Light and Silence

I don't hear a lot of Quakers or Quaker blogs talking about the Trinity. I worry that perhaps I'm a bit unusual in finding it interesting, but then I've had some worship experiences that were definitely Trinitarian, though it's hard to describe. (As the Trinity is, frequently.)

Early Quakers seem to have been Trinitarian - or at least they didn't find the Unitarianism of their day an acceptable choice, and were generally willing to accept a Trinitarian view when pushed. William C. Braithwaite's The Second Period of Quakerism notes changes the Quakers managed to secure in the Toleration Act of 1688, which eased (if not completely ended) the persecution Quakers had faced. Originally, there was a declaration in the bill - to be made by those not willing to take an oath - which read:

I, A. B., profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ, His eternal Son, the true God, and in the Holy Spirit, co-equal with the Father, and the Son, one God blessed for ever: and do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the revealed Will and Word of God. (155-6; italics original)

With Quaker input, it became:

I, A. B., profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ, His eternal Son, the true God, and in the Holy Spirit, one God blessed for evermore: and do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be given by Divine Inspiration. (155)

Braithwaite explains the process, and some biblical contingencies, that led to the changes:

Friends, at the risk of finding themselves excluded from the Bill, were put under the necessity, says George Whitehead, of offering some form of confession. The words were confined to scripture terms, though Whitehead bases his willingness to accept the Trinitarian formula, except the unscriptural phrase, "co-equal with the Father and the Son," upon the spurious insertion in I John v. 7, 8, which Erasmus had admitted into his third edition of the Greek Testament, in redemption of a rash promise. It is tempting to speculate on what might have happened to Friends under the Toleration Act if this proof-text for the Trinity, on which they relied in many another doctrinal difficulty, had been absent from the Authorized Version.

Representative Friends were called before the Committee, and answered it clearly as to their owning the Deity and accepting the scriptures as given by Divine inspiration. The latter was the point most in doubt.... (156)

So Friends were willing to accept a description of the Trinity so far as it fit with their understanding of the Bible, which in this case included a likely insertion that supported the Trinity. They wouldn't go so far as the "co-equal", which wasn't supported directly even by that insertion, but they accepted the notion generally.

There is, of course, more to the question of early Quakers and the Trinity than that, and the second edition of the book includes Henry Cadbury's helpful update notes. One of those expands on this question of the Trinity in greater depth:

absent from the Authorized Version Isaac Penington also in 1659, in answer to the charges at Boston in New England that the Quakers denied the Trinity, had declared that on the contrary Friends "set their seal to the truth of that scripture I John v. 7 .... That these three are distinct, as three several beings or persons, this they read not" (Works 1681, i. 203).

In a somewhat later writing he says concerning the "God-Head, which we own as the Scriptures express it, and as we have the sensible, experimental knowledge of it," quoting again I John v. 7. "This I believe from my Heart and have infallible demonstrations of: for I know three and feel three in Spirit" (ibid. ii. 452).

Richard Claridge in an undated essay on the Trinity expressed doubt on the authenticity of the verse (Works, 1726, p. 414).

The exception of Penington is like that of Penn, Sandy Foundation Shaken (1668; Works, 1726, I. 252-4), to the notion of three distinct and separate persons. Thirty years later in his Defense of ... Gospel Truths (Works, 1726, ii. 885) Penn and others cite I John v. 7 as representing Quaker belief.

It was the words "trinity" and "person" to which Friends earlier, such as Fox, Burrough, and Howgill, took exception (cf. T. C. Jones in F. Q. 1959), as did such English fore-runners of Quakerism as Richard Coppin and William Erbury and later Friends, such as Job Scott. See The Later Periods of Quakerism, p. 291 (where on the last line "three external persons" should be corrected to read "three eternal persons").

There is evidence that after the Toleration Act of 1689, which excluded Unitarians from its benefits, Friends were more careful with their language. Cf. J.F.H.S. xlii. 76 (Whitehead); John Robertson's Rusticus ad Clericum, 1694, p. 261; "We own the Nicene Creed." (665-6; paragraph breaks added)

The questionable citation, I John 5:7-8, reads in the Authorized (King James) Version:

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one.

