Papers Session: Violence, Non-Violence and Peacemaking Churches
Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)
This paper will draw upon the historical events of Mary Dyer, along with Anne Hutchinson, and their conflict with the Puritan community, to suggest that five themes were going forward in the emerging Quakerism vis-à-vis Puritanism. These themes remain relevant today: (1) a challenge to the notion of religion as ethics; (2) a challenge to the scapegoating tendency of certain religious attitudes; (3) a priority given to the role of experience as foundational to religious understanding; (4) a rise in the authority of women’s voices in religious matters; and (5) an ecclesial understanding of friendship.