When trust shatters and violence feels inevitable, where does a person of faith stand?

Drawing on Dr. Harold Weaver’s call for active anti-violence and the universal cry for peace—from the Tao to the Prophet—this is my attempt at providing honest Quaker responses to the fracture of democracy. We are all related. Let’s try what love can do.

Nurturement for Antiviolence/Antiwar Stands for Friends’ Quaker Testimonies of Truth & Integrity

Inspired by the work of Beau Stringer [Citation: From Becoming Mainline – On truth, trust, and the slow fracture of a democracy].

Thank you, Beau, for your courage to write a first draft of these truths.

In “A Word of Remembrance and Caution to the Rich,” first printed in 1793, John Woolman commented about how often oxen and horses were seen to be overworked, and that though “their eyes and the motions of their bodies manifest that they are oppressed,” they are whipped to force more exertion. Characteristically, Woolman’s sentences are of sympathy for people whose poverty and exhaustion prevents caring properly for animals.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2207263944/posts/10155359338743945/

Violence outs us. It is outward. Systemic Violence hurts us all. Public Violence invites us to share its disease. I had every intention to watch the historical Correspondents Dinner Saturday night. Something nudged me away. I missed the craziness. But Spirit—or Tao, Buddha-nature, maybe that “still, small voice” we Quakers listen for—would not leave me alone. When something won’t leave you alone, that is usually a leading you are supposed to follow.

We are told how a man named Cole Allen, armed with a shotgun, charged from the guest elevators towards the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. An agent was struck. Miraculously, no one died. By worldly standards, military security worked. But by spiritual standards, we are already dead; we are just waiting for the gathering at the funeral.

In the hours that followed, I watched a grief I cannot name wash over the nation’s digital landscapes. This hurts. A  preponderance of evidence points to a lone, radicalized to violence  actor. Yet, people I trust—people of good judgment—immediately asked if it was staged. Some dinner! What reality trust? That is fracture. We live in cultures no longer believing our own eyes.  

Can Events of Violence Help us Recover Prophetic and Universal Witness

We are people of a life giving and living Word. Hebrew prophets were not popular; they said what was true when the king was invested in a lie. The prophet Jeremiah watched the fabric of his society rip apart because “they have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14). We are there.

But Light shines in every person. Whether we speak of Tao (Way that cannot be forced), Buddha’s call to end suffering (by cutting off roots of hatred), Bahá’í principle of oneness of humanity, or Qur’anic imperative to “repel evil by that which is better” (41:34) —each message is universal. We are better than this. Where are our better angels?

Violence doesn’t become righteous just because it’s aimed at a political figure we despise. Rage is real, but it is not an excuse to break the communal bond.

Violence doesn’t become righteous just because it’s aimed at a political figure we despise. Rage is real, but it is not an excuse to break the communal bond.

Quaker Testimony of Integrity & Active Anti-Violence

I must speak plainly. A convinced Friend; I feel our values; but, we also have Testimonies.  If this is written for people new to Quakerism, there might be a better way to say this. And in this moment, Integrity is a cornerstone. As Quaker faith and practice reminds us, we must “let our lives speak”. We cannot cry “Peace” if we are really lying about reality.

I want to be specific about where I stand. I draw my antiwar, anti-violence perspective not from passive hope, but from a lifetime of amazing hard work by peace builders. Leaders like Dr. Harold Weaver, Jr. and works like his BlackQuaker Project. 

Dr. Weaver teaches us that we must move beyond passive non-violence into active anti-violence. There is a difference. Passive non-violence refuses to pull the trigger. Active anti-violence dismantles the conditions that load the gun.

Dr. Weaver points out that our unjust world is maintained by misinformation. When we treat truth as a rhetorical tool rather than a moral obligation, we lose the social fabric. We normalize the “slow death of honesty.”

Therefore, to be a peacebuilder in 2026 is to answer the Query: How do we confront systemic violence? How do we atone as a society for that which measures radicalization in acts of violence, conspiracy, fracture of reality? How do we activate peace without using violent weapons of our world? Where does violence come from and how can it be rectified, redeemed or atoned in pluralistic ways inclusive of what creates patterns and distinctions.

One answer is Community. We must build community to fit our peace maker orbit. Can we live into a culture so resilient that we notice how loving of our neighbors is growing? Can we sit in disagreement and not lose shared realities? Quaker discernment processes seek unity, not uniformity. We use a living Christ’s weapons of integrity, reason, patience.

