The Friend is a weekly magazine in which Friends speak to each other and to the wider world, offering their insight, ideas, news, nurture and inspiration.
Nurturing Quaker community, each issue offers a space for Friends to share their concerns, and to support each other in faith and witness.
The Friend: enriching, inspiring and connecting the Quaker community since 1843.
When recently I gave a short talk on Rufus Jones to Lewes Friends, it became clear, although unsurprising, that few knew of him. Yet Jones’s influence on British Quakerism is profound – arguably as much as that of George Fox (of whom he was a learned interpreter). I think this really matters.
Morning worship opened with a reading from Quaker faith & practice (6.03). One Friend offered ministry that ‘we live in an exceptionally noisy world… may we be led to that still centre where the leadings of spirit may guide us into discernment’.
Friends are perhaps uniquely placed among people-of-faith-and-none to declare that the bottom line in theology nowadays is consciousness, consciousness, consciousness. Individual consciousness – invisible, unquantifiable, numinous – is the site and epoch of encounter with reality, of resolution and evaluation, of impotence and mystery. Philosopher of the religious sensibility, Iris Murdoch writes passionately: ‘The volatile variegated force, the ever-flowing energy, the temporal pressure, the unfailing presence of what we call “the stream of consciousness” – surely this is something fundamental, surely if we are searching for “being” this is it?’
‘From 26 to 28 June 2026, 36 Friends and 3 Facilitators gathered at The Hayes, Derbyshire for a Gathering Retreat for LGBTQIA+ Quakers and allies, and 3 Friends joined online for hybrid business sessions. This event was run as a partnership between Quaker Voluntary Action and Quaker Rainbow and aimed to build community, explore spirituality through a queer lens, and discern the future of the LGBTQIA+ Quaker community. The event was planned by a joint team of QVA and Quaker Rainbow members consisting of Kit King, QVA’s Coordinator, and Juno Lee, John Bracegirdle, and Kes Ward, Quaker Rainbow’s Residential Planning Group.
White square of light
and green illuminated leaves
floating in the window.
You are reading.
Become a subscriber to enjoy unlimited access to our articles, dating back to 2009! Online subscribers get the Friend to their inbox each week, can comment on articles, and dive into our 1914-18 digital archive too!
Whether you are new to Quakerism or have been going to Meeting for years, you’ll find something here to inspire, inform and challenge you.
News | Views | Reviews
Written by and for Friends on the bench
Subscribe