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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 12h

"We cannot be in relationship if you are oppressing me, excluding me. That is where gender equality and peace meet. They are inseparable." Esther Mombo

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

"I don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others." Coretta Scott King

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

"There is something in the human spirit that will survive and prevail, there is a tiny and brilliant light burning in the heart of man that will not go out no matter how dark the world becomes." Leo Tolstoy

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

"It is sinful for people to misue or destroy what they did not make. The creation is a unique, irreplaceable gift, therefore to be used with humility, respect, and skill." Wendell Berry (1934-2026)

The image includes the quotation below along with a picture of Wendell Berry (an older white man wearing a woolly jumper):

"It is sinful for people to misue or destroy what they did not make. The creation is a unique, irreplaceable gift, therefore to be used with humility, respect, and skill."

Wendell Berry (1934-2026)

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Matthew 25 tells us that when Jesus judges between the righteous and the unrighteous, he doesn't judge them based on their orthodoxy, their patriotism, or their individual definitions of morality. He judges them based on their compassion towards vulnerable people. Benjamin Cremer

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

"I raise up my voice—not so I can shout but so that those without a voice can be heard.“ Malala Yousafzai

The image includes the quotation below, along with a picture of Malala Yousafzai:

"I raise up my voice—not so I can shout but so that those without a voice can be heard.“

Malala Yousafzai

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

No one heals himself by wounding another. St. Ambrose of Milan

The image includes the quotation below, along with a traditional 'icon' style picture of Ambrose:

No one heals himself by wounding another.

St. Ambrose of Milan

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Feminism exists because a man's rights are treated as UNIVERSAL, while a woman's rights can depend on laws, religion, and WHERE she was born.

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

"Wanting all humans to be treated equal should never be controversial." Macklemore

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

[Early] Friends experienced a strong sense of being bound together in the eternal power of God... In describing this, [they] drew on three important New Testament metaphors for the gathering of the Church: fish caught in a net; a temple of living stones; and a body of many parts. Tangled Roots p.33

The image includes the quotation below, along with a picture of the "Tangled Roots" book cover:

[Early] Friends experienced a strong sense of being bound together in the eternal power of God, who was actively present within them and among them. In describing this, early Quakers drew on three important New Testament metaphors for the gathering of the Church: fish caught in a net; a temple of living stones; and a body of many parts.

Tangled Roots, p.33.

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

"The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism." Hannah Arendt

The image includes the quotation below, along with a black and white photograph of Hannah Arendt (a middle-aged white woman wearing glasses and smoking a cigarette):

"The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism."

Hannah Arendt

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

When someone discovers their faith journey and the spiritual awakening it inspires, they won't use it to legislate and control other people. A punitive faith is the first sign of spiritual inauthenticity and ill intent. "I contemplate with sovereign reverence." Brandi Carlile

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

"All that dwell in the light, their habitation is in God, and they know a hiding place in the day of the storm; and those who dwell in the light, are built upon the rock, and cannot be moved." Edward Burrough (1634-1663)

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

“Nayler’s vision of a better world is…predicated on the life of Christ being revealed in the bodies of men and women in his time. Through this process, a society based on pride, greed, hatred, violence, and injustice is overcome by God’s kingdom of humility, generosity, love, peace, and justice.”

The image includes the quotation below, along with a picture of "The Rule of Christ" book cover:

“Nayler’s vision of a better world is…predicated on the life of Christ being revealed again in the bodies of men and women in his time. Through this process, a human society based on pride, greed, hatred, violence, and injustice is overcome by God’s kingdom of humility, generosity, love, peace, and justice.”

The Rule of Christ, p.72

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

"Action is the antidote to despair." Joan Baez

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

When Jesus ate with tax collectors, welcomed prostitutes, forgave sinners and touched lepers he wasn't acting out of character. Jesus was revealing the truth of God.

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

"...a faith community that values a relatively fixed tradition...can easily become moribund and irrelevant. On the other hand, a protean faith community that ...finds itself perpetually changing and innovating is vulnerable to instability and fragmentation." Tangled Roots, p.12

The image includes the quotation below, along with a picture of the "Tangled Roots" book cover:

...a faith community that values a relatively fixed tradition, placing its primary emphasis on roots and constancy, can easily become moribund and irrelevant. On the other hand, a protean faith community that sits too lightly on its roots and finds itself perpetually changing and innovating is vulnerable to instability and fragmentation.

Tangled Roots: Navigating the Complex Legacy of Early Quakers, p.12.

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Reposted by Stuart Masters

Mark D Russ @markdruss.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

A good and needed statement, and it's refreshing to hear a direct challenge to "the public." Often "the public" is treated as this innocent body that must be placated at all costs, but "the public" (usually meaning "white people" when invoked by politicians) need to repent too.

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

…many Quakers have adopted a welcoming and inclusive approach to queer and gender-nonconforming people. The reason for this may have deep roots within the Quaker tradition. The Quaker Faith: Friends of Love and Truth, p.126-127.

