Page 18 - 1.News and Views Spring 2025 for Jim.

The Quaker Universalist Group Rosemary Brown
Bournemouth and Fordingbridge LM

The Quaker Universalist Group (QUG) provides a forum for Friends who are open to, (quoting from
Advices and Queries 5), ‘all writings which reveal the ways of God.’ Universalists also: ‘While remaining
faithful to Quaker insights, try to enter imaginatively into the life and witness of other communities of
faith..’ A&Q. 6

On the QUG website (https//qug.org.uk/) there is a Statement of Principle. It is:

Spiritual Awareness

is accessible to everyone of any religion or none,

and no one person

and no one faith

has the final revelation

or monopoly of truth.

Such awareness may be expressed
In many different ways.

We delight in this diversity.

In addition to its website, QUG publishes a journal twice a year and pamphlets.

There is an annual conference, with the one in April 2025, focussing on Women’s Voices, to be held at
High Leigh Conference Centre.

This can be attended either in person or via zoom. There is also a monthly zoom meeting which begins
with a talk and then opens out to a discussion group.

Quaker Universalists are following George Fox’s concept that there is: ‘that of God in every one’. QF&P
19.32

In 1762 John Woolman wrote: There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in
different places and ages hath different names; it is, however, pure and proceeds from God. It is deep
and inward, confined to no forms of religion nor excluded from anywhere the heart stands in perfect
sincerity..’

In more recent times, we have the following words from Harvey Gillman: ‘I do believe that there is a
power which is divine, creative and loving, though we can often only describe it with the images and
symbols that rise from our particular experiences and those of our communities. This power is part and
parcel of all things, human, animal, indeed of all that lives. Its story is greater than any one cultural
version of it...’

Perhaps the most direct statement of universalism comes from George Fox’s good friend, William

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