Nontheist Friends » Reports

Minute from FGC workshop, 2009

Os Cresson — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 14:47:44 +0000

MINUTE of the workshop on “Quaker Identity and the Heart of our Faith” at the FGC Gathering, Blacksburg VA, July 2009 28 Friends (26 from USA and one each from Britain and Canada) have participated in this workshop. We have met together on six successive mornings from June 28 to July 3 2009 to tackle [...]

Nontheism Among Friends at Powell House, January 2-4, 2009

Robin Alpern — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 01:08:39 +0000

One person attended because of the laughter from the nontheism workshop at the Friends General Conference Gathering. Another came because a fellow Meeting member who attended in 2007 was so impressed. A third signed up because he questioned whether Quakers could be nontheist. A teenager brought her dad.

Zach Alexander (Cambridge MM, NEYM) and I, co-leaders for this weekend, met for the first time at the 2008 FGC Gathering, 5 minutes before we were scheduled to facilitate an interest group together. The interest group went well, and we agreed to pair up again.

Nontheism among Friends at Powell House – report

Zach Alexander — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:50:58 +0000

"If you think Richard Dawkins is too easy on religion, go down to that end of the room," I said, indicating the steps up to the bookstore. "And if you..." "Careful..." someone said. And I was. There were several believers-in-God present – the exact number depending on your definition – and I didn't want to make a joke that might be taken the wrong way. "If you're, uh... very theistic, go down to the other end," I finished, indicating the fireplace. "And if you're somewhere in between, go somewhere in between."

The Theist-Nontheist Conversational Smackdown of 2008

Zach Alexander — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:04:33 +0000

At Friends General Conference earlier this month, in addition to Robin Alpern and David Boulton's workshop on nontheist Friends and discernment (previously posted here), there were a number of one-off scheduled events at the "Nontheist Friends Center," on topics like nontheistic spirituality and theological diversity. And in addition to those, three or four more events were arranged on-site to meet what seemed like a demand for them. I might be forgetting any that happened earlier in the week before I arrived, but Wednesday afternoon there was a meeting for worship, followed by a screening of a film about Gerrard Winstanley, who according to some was the first Quaker nontheist. And on Thursday, Chuck Fager arranged the following ~~debate~~ conversation between himself and David Boulton, complete with lurid posters billing it "The Theist-Nontheist Conversational Smackdown of 2008" and promising "thrills, chills and (nonviolent) spills," if memory serves. The questions they discussed were "Are Quakers a chosen people?" and "Is David Boulton a closet theist?" Thanks perhaps to the posters, it took place before a packed-out room of about 110 people, with a number of (un-chosen?) people listening in the hall. Click the green "play" arrow below to hear my recording of the event, or click here to download the mp3 file, and look under the cut for another photo and a thought.

(By the way, David's opening joke refers to the poster, which described the participants as Chuck "Without Apology" Fager and David "The Trouble with God" Boulton.)

Report on the Nontheist Friends interest group at New England Yearly Meeting

Zach Alexander — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 15:03:02 +0000

There was a moment at one point where the "interested theist" Friend expressed some misgivings about his certainty of God's existence, but then said that he was in his nineties, and without much time to engage in speculation -- and he won't have to wait long to find out firsthand anyway. He ended by saying, "I wouldn't be surprised either way." "One way it's hard to be surprised," joked another, and we had a little laugh. ...

Reflections on a Decade of Nontheism Workshops

Robin Alpern — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 03:21:40 +0000

In 1996, Bowen Alpern, Glenn Mallison and I designed and presented a workshop called “Nontheism Among Friends” at the Friends General Conference Gathering. Since then, various people have led the workshop and offshoots from it. I have led seven so far. This year, I was particularly aware of some ways the culture of the Religious [...]

Powell House Nontheism Among Friends

Robin Alpern — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 16:29:05 +0000

The �Nontheism Among Friends� workshop was originally designed and led by Bowen Alpern (Scarsdale Meeting), the late Glenn Mallison (Ithaca Meeting), and myself (Scarsdale Meeting), at the Friends General Conference Gathering in 1996. Twenty years previously, Robert Morgan (PYM) had led a �Workshop for Nontheistic Friends� at the FGC Gathering; so far there has been no trace of any follow-up. The 1996 workshop was taken up by other leaders, and has been offered ever since at the Gathering. Many Friends have led similar conferences at Woodbrooke Study Center in England, Pendle Hill, and at their Monthly and Yearly Meetings.

Report from Nontheistic Friends’ Workshop at FGC 1976

Workshop for Non-Theistic Friends — Sun, 03 Jul 2005 02:26:22 +0000

Friends General Conference, Ithaca, New York, June, 1976 The fifteen to twenty of us who joined this workshop did so out of the need to share ideas with others who are searching for an authentic personal religious framework. The lack of an adequate religious vocabulary which could be used as an alternative to traditional concepts [...]

Greetings from Woodbrooke, 2004

Os Cresson — Sun, 11 Jan 2004 14:37:05 +0000

To Friends everywhere: Greetings from thirty-seven British and American Friends gathered at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre on January 9th to 11th, 2004, for a workshop titled, “Beyond Universalism: The Experience and Understanding of Nontheism in Contemporary Quakerism.” During deep and fruitful sessions of worship and discussion we found a great variety in the paths that [...]