Friends Journal

10/24/2026

"Silence is where we must start to seek the kingdom of God."

Over at The Living Church, Jim Watkins considers what the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard has to say about how silence "helps us to live more deeply with ourselves, with God, and with our fellow human beings."

Long before the iPhone and Facebook, Kierkegaard wrote about a culture saturated with media. We face today a deep need for silence.

10/23/2026

Refusing to participate in war is one side of Quaker pacifism; developing alternatives to address international conflict is another. Friends Journal staff writer Sharlee DiMenichi examines how both strains have influenced the United Nations since its formation more than 80 years ago.

The Quaker influence on the United Nations.

10/22/2026

Amid the heroic narratives of success against the odds, Norah O’Donnell's We the Women also highlights the ways that “a more perfect union is still a work in progress.”

Norah O'Donnell celebrates the women who helped shape the United States over its 250-year history.

10/21/2026

"...for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish." (Ps 1:6)

Few people deliberately seek out the path that sinners tread, but our modern culture makes its temptations—attractiveness, popularity, money, power—virtually impossible to ignore. The treasures Empire promises us if we will only embrace its tenets, though, never last.

When we turn away from the darkness of this world, and live not to please mortals but to please God (1 Th 2:4), we’ll find ourselves able to truly flourish.

https://quaker.org/2026/10/19/the-lord-watches-over/

10/20/2026

Ellen Carol DuBois’s careful study of the difficult polarizing choices and alliances facing Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other nineteenth-century activists helped Abigail E. Adams understand better how the 1800s informed the Friends testimonies she holds high.

A new biography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton navigates the balance between her suffragist activism and her racism and commitment to eugenics.

10/19/2026

"I was raised a Friend," says Jack Tripp, "and I feel that there was something distinctly Quaker in the education I received before going off to college. Now, as a teacher, I want to perpetuate that ethos, but I struggle to define what it means to practice a Quaker pedagogy—especially considering that few of my colleagues and students are Friends."

A grad returning to teach reflects on the purpose of Friends schools.

10/18/2026

"Friends have always been very active in addressing our government and its rule," Marge Abbott said in this 2016 QuakerSpeak interview. "[They] have always had this sense that the Kingdom of God can be realized here on earth... that we can all share this earth together if we treat each other with respect."

Why do Quakers care about politics? We asked Marge Abbott and Noah Baker Merrill.

10/17/2026

"Marginalization and dehumanization are not compatible with rest, especially not with rest patterned after God’s resting at Creation," Monica L. Miller writes at Anabaptist World. "Understood this way, observing the Sabbath comes with a sprawling to-do list of social transformation until all can safely rest."

When anyone invokes the Ten Commandments in a conversation on politics, perhaps your skin crawls as much as mine does. That is, until I realized one commandment can topple Empire by itself: the fourth one. More specifically, both of the fourth ones.

10/16/2026

“Corporations are not people... They are robots.” 🤖💼

In this clip from the season finale of Quakers Today, Dov Baum (Director of the Action Center for Corporate Accountability at AFSC) challenges how we view corporations. They aren’t inherently “good” or “evil”—they are profit-maximizing machines. So, the question isn’t about their morals; it’s about how we use our collective power to ensure they do less harm.

Join hosts Peterson Toscano and Diana Yañez for the final episode of Season 6 as they explore how to move from individual financial guilt to targeted, collective action.

🎙️ Tap the link in bio to listen to the episode, or visit QuakersToday.org!
📖 Connect with Friends Journal at FriendsJournal.org

How does shifting your view of corporations from “people” to “machines” change how you think about economic activism? Share below! 👇

FriendsJournal FaithInAction SystemicChange

10/16/2026

Imagine: your photo was taken many years ago when you were a political prisoner during the war in South Vietnam. After the war, you were freed.

Fifty years later, you are stunned when a journalist comes to your village with some black-and-white photos and asks you if you can identify anyone in them. Your eyes fill with tears when your own face stares back at you from one of the pictures.

​​A Quaker antiwar activist’s documentation reconnects people decades later.