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Five Surprises about Quakers

Benjamin Harrison (Benj) Thomas

Unorthodox Views

• Authored by:
• Elise Regan

Dear Editor,

On Power (March 2013)

Call to NPYM Annual Gathering 2013 - Unabridged

• Authored by:
• John Allcott

Not by my strength alone: laboring together beyond our comfort zone

On Power (March 2013)

If We Don't Build it

• Authored by:
• Delcy Steffy

(Please note: It is understood that Rrace is a social construct. There is no biologically meaningful concept of “different races” among humanity. For the purpose of this article, I use terms that may seem to imply distinctions or divisions between groups of people that do not exist biologically. These distinctions are artifices drawn by human culture, politics, and economics. There is only one race, the human race. – Delcy Steffy)

On Superiority (July 2013)

Facing Gullibility

• Authored by:
• Diane Pasta

I united with the Quaker testimony of Integrity very naturally when I first learned of it. I had developed a deep need to discern the truth as a child, when I experienced the pain of telling the truth and yet not being believed. My excellent academic education in math and law taught me many methods for seeking the truth – scientific experimentation, logic, debate and more. So when I became a Quaker in my thirties, a deep respect for the value of Truth and Integrity were already well established in my mind.  

On Deception (November 2013)

A Quaker Patriotism

• Authored by:
• Warren Ostrom

Find a lesson plan here, for using this article with children in First Day School.

On Patriotism (January 2014)

Nayler and Fox

• Authored by:
• Paul Seaver

Dear Editor: It was good to see your piece on James Nayler in “Pages for All Ages.” Friends today do not always recognize that in the first years of the Quaker movement, Nayler was as important a preacher and as central to the movement as George Fox himself, certainly in the eyes of many London Friends.

On Reconciliation (January 2015)

On Heritage

• Authored by:
• Mary Klein

Choose life: It’s a good rule of thumb. But the life I have inherited is one that’s built on killing. While I’m safely minding my own business (in a wealthy suburb in the richest nation that’s ever existed), killing and the threat of killing are adding to the wealth of the nation I live in. Killing and the threat of killing are holding the line between who has access to resources and who does not. Who ends up on which side of that line is based on no good reason. Rather, it is rote tradition that allows arbitrary distinctions between groups of people to be used to enhance the resources of some and limit the resources of others. No matter how convincingly such traditions are sanctified and rationalized, they remain fundamentally arbitrary and morally dead.

On Heritage (July 2016)

Embedded in Two Cultures with AFSC

• Authored by:
• Graciela Martinez

My first job at the American Friends Service Committee was in 1965, when Self-Help Enterprises was being created. This was also my first real experience working with white people, as opposed to working for them, although at the tender age of nineteen, I still did not realize that. I have gone through many emotions – some even tearful – as I recalled my youth and my work while writing this article. As the daughter of a farmworker, I have been confronted with the typical things around racism, feminism, classism, etc., during my youth and into my adult life. It was, in fact, not too many years ago when I decided not to let those things rule my life.

On Balance (May 2017)