Chuck Fager was born in Kansas in 1942. The oldest of eleven children, he was
raised in a Catholic, military family on Air Force bases, principally in California, Puerto Rico and Wyoming. After nearly
enrolling in the U.S. Air Force Academy, he attended Colorado State University, where he won medals in Air Force ROTC. He
later left the ROTC program, and completed a B.A. in humanities in 1967.
In the fall of 1964
Chuck went south, to Atlanta, Georgia, where he managed to gain a spot on the staff of the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He worked for SCLC in Selma, Alabama, during and after the historic civil
rights campaign there which culminated in the Selma-to-Montgomery March and passage of the Voting Rights Act. During this
campaign he was arrested three times, once spending the night in a cell with Dr. King. This campaign is recounted in Chuck's
book, Selma 1965: The March That Changed the
South, and a memoir, Eating Dr. King's
Dinner.(Bibliography below)
In the late fall of 1965, Chuck applied for classification as a Conscientious
Objector to the draft, as a non-religious pacifist. Given his military background, he was surprised when the request was
granted.
About the same time Chuck met some students and staff from Friends World College
(FWC), a experimental Quaker college just starting in New York. He was soon hired as a junior faculty member, which took him
in early 1966 to Westbury, New York, where the college was then located. It was here that Chuck was initially exposed to
Quakerism, and became a "convinced Friend." During his time at FWC, Chuck's first book, White Reflections on Black
Power, was published.
Leaving FWC in midsummer, 1967, Chuck lived in New York City for
almost a year, then moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts to enroll at Harvard Divinity School (HDS). He attended HDS part-time
for almost four years, migrating steadily away from academia toward work in writing and reporting. In 1969 he joined the
Friends Meeting at Cambridge. By late 1970, he was writing essentially full-time, principally for what were known then as
"alternative" newspapers. He was also active in numerous peaceful antiwar protests, submitting to arrest twice. In these
years he published two more books, Uncertain Resurrection: The Poor Peoples Washington Campaign, and Selma 1965: The March That Changed the South.
After seven years in the Cambridge area, Chuck crossed the continent to San Francisco in late 1975. There he
continued to write for "alternative papers," and began work on some fictional projects as well. In the fall of 1977, Chuck
returned east, to the Washington, D.C. area. There he freelanced until late 1985, except for a period of about two and a half
years when he worked as a congressional staffer, primarily for then-Rep. Paul N. "Pete" McCloskey, Jr. of California. During
this time he also launched Kimo Press, a small publishing operation, A Friendly Letter, an independent monthly Quaker newsletter, and transferred
his membership in Friends to Langley Hill Friends Meeting in McLean, Virginia.
In November,
1985, Chuck "retired" from writing for a living, and joined the U.S. Postal Service. As a postal employee, Chuck worked first
as a substitute rural mail carrier, later as a mail handler, and in the early 1990s as an EEO investigator on discrimination
cases. At the same time, he continued to be very productive as a writer and author, producing several more books, fiction as
well as nonfiction, for both adults and younger readers. He laid down regular publication of A Friendly Letter, in
early 1993, after 134 issues. However, in 1998, it was revived for a special investigative report on two multi-million dollar
frauds perpetrated on many Quakers. (More on this in the Bibliography below.) Since then A Friendly Letter has been updated with occasional blog entries at http://www.afriendlyletter.com/index.php
In the summer of
1994, Chuck accepted a position at Pendle Hill, a Quaker center for study and contemplation near Philadelphia. Chuck directed
the Pendle Hill Issues Program for three years, overseeing conferences and publications on issues important to Friends. (You
can see some examples of this work at: http://www.pendlehill.org and in the
Bibliography below.)
During this time he also published a book, Without Apology: The Heroes, the Heritage and the Hope of
Liberal Quakerism, which in 2006 was reissued in a Tenth anniversary edition. Following up this field of interest, he published a collection of original research reports and interpretive essays on the evolution of liberal Quakerismin the US in the volume, Shaggy Locks & Birkenstocks: Exloring Liberal Quaker Theology.
In late 1997, Chuck left Pendle Hill and headed to Central
Pennsylvania, where he continued writing, editing and publishing, and taught several courses at nearby Penn State University.
A continuing focus of his study and publications since this time has been the
history and evolution of liberal Quakerism in America, particularly its theological evolution. In 1999 he
established Quaker Theology, a semi-annual journal which is available both
in print and online. Chuck edits the journal with Friend Ann K. Riggs.
