Comments on: The Quaker Peace Testimony: Living in the Power, Reclaiming the Source

By: chaddo

chaddo — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 11:50:01 +0000

Testimonies were originally EVIDENCE + MANIFESTATIONS of GOD + His RULE within us.

So AS we live in the Life + Power of God, HE takes away all inclinations to war within us.

+ if we don’t, then He doesn’t.

so if we lack His inner Rule, then we can pursue an outer peace without having His Inner Peace,

and it is merely a weak human conception pursued in weak human power wisdom + purity, instead of the infinitely wide deep + long Power Heart + Life of the Divine.

so one person holds to a human idea or ideal, another holds to different one. neither has the Life + power that transforms hearts + takes away the inclination to warring, + so often these ideologies go to war with other for supremacy, resorting to mere human power + stratagems to persuade or force the other into compliance… instead of leaving the Divine to do so in His Life + Power.

By: Deborah Dakin

Deborah Dakin — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:41:00 +0000

Reading James Cone (and other Black theologians) teaches me that Jesus is alive today and on the side of the oppressed. This is the essence of Black theology. Anything else is intellectual or emotional drivel, and meaningless. This is one example of others experiencing what Fox referred to and lived, in our own time. Because it is a Truth. We would do well as Friends to join with those who also live the message. Thank you for this essay.

By: Alastair McIntosh, Scotland

Alastair McIntosh, Scotland — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 08:04:00 +0000

This is a brilliant piece on the peace testimony. For many years I have taught a university course on spiritual activism and I also lecture regularly to the UK military on nonviolence (there is stuff on all this on my website). More and more I have come to the conclusion, often not very popular, that what we are generally missing in our activism is the centrality of God, and the ability to relax back into what we are trying to achieve and to let go of anticipated outcomes because our task is to serve the greater Power of which you speak, and not try and subsume it, especially not by application of reason. Actually, the Hindu Bhagavad Gita is very good on this - it is what karma yoga, the yoga or God-union of work in the world is all about, and Jesus equally taught it when he spoke of the one hand working without the other knowing, of lending without expectation of return, etc.. On the question of Power I presume you are familiar with Walter Wink's "Engaging the Powers"? He has got dementia now, but considers himself to have become a Friend for reasons of the kind of theology you lay out here. Lastly, I am delighted that you identify with what I think of as "the ranter tendency" in Quakerism: very necessary to counterpoint the bourgeoise tendency that can be good for bringing in the money but not so helpful for putting spine into engaging the Powers. Go well...