I'll be exploring more Quaker sources on the subject over time, but I'm especially interested in a few angles here:

• First, perhaps most intriguing, is Isaac Penington's "infallible demonstrations of [the Trinity]: for I know three and feel three in Spirit." I'm clearly not the only one who has felt three.

• The second angle that's interesting to me here is the reliance on Scripture: Quakers plainly weren't interested in "schoolmen's terms", and insisted on citing Scripture, without terms created later.

• And the third angle - there have to be three - is the shift over time from these perspectives to the present, where I'm not used to hearing "Trinity" in a Quaker context.

Lots more to consider, as there always is.

Update: In the course of more searching, I did find some Quaker blogging on the trinity.

Posted by Simon St.Laurent at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I gave Karen Armstrong's A History of God a mixed review, but one of her messages, both there and in her later The Battle for God, strikes me as especially important as we try to figure out our (and the world's) relationships to God today: the importance of both mythos and logos:

Myth was regarded as primary; it was concerned with what was thought to be timeless and constant in our existence. Myth looked back to the origins of life, to the foundations of culture, and to the deepest levels of the human mind. Myth was not concerned with practical matters, but with meaning. Unless we find some significance in this world, we mortal men and women fall very easily into despair. The mythos of a society provided people with a context that made sense of their day-to-day lives; it directed their attention to the eternal and the universal. It was also rooted in what we would call the unconscious mind...

To ask whether the Exodus from Egypt took place exactly as recounted in the Bible or to demand historical and scientific evidence to prove that it is factually true is to mistake the purpose of this story. It is to confuse mythos with logos.

Logos was equally important. Logos was the rational, pragmatic, and scientific thought that enabled men and women to function well in the world. We may have lost the sense of mythos in the West today, but we are very familiar with logos, which is the basis of our society. Unlike myth, logos must relate exactly to facts and correspond to external realities if it is to be effective. It must work efficiently in the mundane world. We use this logical, discursive reasoning when we have to make things happen, get something done, or persuade other people to adopt a particular course of action. Logos is practical. Unlike myth, which looks back to the beginnings and to the foundations, logos forges ahead and tries to find something new: to elaborate on old insights, achieve a greater control over our environment, discover something fresh, and invent something novel. (The Battle for God, xv-xvii)

(Please note that at least from my perspective, this is a different use of logos than is used in the first chapter of the Book of John.)

I think it's fair to argue that American culture is utterly biased toward the logos. Even much of the mystical activity out there seems 'explained' by reference to literalist interpretations of the Bible, and the hardcore rationalists are on the attack again - perhaps provoked by what they see as the excesses of the religious, or perhaps attempting to get past problems of their own. People in need of a stronger title for their religious work often call it "scientific" or "literal", words that garner their strength from the logos, not the mythos.

Reading this gave me loud echoes of Chuck Fager's essay in George Fox's Legacy: Friends for 350 Years. He chronicles a mix of "the Psychic, the Mystic, and the Skeptic," and cites Jesse Herman Holmes, professor of philosophy at Swarthmore College and active liberal Friend:

Indeed, Holmes declared that liberal Quakerism is "able to offer a scientific age a genuinely scientific theology on which to base a genuinely Christian life. We have no occasion for pride in this... But we call our faith to the attention of many who are tired of superstitious observances and crude theologies - who long for an intelligent and intelligible religion."

In a similar vein, Fager points to Holmes' Letter to the Scientifically Minded, which Fager describes as "a thoroughly humanist manifesto, in which God was reduced to little more than a nice idea held by the right-thinking, highly-educated, middle-class white readers it was addressed to."

Fortunately that isn't the end of the story, and Fager talks about later thinkers - Howard Brinton, Hugh Barbour, Lewis Benson, and Henry Cadbury - who helped bring liberal Quakerism back from the simple rationalism it seemed headed toward in the 1920s, returning more mythos.

(Rufus Jones, often cast as the dangerous liberal, remember, was an Orthodox Quaker, who did relatively little with FGC. I'd be curious what he and Holmes thought about each other.)

What provoked all this rambling?

A week ago, there was an Intergenerational Meeting before the regular Ithaca Meeting for Worship. One of the exercises was breathing deeply - not just for additional oxygen or to establish a rhythm, but because the air we breathe is shared with everyone else, filled with spirit.

