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Permalink Reply by William F Rushby on 6th mo. 3, 2012 at 3:40pm

David Seaman quoted Janet Scott as follows: "'Thus we may answer the question 'Are Quakers Christian ?' by saying that it does not matter."

Even though whether Friends are Christians does not matter to Janet Scott, to most Christian Friends it does indeed matter!  And that's where the problem is with her line of reasoning.

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Permalink Reply by David Nelson Seaman on 6th mo. 4, 2012 at 12:35pm

I understand your questioning that particular quote of Janet Scott, William, but she brings into the discussion some of George Fox's thinking on the concept of God and the Spirit, and in her first chapter, "In the Beginning- God", presents some leadings not only from Fox, but also Penn and Pennington:

In Fox's Espitle 181 1659, "Live in the unchangeable power of God, which will keep you in righteousness, and truth, and love, and unity......patiently in the power of the Lord wait, that in it ye may all be kept low, in love and unity with God and with one another."

 Fox, again, wrote in 1683, " God, who made all, pours out of his spirit upon all men and women in the world.....yea upon whites, blacks, Moors and Turks, and Indians, Christians, Jews and Gentiles that all with the spirit of God, might know God and the things of God, and serve and worship him in his spirit and truth, that he hath given them."   

Scott quotes William Penn, "It is not opinion, or speculation,, or notions of what is true, or assent to, or the subscription of articles and propositions, though never so soundly worded that..... make a man a true beliver or a true Christian.   But it is a conformity of mind and practice to the will of God......according to the dictates of his Divine priciple of light and Life in the soul which denotes a person truly a child of God."

Scott quotes of  Issac Pennington, "Though they had never heard the outward Sound, or Name Christ, yet feeling the thing, and being gathered to God by the thing, the Value and Vertue of it could not but redound to them.  For it is not the outward Name, but the inward Life and Power which is the Savior." 

Those are some of the historic Quaker leadings which Scott uses, and while their authors certainly confirm Christ, and the Spirit, they also speak of the Spirit being availible and accessible not only to Christians, but to "Moors, Turks, Indians, Jews and Gentiles".   We all live and respond to labels, identities and many assorted affirmations, but in the end, Scott seems to propose, we are all of that which is God, and that which of God is in everyone.   I merely sense there is a lot of common ground among the various Friends groups, acknoweldging the heart felt experiences and leadings through which each indiviudal expresses the Spirit and the relative Quaker communities they join to develope, support and sustain it.   I have had no intention of misrepresenting Scott's book or her research, and if it appears I have done so, I fully apolologize to Janet.   Her work is a Quaker publication I think is worth the read- and a place in the family bookshelf.    I'll trust you, William, to not prejudge her work from my singular post and use of her quotations, but give her a fair reading in her entirety.   

 

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Permalink Reply by Isabel Penraeth on 6th mo. 4, 2012 at 6:53pm

My impulse is to have great compassion for every Friend everywhere, for the choices they have to make, and the communities they try to build. Thinking about how Friends should be doing this or Friends should be doing that seems disrespectful of Friends' abilities to accurately discern what Christ is calling them to do. We can think they should do some particular thing, but perhaps that just isn't what Christ is concerned about in that Friend's life.

I think most people seek ideological comfort because they are so tired of conflict, and without tighter social bonds to make it worth engaging with people of differing viewpoints, we mostly avoid it as much as we can. In the small town I grew up in, one could not afford to only associate with like-minded people. When a blizzard came, one needed all the neighbors to pull together. One, by necessity, had to work side-by-side with whoever was there. One would also learn respect for people who differed drastically, moderating partisanship, because their gifts as human beings became as evident as the issues of disagreement. But small-town life is not where most American Friends live, and the situations in which we could "pull together" on something are few and far between. As Friend William said here, communities need a common basis from which to function.

Friends are no different, and accusations of seeking ideological “purity” during schism might more helpfully be described as seeking ideological rest. People just get tired of defending what is important to them and fighting for what is important to them. Peace is not a trivial thing to achieve across differing moral viewpoints. It feels like a zero-sum game, and no one wants to be the recipient of the zero.

Fundamental things like where a person places moral authority feel too important for people to set aside or ignore in the interest unification. 

What we must seek is not an ideal of unification, but a Holy-Spirit-guided connection. All efforts in our own will are doomed to fail, but when we feel the stirrings to reach across the boundaries, we must be obedient. That is the challenge. Not to find some program for making it happen, but for strengthening our fellow Friends who have that gift and feel that call.

Isabel

Paula Deming said:

I'm with you, Olivia. I agree. I have no answers. And others may say I'm all wet. It's just that I finally understand things as I wrote them.

