Bill Samuel's Home Page

Bill & Young Samuel Biltmore, Asheville, NC September 10, 2011

I live in Germantown, Maryland, northwest of Washington, D.C., U.S.A. I am a 1968 graduate of Wilmington College, a Quaker institution in Wilmington, Ohio. I am retired from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in the Office of the Inspector General (OIG).

My main interest is in the Good News of Jesus Christ. I helped start a new local Christian outreach, Friends in Christ, which was the focus of much of my energies for several years, but no longer exists. Much later I was part of a similar effort called Friends of Jesus. For decades I was associated with the with the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and put a lot of energy into Christian renewal among Friends. However, Quakers in my area are not corporately united around Jesus Christ, and I resigned my membership in my local Friends meeting on April 16, 2005.

I joined Cedar Ridge Community Church, a nondenominational "emerging church". Cedar Ridge's Mission is “To be and make disciples in authentic community for the good of the world,” and it takes this mission seriously. I remained a part of Cedar Ridge for 9 years.

In late 2014, I felt a need to make a change in faith community to one which did not have the same professional clergy upfront talking to an audience approach. I am now an Intern Member at Dayspring Church in Germantown, Maryland, a member faith community of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour. Dayspring has no one named as pastor, and follows a shared leadership model which is far more participatory than most churches.

I also appreciate involvement in the wider body of Christ, and have participated in conferences of Christian renewal movements such as Renovaré (Timonium, MD Regional Conference, May 1996, and Wheaton, MD Regional Conference, March 2002). For some insights into my faith journey and perspective, see Some Pieces of My Journey and Bill Samuel's Affirmations of Faith.

For many years, I wrote a brief inspirational message each week for the Friends in Christ email list that reached around the globe.

I went on a Quaker Tour of England June 15-30, 1998. If you go to the Quaker Tour site, you can see many of the highlights of that tour, with photographs and much text reflecting the educational nature of that tour.

I was one of the founders of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund (NCPTF), and served on its staff for several years. The NCPTF developed and works to enact the U.S. Peace Tax Fund Bill to permit conscientious objectors to the military to pay their full Federal tax obligation without violating deeply held religious or ethical beliefs. There are parallel efforts in a number of other countries.

Friends Christian Renewal

Other Quaker Resources

Christian Resources

• Christian Links - some of my favorite Christian sites and Christian site search engines.
• Resources for a discussion on discipleship and pacifism (PDF) - a compilation of various articles, etc. done for a discussion group at church

Choose Life

All Christians should subscribe to the consistent life ethic which opposes the taking of human life, whether with abortion, war, the death penalty, euthanasia, or what. Some Quaker resources on the Web have resources on some of these issues, but few cover abortion. Did you know that many of the early suffragist/feminist leaders in the U.S. were raised as Quakers and that they were strongly anti-abortion? I serve as a Board member (and was President for 12 years) of Consistent Life.

Disclaimer

Listing of a link anywhere on my Web site does not constitute my endorsement of the contents of that Web site, but merely indicates that you might find some of the material at the site useful. If you have problems with the content or the format of any site, please contact the maintainer of that site.

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