Mark D Russ

Our Queer Quaker worship tonight had 30 attenders. 30! The ministry of the ever-expanding circle of chairs filled the room.

It was an exploration of spiritual voice. It was hope-giving.

It was the cast of a Doc Martens and Converse collab post.

Medieval Gender and Sexuality An introduction to conceptions of gender and sexuality in the medieval period. Each week historian Eleanor Janega discusses the philosophical and societal underpinnings that shaped culture and relatio...

My medieval gender and sexuality online courses is starting up again next week, and we have a couple spaces left if you want to come nerd out with me for six weeks.
share.google/Ye4kTijsrYee...

I accept that there are multiple Christianities, including Christianities which are death dealing. I'm not arguing for a "pure" tradition. However, as a gay Christian who has had to deal with many a Christian homophobe, I'm not taking responsibility for queerphobic Christianity. 2/

I think the idea that "All Christians need to accept the worst forms of Christianity as part of their tradition, and take responsibility for these forms" is problematic as it treats Christianity as plural but treats Christians as a monolith. 1/

Just finished teaching on the erotic and Christian spirituality with @cosmichope.bsky.social for @woodbrooke.bsky.social. One participant said that learning about the erotic tradition in Christian mysticism was liberating, which is just what I want to hear. God loves bodies!

#OwlishMonday Not so much bats in the belfry but owls on the architecture of the beautiful Santa Maria de Santes Creus a Cistercian Monastery in Catalonia, Spain. The building has stood on the site since the 11th century & is now open to visitors.

Even Now the Ax Is Lying at the Root of the Trees The Bible Study column runs four times a year in the February, May, August, and November issues.

“I had no slight esteem of the holy scriptures,” George Fox wrote in his Journal, “but they were very precious to me, for I was in that spirit by which they were given forth, & what the Lord opened in me I later found was agreeable to them.”

Join us for another round of Friends Journal Bible Study!

Pause For Thought - Mark Russ: "The spirit of love and truth" - BBC Sounds Mark Russ on this week's theme 'Fasting'.

Presented my 3rd Pause for Thought of the month on BBC Radio 2, this time on fasting. Quakers don't have a corporate practice of fasting, but we do have a practice of simplicity. #Quaker #theology #spirituality
@quaker.org.uk www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

For fifty years, Latin America's big religious story was straightforward: Catholics were becoming Pentecostals. But recent data suggests things have changed. Catholicism continues to decline, but the recent beneficiary may not be Protestantism, but the religiously unaffiliated. 1/7

I'm not sure that enough people know about the St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology. Remarkable Open Access resource
www.saet.ac.uk

Again reminding people that until very recently 'same sex attraction' was a term you only really found in conservative Christian circles as a way to mark people 'struggling with same sex attraction' as something different and better than 'gay people'

Likewise! ❤️

Freedom of movement and expression with queer bodies. Minds and souls, queerer still. This is anti-fascism. This is punk.

Queer nightlife isn't something that I ever thought was for me, but holy shit is this healing and freeing 😩

This is such a joyous thing to read. When everything aligns, the ecstasy of those spaces is like nothing else. 💜

Friends, some new places have been added to the website. There's still time to sign up before Monday evening. 🕯

Truth will not lose ground by being tried.

Isaac Penington (1616-1679)

A man being dragged off by two police officers.

This is a picture of South Wales Police breaking the law. Palestine Action ban was unlawful.

A seminar room. Mark, the presenter, is standing on the right in a blue and white shirt. On the left is a screen with a PowerPoint slide reading "Quaking in the Spirit of God, exorcising the spirit of Whiteness" with an image of a dark crack in a whitewashed stone wall.

I had the pleasure of presenting at the Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership Research Festival. I offered an extract from the final chapter of my PhD thesis, talking about quaking, God's judgment, Whiteness, and shame. #quaker #theology
#PhD #PhDsky #PhDlife

Reform politicians are happy to throw insults from a distance.

But when it comes to debating their ideas? No show.

Richard Tice pulled out.
Farage won’t face me.
Now their candidate in Gorton & Denton has ducked our candidate Hannah Spencer.

Vote Green.

The image includes the quotation below on a light green background, along with a picture of "The Quaker Faith" book cover: The experience of Christ dwelling in them and speaking through them was powerfully liberating for ordinary people, and especially for women, who played a full part in public ministry, even if this outraged the wider society. However, these were essentially religious freedoms, and while they appeared to challenge social norms, equality within the spiritual realm did not imply equality within human society. The Quaker Faith: Friends of Love and Truth, p.116.

The experience of Christ dwelling in them and speaking through them was powerfully liberating for ordinary people, and especially for women, who played a full part in public ministry, even if this outraged the wider society.

The Quaker Faith: Friends of Love and Truth, p.116.

Tues. Feb. 10th, 7:00-8:00 PM on Zoom: "Black Resistance to Quaker Enslavers in Colonial Pennsylvania" by Jim Fussell. Free online event. register here for link: events.ticketleap.com/tickets/sten...

Friends, can I ask you to spread the word that we have a THREE-YEAR postdoc in American history at Cambridge up for grabs - ANY field, but applications are due March 1 so don't delay - apply, apply, apply! networks.h-net.org/jobs/69790/u...

The image includes the quotation below on a black background, along with a picture of an older women with eyes closed and hands together, praying: Pray inwardly even if you do not enjoy it. It does good though you feel nothing, even though you think you are doing nothing. Julian of Norwich

Pray inwardly even if you do not enjoy it. It does good though you feel nothing, even though you think you are doing nothing.

Julian of Norwich

I was fortunate enough to receive a review copy of Zealous: A Darker Side of the Early Quakers by @ericanela.bsky.social My comments below…

#zealously #quakerism #civilwar #britishcivilwars #englishcivilwar @penandswordbooks.bsky.social

Thanks John! 🥰

Pause For Thought - Mark Russ: "Love as a habit of care" - BBC Sounds Mark Russ on this week's theme 'Love'.

Glad to be presenting another Pause for Thought on BBC Radio 2. I talk about love as a habit of care. It's not enough to say "God is Love", we have to prove it with how we treat others. #Quaker #theology #spirituality @quaker.org.uk www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

The image includes the quotation below on a light blue background, along with a picture of "The Rule of Christ" book cover: Nayler’s emphasis is on the need for people to genuinely participate in the work of Christ as a real inward and spiritual experience. They must come to know Christ’s birth, his life (teachings, healings and miracles), his crucifixion (death of the disobedient life in the first Adam) and his resurrection (new birth into an obedient life in Christ, the second Adam) in their own experience. The Rule of Christ: Themes in the Theology of James Nayler, p.22.

Nayler’s emphasis is on the need for people to genuinely participate in the work of Christ as a real inward and spiritual experience. They must come to know Christ’s birth, his life, his crucifixion and his resurrection in their own experience.

The Rule of Christ, p.22.

The Ark in Space
The Seeds of Doom
City of Death
The Keeper of Traken
The Brain of Morbius

The image includes the quotation below on a light green background, along with a picture of "The Quaker Faith" book cover: If [Friends] pay careful inward attention and undertake their discernment rigorously, their lives will reflect, in some form, the historic Quaker commitments to nonviolence, truthfulness and integrity, justice, fairness, and compassion. This is an ongoing dynamic process which binds together inward spiritual experiences and outward physical lives. The Quaker Faith: Friends of Love and Truth, p.141.

If [Friends] pay careful inward attention and undertake their discernment rigorously, their lives will reflect, in some form, the historic Quaker commitments to nonviolence, truthfulness and integrity, justice, fairness, and compassion.

The Quaker Faith: Friends of Love and Truth, p.141.