Whenever I breathe deeply, or think about breathing, I see the classic diagrams of the lungs: trachea, bronchi, bronchioles, alveoli, with blood vessels carrying oxygen-poor blood in and oxygen-rich blood out.

Thinking of this breathing as a different kind of exercise, however, changed the way I perceive my lungs. Rather than being a system for getting me oxygen, they're a system that connects me to the world, to other people, to all kinds of things beyond me. Instead of red alveoli and mucus, it seemed (and felt like) my lungs had a soft white glow.

I suspect some rationalist reading the last paragraph will be left giggling, wondering how anyone could fall for that kind of nonsense when it's all about oxygen and carbon dioxide, though maybe an environmentalist rationalist would have hung in there until I hit the soft glow.

If you're giggling, you're welcome to continue giggling, but you'll also get some of my (likely unwelcome) pity with that. It's hard - perhaps even impossible - to explain to a strict rationalist why rationalism is by its very nature incomplete. I'm grateful that Quakerism generally accepts the proof of that by experience rather than by theological calculation.

Update: Hmmm... Slacktivist also just posted a new entry with a similar title, though different content. Coincidence, I guess.

Posted by Simon St.Laurent at 1:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've been enjoying William C. Braithwaite's The Beginnings Of Quakerism To 1660, and I'm almost through. It'll be enriching this site soon enough, on multiple levels. Braithwaite provides an incredible (if dense) foundation, loaded with excellent quotes and amazing stories. The contrast between his perspective and that of later writers is more than a matter of style, but I think it's fair to say that his work is necessary reading for anyone who wants to pursue early Quaker history in depth.

I'm almost through the book, and nearly used to stories of Quakers being beaten, stoned by mobs, thrown into fiendish jails, mocked, put in the stocks, and occasionally executed. Still, this story of Ellis Hookes, who wrote (among other things) a Speller with George Fox, is stunning for its violent attempt at a conversion away from Quakerism:

The case of Ellis Hookes, who seems to have come from Odiham, in Hampshire, and became the official clerk to Friends, illustrates vividly the domestic persecution which befell them.

In 1657 he went with a letter to his mother, who was at Sir William Waller's house at Stanton Harcourt, in Oxfordshire. Lady Waller, a high religious professor, thought to convert him from his Quaker notions, and had him into her chamber. She took his hat off his head, locked the door, and rated him soundly.

He remained silent until she cried that now his hat was gone his religion was gone, and he could not speak, but only hum. Then he angered her still more by saying unceremoniously, "Woman, shew thyself a sober woman." She fell to beating him about the head and pulling his hair, saying that she was never called Woman before.

When she had wearied herself, the young man spoke a second time, "Woman, I deny thy religion that cannot bridle thy tongue nor thy hands," a speech that only added fuel to her passion. She commanded her man and her son to stand before Hookes and keep him up in a corner of the room, where she continued to beat him, and called for a stick, as her fists were sore.

After a time he said, "Instead of showing thyself a sober woman, thou hast shown thyself more like a beast." At this insult to his wife, Sir William Waller, who had hitherto taken no part, struck the Quaker down with a blow on his head, and they all cried, "Out of the doors with him."

He was thrust out and sent off, bare-headed, and deaf for a weak with the blows which he had received. Moreover, his father was written to the next day to have nothing to do with his son, but to turn him out of doors, which he did, though he must afterwards have relented, for on his death in 1672 he left him a considerable fortune.

So, there's something of a happy ending.

Still, let's look at some of the odder moments here:

• 350 years later, we may be too cynical to expect that a lady would take this man into her chamber, take off his hat, and lock the door for the sake of a religious conversation.

• Removing his hat is supposed to remove his religion. I think some shouting was involved, if 'rating' is like 'berating'.

• Hookes offends with plain language on two levels, with "Woman" and the use of "thy" and "thou" rather than the more courteous language Lady Waller no doubt expected.

• Apart from three sentences, Hookes barely responds to these provocations.

• She beats him up and pulls his hair, and calls for a stick to keep beating him, with the help of her son and husband to "keep him up".

• Hookes' final comment - which could fairly be taken as an insult for its (apparently well-deserved) use of "beast" - earns him a final blow from Sir Waller and ejection to the outdoors.

