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stuartkmasters.bsky.social
Teacher and writer on Quaker and Christian history, theology and spirituality. Author of 'The Rule of Christ: Themes in the Theology of James Nayler’ (Brill, 2021) and forthcoming 'Friends of Love and Truth: The Quaker Faith' (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025).
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Prolific Poster

Do you try to set aside times of quiet for openness to the Holy Spirit? Advices & Queries 3 (Britain Yearly Meeting)

If women are oppressed, the church cannot possible be “a visible manifestation that the gospel is a reality” – for the gospel cannot be real in that context. Jacquelyn Grant

We become what we love, and who we love shapes what we become. Clare of Assisi

Rich Mullins - Why do the nations rage?

We are called to live ‘in the virtue of that life and power that takes away the occasion of all wars’.

It’ll be ok, on the healing day When the tyrant is bound And the tortured freed from his pain And the lofty brought to the ground and the lowly raised. Bill Fay (1943-2025)

This is a time when we must listen to the prophets.

In different ways each of us has a calling, is being summoned, to put our talents, passion, and insights into planetary well-being. Ecology is not an extracurricular activity; rather, it must be the focus of one's work, the central hours of one's day, however that is spent. Sallie McFague

Nothing stands between the soul and God: not reason, virtue, good works, or even the sacraments. Marguerite Porete (14th Century Beguine)

Respect the laws of the state but let your first loyalty be to God’s purposes. If you feel impelled by strong conviction to break the law, search your conscience deeply. Ask your meeting for the prayerful support which will give you strength as a right way becomes clear. Advices & Queries 35 (BYM)

Being born against from a Peace Church perspective. Dying to the self-centered injustice and violence of Adam, and being born again into the self-giving justice and peace of Christ.

God allows himself to be humiliated and crucified in the Son, in order to free the oppressors and the oppressed from oppression and to open up to them the situation of free, sympathetic humanity. Jürgen Moltmann - The Crucified God

In God, there is no hostility or desire for retribution.

Take heed, dear Friends, to the promptings of love and truth in your hearts. Trust them as the leadings of God whose Light shows us our darkness and brings us to new life. Advices & Queries 1 (Britain Yearly Meeting)

The creative and subversive power of the Holy Spirit.

James Nayler describes his experience of the Spirit of Christ dwelling within him.

"Heaven is the divine dimension of reality" - Tom Wright.

Womanist religious scholars want to unearth the hidden voices in history, scripture, and the experiences of contemporary marginalized African American women to discover fragments that can create a narrative for the present and future. Monica A. Coleman

It is unfathomably ironic that the icon of human non-retaliation, Jesus’ cross, gets turned in the tradition into a supreme piece of vengeance in which God punishes Jesus in our place. Anthony Bartlett – Virtually Christian

The gospel, then, is not a message about the salvation of individuals from the world, but news about a world transfigured, right down to its basic structures. Walter Wink - The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium

Just as a little leaven, according to the Apostle’s words, is mixed with all the dough, so the body that was raised by God to immortality, once it is introduced into our body, wholly changes it and transforms it into his own substance. Gregory of Nyssa

The apostles’ hands are not free to kill. There is no justification for killing in the name of Jesus. Indeed they speak no curse. They conjure no evil force. They give themselves no right to take life. Such will never be given to the followers of Jesus. But there is violence. Willie James Jennings

If pressure is brought upon you to lower your standard of integrity, are you prepared to resist it? Our responsibilities to God and our neighbour may involve us in taking unpopular stands. Do not let the desire to be sociable, or the fear of seeming peculiar, determine your decisions. A&Q 38

Sadly, nothing seems to change.

…there are more churches than toilets, and one wonders how the people cope with the call of nature… There is a connection here in that…if cleanliness is next to godliness, then a religion that ignores the living conditions of its members is deficient. Esther Mombo (Kenyan Anglican-Quaker)

The basic issue, however, is not political. It is moral and spiritual… It has to do with the commandment that even as God in Christ loved us, so shall we love one another… In such a crisis as we experience in our land today, it daily crucifies our Lord anew. Bayard Rustin.

The duty of the church is to comfort the disturbed and to disturb the comfortable. Michael Ramsey.

For the real difference between happiness and joy is that one is grounded in this world, the other in eternity. Happiness cannot encompass suffering and evil. Joy can. Happiness depends on the present. Joy leaps into the future and triumphantly creates a new present out of it. Elise Boulding

If we all took only what was necessary to satisfy our own needs, giving the rest to those who lack, no one would be rich and no one would be poor. Basil the Great.

Seems relevant.

What does it mean to serve the least of these (Matt. 25:40)?

Advices and Queries number 2.

Christ is the artist, tenderly wiping away all the grime of sin that disfigures the human face and restoring God's image to its full beauty. St. Gregory of Nyssa

My feminism means daily affirming the full humanity and capabilities of women as part of God’s beloved creation. Jennifer Bailey

No one who is not a Christian in spirit can perform the Christian act; and the Sermon on the Mount is not a code of rules to be mechanically followed; it is the description of the life which any man will spontaneously lead when once the Spirit of Christ has taken complete possession of his heart.

May we look upon our treasures, and the furniture of our houses, and the garments in which we array ourselves, and try whether the seeds of war have nourishment in these our possessions, or not. John Woolman (1720-1772)

The quality of holiness is shown not by what we say but by what we do in life. St. Gregory of Nyssa.

The Spirit, then, is what interrupts the fallen worldly order and infuses it with the divine question, the divine lure, the divine life. Sarah Coakley - God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay 'On the Trinity'

The Seed, or Grace of God, is small in its first Appearance, even as the Morning Light; but as it is given Heed to, and obeyed, it will increase in Brightness, till it shine in the Soul, like the Sun in the Firmament at its Noon-day Height. Elizabeth Bathurst – Truth’s Vindicated (1679)

All theology knowingly or not is by definition always engaged for or against the oppressed. Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza

Humility is the only thing that no devil can imitate. St. John Climacus