 January/February 2001 (XXXIX 1) |
A special opportunity to hear British Friend John Punshon, an experienced teacher, engaging speaker and published writer, comes at the conclusion of the one-day Yearly Meeting session on Saturday, March 24. The Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia has graciously agreed to co-sponsor this event with the Yearly Meeting and to serve as hosts for dinner and John Punshon's talk to follow at 7 p.m. in the Fourth and Arch Street Meeting House in Philadelphia.
John Punshon will retire in June as professor of Quaker Studies at Earlham College and the Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana. He has had a versatile career. He was a professional politician for several years with a second career in the practice of law. He has long been a practicing Friend, and became a self-taught theologian after earning a degree in philosophy from Oxford University. This prepared him for a position as tutor of Quaker Studies at Woodbrooke College, the Quaker study center in England, for 10 years beginning in 1979.
John served on Britain Yearly Meeting's Committee on Christian Relationships. He wrote numerous articles with a humorous touch in the British weekly "The Friend." In 1990 he delivered Woodbrooke's Swarthmore Lecture on "Testimony and Tradition" and he was the keynote speaker at the 1991 World Conference of Friends in Kenya.
Among his writings are "Encounter with silence: reflections from the Quaker tradition" and "Portrait in grey: a short history of the Quakers." He has a new book coming out this year titled "The Friends Church – the heritage and its future." If you would like to read some of his works before Yearly Meeting, call the PYM Library at 215-241-7220.*
John has traveled as a speaker among Yearly Meetings in the United States and is frequently invited to Pendle Hill, the Quaker study center in Wallingford, Pennsylvania. He is a creative thinker and speaker with an engaging style. He loves baseball and ice cream!
At the time of PYM News going to press, the exact topic to be addressed by John Punshon was still being developed. Watch for further information in the next issue.
Ruthanna Hadley
Germantown Meeting (PA)
Last modified: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:18 AM