Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.
Look at any community's core of social justice activists, and there are likely to be Quakers in the ranks. RELIGION
Series will explore
Quaker faith and its
history of social activismThe Friends lectures
start next Saturday at the
Manoa meetinghouseMary Adamski
Star-BulletinFrom 1960s opposition to nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific, to the recent push for anti-harassment rules in public schools, to an ongoing lobby against gambling, there are members of the local Quaker organization involved.
"The basic belief among Friends is that there is something of God within everyone," said Doak Cox, a longtime member of the local Quaker congregation called the Honolulu Friends Meeting. "That being the case, one can't neglect the divine in other people and has to behave that way."
The history and beliefs of the international movement will be shared with anyone interested in a series of lectures to begin next Saturday at the Manoa meeting house. The talks, to continue through mid-March, will be free, with a $15 fee for study materials. Information is available by calling 988-2714.
The Religious Society of Friends was organized in the mid-1600s in England. It had conflicts with established hierarchical religions because of the basic belief that the Friends "have direct access to God without intermediaries," said Vern Bechill. "So it is a mystical religion, that individuals can have this kind of direct relationship with God." Bechill, former sociology and anthropology professor at Alma College in Michigan, is one of the series speakers.
Bechill said the social activism goes back to the very beginning, a time when women did not have basic rights in society. "If there is 'that of God' in every person, it's in women as well as men," he said. Practically speaking, women conducted their own church business and learned from it. "That's why we have a long history within the Friends of people active in the suffragette movement. Most of the leaders came out of a Quaker background.
"There is also a longtime interest in prison reform, in people who are mentally ill, in (abolishing) slavery.
"We are all sons and daughters of the Divine, so going to war is really fratricide," Bechill said. "Consequently, we have a long history opposed to war of any kind." But Quakers have served in medical or chaplaincy positions in the armed forces or taken alternative service as conscientious objectors.
The worshipping community's activist arm is the American Friends Service Committee, which in the islands has supported Hawaiian sovereignty issues.
The group will sponsor a celebration next Saturday marking the 19th-century Hawaiian patriotic movement. Tickets to the 6 p.m. event at Kapiolani Community College are $25 and $10 for students and those with a limited income.
Cox said not all Quakers are behind all activism. "I have been in disagreement with some of the more flagrant activism when it seems they do things by being opposed to other people. That I don't think is very Friendly."
Cox said he has doubts about promoting sovereignty. "Sovereignty is too much in the world. I'm more inclined to promote the cooperation between people rather than the independence and separation."
He said the American Friends Service Committee "has tried to provide a bridge among the splintered Hawaiian groups ... a forum and a place to meet that is regarded as neutral territory."
Hawaiian Islands Ministries is offering early-registration savings for delegates to its annual three-day conference of Christian seminars, speakers and worship events. Early registration rates
offered for Christian conferenceJan. 15 is the deadline to apply for special rates for the Honolulu 2001 conference, March 22-24 at the Hawaii Convention Center. The early-bird fee is $165 per person or $145 for individuals in a group of five or more. Several hotels will offer special rates for conference delegates, according to the organization.
Information is available by calling 988-9777, or online at himonline.org.
Star-Bulletin staff
