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In England during the second half of the 17th century, God drew together an extraordinary movement of people united in a shared understanding of how to live with each other faithfully in truth and love, guided by the immediate revelation of God to their community. The Children of the Light or Publishers of Truth (as they called themselves) carried a prophetic vision of God’s hopes for how people can live with each other here on earth. That vision contrasted sharply with the values and assumptions of the established church, the state, and the economic system of the day.
That early Quaker movement looked and acted very differently from all the branches and variants of this Society of Friends today. In this course, we will do a deep dive into what that early Friends community was about, where and how Friends have departed from their faith and witness, and how Friends today might once again be a transformative prophetic force in the world around us capable of “shaking the earth for ten miles around”.
We will walk together with selected writings by early Quaker women and men and of modern Friends like Sandra Cronk, Thomas Kelly, Marcelle Martin, and Paul Buckley (whose 2018 book gave this course its title). All readings used are freely available to all Friends in the online Quaker library InwardLight.org.
Note: Although Peter is teaching this course, Paul Buckley, the author of the Primitive Quakerism Revived will be taking part in this course as an online guest participant. (The book can be read in full on the Inward Light website.)
For more information or to register go the event website at Pendle Hill.