QuakerSpeak

10/24/2025

"Our mission at Beacon Hill Friends House," executive director Jennifer Newman explains, "is to embody the Quaker values... in order to nurture and call forth the Light in all of us."

Brent Walsh describes Beacon Hill, a group home in the center of Boston, as a place where residents can arrive "in their lowest moments of need and isolation [and] find a community that helps them push through those layers of dirt and reach for the sky, and become someone they didn't even know existed."

“Our mission at Beacon Hill Friends House,” executive director Jennifer Newman explains, “is to embody the Quaker values… in order…

10/17/2025

When you look at the data concerning "spiritual but not religious" people in the United States, Rashid Darden explained to us in 2023, you find many leaving Christianity entirely. It's a trend with which he's intimately familiar: "The Quaker faith was the last stop before I decided to not be religious at all."

Having found Friends, though, Rashid now spends much of his time as associate secretary for communications and outreach at Friends General Conference reflecting on how to connect with seekers outside the usual White, middle class Quaker demographic.

“George Fox, the Valiant Sixty… Whoever your favorite Quaker hero is, [they] did not do this work so it could…

10/11/2025

Kat Griffith tells us about some of her most personal experiences creating connections with others across political divides.

It’s easy to say there is that of God in everyone, she suggests, “but how often do we really believe it?” When she opens herself to really listen to other people, her understanding of this simple Quaker truth deepens.

Kat Griffith tells us about some of her most personal experiences creating connections with others across political divides. “There have…

10/08/2025

A new Quakers Today podcast is coming—Peterson and Sweet Miche are very excited to share environmental activist Eileen Flanagan's new book, Common Ground, with listeners! Keep an ear out for this episode debuting next week!

10/03/2025

"There’s this possible constitutional crisis coming down the pike," George Lakey said in the fall of 2020, when many in the United States feared Donald Trump might reject the results of the upcoming presidential election if he were not declared the winner.

Five years later, Lakey's Choose Democracy organization is still active, offering "practical actions and lessons from around the globe to fight authoritarians."

"There's this possible constitutional crisis coming down the pike," warns Quaker peace activist George Lakey.

09/30/2025

“Quaker faith to me is not just about doing good,” says Brent Bill, “it’s about being good so you can do good. And it’s hard to be an outward advocate of peace if we don’t have inward peace, if we’re not spiritually centered… it’s hard to project peace as a positive force on those we’d like to touch.”

“Quaker faith to me is not just about doing good,” says Brent Bill, “it’s about being good so you can do good. And it’s…

09/21/2025

"Violence is always a bad choice," John Calvi told QuakerSpeak back in 2014. "It just is. It not only makes a horrible mess at the time that it’s happening, but it leaves an even bigger mess after it’s been done... and it has reverberations for a long time. So a lot of compassionate work in the world is undoing the damage that has been done by violence."

09/14/2025

We recently traveled to Richmond, Indiana, to meet Renzo Carranza, the Friends Journal corresponding editor for Latin America and a graduate student at Earlham School of Religion. Renzo spoke with us about his affinity for liberation theology, which he first encountered as a seminarian in his native Guatemala, and the ways that he sees its "narrative of social justice" intersecting with Quaker testimonies.

We recently traveled to Richmond, Indiana, to meet Renzo Carranza, the Friends Journal corresponding editor for Latin America and a graduate student…

09/05/2025

When Betsey Kenworthy’s adult son suggested she and her husband downsize from their large home, maybe he thought they’d get an apartment in town. But Betsey wasn’t ready to settle down—so, she told us, they put the house up for sale, bought an RV, and were on the road in three months.

When Betsey Kenworthy’s adult son suggested that she and her husband downsize from their large home, maybe he thought they’d…

08/29/2025

Last year, we spoke with Rania Maayeh, the head of Ramallah Friends School in Palestine, and Omar Tesdell, the clerk of its board of trustees. Founded in 1869 by two Quaker missionaries, the school has carried on through two world wars and several transitions of power in the region, from Ottoman rule to British administration, Jordanian governance, and Israeli occupation.

Earlier this week, Israeli military forces conducted a raid on the city of Ramallah, extremely close to the school's campus.

Ramallah Friends School was founded in 1869 by two Friends from New England, when Palestine was still under the rule…

08/22/2025

When we interviewed Sara in 2020, she talked about how "my religious experience has been a coming into and out of Quakerism my whole life." As a theater major in college, she found "the theater-making process was really a way into understanding other people and in telling stories, and it felt spiritual; it felt like an extended worship sharing sometimes."

“There is a lot of storytelling and a lot of theater-building in what we do as Quakers... We just don't call it that.”

08/19/2025

"Quakerism started as a revival or renewal process for Christianity at a time when some folks were feeling like the existing church wasn't possible to reform," Jade Rockwell, a pastor at West Elkton Friends Meeting in Ohio, reminds us.

Quakers today are "living in a time when we can see inaction is risky," she continues. "If we're not able to respond to our world, bad things can happen. And we may be morally responsbile if we aren't able to be responsive and active."

“Quakerism started as a revival or renewal process for Christianity at a time when some folks were feeling like the…