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Quaker Lectures

Quaker Lecture 2024 - A QUEER GIFT - Stepping beyond the mindset

Rainbow Quakers

Quakers made a commitment in 1992 and again in 2023 to support sexual and gender diversity, offering a safe space and a spiritual home.This Lecture was delivered on 25th April in Hamilton at the Lady Goodfellow Chapel of the University of Waikato by a group of Rainbow Quakers as part of the Quaker Yearly Meeting, held in Hamilton.

The companion booklet is available for purchase from sales@books.quakers.nz at a cost of $10 plus postage. An A4 pdf of the booklet is available here.

A video of the lecture is availble here.

 

Quaker Lecture 2022 - THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH - Information, disinformation, and the algorithms of social media

Verica Rupar
 
Verica Rupar is Professor of Journalism at the School of Communication Studies, AUT. She is Chair of the World Journalism Education Council. She has worked as a journalist and taught journalism in Serbia, Slovenia, Hungary, Australia, the UK, and Aotearoa New Zealand. Professor Verica Rupar delivered the Lecture in Christchurch on 23 July, 2022. The talk and questions afterwards were live-streamed using Zoom.
 
The audio of the Lecture is being presented on Christchurch radio station, Plains FM (96.9 MHz), which has generously allowed us to post this podcast:
A booklet containing the talk is available from Quaker Book Sales, at the cost of $10. A pdf of the text is provided here for study purposes.
 

 

Quaker Lecture 2021 - STORIES of BELONGING - A Journey across Aotearoa

Anjum Rahman

Anjum Rahman is the Project Lead of the Inclusive Aotearoa Collective Tāhono, a project designed to create a place to belong for all Kiwis.
During 2020, the Collective held conversations with hundreds of Kiwis from many diverse backgrounds about their experiences of belonging. Everybody had a story to tell, whether it was a person with disabilities, a non-binary teenager, a mum struggling with post-natal depression or a migrant worker. Anjum will be speaking about what they said, and what we can do to make Aotearoa even better.

Click here for:

 

 

Quaker Lecture 2020 - MORIORI - PEACE AT ALL COSTS

Maui Solomon

Maui Solomon of the Hokotehi Moriori Trust has played a leading role throughout his adult life in the renaissance of the culture and identity of the indigenous Moriori people of Rekohu (Chatham Islands). The lecture is based around themes of Moriori peace and conflict management, history, colonisation, genocide, mythmaking, suppression of identity and – over the past 40 years – Moriori renaissance based upon their legacy and heritage of peace. It focuses on how peace will eventually win out in the long term if we… “all strive hard enough, and believe hard enough, because the human heart and soul yearns for that to be the normal state of human affairs”.

Violence and conflict are transitory no matter how painful, oppressive and demoralising they may appear at the time.

Click here to view the full text of the 2020 Lecture

Click here to view a recording of the 2020 Lecture  (may take time to connect to Zoom and download)

 

Quaker Lecture 2019 - CRIME and PUNISHMENT 

Terry Waite 

Terry Waite, British humanitarian and former hostage for nearly five years, talks about prison reform and rehabilitation. For most of his life Terry Waite has worked in the area of international affairs and has worked in most of the world's conflict zones. As a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury's private staff he was successful in aiding the freedom of hostages in Lebanon, Iran and Libya. It was while in Beirut that he was captured and spent almost five years in solitary confinement. He is both an Anglican and a member of the Society of Friends. This lecture addresses the issue of penal reform, where Terry brings his personal experiences to this pressing issue, both for the UK and New Zealand

View the full text of the 2019 Lecture here. (741KB)

 

Quaker Lecture 2018 - CAN RELIGION SPEAK TRUTH?

Elizabeth Duke

Truth goes far beyond statements or beliefs; we live it - it is incarnate in action, in relationships and in the nature of all that is.  Elizabeth’s lecture explores the subject from a number of perspectives; the truth in the founding experience of Quakers; her understanding of ‘religion’ and ‘truth’; truth and science; truth in ecotheology, humility, ethics and religion; truth in concepts of imagery, myth and mystery.

