Friends Journal

In 1983, a young Jesuit priest published Beyond Majority Rule, a seminal study on communal discernment that influenced Quakers on both sides of the Atlantic. Although the book remains in print, its importance has slipped from the awareness of many Friends. Might it now be ripe for rediscovery?

"Everything in my platform is about trying to see that of God in everybody, and getting us back to a place where we respect each other." We spoke with two Friends who are running in separate districts of the Indiana House of Representatives about how their Quaker faith shapes their campaigns.

"Silence is where we must start to seek the kingdom of God." Over at @livingchurch.bsky.social, Jim Watkins considers what the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard has to say about how silence "helps us to live more deeply with ourselves, with God, and with our fellow human beings."

“Most Quakers still don’t know our history as participants in this enterprise of forced assimilation of Native people,” Paula Palmer said in a 2023 QuakerSpeak interview. “So the first thing that we have to do is learn the truth.”

Refusing to participate in war is one side of Quaker pacifism; developing alternatives to address international conflict is another. Friends Journal staff writer Sharlee DiMenichi examines how both strains have influenced the United Nations since its formation more than 80 years ago.

Amid the heroic narratives of success against the odds, Norah O’Donnell's We the Women also highlights the ways that “a more perfect union is still a work in progress.”

“The Lord doth require more from Friends than all other people, because he hath given more to them,” George Fox wrote: “Therefore my desires are, that you may all be valiant for the truth upon the earth; and keep up all your men and women’s meetings in the Lord’s power.” quaker.org/2026/10/19/t...

Ellen Carol DuBois’s careful study of the difficult polarizing choices and alliances facing Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other nineteenth-century activists helped Abigail E. Adams understand better how the 1800s informed the Friends testimonies she holds high.

"I was raised a Friend, and I feel that there was something distinctly Quaker in the education I received before going off to college. Now, as a teacher[,] I struggle to define what it means to practice a Quaker pedagogy—especially considering that few of my colleagues and students are Friends."

"Howard Thurman, an African American theologian and pastor of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, was perhaps the leading spiritual mentor and sensitive guide for...many Quakers and leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, such as Martin Luther King Jr.". Published by @plough.bsky.social

"Marginalization and dehumanization are not compatible with rest, especially not with rest patterned after God’s resting at Creation," says Monica L. Miller. "Understood this way, observing the Sabbath comes with a sprawling to-do list of social transformation until all can safely rest."

"Friends have always been very active in addressing our government and its rule," Marge Abbott said in this 2016 interview. "[They] have always had this sense that the Kingdom of God can be realized here on earth... that we can all share this earth together if we treat each other with respect."

Imagine: your photo was taken many years ago when you were a political prisoner in South Vietnam. Years later, a journalist comes to your village with some photos and asks you if you can identify anyone in them. Your eyes fill with tears as your own face stares back at you from one of the pictures.

"Rarely does one find so much wisdom packed into a book of about 130 pages in length," Stephen W. Angell says of Nothing Can Separate Us, a new anthology of writings by the twentieth-century African American theologian Howard Thurman. "This is one to read slowly and savor."

“Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” Unfortunately, most of us can’t just hand Caesar back his coins and walk away. Empire's totalizing systems become nearly impossible to evade completely. But we CAN counter them. quaker.org/2026/10/12/g...

🎧 Quakers Today co-hosts Peterson Toscano and Diana Yañez reflect on what they've learned over the last six episodes about Friends' relationship with finances—and focus on concrete, practical next steps to align our money with our values. Listen now wherever you find your favorite podcasts!

Corporations are not people; they are just machines. Dov Baum from AFSC explains why we must treat corporations like robots and focus on forcing them to do less harm. Listen to the Quakers Today season finale 🎧 QuakersToday.org #Quakers #EconomicJustice @afsc-org.bsky.social @friendsjournal.org

"That is the challenge Randy Woodley sees for Western Christianity today," John Andrew Gallery writes in his review of How Western Christianity Got It Wrong: "to rid itself of the accretions that have distorted Jesus’s teachings over the centuries and return to a focus on his actual message."

The life of Mary Shadd Cary (1823–1893) offers a master class in the values of self-reliance and humanitarianism that are associated with the grit and spirit of independence that are being celebrated during America250, the semiquincentennial of the founding of the United States.

In the fall of 2020, Quaker peace activist George Lakey started talking with friends and colleagues about the possibility that Donald Trump might reject the results of the upcoming presidential election if he lost the electoral college count. Subsequent events proved those concerns were warranted.

"God’s work is to bring in the Light and open the spaces up, not build more walls!" says Christopher Stern. "We need our hearts opened and renovated in our meetings and communities of faith so we can learn God’s way of love and find the strength to walk in it and live in it together, here and now."

One important element of “the quest for the historical Jesus” lies in the search for independent evidence about the places & events recounted in the gospels. Archaeology, Jesus, and the Gospel of John reports on what recent archaeological research reveals about specific details in John’s narrative.

As Moses stayed atop Sinai, the Israelites lost faith that God would continue to bestow favor upon them. So they turned to a new god, hoping to regain a sense of power and control over their lives. The modern world has its own false gods, tempting us with empty promises. quaker.org/2026/10/05/b...

Bayard Rustin played a key role in the Civil Rights Movement, but was an equally passionate advocate for economic justice throughout his life. In every struggle against the principalities and powers of his time, Rustin was guided by his commitment to nonviolence, grounded in his Quaker upbringing.

