Matt Rosen
On 11 August, there will be a Friday with Friends workshop on ‘Exploring Quaker Christianity’. This will be an evening to consider what Christianity meant for earlier generations of Friends and what it might mean for us today. Friends are invited to bring their questions, doubts, and uncertainties along with their faith and assurance. There will be plenty of space for all of it. The workshop will take place in the meeting house, 19:00 for 19:30pm. It will also be possible to join via the meeting for worship Zoom link. Please feel free to contact me with any questions, matt.rosen@new.ox.ac.uk. See below for a further description.
British Friends sometimes talk about Quakerism’s ‘Christian roots’. This may accurately capture the feeling of some of our meetings, yet it risks obscuring the particularity of Quaker understandings of Christianity and the ways in which they are still alive for us today. Most Quakers around the world are Christian, and Quaker Christianity differs in numerous ways from other forms of Christianity: for example, in its understandings of baptism, Christ’s saving work, the nature of sacraments, the place of the Bible, spiritual authority, pacifism, and worship. George Fox, one of the key founders of the Society of Friends, rarely spoke of ‘that of God in everyone’. More than anything else, he told people that ‘Christ has come to teach his people himself’.
Basically, everything distinctive about Quakerism – from our modes of worship and decision-making to our understandings of the authority of scripture, baptism, spiritual nurture, community, ministry, and communion – stems from early Friends’ sense that the risen Christ was present among them as their living Teacher, gathering them together.
This evening workshop will explore Quaker Christianity – what it meant for earlier generations of Friends, and what it might mean for us today. We will discuss the person and work of Jesus, the origins of Quaker practices and vocabulary, the beliefs that led early Friends to suffer greatly in prisons across Britain, and the state of Quaker Christianity around the world. There will also be time to reflect on what Christ means for us (if anything), how the Spirit is at work in our lives, and how this colours the ways we walk through the world as Friends.
This Month’s Forty-Three Newsletter Contents
- August 2023
- Love in Action for Oxford Meeting
- Oxford Quaker Meeting August Appeal: Peace Works Zimbabwe
- Hello
- August 11th Workshop – Exploring Quaker Christianity
- Welcoming and caring at 11 o’clock
- Oxford Open Doors Outreach Event 9 and 10 September 2023
- Communal Living at Penington Friends House
- From Quaker Faith and Practice 2.11
- Meetings for Worship August 2023
Back to August 2023 Newsletter Main Page
Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 532 • August 2023
Oxford Friends Meeting
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