The author takes reader or interfaith pilgrimage. She champions and openness to our neighbors experiences of duty, devotion and divinity – demonstrating in the process an undiminished integrity as she journeys between faiths and writes of living out of engagement with a range of faith traditions. She sees something that emerges especially in our encounters with what is live active in others. She shows why we need to be aware of the particular linguistic and cultural lens through which we see the world, and to be willing, for example, to catch a glimpse of truth in the very unfamiliarity of our neighbors' worship.

‘Yet every Truth is true in its kind’ (QFP 27:22). These words by Isaac Penington are the inspiration for Eleanor Nesbitt’s 2003 Swarthmore lecture and subsequent book.

Quakers, she notes, were ‘Friends of Truth’ before they became ‘Friends’. She shares insights into the nature of Truth that came to her during her own pilgrimage. Through comparisons of Hindu, Islamic and Sikh wisdoms with equivalent Christian writings, she shows how interpretations of the same essential Truth can so often be coloured by the religion, culture and language from which it sprang.

She believes societies define themselves through conflict, and cites several examples to show how conflict spawns hatred and xenophobic behaviour. She hopes, through her lecture and the publication of this book, to have made a small contribution towards a better understanding of the roots of our human bias.

See also ‘God, Words & Us by Rowlands and Ullman's 'Friends and Truth' ( )

Swarthmore lecture

Christian denominations > Other Christian sects > Quaker > Religion