• The beating isn't enough - they write his parents as well.

It's hard to imagine this situation today. I suspect that a large part of why is that there are relatively few people who feel they can safely beat up those they disagree with, but even so, it seems that even the angriest religious conversations don't reach this level any longer. That calmer conversational temperature may in part be the result of Quaker calls for and implementation of religious liberty. Maybe we learned a bit from moments like this.

Posted by Simon St.Laurent at 1:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

It's been a while since I posted a piece of A New-England Fire-Brand Quenched. After the preliminaries about who saw or didn't see who during Fox's visit to Rhode Island, Fox challenges the Epistle to the King at the start of Roger Williams' GEORGE FOX Digged out of his Burrows, &c. Some of it challenges Williams' flattery of the King and abuses of the Quakers, but the strongest part responds to:

R. W. And yet thou sayst to the King, If the Most-High please, Old and New-England may flourish, when the Pope and Mahomet, Rome, and Constantinople are in Ashes.

By 17th-century standards, that doesn't strike me as a particularly unusual wish, but Fox is, I think, completely right to challenge both the prayer and what it says about the person praying for such a circumstance:

Ans. How now Roger, what a selfish Prayer is this? Dost thou think that God, or Christ or the King, or at White-Hall will hear this Prayer? is this a Loyal Subject, oran Affectionate Orator at the Throne of Grace? But why would thou have Rome and Constantinople in the Ashes? why wouldst have these two Cities in the Ashes? What hurt do these Cities to thee and the New-England Priests and Professors?

...For if the Pope and Mahomet be Enemies; were not thou to love them according to Christ's Doctrine? where is thy Christianity now Roger? And if the Pope or Mahomet have destroyed any for Religion, are not thou as bad as they? nay worse, because thou professt thyself a better Christian: And yet thou wouldst not only have Pope and Mahomet burnt to Ashes, but their Cities also; which include hundreds of thousands of People, and some Protestants too, that may be there.

But here it is plain (as in Luke 9) that thou dost not know, what Spirit thou art of; as Christ told James and John, better men that thee, when they said, Wilt thou, that we command Fire to come down from Heaven, even as Elias did: but Christ turned him about, and rebuked them, and said, You know not, what Spirit you are of; for the Son of man is not come to destroy mens lives, but to save them. And so R. W. thou dost not know thy own Spirit; and therefore art very unfit to direct other Men's....

Is this his Christian Practice and Doctrine, and way of converting the Nations to God? but how short is R. W. of the Royal Law of God. To do unto all men, as he would have them do unto him. But the People of God (called Quakers) are not of R. W.'s mind; for they have the mind of Christ, and would have the Pope and Papists, and Mahometans to repent: and do not desire to see Rome nor Constantinople in their Ashes; but in the Truth, as it is in JESUS.

But all may see, what is in this New-England Priest's heart (his mouth has published it, and spoken it to the King) who hath not the Spirit, nor words of a true Christian, which is, To love Enemies, and pray for them; not Persecute, and burn to Ashe's them that evilly entreat them. O this wicked, envious, destroying Spirit, that would depopulate the Earth to satisfie its evil mind, the Lord rebuke it!

I'm not sure how Williams could have responded to this; perhaps he just shook his head and decided to ignore some fundamental messages of the Gospels, like so many of his predecessors, peers, and intellectual descendants.

The full excerpt is in the extended entry.

{Epistle to the King} R. W. And all that read his Epistle may see, how he goes about to flatter the King, [but the Lord knoweth his heart, and the hearts of you New England Professors were are are manifest] And all that read his Epistle to the King, may see, what mere flattery it is, who says; That because he heard it affirmed, that the King had one of most of the Quakers Boooks, therefore says R. W. he will present the King the Protestant Truth more justly, than his Popish & Arminian Opposites did offend his Royal Eyes with smoak out of the deep Pit.

Ans. Doth not R. W. here abuse the King? and yet hopes for Patronage under him. But does R. W. think, that the King will not see through his flatteries and vain applauses?

R. W. And after this, Roger, thou tells the King, The Pope and the Quakers pretend to Enthusiasme and Infallibilities; and then thou boasts, that thou hast detected much of their Impostures: and then thou desires, His Royal Spirit may be preserved from both their cheats, which is the Oracle of Hell in their mouths.

