound and oft quoted statements from probably the entire Bible is from Isaiah, and it goes And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people, and they shall beat their swords into plough shares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. And this may seem like a wonderful lyrical kind of statement. But what if we actually took it seriously and actually started taking our instruments of war and turning them into pruning hooks?
In the mid-80s I was one of the many idealistic college kids who interned with the UFW for a summer. I got to hang out with him a number of times. His son-in-law ran the NYC-based media campaign and Cesar would come for planning meetings but also to visit his daughter and grandkids. She made great cheese enchiladas and all of us would talk late into the night as he told stories.
I do remember thinking — and asking — why the sainted VP Dolores Huerta never actually seemed all that involved, at least not to the point of ever coming East that summer to participate in NYC-based media strategy meetings. It was explained she was needed back in California.1 I never met her. I remember not being surprised at all that she didn’t ascend to the UFW presidency when Cesar died. It went instead to the son-in-law who had led our office.
My direct supervisor was a schlub and sexist pig. He was always making inappropriately suggestive comments to the young female interns, which they universally laughed off. They were all smart, confident women with futures who weren’t going to be put off by him. I was the only male intern that summer and he put me in shitty assignments, pressuring me to drop out. I assume I was seen as competition and indeed I did start dating a fellow intern (the only reason I put up with his behavior and made it through the summer). I see he’s still with the UFW, now listed as first vice president, which is not at all inspiring.
It was perhaps the most dysfunctional office culture I’ve ever seen. The union’s influence had obviously declined since the heady days of RFK marching with Cesar in huge rallies. They seemed to jump from fad to fad hoping to recapture attention. That year direct marketing was all the rage in business circles and the UFW was jumping in with both feet. We would spend hours in meetings setting unrealistic expectations, then break our own guidelines to “meet” them. I’d be called out for trying to do things the way we had agreed. I remember wondering if any of the office work I did that summer actually made a jot of difference. Helping to organize East Coast appearances of Cesar was definitely the highlight of the summer — well, that and the girlfriend and getting to hang out in New York City all the time.
I do have to wonder now if some of the dysfunction and sexism in the office was ultimately related to Cesar’s repeated molestation of children.2 Did he foster a culture in which we laughed off bad behavior and didn’t question poor management?
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.
Ten authors featured in the March 2026 Friends Journal special issue on gender and sexual identities join trans and nonbinary moderators for facilitated conversation. Free and both online at at Swarthmore College. Learn more here.
am grateful that both our religious society and wider culture have developed a greater understanding of the diversity of gender expressions. I appreciate an expanded vocabulary with which to include people. (Only ten years ago the singular “they” was still cautioned against in the Friends Journal style guide!) Change can be confusing and bewildering, but open conversations between Friends one-on-one and in settings like a clearness committee can help us understand one another in our longing to be known and loved.
How’s the old joke go? Ask five Quakers what they believe and you’ll get ten answers. Undaunted, December’s Friends Journaltries to give some answers to the question anyway. I very much hope that individual Friends will find viewpoints they really like as well as ones they really don’t like, or at least don’t agree with. That there are no pat answers is itself part of the answer to the question.
Bonus: we’ve been working on expanding our international inclusion in the magazine and an article from Salvadoran Jasson Arevalo on the role of Quaker pastors is the first fruits of our new Latin American correspondent’s outreach efforts.
Early blogging was slower, less beholden to the hourly news cycle, and people were more inclined to talk about personal enthusiasms as well as what was going on in the world because blogs were considered an individual enterprise, not necessarily akin to a regular publication.
I appreciate her comments on invested readers. The number of people who were part of the “Quaker blogosphere” back in day was not that large but something about the crucible of the writing and debating meant that they developed ideas that have outsized influence today. The same sorts of conversations continue to happen today in corners of Facebook, Reddit, and Discord but there’s not the same sort of feeling of shared community.
I mentioned this back in May but there’s still time to join “Christ and Creation: Illuminate Bible Study” this Saturday, October 18, an online Bible study co-sponsored by Barclay Press and the Pendle Hill and Woodbrooke study centers. I’ll be one of the panelists talking.
It’s pay-as-led so come join us if you’re available. When it starts depends on where you are of course. It’s 11:00 am here on the U.S. East Coast, which translates to 4pm UK time and 8am Pacific Time. It will last about two hours. You can sign up with either Woodbrooke or Pendle Hill.
I don’t know what my Lutheran grandmother would make of seeing my name on a Bible curriculum. She always judged my mom for not churching me and had a bit of a sneer when she would describe me as a “Bible illiterate” right in front of me.
