As promised, a few words on the Godless for God’s Sake reprint, for the Newsletter and website.
David Boulton:

Godless for God’s Sake – ‘an invitation to conversation’
Godless for God’s Sake has been credited with kick-starting the dialogue between nontheist and theist Friends when it was first published nine years ago in 2006. In fact, it brought into the open a subject that had been quietly making ripples for at least a couple of decades. Written by 27 Quaker nontheists from 13 Yearly Meetings in the USA, Britain, New Zealand and Australia, and addressed to ‘readers who seek a faith or world-view free of supernaturalism’, its first edition topped the list of best-selling books in both the London and the Philadelphia Quaker bookshops. Chuck Fager, editor of the American Quaker Theology, asked rhetorically: ‘What have we come to in Friends’ religious thought when the most exciting book of Quaker theology I’ve read in recent years is produced by a bunch of Quaker nontheists?’ An unapologetic theist himself, he added: ‘The proper response to the testimonies in these pages is not scorn or witchhunts but an invitation to further conversation’.

Godless had to be reprinted twice within 12 months, then several times on a print-on-demand basis, until stocks were exhausted. But publication of recent books both attacking and defending nontheism, coupled with concerns about how the controversy might affect plans for a revision of Quaker Faith and Practice, have prompted new demands for Godless, resulting in a fresh reprint, generously financed by the American-based nontheist Friends planning group.

Copies are available from the Quaker Centre Bookshop, telephone 020 7663 1030, price £9.50. All proceeds (after bookshop discounts) go to the Nontheist Friends Network. You read it when it first came out? Read it again with fresh eyes – or why not treat your meeting library to a copy?

David Boulton

(see also picture and extracts on Nontheism page)