The Spirit of the Quakers

The Spirit of the Quakers PDF

Author: Geoffrey Durham

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2010-11-16

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 0300167369

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Who are the Quakers, what do they believe, and what do they practice? The Religious Society of Friends—also known as Quakers-—believes that everyone can have a direct experience of God. Quakers express this in a unique form of worship that inspires them to work for change in themselves and in the world. In The Spirit of the Quakers, Geoffrey Durham, himself a Friend, explains Quakerism through quotations from writings that cover 350 years, from the beginnings of the movement to the present day. Peace and equality are major themes in the book, but readers will also find thought-provoking passages on the importance of action for social change, the primacy of truth, the value of simplicity, the need for a sense of community, and much more. The quoted texts convey a powerful religious impulse, courage in the face of persecution, the warmth of human relationships, and dedicated perseverance in promoting just causes. The extended quotations have been carefully selected from well-known Quakers such as George Fox, William Penn, John Greenleaf Whittier, Elizabeth Fry and John Woolman, as well as many contemporary Friends. Together with Geoffrey Durham's enlightening and sympathetic introductions to the texts, the extracts from these writers form an engaging, often moving guide to this accessible and open-hearted religious faith.

How God Becomes Real

How God Becomes Real PDF

Author: T.M. Luhrmann

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2020-10-27

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0691211981

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The hard work required to make God real, how it changes the people who do it, and why it helps explain the enduring power of faith How do gods and spirits come to feel vividly real to people—as if they were standing right next to them? Humans tend to see supernatural agents everywhere, as the cognitive science of religion has shown. But it isn’t easy to maintain a sense that there are invisible spirits who care about you. In How God Becomes Real, acclaimed anthropologist and scholar of religion T. M. Luhrmann argues that people must work incredibly hard to make gods real and that this effort—by changing the people who do it and giving them the benefits they seek from invisible others—helps to explain the enduring power of faith. Drawing on ethnographic studies of evangelical Christians, pagans, magicians, Zoroastrians, Black Catholics, Santeria initiates, and newly orthodox Jews, Luhrmann notes that none of these people behave as if gods and spirits are simply there. Rather, these worshippers make strenuous efforts to create a world in which invisible others matter and can become intensely present and real. The faithful accomplish this through detailed stories, absorption, the cultivation of inner senses, belief in a porous mind, strong sensory experiences, prayer, and other practices. Along the way, Luhrmann shows why faith is harder than belief, why prayer is a metacognitive activity like therapy, why becoming religious is like getting engrossed in a book, and much more. A fascinating account of why religious practices are more powerful than religious beliefs, How God Becomes Real suggests that faith is resilient not because it provides intuitions about gods and spirits—but because it changes the faithful in profound ways.

The Fragmentation of the Church and Its Unity in Peacemaking

The Fragmentation of the Church and Its Unity in Peacemaking PDF

Author: Jeffrey Gros

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 0802847455

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The Gospel Places Peacemaking at the center of Christian identity. Over the centuries, however, churches have divided over the role and place of the peacemaking imperative in their lives and teachings. This volume offers deep ecumenical discussion of the relationship of the church to its peacemaking mission from the standpoints of history and the contemporary context. Contributors representing ten major faith traditions -- Lois Y. Barrett, Alexander Brunett, Murray W. Dempster, Donald F. Durnbaugh, John H. Erickson, Eric W. Gritsch, Jeffrey Gros, Paul Meyendorff, Lauree Hersch Meyer, Thomas H. Olbricht, Thomas D. Paxson Jr., James F. Puglisi, John D. Rempel, Alan P. F. Sell, and Glen H. Stassen -- address this crucial topic from the perspective of their own churches and explore paths that could lead to the reconciliation of existing differences.

Advices & Queries

Advices & Queries PDF

Author: Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia

Publisher: Interactive Publications Pty Ltd

Published: 2015-07-01

Total Pages: 20

ISBN-13: 0975157965

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Advices and queries designed to challenge and inspire Australian Quakers in their personal lives and in their life as a religious community.

The Quick and the Dead

The Quick and the Dead PDF

Author: Andrew Gordon

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2004-11-01

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 9047404165

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A cross-disciplinary approach suggesting that the origin of ancient Egyptian medicine began with the domestication of cattle in Africa and the attempt to control disease. With the sacrifice of these animals, the Egyptians began to understand anatomy and physiology, which they then applied to humans.

Our Life Is Love

Our Life Is Love PDF

Author: Marcelle Martin

Publisher:

Published: 2016-02-19

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 9780997060409

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Our Life is Love describes the transformational spiritual journey of the first Quakers, who turned to the Light of Christ within and allowed it to be their guide. Many Friends today use different language, but are still called to make the same journey. In our time people seeking deeper access to the profound teachings of Christianity want more than just beliefs, they want direct experience. Focusing on ten elements of the spiritual journey, this book is a guide to a Spirit-filled life that affects this world. Quakers in the seventeenth century and today provide examples of people and communities living in the midst of the world whose radical understanding of Christ's teachings led them to become powerful agents of social change. The book offers a simple, clear explanation of the spiritual journey that is suitable not only for Quakers, but for all Christians, and for seekers wanting to better understand our spiritual experience and the fullness of God's call to us. The book would make an excellent focus for study groups. Marcelle Martin has led workshops at retreat centers and Quaker meetings across the United States. She served for four years as the resident Quaker Studies teacher at Pendle Hill and was a core teacher in the School of the Spirit program, The Way of Ministry. She is the author of the Pendle Hill pamphlets Invitation to a Deeper Communion and Holding One Another in the Light. In 2013 she was the Mullen Writing Fellow at Earlham School of Religion while working on this book.

Celebration of Discipline

Celebration of Discipline PDF

Author: Richard J. Foster

Publisher: Zondervan

Published: 1988-10-05

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 0060628391

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In the twenty years since its publication, Celebration of Discipline has helped over a million seekers discover a richer spiritual life infused with joy, peace, and a deeper understanding of God. For this special twentieth anniversary edition, Richard J. Foster has added an introduction, in which he shares the story of how this beloved and enduring spiritual guidebook came to be. Hailed by many as the best modern book on Christian spirituality, Celebration of Discipline explores the "classic Disciplines," or central spiritual practices, of the Christian faith. Along the way, Foster shows that it is only by and through these practices that the true path to spiritual growth can be found. Dividing the Disciplines into three movements of the Spirit, Foster shows how each of these areas contribute to a balanced spiritual life. The inward Disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, and study, offer avenues of personal examination and change. The outward Disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission, and service, help prepare us to make the world a better place. The corporate Disciplines of confession, worship, guidance, and celebration, bring us nearer to one another and to God. Foster provides a wealth of examples demonstrating how these Disciplines can become part of our daily activities-and how they can help us shed our superficial habits and "bring the abundance of God into our lives." He offers crucial new insights on simplicity, demonstrating how the biblical view of simplicity, properly understood and applied, brings joy and balance to our inward and outward lives and "sets us free to enjoy the provision of God as a gift that can be shared with others." The discussion of celebration, often the most neglected of the Disciplines, shows its critical importance, for it stands at the heart of the way to Christ. Celebration of Discipline will help motivate Christians everywhere to embark on a journey of prayer and spiritual growth.