Integrity is a cornerstone. As Quaker faith and practice reminds us, we must “let our lives speak”. We cannot cry “Peace” if we are really lying about reality.

I want to be specific about where I stand. I draw my antiwar, antiviolence perspective not from passive hope, but from a lifetime of amazing hard work by leaders like Dr. Harold Weaver, Jr. and works The BlackQuaker Project. 

Grief & The Task

I grieve for our present. I grieve because I am witness to a hollowing out of our democracy. But grief is not despair. This prophetic task is before us. Can we refuse to pretend we can’t see? It is to say, with Dr. Weaver, “we need retrospective justice”—to look at a legacy of division and systemic violence and heal it, rather than pretend it isn’t there.

The April 25th shooting is a symptom. (The disease is the loss for Quakers of the Inner Light in public life. For some Quakers this dis-ease is felt in the loss of inner light in public. We seek engagement. But we are not caught without tools. We have the rising “sword of the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:17) and a collective power of community that chooses a life to be related to our neighbors. To know what interbeing grows as community. I feel this rising from me when I deeply consider what John Woolman taught, “I believe that where the love of God is verily perfected, and the true spirit of government watchfully attended to, a tenderness toward all creatures made subject to us will be experienced, and a care felt in us that we do not lessen the sweetness of life in the animal creation which the great Creator intends for them under our government.” 

The historical Correspondents Dinner was a reflection of the relationship of reporters with state power  to power and was developed at a time when it was assumed that press correspondents and news media belonged in the Pentagon, in the White House, at the Capitol in the United States of America or else histories will never get pinned down 

We are all related. Try what love can do.

Dr. Weaver teaches us that we must move beyond passive non-violence into active anti-violence. There is a difference. Passive non-violence refuses to pull the trigger. Active anti-violence dismantles the conditions that load the gun.

Dr. Weaver points out that our unjust world is maintained by misinformation. When we treat truth as a rhetorical tool rather than a moral obligation, we lose the social fabric. We normalize the “slow death of honesty.”

Therefore, to be a peacebuilder in 2026 is to answer the Query: How do we confront systemic violence (radicalization, conspiracy, the fracture of reality) without resorting to the violent weapons of the world? Where does the violence come from and how can it be expiated in radically pluralistic ways inclusive of historical patterns and distinctions.

The answer is Community. We must build community that fits it’s orbit, is cultural, and so resilient that we sit with disagreements and don’t lose shared reality. Quaker process seeks unity, not uniformity. It uses a living Christ’s weapons of integrity, reason, patience.

Queries for the Meeting & The Movement (For reflection)

1. Integrity: When we see misinformation spread online, do we scroll past in the name of “peace,” or do we speak our truth into love, even when uncomfortable?
2. Anti-Violence: Dr. Harold Weaver asks us to move beyond passive nonviolence. How is our Meeting actively confronting systemic violence (disinformation, economic inequality, radicalization) in our local zip code or in our neighbor’s?
3. Community: How do we hold space for political anger without letting it curdle into the types of political anger and hatred that justifies violence?

References & Citations

• Inspiration: Stringer, Beau. “When the Unthinkable Stops Being Unthinkable.” [Original Substack/Publication], April 28, 2026. [Citation: Original Source]
• Weaver, Harold D., Jr. Race, Systemic Violence, and Retrospective Justice: An African American Quaker Scholar-Activist Challenges Conventional Narratives. Pendle Hill Pamphlet #465, 2020/2026. [Citations: 1, 5, 8]
• London Yearly Meeting. Quaker Faith & Practice (5th Edition). 24.09: The Corporate Testimony (1943). [Citation: 9]
• Religions and Nonviolence: The Rise of Effective Advocacy for Peace. Bloomsbury, 2015. (Tao, Bahai, Buddhist, Islamic nonviolence traditions).[Citation: 3]

Bibliography

1. The BlackQuaker Project. (2026). Race, Systemic Violence, and Retrospective Justice. Pendle Hill Publications. (Available at es.theblackquakerproject.org) [Citations: 1, 5, 8]
2. Longhurst, Rosemary. (2018). “Spices of life: Personal Reflections on the Quaker Testimonies.” The Australian Friend. [Citation: 2]
3. MacNair, Rachel M. (2015). Religions and Nonviolence. Bloomsbury. [Citation: 3]
4. Stringer, Beau. (2026, April 28). “When the Unthinkable Stops Being Unthinkable.” [Newsletter Name]. [Citation: Original Source]
5. The Quaker Peace Testimony. (1661/2018). Dialogue Journal. [Citation: 6]