The image includes the quotation below, along with a picture of "The Quaker Faith" book cover:

The issues of human sexuality and gender identity are a source of conflict among Friends today… Despite this…many Quakers have adopted a welcoming and inclusive approach to queer and gender-nonconforming people. The reason for this may have deep roots within the Quaker tradition. In defending the spiritual equality of women, 17th century Friends argued that the transformed life in Christ transcended all outward divisions associated with ethnicity, social status, and sex.

The Quaker Faith: Friends of Love and Truth, p.126-127.

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

"The Lord God of heaven and earth is come to teach his people himself." George Fox

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

"We're due for a gospel that drives out fear rather than depends on it." Brad Jersak

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

A solid...introduction to and survey of the whole history and theological range of the Quaker faith... The author's summation of what the different types of Friends can offer to Christianity today in the conclusion is particularly valuable. Dr Russell Fox - Friends University, Wichita, KS

The image includes the quotation below, along with a picture of "The Quaker Faith" book cover:

A solid, succinct, and--to me, anyway--sometimes surprising introduction to and survey of the whole history and theological range of the Quaker faith... The author's summation of what the different types of Friends (Conservative, Evangelical, and Liberal) can offer to Christianity today in the conclusion is particularly valuable.

Dr Russell Fox - Friends University, Wichita, Kansas (Goodreads review, 24th December 2025).

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Subjection of women, in fact, is a symptom of man's fallen nature. If the work of Christ involves the breaking of the entail of the fall, the implication of his work for the liberation of women is plain. F F Bruce

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

At the beginning of the twentieth century, there were many interesting interconnections between Evangelical Friends and the emerging Pentecostal movement.

The image includes the quotation below, along with a picture of "The Quaker Faith" book cover:

At the beginning of the twentieth century, there were many interesting interconnections between Evangelical Friends and the emerging Pentecostal movement. For example, A J Tomlinson, coming out of the Quaker community in Indiana, was a founder of the Church of God of Prophecy. However, Evangelical Friends were not willing to fully embrace the Pentecostal understanding of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and those who wished to move in that direction either left or were disowned. John Wimber, who established the Vineyard Church, left an Evangelical Friends Church in California.

The Quaker Faith: Friends of Love and Truth, p.154.

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

The principles of our faith teach that we can be filled with the same life and power and spirit that produced the prophets and saints of the past. Cecil Hinshaw, 1945

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

You can't bring peace on Earth when you use the weapons of war. You can't build up God's Kingdom of love, mercy, forgiveness, and self-sacrifice using the tools of death, deception and destruction. Jesus interrupted violence. He didn't use it. Diana Oestreich - Waging Peace

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

The kingdom of God is not a matter of getting individuals to heaven, but of transforming the life on earth into the harmony of heaven. Walter Rauschenbusch

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Change will have to come from outside, from the margins. The desert, not the temple, gave us the prophets. Wendell Berry

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

The regenerated do not go to war, nor engage in strife. They are children of peace who have beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning forks, and know no war. Menno Simons

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

“Let there be an opening into the quiet that lies beneath the chaos, where you find the peace you did not think possible and see what shimmers within the storm.” John O’Donohue

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Despair is a sin. I believe that. It is easy to be bleak about the human race, but there are people who have proved to me that we can be better than we are. James Baldwin

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

The second man is…willing to be a fool to the world and serpent's wisdom, content to suffer wrongs...without seeking revenge, but bears all the venom the serpent can cast upon him with patience and thereby overcomes him and bruises his head, and is made perfect through suffering… James Nayler, 1653

The image includes the quotation below along with pictures of Nayler's punishment (flogging and tongue boring):

The second man is… willing to be a fool to the world and serpent's wisdom, content to suffer wrongs, buffetings, persecutions, slanders, reviling, mocking, without seeking revenge, but bears all the venom the serpent can cast upon him with patience and thereby overcomes him and bruises his head, and is made perfect through suffering…

James Nayler – A Discovery of the First Wisdom (1653)

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

[Early] Friends seem to have experienced a great sense of joy, fearlessness, and spiritual energy, revealed in physical shaking, ecstatic prophesying, dramatic signs, healings, and public preaching. The Quaker Faith: Friends of Love and Truth, p.29

The image includes the quotation below along with a picture of "The Quaker Faith" book cover:

[Early] Friends seem to have experienced a great sense of joy, fearlessness, and spiritual energy, revealed in physical shaking, ecstatic prophesying, dramatic signs, healings, and public preaching. Such a strongly embodied witness, particularly when enacted by women, transgressed accepted norms of human conduct and outraged polite society.

The Quaker Faith: Friends of Love and Truth, p.29

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

The oppressor would not be so strong if he did not have accomplices among the oppressed. Simone de Beauvoir

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

"It is easier to serve the hate-gods because they thrive on the worship of collective fanaticism. To serve the hate-gods, one has only to be blinded by collective passion..." Thomas Merton

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

“Please make me empty, if I'm empty then I can receive, if I can receive it means it comes from somewhere outside of me, if it comes from outside of me I'm not alone! I cannot bear this loneliness. Above all it is loneliness.” Leonard Cohen - Beautiful Losers

The image includes the quotation below along with a black and white picture of Leonard Cohen:

“Please make me empty, if I'm empty then I can receive, if I can receive it means it comes from somewhere outside of me, if it comes from outside of me I'm not alone! I cannot bear this loneliness. Above all it is loneliness.”