Ans. Ah! R. W. dost thou think, the King will not see through thy words here again? But for the Oracle of Hell, though shouldst have lookt at home for it, as thy following words will manifest it. But is New-England such a Glory to the Protestant Name, as thou boasts of, and wouldst have the King believe? the King knows you bet- ter, who have Hanged, Cut off Ears, Burnt with hot Iron, Banisht, Whipt so many of the Protestants, and King's Subjects too: did ever the Papists do worse?

R. W. And yet thou sayst to the King, If the Most-High please, Old and New-England may flourish, when the Pope and Mahomet, Rome, and Constantinople are in Ashes.

Ans. How now Roger, what a selfish Prayer is this? Dost thou think that God, or Christ or the King, or at White-Hall will hear this Prayer? is this a Loyal Subject, oran Affectionate Orator at the Throne of Grace? But why would thou have Rome and Constantinople in the Ashes? why wouldst have these two Cities in the Ashes? What hurt do these Cities to thee and the New-England Priests and Professors?

And why wouldst thou have the Pope and Mahomet burnt? and not only so, but the Cities of Rome and Constantinople also? what smoak is this, that is come out of thy Pit? Wast thou not speaking but now of the Popish and Arminian Opposites, that did offend the Kings Royal Eyes? and why wouldst have Rome and Constantinople, and Mahomet, and the Pope in Ashes to smoak, and offend the King's Eyes? But dost thou think, that either God, or Christ, or the King, or any true Protestant will receive thy unmerciful, unnatural and wicked Prayer? Here the King and his Councel may see, what Spirit the New-England Priests are of, by Roger Williams, their great Oratour.

For if the Pope and Mahomet be Enemies; were not thou to love them according to Christ's Doctrine? where is thy Christianity now Roger? And if the Pope or Mahomet have destroyed any for Religion, are not thou as bad as they? nay worse, because thou professt thyself a better Christian: And yet thou wouldst not only have Pope and Mahomet burnt to Ashes, but their Cities also; which include hundreds of thousands of People, and some Protestants too, that may be there.

But here it is plain (as in Luke 9) that thou dost not know, what Spirit thou art of; as Christ told James and John, better men that thee, when they said, Wilt thou, that we command Fire to come down from Heaven, even as Elias did: but Christ turned him about, and rebuked them, and said, You know not, what Spirit you are of; for the Son of man is not come to destroy mens lives, but to save them. And so R. W. thou dost not know thy own Spirit; and therefore art very unfit to direct other Men's.

But if R. W. had been such an Oratour, and able Minister of Christ, he had better have gone and Preach'd Repentance to the Pope and Mahomet, and not to rail against them behind their backs; as he doth here against G. F. and others, who never had to do with him. And would not many people suffer besides Papists and Mohametans, if Rome and Constantinople should be burnt? Would this cause Old and New-England to flourish? this is rising by the Ruins of others.

Is this his Christian Practice and Doctrine, and way of converting the Nations to God? but how short is R. W. of the Royal Law of God. To do unto all men, as he would have them do unto him. But the People of God (called Quakers) are not of R. W.'s mind; for they have the mind of Christ, and would have the Pope and Papists, and Mahometans to repent: and do not desire to see Rome nor Constantinople in their Ashes; but in the Truth, as it is in JESUS.

But all may see, what is in this New-England Priest's heart (his mouth has published it, and spoken it to the King) who hath not the Spirit, nor words of a true Christian, which is, To love Enemies, and pray for them; not Persecute, and burn to Ashe's them that evilly entreat them. O this wicked, envious, destroying Spirit, that would depopulate the Earth to satisfie its evil mind, the Lord rebuke it! But now, would New-England Professors and R. W. their Oratour like it well,if the Pope and Turk should pray, that New-England and he and them should be burnt to Ashes? (4-6)

[Paragraph breaks added.]

Posted by Simon St.Laurent at 4:17 PM | Permalink

I'm a little surprised by the positive response my look at English geography and Quakerism received, but I suspect there may be others like me wondering in what conditions Quakerism can thrive, and perhaps also about that question of change around 1660.

