A MAN THAT LOOKS ON GLASS

The Quaker movement in Britain is beset with problems — growing secularisation, incompatible belief systems, ideology as a substitute for faith. Add to these the emergence of theologically-based ‘special interest’ groups with their own sectarian agendas and campaigning methods and we have a genuine existential crisis on our hands. A Man that Looks on Glass (the title is from a poem by a seventeenth century poet) analyses and questions the thinking that has led to this situation. It challenges the supposed inevitability of the ‘Godless’ strand in British Quakerism and calls for a renewed emphasis on transcendence. It ends with a positive look at a Quaker mystical theism based on individual and corporate religious experience.