Quakers pride ourselves on being almost pathologically truthful. But are we losing our edge? We live in a culture where bending the truth is the norm. When RSVPing, we’d often rather say yes and cancel later than disappoint our friends up front. We like to keep our options open, even if it means leaving other …
In my last post, I mentioned that in the mid-1990s the Friends of Jesus community in Wichita, Kansas produced a white paper on their biblical understanding of gay and lesbian Christians. A commenter asked whether a copy of this document is still available. It is! The following is a statement prepared by the Friends of …
Read more “What Does the Bible Actually Say About LGBT Equality?”
TL;DR: Post-Evangelicals are one of the most important religious groups that are shaping America today. In many ways, I wish I was one, because I’d like to take part in the conversation. In this piece, I explain my experience as a child of some very early post-Evangelicals who got pushed out of the Evangelical Quaker …
I had a friend contact me recently, asking me some tough questions. He wanted to know why I am preaching a message of radically following Jesus, while at the same time authoring an ebook about traditional Quaker worship. Isn’t this a contradiction? Why am I promoting a particular denominational heritage when my core message is …
For early Quakers, heaven wasn’t a far-off kingdom floating in the clouds. It wasn’t a distant time and place, standing in stark contrast to present-day, historical reality. When Quakers said that Christ is here to teach us himself, this was just a new way of saying, repent, the kingdom of heaven has come near to …
Worship is a big deal for Quakers. And it most definitely has been for our community here in DC. Between 2009 and 2013, I’d say that we spent upwards of 90% of our time and energy organizing worship meetings, spiritual retreats, and other events with a spiritual, contemplative focus. It would have been fair to …
Are you ready to go deeper? We live in a world that is running on sensory overload. It seems like there’s always something else to do, another task to accomplish or spectacle to be witnessed. But what would it be like to just stop and breathe? What would we find there, in the silence? In …
Read more “Your Guide to Quaker Worship (Free eBook) is Ready!”