Pages tagged "Faith and Practice"

Words come easily, but don’t always help build connections among people. Labels like “Christian,” “atheist,” or “nontheist” can actually block understanding. God, Words and Us explores a Quaker approach to getting past “words as obstacles” and a process for building connections.

Dear Friends: At the rise of meeting in Olympia this past Sunday [May 6], I heard from David Albert that our recently published NPYM Faith & Practice is being used by a newly formed worship group in eastern Uganda. By report, the Ugandans find it a valuable guide in their formation as Friends. I’m astonished and delighted.

Friends’ testimonies are descriptions of actions and behaviors that have characteristically sprung from the very foundation of shared Quaker beliefs. They are neither proscriptive nor prescriptive, but descriptive of Friends’ lives. They are not creedal; they may change or develop over time; they sometimes help define our faith in a society hostile or blind to our beliefs, and they may become invisible when their need vanishes. Thus a testimony against slavery, although well known, is not now visibly practiced in America. Testimonies against taking of judicial oaths and against gambling, although often not practiced by modern Friends, still have the same basis in our faith and beliefs as they did in prior generations.

The Quaker Way: A Rediscovery by Rex Ambler