Nontheist Friends

What Next for Quaker Nontheism? Feb. 18-20 workshop at Woodbrooke, UK

James Riemermann — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 15:49:57 +0000

Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre Birmingham, England, UK Friday, February 18 to Sunday, Feb. 20 On the fifth anniversary of the publication of Godless for God’s Sake, Miriam Yagud and David Boulton invite Friends who are uneasy with supernaturalism to share their experience of what it means to be a humanist, atheist or agnostic in our [...]

One nontheist’s understanding of “the light” of Quakerism

James Riemermann — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:51:27 +0000

To seek to live in the light is essentially a value, a principle of living, rather than a belief. We need no theology, nor even a particular conception of “the light” as a distinct quality, in order to seek to live by it. Perhaps it would help me to clarify my point, if I described my own quirky, incomplete, and mostly psychological sense of where “the light” comes from

Chanticleer’s Call: Religion as a Naturalist Views It

Os Cresson — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:00:38 +0000

(from Godless for God’s Sake: Nontheism in Contemporary Quakerism, David Boulton ed., Dent UK: Dales Historical Monographs, 2006, pp. 43-48; available at quakerbooks.org) We move. Sometimes we are moved and sometimes it results from our earlier movements. Some movements are private, only noticeable to the person moving. Some barely feel like motion. Talking and remembering [...]

Henry Joel Cadbury: No Assurance of God or Immortality, With Added Notes

Os Cresson — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 03:29:20 +0000

What follows is a biographical essay about Henry Cadbury plus notes that are mainly excerpts from his writings. The essay, without notes, is in “Godless for God’s Sake: Nontheism in Contemporary Quakerism” edited by David Boulton, published in 2006 by Dales Historical Monographs (ISBN 0-9511578-6-8). That book is available from the publisher (Hobsons Farm, Dent, Cumbria LA10 5RF, [...]

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 [...]

On Quaker Unity

Os Cresson — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 01:55:17 +0000

Unity during meeting for worship for attention to business is familiar to Quakers. It is a commitment to move forward together and, significantly, it does not mean we have to hold the same views. This method of doing business has long been characteristic of Quakers.

Intellect and Spirituality

James Riemermann — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:27:28 +0000

...I don’t mean that everyone should engage in or care about this kind of intellectual wrestling, and I certainly don’t mean that our worship should become intellectual debate or performance–yuck. But the widespread fear of and distaste for intellect, as if the search for understanding could possibly be a bad thing, does not serve us well...

Waking up Dead

Peter Schogol — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:11:53 +0000

I don’t recall the first time I woke up dead, having done so many times since. Each time feels like the first time, so maybe it’s an ongoing thing — waking up dead. There are days when I wake up fully alive, and those are the cruelest of all. Those are the days when I [...]

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.

A Different Understanding of Scripture

James Riemermann — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 15:21:54 +0000

My friend Nat Case, from my own Twin Cities Friends Meeting, has a blog I hadn't paid much attention to until a month or two ago. I don't know how much of my inattention is because I hadn't noticed how smartly provocative his writing is, and how much is because, as a cartographer, he's been writing less for a mapmaking audience lately, and more for Quakers and other people who question the meaning of religion. People like me. This post expands on a brief comment I made on his post Fragments of a Religion That Never Existed, where Nat writes in part:

"What I'm interested in here is the idea of scripture not defined by its innate qualities (e.g. dictated by God), but by its functional qualities. What does scripture do? I find scripture-as-community-glue interesting, but my sympathies lie with scriptures-taken-to-heart. I do have a series of books, passages from books, poems, some formal religious texts, ballads, and films that form what I believe is similar to the sort of scripture-taken-to-heart that orthodox folk might have. Except I do not have a community that draws from the same set of texts."

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."

Learning to love and accept “Quatheists” (Nontheist Friends) at Powell House

Rik Panganiban — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 15:06:39 +0000

For three days I have been at the beautiful Powell House Quaker retreat center, up in Old Chatham, New York. I have been attending a workshop on “nontheist Quakers” led by Robin Alpern and Zach Alexander with about 16 other Quakers from around the northeast area.

Nontheism Among Friends – Workshop at Powell House

Nontheist Friends — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:05:23 +0000

Facilitated by Robin Alpern and Zach Alexander January 2-4, 2009 Please join us as we explore the faith and practice of Quaker nontheists and the richness of a spiritual life not necessarily dependent on belief in God. Friends have become increasingly aware of the theological diversity of our Religious Society–a large proportion of our Society [...]

A poem

Zach Alexander — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 03:37:48 +0000

In the Secular Night

In the secular night you wander around alone in your house. It's two-thirty. Everyone has deserted you, or this is your story; you remember it from being sixteen, when the others were out somewhere, having a good time, or so you suspected, and you had to baby-sit. [...]

Two cheers for Quaker history

James Riemermann — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 16:30:12 +0000

A Friend on the nontheist Friends e-mail discussion list at some point challenged us to seriously study early Quaker history, and not just dip into it, “to develop our knowledge of and insights into the origins and development of the tradition or movement we have committed to.” Good advice, no question. And yet I felt [...]