At first sight, a book about a Christian minister’s engagement with Islam might appear to have limited value to the non-religious reader.
However, I believe, this book has something to teach all of us working for peace and justice. And in these times when the nature of Islam is so misrepresented and misunderstood, Ray Gaston’s story is little short of revolutionary.
This book is part-autobiography, as we follow Ray on his path to a greater understanding of Islam, and part-…
Tripp York has tried to remove the academic discourse from his dusted-off master’s essay to turn it into a readable book. This means the book is now short enough to read in one sitting, but limits both the breadth of discovery and the ability to argue a point.
However, York’s definition of Christian anarchism is carefully explained and argued and as good as any one might read from Vernard Eller (a member of the Church of the Brethren and author of Christian Anarchy: Jesus’ Primacy…
In 2004 a group of fundamentalist Christians sitting on a school board in Dover, Pennsylvania, voted to make their students “aware of… other theories of evolution, including, but not limited to, intelligent design” – creationism’s latest Trojan horse.
Eleven committed parents – including a Girl Scout leader, a devout Catholic and a physics teacher who taught summer Bible school – decided to take a stand, and sued the board for violation of their first amendment rights (“separation of…
The idea began at the Friends Meeting House in Taunton in 1981. 11-year-old Jonathan Stocks felt that the room where they held the children’s meeting needed cheering up. He discussed it with their teacher, Anne Wynn-Wilson. They needed pictures. Why not a history of Quakerism in collage or mosaic? Or embroidery?
Anne was a professional embroiderer. She had recently completed a study of the Bayeux Tapestry, which is not really a tapestry but a 70-metre-long strip of linen embroidered…
Braving adverse weather conditions, more than 370 Christians gathered in Swanwick, Derbyshire for the annual National Network of Justice and Peace conference, “Called to be Peacemakers - Who Me?”
For the first time the conference was organised ecumenically in partnership with the Fellowship of Reconciliation and Pax Christi.
Young and old, newcomers and seasoned conference goers took part in a full programme that offered stimulating talks, workshops on peacemaking, liturgy…
On 26 July, Shambo, a temple bull from Skanda Vale Hindu community near Carmarthen, was taken for slaughter by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), after testing positive for tuberculosis.
Sanjay Mistry from the Hindu Forum of Britain explains that the case was not a clash between western scientific and eastern mystical worlds.
The slaughter of Shambo high- lights a number of ethical dilemmas around nonviolence, veganism and animal rights as…
All morning my mind was flowing with thoughts about the Westminster Interfaith Pilgrimage my parents had told me about. Thoughts such as; `What will I learn out of it? What was going to happen? Why were people doing this?' I managed to answer these questions with not too much difficulty! I learnt about different religions. We walked four miles from church to church. People did it to find out about other religions. My favourite part of the pilgrimage was the train journey back home, not only…
The white poppy and red poppy debate continues here in Stroud but it's pointed me in an unexpected direction. The local Green Party (of which I'm not a member - or of any political party come to that) hosts occasional meetings/debates in a local cafe', and in January I was asked to talk about red and white poppies. This I was happy to do but was surprised to have been asked.
The subject of the evening was culture, identity, and difference and three Muslim women from Gloucester - and…
Once upon a time there were far more political bookshops around the country than the handful left today, including several right in the heart of central London's bookselling zone around Charing Cross Road. These shops were very convenient to help the Met Police's Special Branch keep track of things - they could (and did) short-circuit a lot of research into the political scene by simply strolling up the road and buying armfuls of the radical papers and magazines on sale.
But the…
The campaign to stop the next generation of nuclear weapons has received a lot of support - in particular from faith communities. From the Vatican to the local Friends Meeting House, calls to prevent Trident replacement can be heard, and many are choosing to turn their faith into action.
Every month outside the gates of AWE Aldermaston, worshippers hold a multi-faith vigil to remember those affected by acts of aggression and to renew their commitment to non-violently campaigning…
Reverend Michael Scott, once an iconic figure in the campaigns for racial justice, colonial freedom and nuclear disarmament, is now largely forgotten. Anne Yates and Lewis Chester's The Troublemaker: Michael Scott and his Lonely Struggle Against Injustice, should go some way to ending the neglect of this quiet, introspective yet determined pioneer of nonviolent direct action.
Born into a clerical family in Sussex in 1907, Scott was ordained in Britain as an Anglican priest in 1930…
Spirited Living is an essay written from the 2004 Swarthmore Lecture in which Simon Fisher, an experienced peace worker, lends a personal viewpoint to a call for Quakers to become more actively involved in peace activism or conflict transformation.
From the first chapter, the current status of the overall Quaker movement is challenged. It is represented as a somewhat confused and benign force in the global peace movement. The brief history of the Quakers given, including…
One of the most disturbing features of the recent commemoration for the people who were killed in the London bombings on 7 July was that the event was specifically a religious service.
It's bad enough that public events of that sort are so frequently sectarian in this way, hence excluding so many people - including many of those affected, whom the event is allegedly for. But in this case, it was even more inappropriate: here was an example of mass murder, with the perpetrators…
Twenty-five years ago, on the green slope overlooking Willen Lake in Milton Keynes, the foundation stone was laid of the first Peace Pagoda in the Western Hemisphere.
It was laid by the Most Venerable Nichidatsu Fuj
World leaders could benefit from this simple parable set in North India. “The transformation of a terrorist into a Buddha still inspires hope that even the terrorists today - whether stateless murderers on the run or leaders of governments - can face
