Overview: The Spirit of Freedom offers accessible, useful, and life-affirming theology rooted in Quaker spirituality and Biblical wisdom.

Collecting together short and inspiring essays on speaking of God, worshiping God, and being God’s witnesses in the world, this book offers a spacious and relevant Quaker theology from a Christian perspective.

Furthermore, it is an excellent companion piece to Mark Russ’s first book, Quaker Shaped Christianity.

Verdict: What is Quakerism? Well, that is always a distinctly difficult question to answer, especially when Quakers today struggle to find a shared religious language. But here in author Mark Russ’ new book The Spirit of Freedom: Quaker-shaped Christian Theology, he answers this, and other questions related with, and from a personal perspective, telling his story of trying to make sense of Jesus within the Quaker community and more.

Indeed, Quakers’ theological beliefs vary considerably. Tolerance of dissent widely varies among yearly meetings. Most Friends believe in continuing revelation: that God continuously reveals truth directly to individuals. George Fox, an early Friend, said, Christ has come to teach His people Himself.

Originating amid the religious and political upheavals of seventeenth-century England, Quakers are now a geographically widespread and theologically diverse group, often best known for their peace work and for their social and political activism.

Although Quakers have often not valued, and have even been suspicious of, academic or systematic theology, they do have a distinctive and coherent set of theological emphases that are closely related to their approaches to worship and to the life of faith.

In ecumenical Christian contexts, Quakers are sometimes placed alongside the Mennonites and the Church of the Brethren as ‘historic peace churches’. Quakers do share many theological and ethical emphases with churches that are descended from Anabaptist movements, but both Quakers’ origins and their subsequent history give them a different trajectory.

Contemporary global Quakerism includes groups that clearly fit within evangelical Christianity; liberal groups with many members who do not identify as Christian; and much in between.

And so this new prose from Mark focuses on the contribution of Quakers and Quakerism, as a whole, to the bigger picture of Christian theology. It also notes the internal diversity and major debates within Quakerism, whilst at the same time presenting a wide-ranging exploration of key Quaker, Christian and just plain human concepts.

At all times insightful, engaging, this dutifully constructed book - and one brought forth by himself a gay Christian Quaker - not only invites, nay challenges us to delve deeper into what it means to be a Quake, but shines a beautifully fundamental light on that fact that, in the main, life is good, and that an essential clue to its real nature is to be glimpsed in the love that people have for one another.

About the Author - Mark Russ is a writer, theologian and teacher. Since 2013 Mark has written useful, Quaker-shaped Christian theology on his blog jollyquaker.com. From 2015 to 2022 he was a member of the Learning and Research Team at Woodbrooke, the international Quaker learning and research organization based in Britain. His theological interests include hope, whiteness, the roots of modern Quaker thought and the theology of Jürgen Moltmann.

Before retraining as a theologian, Mark enjoyed a successful decade as a music teacher in London, and spent a year visiting and living in various faith-based intentional communities in the UK and USA. He holds an MA in Systematic and Philosophical Theology from the University of Nottingham.

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