How do we come together? I feel we have to be able to loosen up our personal boundaries a bit. I don't feel that is what is valued in American culture, which is in love with individualism. There are reasons that religions proliferate and divide in America. As communities dissolve or weaken their bonds, their hold on individuals fail. People no longer need to toe the line. They will shop around for where they feel most comfortable and will drive long distances, instead of going to the local church.

The flip side: Think of the Catholic Church, which has had to be flexible in order to be a big tent. That means that you will find different flavors of Catholics the world over. That's good. But the powers that be have always been on the lookout for whiffs of heresy. Medieval mystics had to be careful in how they described their visions so that they didn't sound too outside the canon.

I have worshipped with Conservative Friends who recognize me as kin, looking past our outer liveries. Other Conservative Friends have told me I'm OK to a point, but they'd rather worship with those who believe exactly as they do. Professed Christians only (belief in Jesus Christ as savior). And among liberal Friends, many like me, and others reaaally want me to stop talking about religion, because they feel uncomfortable with it.

So, how much are we willing to give up to live in community? How much autonomy do you insist on? It isn't just personal tolerance levels for each other, but how much our local church authority will tolerate our individuality. Elders? Ministers? Disciplines? I heard someone in our meeting say that queries are designed to make us feel bad about ourselves. That's the other end of the community in charge.

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Permalink Reply by Paula Deming on 6th mo. 4, 2012 at 7:02pm

Isabel, thank you. I can't tell you how grateful I am for your answer.

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Permalink Reply by Howard Brod on 6th mo. 5, 2012 at 8:59pm

This past Sunday we had a wonderful worship at meeting with messages about the Light of Christ being more powerful than just a label. This gathered meeting affirmed that that power IS - no matter what one calls it. Do we really think the "ALL" of the universe needs our labels to be a Force and Power that permeates all and is within all?

I agree with our Friends who believe this was the beautiful message of early Friends who seemed to recognize this reality. Our whole trust in the sacrament of silent worship is that it WILL bring us in communion with that same Spirit that early Friends experienced. That Spirit is just too universal to be limited to a label.

This is not to say that a label can't be useful to focus us on that Spirit. But we must use labels with humility, knowing that they are merely vehicles to help us focus on the real thing that's behind the label. And if we have that humility we can have communion with others who are experiencing the same reality that we are, but just through another label or no label at all.

I believe the bigger hindrance to Quaker unification is that modern Friends, for the most part, do not avail themselves of silent worship regularly. A 'hit or miss' attendance at worship does not make available the full benefits of silent worship and it's power to transform one's life. If Quakers from all traditions had the discipline to come together each week on a regular basis for many months into silent worship, they would eventually be joined together by a common experience of the Spirit. And yes, that powerful Spirit is the Christ, the Buddha, Love, God, the Nothingness, and any other label we might want to put on it.

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Permalink Reply by Isabel Penraeth on 6th mo. 6, 2012 at 8:09am

What thee writes is a lovely expression of the utopian, unconstrained vision. I can feel the hope in it, the love in it, the desire for Truth to win its victory.

Unfortunately, it presumes a few things. For one, it presumes that what thee finds and nourishes in worship is what everyone seeks and seeks to nourish in worship, that God is calling everyone to silent worship and to no other. As a writer from the programmed tradition writes in the latest issues of Friends Journal, silence is awkward for many. Think about how uncomfortable Liberal Friends can be with programmed worship that is Christ-centered. The Christian hymns. The arms up in the air for the Christian hymns. The Bible readings. The standing up and sitting down. Now reverse it. That is probably a good approximation of how an Evangelical Friend could field just sitting in silent worship for an hour. Also, if what thee says is true, Friends must have split in all our previous permutations of schism due to failure to worship together in silence. There is no evidence for that. To be a Friend in good standing in the 19th century (the times of the biggest schisms), one was required to attend mid-week as well as First Day worship. Instead, Friends split despite worshipping together, in waiting worship under the headship of Christ, twice a week.

If thee is seeking a discipline, I challenge thee to go to a programmed meeting on a regular basis for many months. I think thee will find that the Spirit is there also, moving people to greater love in His name. Programmed worship isn't where I find spiritual nourishment, and I find it challenging (it just doesn't feel like worship to me, but more like an extended and really good Christian education session), but after spending many months with Friends there, it is clear many people do experience it as worship, experience the Holy Spirit there, and feel strengthened in their lives and in their lives in Jesus Christ. The stereotypes of unloving dogmatism are not accurate in the sense that I see no more unloving dogmatism there than I have experienced in liberal meetings and in conservative meetings. Unloving dogmatism is part of the universal human condition. I see no way I can claim that the programmed form of worship closes them off to the Truth. I have learned a great deal about being a Christian, and witnessed a loving, supportive community seeking to do good, to be good, and to know good.

