Off and Traveling the Quaker-World-Wide

Tomorrow morning I leave for North Carolina to attend the Friends Association for Higher Education. FAHE is for all Quakers working in the field of education and so I will be attending largely as one interested in teaching Quaker theology and history. This year I am presenting with two other Quaker academics: Abigail Adams and Jeffery Dudiak. Abigail is a social scientist and Jeff is a philosopher. The workshop we are doing is called:Quakers and the Postmodern: Problems and Promises. For my part of the program, I will be presenting my ethnographic research on one “postmodern” Quaker meeting in order to give some concrete examples for what the other two presenters will have theory and explanations.

Then I will be driving with Jeff (and others?) to Barnesville, Ohio. It is the 50th anniversary of the Quaker Theological Discussion Group. It has been a group focused on keeping the academic backbone of Quakerism alive and is committed to strengthening the Christian legacy of our tradition. I will be among some of my own Quaker heroes and really look forward to this. I am also the respondent to Gerry Guiton’s (from Australia) paper called: The Kingdom of God, the Early Friends and the Future of Quakerism. It should be fun.

Then, after that’s all done, I will meet up with Emily and L, who are already in OH, and go and visit my family for a couple days before heading back to the West.