Interview with Quaker theologian Ben Wood on Quaker studies, liberal politics, dual membership of Quakers and Druids, interfaith humility, prayer, and grace as a basis for hope and social action.
Lived Religion: Ben Wood
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Review: Don’t Forget We’re Here Forever by Lamorna Ash
Edward Nickell reviews Lamorna Ash’s Don’t Forget We’re Here Forever, in which she meets some sixty young Christian converts and reflects on her own search; he notes the claimed ‘quiet revival’ was retracted.
Committed to Love
Edward Owen describes living Franciscan vows as a Third Order tertiary: three aims, ways of service and notes, with love, simplicity, reconciliation and equality as ethical commitments, on the 800th anniversary of St Francis’s death.
Book Recommendations
Editors’ list of recommended 2026 books under headings: biblical study, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism and politics, including Stephen Batchelor, Nadeem Nassar, Molly Crabapple and Rowan Williams.
The Joys and Troubles of a Missionary Life: Jowett Murray in the China of 1909-1945
Review of David Murray’s book on his father Jowett Murray, a London Missionary Society missionary in China 1909-1945, praising its human narrative and its reflection on how cultures learn from one another.
Theological diversity: health or heresy
Final report to the 2003 AGM arguing that churches should allow more doctrinal diversity, drawing on a survey of heresy cases since 1900, theological arguments and the symbolic nature of religious language.
Resolution on doctrinal diversity (2003)
Records the resolution passed at the Network’s 2003 conference: members should explore faith openly, formal discipline is not an appropriate way to handle doctrinal diversity, and the Steering Committee should watch cases.
Doctrinal diversity – other case studies (Non-Roman Catholic and Non-American)
Case studies of heresy proceedings outside Rome and America, from Voysey in 1871 to Geering, Billington, Freeman and Furlong, mostly Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist clergy.
Doctrinal discipline in the Catholic Church
Describes how the Catholic Church disciplines doctrine through the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with recent cases including Balasuriya, Dupuis, de Mello, Haight, Collins and Morwood.
Doctrinal diversity – Background – Notes on American Heresy Cases Post-1900
Case notes on American heresy trials since 1900 in Reformed, Presbyterian and Baptist churches, including Briggs, McGiffert, Machen, Hick and several seminary dismissals.