Elizabeth Duke is a Quaker, a Kiwi and a lesbian.   She grew up in an Anglican family in Birmingham, England, and studied and taught Classics.  Elizabeth found Quakers soon after the birth of her first child, and from 1997 to mid-2004 was called to employment as Associate, then General, Secretary of Friends World Committee for Consultation, the global Quaker networking body.  In retirement in Dunedin, as well as holding Quaker responsibilities, she represents the local Green Party on the council of Araiteuru (urban) Marae and is trying to learn to paint and draw.

View the full text of the 2018 Lecture here. 

 

Quaker Lecture 2017 - TRANSCENDING NEOLIBERALISM  (YouTube link) 

Jane Kelsey

Jane Kelsey is one of New Zealand's best-known critical commentators on issues of globalisation and neoliberalism. She has taught at the University of Auckland since 1979, specialising in socio-legal studies, law and policy and international economic regulation. In her 2017 Quaker lecture Jane addresses the issue of Neolibralism both globally and in New Zealand, and offers thoughts and suggestions on how this country can “move from a state of denial, to progressive transformation”.
 

View a video recording a recording of the 2017 Lecture here. (YouTube link) 

 

Quaker Lecture 2016 - A PEACEFUL WORLD - How can we make it so? 

Marian Hobbs

People the world over want to live in peace. At the same time the human species continues to wage war and to develop armaments that could annihilate life on earth. The unwelcome intrusion of other countries into the Pacific to test their nuclear weapons, and the distressing violence we are experiencing at a national and global levels has mobilized communities to create networks of action for peace.

Marion Hobbs has had two major careers in education and politics. She was a teacher for 25 years, the former principal of a secondary school in New Zealand, and an education advisor in the United Kingdom. During her 12 years as a politician she held several ministerial posts in the Labour Government of Helen Clark - Minister for the Environment, Minister for Disarmament and Arms and Associate Minister of Education among other cabinet posts.

 View the full text of the 2016 Lecture here. 

 

Quaker Lecture 2015 - WHAT WE KNOW, WHAT WE SAY and WHAT WE DO

Bryan Bruce

Bryan Bruce and John Key grew up in poor circumstances at a time when the Welfare State gave them the chance of a better life. Yet now they hold very different views of the state's obligations towards the well-being and future of its younger citizens. In our once egalitarian society, the top 10% of the population now own 52% of the wealth while the botton 20% hold almost nothing.

 View the full text of the 2015 Lecture here. (227KB .pdf)

 

Quaker Lecture 2014 -  STANDING IN THIS PLACE

David James, Jillian Wychel, Murray Short, Linda Wilson

In this lecture, four Pākehā people analyse their past and continuing roles as supporters of justice for indigenous peoples. They consider firstly how these roles have changed over time, and secondly how they might evolve as claims relating to the Treaty are settled.

View the full text of the 2014 Lecture here. (476KB .pdf)

 

Quaker Lecture 2013 - ENOUGH!  The challenge of a post-growth economy

Jeanette Fitzsimons

As humanity starts to reach and exceed the limits to growth modelled by the Club of Rome in 1972, two possible futures stand in stark contrast:  a failed growth economy, or a Steady State described here as an economy of Enough.   A willingness to say "I have enough now; the rest is for others, or for Nature" could usher in a future that is dynamic, congenial, prosperous, and ecologically and socially rich.   We would have less stuff but more time and richer relationships.   However, the challenges are daunting.   It requires fundamental change to our economic goals, our tax and monetary systems, the framework of capitalism and, hardest of all, to our values and our image of ourselves as human beings.   This lecture discusses the challenges of an economy of Enough.

View the full text of the 2013 Lecture here. (431KB .pdf)

 

Quaker Lecture 2011 - CHANGING THE PRISON SYSTEM 

Tony Taylor at Yearly Meeting.

View the full text of the 2011 Lecture here. (1136KB .pdf)

 

Quaker Lecture 2010 -  HONOURING THE OTHER

Kevin Clements

View the full text of the 2010 Lecture here. (959KB .pdf)

 

Quaker Lecture 2009 -  KIWI DRAGON - the First Quaker Lecture at Yearly Meeting

Bill Willmott

View the full text of the 2009 Lecture here. (it is a large 3.03MB .pdf)