Leonard Cohen - Beautiful Losers

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

The discipline of giving up our narrow and self-centred interests in obedience to the leadings of the Spirit may seem oppressive. However, this is the path that leads to real freedom and well-being, not just for us, but for all living things. Tangled Roots, p.125.

The image includes the quotation below, along with a picture of the "Tangled Roots" book cover:

The discipline of giving up our narrow and self-centred interests in obedience to the leadings of the Spirit may seem oppressive. However, this is the path that leads to real freedom and well-being, not just for us, but for all living things. In this way, we can move closer to the perfection of unconstrained love and truth. These are the tentative steps leading to a world where goodness is more powerful in shaping people than evil.

Tangled Roots: Navigating the Complex Legacy of Early Quakers, p.125.

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Just as the thought of fire does not warm the body so faith without love does not actualize the light of spiritual knowledge in the soul. St. Maximus the Confessor

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Not a single word in the Beatitudes relates to human notions of what a kingdom is like. Human ideas of kingdom building focus on nations, race, tribe, military strength and wealth. Jesus teaches that greatness in His kingdom is found in the character that reflects His likeness. Diane Langberg

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

"The first revolution is when you change your mind about how you look at things, and see that there might be another way to look at it that you have not been shown." Gil Scott Heron

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

“Keep a good heart. That's the most important thing in life. It's not how much money you make or what you can acquire. The art of it is to keep a good heart.” Joni Mitchell

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Once you give to God what belongs to God, there is nothing left for Caesar! Dorothy Day

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Good Shepherd, you have a wild and crazy sheep in love with thorns and brambles. But please don't get tired of looking for me! I know you won't. For you have found me. All I have to do is stay found. Thomas Merton

The image includes the quotation below along with a picture of a sheep in a field with trees in the background:

Good Shepherd, you have a wild and crazy sheep in love with thorns and brambles. But please don't get tired of looking for me! I know you won't. For you have found me. All I have to do is stay found.

Thomas Merton

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

"If someone enquires about the Quaker faith and what it means, Friends are inclined to describe the version they know best. However...within the world today, Friends exist in several quite distinct and divergent forms: Conservative, Evangelical, Pastoral, Liberal, and Pluralist."

The image includes the quotation below, along with a picture of "The Quaker Faith" book cover:

If someone enquires about the Quaker faith and what it means, Friends are inclined to describe the version they know best. However, a full and truthful answer will not be simple or straight- forward. This is because, within the world today, Friends exist in several quite distinct and divergent forms: Conservative, Evangelical, Pastoral, Liberal, and Pluralist.

The Quaker Faith: Friends of Love and Truth, p.168

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

"Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you." Wendell Berry

The image includes the quotation below over a picture of a lake with hills in the distance:

"Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you."

Wendell Berry

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

“As humanity stands on the precipice...perhaps it is only the deepest form of surrender and the spiritual empowerment and fearlessness that this can bring, which will enable us to make the right choice...” Tangled Roots: Navigating the Complex Legacy of Early Quakers, p.83

The image includes the quotation below, along with a picture of the "Tangled Roots" book cover:

“As humanity stands on the precipice, facing what might well be the final and ultimate choice – between heaven and hell, peace and war, compassion and destruction, perhaps it is only the deepest form of surrender and the spiritual empowerment and fearlessness that this can bring, which will enable us to make the right choice. It seems clear that without this kind of fundamental transformation, humanity and most other species will not survive.”

Tangled Roots: Navigating the Complex Legacy of Early Quakers, p.83

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

My dear hearts, be faithful every one in your particular measure of God's gift which he hath given you. Margaret Fell, 1654

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Like the ancient prophets, we are dispatched back to the good work entrusted to us. It is the work of peace-making. It is the work of truth-telling. It is the work of justice-doing. It is good work, but it requires our resolve to stay it... Walter Brueggemann

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

“The principle on which worship (in the Pauline churches) was conducted seems to resemble the one followed by the Society of Friends, who have no set form of worship, but who gather together in silence in the presence of God, waiting for individual members of the congregation to be stirred to speak”

The image includes the quotation below along with a picture of Morna Hooker (an older white woman with white hair, wearing glasses and smiling):

“The principle on which worship (in the Pauline churches) was conducted seems to resemble the one followed by the Society of Friends, who have no set form of worship, but who gather together in silence in the presence of God, waiting for individual members of the congregation to be stirred to speak”

Morna Hooker - Paul: A Beginners Guide (on, 1 Corinthians 14:26-33)

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Stuart Masters @stuartkmasters.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

There's a reason the prophets so consistently connect idolatry and social justice: In the end, idols will always demand things of you that you can only give them by exploiting other people. Kaitlyn Schiess

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