Western Friend logo and header image

Search

A search result that only shows a person's name often links to a list of articles written by that person.

A Quaker Approach to Research - Review

Authored by: Tom Head
This short book is the latest in a series from the Quaker Institute for the Future (QIF). All of the other publications in the series focus on pressing, specific, hot topics for our global future: genetically modified crops, energy and fuels, the economic growth dilemma, climate change, food security, etc. In contrast to these issue-oriented volumes, A Quaker Approach to Research (2014) explores methodology and our ways of knowing: How do we as Quakers approach research and understanding of critical issues? This book is a provocative exploration of how Quakers come to know what we know and how those methods might be applied to social research.
On Difference (July 2015)

Those Other Quakers

Authored by: D. Pablo Stanfield
The majority of liberal Friends in the West share similar traits: First, very few of us grew up among Quakers; we arrived as adults, often fleeing dogmas or religious paths that we now reject. Second, many of us feel a sense of “homecoming” in Friendly traditions like our Peace Testimony, silent expectant worship, and the general spirit of tolerance in our meetings.
On Difference (July 2015)

Withdrawing our Support

Authored by: Dalit Baum , Greg Elliott
Dalit Baum is the Director of Economic Activism for the American Friends Service Committee. In the following interview, she describes her involvement with the “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions” movement -- a campaign of nonviolent actions that seek to transform corporate practices in Palestine and in U.S. prisons. She was interviewed in October 2015 by Greg Elliott, who is the Friends Relations Associate with the AFSC in Philadelphia. Dalit has worked in AFSC’s San Francisco office since 2013. She is a feminist scholar and teacher who co-founded the organizations Who Profits from the Occupation and the Coalition of Women for Peace in Israel. The following text is an edited transcript of portions of Greg’s interview with Dalit.
On Money (November 2015)

Building a Moral Economy from the Ground Up

Authored by: David Henkel
Whether entailing the use of money or other resources, economic transactions allow us the means of subsistence just as they tempt us to excess. It would do us well to remember that the etymological origins of the word “economy” are from the Greek meaning of “managing the household.” A moral economy would be one that manages the “household” of our planet to emphasize mutual care, community health, and a society of sufficiency and sustainability.
On Money (November 2015)

Money, that Tainted Thing

Authored by: Joseph Snyder
As Friends and as a people of faith, we walk a narrow tightrope between using wealth as a means to bring light and life into the world and allowing it to become a snare. The snare can draw us into a prison of world and wealth centeredness, or can trap us into such self-imposed poverty that we rely on the wealth of others to live. Friends at the beginning of the 21st century would do well to examine how we maintain a healthy relationship with wealth. Almost all of our national and international Quaker organizations are reducing their staffs due to lack of funds and, consequently, limiting their effectiveness. Many of our meetings are deferring maintenance of meetinghouses and finding it difficult to give financial support to members in need.
On Money (November 2015)

Public Banking – Friendly Values

Authored by: Nichoe Lichen
Quakers introduced public banking to the original colony of Pennsylvania, helping the colony prosper. North Dakota created its public bank in 1919, and is currently the only state to own its own bank. There are public banking efforts in more than thirty states, many of them in the west (Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and my own State of New Mexico).
On Money (November 2015)

Responses to Fears of Terrorism

Authored by: Gary Miller
Dear Editor: Recently a friend (notice the lower case), asked me to explain “the Quaker position” on the current “Islamist attacks” (his words, not mine). I am curious to learn other Friends’ thoughts about this question. I am sure that if you got three Quakers together, you would get four different answers.
On Countries (January 2016)

The Original Quaker Peace Testimony

Authored by: Steve Smith
My paternal grandfather was a stern, strait-laced Ohio Quaker. My father, his eldest son, lived out most of those values in his own life, including the traditional Quaker repudiation of armed conflict. Yet at the outset of WWII, the youngest son of the family – my Uncle Clinton – chose to join the Army. My father evidently tried to dissuade his younger brother from joining the Army. In the summer of 1942 as Clinton was undergoing basic training in California, he responded to my father’s concerns with these words:
On Countries (January 2016)