Peace and Justice

The Friends Meeting of Austin strives to live out the Quaker testimonies in the broader world. Meeting groups and individual Friends are active in many peace and social justice movements and initiatives at local, state, national, and international levels.

Friends are by tradition and by deep convincement a pro-peace, anti-war community, and we are widely known for both our individual and our group work in the peace movement.

The Friends Meeting of Austin follows our leadings for peace and justice in many ways. Some of them are:

• The Peace and Social Concerns committee coordinates and keeps up awareness of peace and justice activities and groups in and around the meeting
• The Earthcare Witness group focuses on environmental and sustainability concerns. Our solar installation is a recent example.
• The Colombia Ministry Support committee works to support and broaden awareness of the work of a family from our meeting that has been working with internal refugees in Colombia since 1994.
• The Witness Against State Homicide committee works with death penalty concerns
• Individuals participate in national Quaker-affiliated groups such as:
  • Friends Committee on National Legislation
  • American Friends Service Committee (with a local Austin office)
• The meeting is a member or partner with local peace and justice groups, such as:
  • Austin Area Interreligious Ministries
  • Austin Center for Peace and Justice
  • Non-military Options for Youth
  • Austin Interfaith
• The meeting supports the Peace and Justice activities of individual members and attenders. Here are a few examples from among the many that could be cited:
  • Yearly trips by a Friend to Guatemala as a medical interpreter
  • A trip by members of Young Friends (our youth group) to a United Farm Workers organizing conference
  • One family's "bread ministry" using day-old commercial bread on Sunday mornings to gather donations for feeding the hungry