In 1998, he and FQA
created the Lemonade Art Gallery at the Friends General Conference
annual Gathering. Chuck served as Curator of the Lemonade Gallery, now a part of the Gathering program, through 2002. During
this period he was also Clerk of the Planning Committee for the 2001 Quaker Peace
Roundtable, hosted by State College (PA) Friends Meeting. He also served on the working group that planned the 2003 North American Quaker Peace Conference at Guilford College.
Following the onset of the terror war of September 2001, Chuck, like many others, reassessed his situation in light of the
Quaker Peace Testimony. To aid his own and others' reflection on this turn of events, he established the Quaker Peace Web Page and later published an essay,
A Quaker Declaration of War.
At the beginning of 2002, he moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina, to become
director of Quaker House, which has been a front-line Friends peace witness project
there since 1969. As part of this work, he has been a member of the planning group which became QUIT: the Quaker Initiative to End Torture , as well as a founding member of NRCAT: The National Religious Coalition Against Torture.
Chuck has been married and divorced twice. He has four children, three
daughters and a son, and two granddaughters. Many of his stories were written for them.
Bibliography
Nonfiction
White Reflections on Black
Power.
1967, Eerdmans Publishing Co., 118 pages. (Out of print)
Uncertain Resurrection: The Poor Peoples Washington Campaign.
1969, Eerdmans Publishing Co., 142 pages. (Out of print)
Quaker Service at the Crossroads, Editor.
(Seventeen essays on the American Friends Service Committee and its relationship to the Religious Society of Friends.)
New Voices, New Light: Papers from the Quaker Theology Roundtable, 1995. Editor.
1995, Pendle Hill Issues Program, 214 pages.
A Continuing Journey:
papers from the Quaker Peace Roundtable, 1995. Editor.1996, Pendle Hill Issues Program, 160 pages.
The Bible, the Church & The Future of Friends: Papers from a Consultation at Pendle Hill,
1996. Pendle Hill Issues Program, 1996, 200 pages.
Sustaining Peace Witness in the Twenty-First Century. Papers from the Quaker Peace Roundtable, 1997.
Editor. 1997, Pendle Hill Issues Program, 300 pages.
Kimo Press, 1996. Fleecing the Faithful: How Religious Con Artists Stole $35
Million Dollars from Quakers, Nazarenes and other Churches. A Friendly
Letter Special Report, 1998.
The
Best of Friends, Volume One. A Collection of Recent Quaker Writing. Editor. Essays, short stories, poetry, and line
drawings. Kimo Press & the Fellowship of Quakers in the Arts. 1998, 241
pages. Friends and the Vietnam War: Papers and Presentations from a Gathering for
Recollection, Reappraisal and Looking Ahead. Editor. 1998, Pendle Hill, 365
pages.
Friends in Civilian Public Service: Quaker Conscientious Objectors in
World War II Look back and Look Ahead. Editor. 1998, Pendle Hill, 350
pages.
The Harlot's Bible & Other Quaker
Essays. 2002. 175 pages.
Shaggy Locks & Birkenstocks: Essays on Liberal
Quaker History & Theology. Kimo Press 2003. 120 pages. A Quaker Declaration
of War. 2003. Kimo Press, 75 pages. Eating
Dr. King's Dinner: a Memoir of the Movement. Kimo Press, 2005, 160 pages.
Fire in the Valley,
Six Quaker Ghost Stories. 1992, Kimo Press, 86 pages.
Journal
Quaker Theology, Editor.
"A progressive Journal and Forum for Discussion and Study." Published twice yearly, inboth print and online editions.
Newsletter: A Friendly Letter
A
Friendly Letter, an independent monthly Quaker newsletter, was written and published by Chuck Fager, beginning in
3/1981, and ending in 1/1993, a total of 134 monthly issues. The newsletter covered such issues as:
The "realignment" controversy; conflicts among Friends over sexual
issues, including homosexuality and pedophilia; Quaker humor and highlights of Quaker history; annual nominations of "Quakers
of the Year"; concerns about the AFSC and Friends; trends in Quaker theology, from fundamentalism to witchcraft; Friends'
peace witness during the Gulf War; and many more.
In late
1997, Chuck resurrected the newsletter for a special, onetime report, "Fleecing the Faithful". This is an in-depth
investigation of two financial fraud schemes which cost their victims, including many Quakers, over 40 million dollars.
Extensive excerpts from this report, plus updates and numerous photographs, are posted at the website for A Friendly Letter. Printed copies of all back issues of A Friendly
Letter are available; for a list, write to: Kimo Press, P.O. Box 1344,
Fayetteville NC 28302