I think thee will find there are more differences than just a label. There are differences in culture. When I was at the liberal meetinghouse, I witnessed an exchange where a first-time attender was talking to an older member. She mentioned she was a cashier at a near-by grocery store. The member said something about, but she was going back to school, right? The visitor's face got this strange frozen, kind of sick look as she explained that was unlikely. At the evangelical church-building I heard a woman share that she got a job at McDonald's, and there were congratulations all around. There are also differences in where to place moral authority. Evangelical Friends place great weight upon the Bible as a moral authority that many Liberal Friends would find repugnant. Conversely, Liberal Friends place moral authority in the individual in a way that Evangelicals would find baffling.

I just think what thee is really suggesting is that, in the end, can't we all just be Liberal Friends? And the answer to that is no.

Howard Brod said:

This past Sunday we had a wonderful worship at meeting with messages about the Light of Christ being more powerful than just a label. This gathered meeting affirmed that that power IS - no matter what one calls it. Do we really think the "ALL" of the universe needs our labels to be a Force and Power that permeates all and is within all?

I agree with our Friends who believe this was the beautiful message of early Friends who seemed to recognize this reality. Our whole trust in the sacrament of silent worship is that it WILL bring us in communion with that same Spirit that early Friends experienced. That Spirit is just too universal to be limited to a label.

This is not to say that a label can't be useful to focus us on that Spirit. But we must use labels with humility, knowing that they are merely vehicles to help us focus on the real thing that's behind the label. And if we have that humility we can have communion with others who are experiencing the same reality that we are, but just through another label or no label at all.

I believe the bigger hindrance to Quaker unification is that modern Friends, for the most part, do not avail themselves of silent worship regularly. A 'hit or miss' attendance at worship does not make available the full benefits of silent worship and it's power to transform one's life. If Quakers from all traditions had the discipline to come together each week on a regular basis for many months into silent worship, they would eventually be joined together by a common experience of the Spirit. And yes, that powerful Spirit is the Christ, the Buddha, Love, God, the Nothingness, and any other label we might want to put on it.

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Permalink Reply by Jim Wilson on 6th mo. 6, 2012 at 10:18am

Friend Isabel:

I found your post insightful and helpful.  In response I'd like to share with you something similar that happened while I was a Buddhist.  I was aksed to give monthly talks for several years at a Buddhist group that claimed it was non-sectarian; meaning that they did not consciously line up with any specific Buddhist tradition that has been imported to the West.  In other words they did not self-identify as Zen or Theravada or etc.  They would gather once a week for silent meditation.  Their view was that silence would allow for each participant to practice whatever form they wished and that therefore silence was all-encompasing, allowing for participation from all the different Buddhist traditions.

I pointed out that the largest groups of Buddhism do not practice silent meditation, they practice chanting meditation.  Pure Land Buddhism is by far the largest form of practice in East Asia; and they practice chanting a brief phrase as the central act of their devotional form.  Nichiren Buddhism also practices chanting and it outnumbers the silent meditation groups in Japan by a large margin.

What the group had difficulty seeing was that the practice of silent meditation would be perceived by Pure Land Buddhists as excluding them from participation, because they wouldn't be able to chant.  I see your analysis of the situation among Quakers as being similar.  And incidentally, there is also the socio-economic differentiation you allude to.  If you go to a Pure Land or Nichiren Temple it is much more blue collar than what one will find in a Zen setting (I'm referring to the West).  You can see the difference immediately between the two groups. 

It seems to me that if there is to be a regathering of Quakers into some kind of unified purpose it would have to come with each camp recognizing the validity of the other's forms, rather than insisting on the validity of their own form over others.  That is to say those practicing gathered silence, like myself, have to let go of that form as a normative standard through which other forms are evaluated. 

When I was studying in Korea the Korean Chogye order, the largest Buddhist organization in Korea, accomplished exactly this kind of gathering.  Under the Chogye umbrella one could find Pure Land practitioners, Zen practitioners, those who were devoted to scriptural study, etc.  And they all recognized each other as part of the same organization.  It seems to me that this is a kind of model, or template, for a regathering of Quakers, if such a regathering can take place.

 

Thy Friend Jim

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 6th mo. 6, 2012 at 11:26am

Yes, while I do trust that God is working on everybody, whichever label (or anti-label label) they place on their practice or lack thereof -- as Howard Brod is saying -- How people label their practice is bound to influence their intentions and expectations -- which will in turn affect how much importance they give to the practice and maintaining it frequently.