While Christopher Hill's The World Turned Upside Down doesn't suggest that Quakerism changed when it headed south, it does spend some time looking at conditions in the North and West of England which may have helped Quakerism thrive:

The North and West were regarded by Parliamentarians as the 'dark corners of the land', in which preaching was totally inadequate, despite the efforts of many Puritans to subsidize it. In 1641 Lord Brooke observed that there was 'scarce any minister in Cumberland, Westmorland, Northumberland, and especially in Wales.'...

Yet one of the paradoxes of the period is that, of the most radical sectarian groups, the Quakers started almost exclusively in the North of England.... The light of God risen in the North, Burroughs said, discovers the abomination of England's teachers and worship, and shall not only shine throughout the nation but 'shall spread over the kingdom'... When the Quakers turned south in 1654 they made great progress among 'that dark people' of the dark county of Cornwall, as well as in Wales, and among weavers generally, notably in Gloucestershire.

The paradox is increased by the fact that such Puritan ministers as there were in the North had mostly been cleared out by Archbishop Neile in the 1630s. Others had fled from their parishes in the North and in Wales during the civil war, when royalist forces occupied their areas.... In fact as early as 1646 the sharp eye of Thomas Edwards noted that 'emissaries out of the sectaries' churches are sent to infect and poison... Yorkshire and those northern parts,... Bristol and Wales.'...

We therefore have to look for other explanations than the influence of southern Puritanism for the sudden burgeoning of radical religious ideas in the outlying areas of the North, West, and South-west of England, and in Wales. Traditional southern English middle-class Puritanims of the Presbyterian variety had a hold only in isolated areas of the North (Lancashire, Newcastle, the West Riding) and hardly at all in Wales... But this absence of traditional Presbyterianism does not mean that there were no popular religious movements in these parts, still less that there were no traditions of popular revolt. (73-77)

Hill goes on to talk about the Lollards, the Pilgrimage of Grace, Antinomians, and Familists and Grindletonians. (Grindleton was even right at the foot of Pendle Hill.) He then explores the promising conditions Quakers found in the 1650s and the converts they made:

The defeat of the royalist armies in the civil war, the bankruptcy of the traditional clergy, created an even greater spiritual void than in the more traditional Puritan centres of the South and East. Yet the period was one of much greater prosperity in the pasture and farming areas...

The Quakers, whose original leaders were almost exclusively northern yeomen and craftsmen, came from this background. Lancashire Quakers included former victims and opponents of oppressive royalist landlords, who had gained experience of cooperative action in resisting increases in rents, labour-services, and tithe payments. Levellers were active in Lancashire throughout 1649.

But such men could also draw on pre-existing underground traditions which were suddenly enabled to flourish after Parliament's victory. When George Fox rode into the North in 1651 he found congregations of Seekers or 'shattered Baptists' waiting for him everywhere among the yeomen farmers of the Yorkshire dales, the Lancashire and Cumberland pastoral-industrial areas. By 1656 Quakerism 'began to spread mightily' in the south-western counties of England. (78-9)

I don't want to suggest that religious belief is a matter of social circumstance, but it does seem clear that early Quakerism benefited from and developed in response to a particular set of conditions that provided fertile soil for the beliefs of Fox and other preachers, but not necessarily for the beliefs of the more Presbyterian Puritans whose strength was further south.

Social dislocation is only a partial explanation for why the Quaker seed could sprout so vigorously, as the entire country, and indeed much of Europe, had seen traumatic changes over the past few century or so. The lifting of censorship certainly permitted an enormous variety of religious perspectives to present themselves, but Quakerism and Baptism seem to be the two survivors of the many options that appeared then, the two whose roots set deeply enough for them to continue after the Restoration.

Looking at Quakerism today, it again seems that there are places - sometimes countries, sometimes university towns, sometimes part of the midwest where earlier generations of Quakers settled - that are eager to hear of the Inward Light. There are lots of places where that message is not so welcome. And of course, some places are better tuned to one or another version of that message.

It's easy to look at the early Quakers and focus on their message rather than their audience. In fact, it's practically expected in religious writing. I wonder, though, if there's an opportunity for Quakers to think about who is interested in our message, both in the past and in the present. To me, it seems like Quakerism really should have swept the world - but obviously, it hasn't.

Posted by Simon St.Laurent at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)