Good and Evil: Quaker Perspectives

by Jackie Leach Scully, Pink Dandelion

Overview

In this multi-disciplinary collection we ask the question, 'What did, and do, Quakers think about good and evil?' There are no simple or straightforwardly uniform answers to this, but in this collection, we draw together contributions that for the first time look at historical and contemporary Quakerdom's approach to the ethical and theological problem of evil and good.

Within Quakerism can be found Liberal, Conservative, and Evangelical forms. This book uncovers the complex development of metaethical thought by a religious group that has evolved with an unusual degree of diversity. In doing so, it also points beyond the boundaries of the Religious Society of Friends to engage with the spectrum of thinking in the wider religious world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781409477563
Publisher:	Ashgate Publishing Ltd
Publication date:	05/28/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Jackie Leach Scully is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Newcastle University, UK, and Senior Research Associate at the Unit for Ethics in the Biosciences, University of Basel, Switzerland. She has been a Joseph Rowntree Quaker Fellow, and gave the Swarthmore Lecture Playing in the Presence: Genetics, Ethics and Spirituality to Britain Yearly Meeting in 2002. She is the author of Quaker Approaches to Moral Issues in Genetics (2002) and is currently working on a book on ethics and disability.

Pink Dandelion is Honorary Professor in Quaker Studies, University of Birmingham, and Programmes Leader, Centre for Postgraduate Quaker Studies, Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre and the University of Birmingham. He is also Editor, Quaker Studies, and Convenor, Quaker Studies Research Association.

Pink Dandelion, Paul Anderson, Douglas Gwyn, Carole Dale Spencer, Hugh Pyper, Mike Heller, Margery Post Abbott, Deborah Shaw, Johan Maurer, David L. Johns, Phil Smith, Corey Beals, William Joliff, Janet Scott, Rachel Muers, David Boulton, Rex Ambler, Arthur O. Roberts, Jackie Leach Scully.

Table of Contents

Contents: Part I Introductory section: Introduction, Pink Dandelion; Continuing revelation - gospel or heresy?, Paul Anderson. Part II Historical Perspectives: George Fox's witness regarding good and evil, Douglas Gwyn; Early Quakers and divine liberation from the universal power of sin, Carole Dale Spencer; Beyond depravity: good and evil in the thought of Robert Barclay, Hugh Pyper; John Woolman and good and evil, Mike Heller. Part III Present-Day Perspectives: Mental illness, ignorance or sin? perceptions of modern liberal Friends, Margery Post Abbott; Giving thanks to God in all things: good and evil in conservative Quaker experience, Deborah Shaw; The publishers of truth and the enemy of truth: evangelical Friends consider good and evil, Johan Maurer. Part IV Contemporary Reflections on Good and Evil: A people of unclean lips: reclaiming an anthropology of complexity, David L. Johns; Quakers and coercion in a world of good and evil, Phil Smith; Evil: the presence of absence, Corey Beals; Driven by darkness, drawn by light: the progression of faith in the poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier, William Joliff; Good and evil in an ecumenical perspective, Janet Scott; 'It is worse to be evil than to do evil': Dietrich Bonhoeffer's challenge to the Quaker conscience, Rachel Muers; Looking within: a nontheist perspective, David Boulton; Darkness and light, Rex Ambler. Part V Towards Paradigms of Quaker Approaches to Good and Evil: Good and evil: an epistemological paradigm, Arthur O. Roberts; The secular ethics of liberal Quakerism, Jackie Leach Scully; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

’... the contributors certainly achieve what they set out to do: this is to look at both historical and contemporary approaches to ideas about good and evil, from a purely Quaker perspective.’ The Friend

From the Publisher