This Sunday it seemed to me, unlike what he experienced at his Meeting, that I may well have been the only person there with the explicit intention of attending to God. No limitation on whether God can influence me -- but what does this do to the amount of energy the group brings together for that purpose?

And what does this do to newcomers? Encountering with a large, dead space? -- I don't know, but I increasingly feel that this is what drives them away after one or two visits.

The formal form of worship I found most complete -- was at the Jewish Renewal synagogue in Philadelphia (where our Pendle Hill gospels' class teacher brought us one rather overwhelming Saturday morning, after which Anne & I returned as often as we could!) Chanting, Torah study, and a brief period of silent standing worship, in the Amidah, thought of as standing before God. This was a free (details to-be-arranged) form set into a very ancient framework.

The chanting being in simple Hebrew (which I don't speak) was probably helpful; the translation was there and I knew what I was chanting was generally true and wholesome -- less of the "Quakers can't sing because we're too busy reading ahead to see if we agree" syndrome.

Anne and I both found much to like about the black apostolic church we also attended for awhile -- but there was a whole lot more taken-for-granted theology and little time for God to get a word in edgewise. (She has for now 'gone off to get religion' from a down home local Episcopal church, where I stop on my way to Meeting for their adult Sunday school -- an appetite no one else at Meeting feels the need for.

The trouble with silence always starts when people open their mouths... but that's not an affliction; it's something we need each other for!

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Permalink Reply by William F Rushby on 6th mo. 6, 2012 at 2:04pm

Several comments in this thread suggest that the differences among various types of Friends boil down to the use of different "labels".  I don't think that such differences are that simple.

 When I profess to be a Christian Friend, I am indicating that I follow the PERSON of Jesus Christ, the very Son of God and my Lord and Savior!  And my faith journey has an historical  context: the Bible and the lives and writings of "the great cloud of witnesses" who have gone before.  I do not follow an abstract "force" or "power", but the God of the Bible and His son.  My faith cannot be reduced to a label!

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Permalink Reply by William F Rushby on 6th mo. 6, 2012 at 2:33pm

David Seaman: I will probably never read Janet Scott's Swarthmore lecture.  Modern liberal Quaker authors begin with premises so different from my own that I find most of their work irrelevant to my life and faith journey.

The main exception would be the work of Chuck Fager.  He is not a "professional" Quaker in that that he is on the fringes of the Quaker establishment, and is not a full-fledged academic.  Chuck is a man of endless opinions, most of which I don't resonate with.  BUT, if one sifts all of those out, one can find some real insights in his historical essays and in his commentaries on the current Quaker scene.  I urge others to read his work, but not to swallow it whole!

Most of the Hicksite works that I read are ministers' journals and memoirs from the period between 1825 and 1925.  In particular, I recommend the Life of Samuel J. Levick, Late of the City of Philadelphia, a wonderful minister's journal by a Friend on the conservative fringes of the Hicksite movement.

 

I also find some of the observations about the "State of the [Hicksite] Society" in the Friends Intelligencer of great interest.

 

David, I wish you the best!

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Permalink Reply by Howard Brod on 6th mo. 6, 2012 at 3:07pm

So, Friends, I am hearing and sensing in my own heart that reunion of the various branches of Friends is likely not possible - based on the realities we all hold so dear. It appears that each has certain practices and beliefs that they would not be willing to give up. I concede that even the liberal meetings I am familiar with that are embracing of entirely Christian Friends at their meetings, would not be willing to give up unprogrammed worship. This is because it is a cornerstone of the liberal tradition, which insists that the Spirit must be unfettered in order to provide us with the Light of truth with the least amount of institutionalized norms getting in the way. And I understand that the Christ-centered traditions hold the same level of importance to the personage of Jesus Christ.

So, we are where we are, and must settle for loving each other from afar. Which is not such a bad thing.

I do want to assure Friends that I am not claiming that Spirit can not be present in programmed situations. The Spirit; i.e., God, is like water, in that it is always seeking entree into our lives.

I also believe that "beliefs" can be wrong, and so I pray I am always open to the Spirit to be corrected.

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Permalink Reply by Paula Deming on 6th mo. 6, 2012 at 3:15pm

My wish is for us to be Friends. I want to visit as cousins and also as brothers and sisters. I feel there has been much healing since Friends were throwing each other out of the meetinghouse windows in 1828. We have the new technology that allows us to engage online with each other. This is GOOD. It certainly has helped in my personal faith journey, as well as helped my understanding of others. Since this was the purpose John Woolman cited in visiting the Indians, I am happy to simply hope for love and understanding, without intending for anyone else to be changed.

 

To all Friends: I am yours in God's Love, Paula

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