How shall we live as people of faith in this era of accelerating ecological, social, and political crises? This is the urgent question Brian Drayton seeks to answer in The Gospel in the Anthropocene, a beautifully written, profoundly thoughtful, and prophetic book.

"Acting contrary to present outward interest, from a motive of Divine love and in regard to truth and righteousness, and thereby incurring the resentments of people, opens the way to a treasure better than silver, and to a friendship exceeding the friendship of men."—Michelle Downey

We hope everyone has had a wonderful World Quaker Day! Take some time to contemplate this year's theme, "Let Peace Be Among Us," in silent worship and discernment. How can we foster peace within our communities, and among our neighbors, in the year ahead?

"Everyone who has ever pruned a forgotten fruit tree to spur its growth understands the power of restoration... All of us who have sewn a button back on, repaired a torn seam, or sanded down and repainted a beloved piece of furniture know experientially the satisfaction of restorative work."

In November 2023, three former classmates at Ramallah Friends School were when they were shot in the street in Burlington, Vermont, leaving one of the young men paralyzed from the waist down. Last week, a jury found their shooter, Jason Eaton, guilty of attempted murder.

The early Quakers would have agreed with the Psalmist: “The law of the Lord is perfect.” We can say this with confidence, because Isaac Penington turned to this verse repeatedly, as he gave thanks for the law "containing in it the commandment which is life everlasting." quaker.org/2026/09/28/l...

"When I read early Friends," says Joan Gunn Broadfield, "I see their practice includes both the inward seeking and the outward practices: they are not only against war but also work with families in prison and also go out into the streets to bring Truth."

"Quakerism is understood as a way of life in which the blessed light of the Spirit guides us to do and think about the common good and to continually seek peace in a holistic way," says Báalam Sáas, "[motivating] us to think and act with a greater sensibility and humanity."

"When a member of a family is in distress, the family members have a role to play in holding the hand of their member and providing strength & support," Mercy Miroya says. "In a similar fashion, the larger Quaker family has a big role to play in helping those in environmentally degraded societies."

To understand the practice of the peace testimony within Central American Quakerism, Jasson Arevalo says, it is necessary to understand the social and historical context in which it has developed since its arrival at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Friends may find themselves resonating with Liz Bajjalieh’s ruminations about God being everywhere and in everything. Many read like answers to queries or questions posed for worship sharing and discussion.

One day last April, Minga Claggett-Borne and eleven others attempted to bring care packages of food and toiletries to the detainees being held at an ICE facility in Burlington, Massachusetts. The city sent ten police cars full of officers to arrest them.

When the Inward Light shines upon us and exposes the reality of our sins, what else should we do but fix our hearts and love one another? This week's Look to the Light message follows a thread from the prophet Ezekiel and George Fox to W.H. Auden and... David Lynch? Yep. quaker.org/2026/09/21/g...

Jennifer Kavanagh's new Pendle Hill pamphlet, Letting Go, "could be read in one sitting," says Hope Ascher, "but reading it carefully and reflectively promises to offer new Light each time it is read."

"The Church was not established to be changed or redesigned; it was established to be obeyed, regardless of our personal opinions," writes Gustavo Adolfo Recinos. "It should be loved like the anvil upon which red-hot iron is forged through repeated blows, becoming both refined and immensely useful."

Carl Blumenthal put his Quaker faith into practice working for New York City's mental health hotline, where he found himself speaking to people at their most emotionall and spiritually vulnerable. "You’re recognizing that of God in everyone and encouraging the healing process," he told us in 2023.

Nonviolent options are stronger than violent ones and are necessary for just, peaceful civil societies during and after violence. Violence only destroys. It cannot create. It has no future. Nonviolence on the other hand is life-giving: it heals, generates, and creates. It offers a future.

Tom Weiner and Amilcar Shabazz's In Defiance offers twenty profiles in abolitionist courage, many of whom were influenced by their proximity to and knowledge of Quakerism.

In the latest Quakers Today podcast, Peterson Toscano and Diana Yañez learn that reparations are about living amends—transforming our economic relationships and material conditions so that historical and ongoing racialized violence cannot be repeated.

“For most of my adult life I have been an urgently interested and frequently uneasy reader of the Bible, particularly of the Gospels,” Wendell Berry wrote in 2005. Though he had faith, he admitted to a frequent lack of confidence in his relationship to what he had read. quaker.org/2026/09/14/l...

19th-century Friend Abby Hopper Gibbons’s letters and journal illustrate her strong personality and advocacy for justice, even when it challenged assumptions of the day—especially as related to equitable treatment of and recognition for the full humanity of Black people, whether enslaved or free.

Scotty Utz speaks with FJ senior editor Martin Kelley about breaking firearms down into scrap metal that then gets transformed into gardening tools: "I feel so fortunate that all these different strands of my life have sort of come together and brought me into this place—feels like a real blessing."

In 2015, QuakerSpeak talked with Randall Williams about his "Quaker Advocacy" class. Students attended a "Spring Lobby Weekend" set up by Friends Committee on National Legislation, learning effective lobbying techniques, then came back and prepared to meet with their senators and representatives.

"Why must I defend conscientious objection and convince good people of the evils of war and violence?" Andrew Gorby asks. "Violence lurking, stalking, and controlling: how many times do we need to hear the same version of death and war to understand the viciousness and inhumanity?"

Sarah Crabtree's Quaker, Whaler, Traitor, Spy! raises fundamental questions about the nature of history, the motivation of early Quakers, and how more than one truth can exist simultaneously.