Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rich Accetta-Evans on 5th mo. 22, 2009 at 2:18pm

Before this became a discussion topic I sent Margaret a response to her message for group members on the same question. The main part of my response is quoted below. I'd be interested in whether other Friends have further things to say about this.

From my response:
"Margaret, I'm not sure what beliefs you consider to be the central creeds of the Christian church. I believe that God is the Creator of the Universe, I believe in the divinity of Jesus and that Jesus in the flesh was the incarnation of God. I believe that Jesus rose again after his crucifixion and that He is now present with us through the Holy Spirit. When praying to God/Jesus/the Holy Spirit I do not distinguish them but address them as one. I don't call myself a trinitarian because I think that doctrinal definitions of the Trinity quickly get very verbal and confuse rat her than clarify.
All of the above are my beliefs. I do not think any of them are central to my salvation. My salvation comes not from believing things about Jesus but from putting my trust in Him and letting him lead me.
You also asked a question about how to discern whether the Light within is truly the light of Christ and not a relativistic and experiential concept only. It's an excellent question. I hope to be able to reply in another email (or, preferably, through the group's forum if you can place your questions there in the form of a discussion).
You might be interested in a couple of my past blog posts: http://brooklynquaker.blogspot.com/2005/07/what-is-it-with-quakers-... and http://brooklynquaker.blogspot.com/2006/04/what-this-christian-is-l...

Thanks for your questions and your earnest seeking.

Peace of Christ,
Rich Accetta-Evans
"

Permalink Reply by Margaret B on 5th mo. 24, 2009 at 5:23pm

Rich --

I think that those beliefs you have summarized for yourself are what I also consider what it means for me to be a Christian. There are many with the insitutional Christian church who would not hold to the resurrection, and some not even the divinity of Christ. (As in recent bishops) Yes, the Trinity is a difficult concept to grab hold of. As in.... "The Spirit comes and goes as it pleases....." (paraphrase!) We may be better not to say to much about God's Spirit. Still, what was in St. Patrick's heart when he wrote about the strong Name of the Trinity?

However, I hope that I hold my beliefs without exclusion. I do believe in the light that lightens every man, and a Light which is beyond our ability to grasp entirely in creed or doctrine.

Thank you for sharing your blog. I am making my way through your blog posts slowly, and learning a great deal.

Christ's peace be with you as well,
Margaret

Permalink Reply by Margaret B on 5th mo. 24, 2009 at 5:43pm

Tom,

Intuitively I can grasp these two "tests of Quakerism". Would all or most Quakers agree with you on the first point and interpret the Word in the same way? I like the sense of the emerging 'canon' which seems to grow as a plant from earlier witness. My Roman Catholic husband argues vehemently against this sort of "protestantism", as in his opinion it leads to a free-for-all interpretation and splinter groups.

I like the way you have described the process of Meetings -- testing one's own inner revelations with the response of others, and achieving understanding and consensus in that way. I couldn't argue against your experience of this at work. It must be wonderful the times one truly senses the Spirit at work in this way. I guess my counter-argument would be that, no less than the religious groups I have come from, this is open to some false leadership, disputes, splinters, etc. How far away can one move from the earlier Witness? Hopefully not far, with proper discernment?

Thank you for your helpful comment!

Margaret

Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 5th mo. 24, 2009 at 6:42pm

To call our experience of the Light "experiential" is not to make it a "concept only" as you imply here; it is to anchor it in something far stronger than anyone's ideas of "fact". (Or even science, although the 17th Century sense of the word was virtually the same as "experimental", ie experience by which truth is tested.)

There was this basic question of Authority in the English Reformation in which the Quaker movement came forth, between "The Pope says" and the myriad pitfalls of "the Bible says", George Fox found his foundation in "Christ says", justified precisely by "This I know experientially."

Not "because I have had such-and-such experience" but "because I experience, at any moment in which I ask, the truth of this."

Permalink Reply by Margaret B on 5th mo. 24, 2009 at 9:01pm

I Do understand what you are saying -- in part --, and I would say it is because "This I know experientially" that I continue to be a Christian, in spite of the tests of faith.

I would agree with George Fox, that the foundation is "Christ says" and that sometimes we can come close to experiencing the heart of this.

I do no understand "because I experience, at any moment in which I ask, the truth of this." Or --- I have not yet attained that..... not by far.

Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 5th mo. 24, 2009 at 10:40pm

It is obviously not something that you "attain." Who gets it, when, is probably not a matter of what kind of person you've been or what you've done, so much as 'who ripens first.'

I've been blessed with people who understood a little more than I did, and were there at the right times to clue me in on things I didn't always understand until later. I doubt it is just me that this happens to!

I got a look Backstage one time when I was smoking pot and reading a Scientific American article on "consciousness." I could see that the author, an extremely bright man, was still talking only about the visible effects of consciousness, because that was the limitation he thought he had to accept to make the subject "scientific." (Much like the story about the drunk looking for his key under the lamp post because he couldn't see the place he'd actually lost it!) So there was this insight that the "seeing" of my life could only result from God at work; that nothing in the scientific literature about the workings of neurons etc could explain the "I" present in it, let alone the ongoing creation of coherent existence.

This view of God may not look like Jesus, on the surface. But it does refer to the same Father he speaks of, the one that a later rabbi described as having mercy on The Wicked, for much the same reason that we ourselves would never want to beat our own hand for having been injured.

Permalink Reply by Alice M Yaxley on 5th mo. 25, 2009 at 2:57am

this is open to some false leadership, disputes, splinters, etc.

Yes I hope not too. I hope that it doesn't lead to such things because the holy spirit doesn't lead into such things? No leader but the present risen Christ; disputing only in love, as far as we are able, and according to the Gospels, in the faith that amongst us and through our disagreements we will learn what is true and get to a deeper understanding of what God is telling us?

I remember reading something on four tests for leadings: scripture, tradition since scripture's canon closed, personal experience and testing in the Meeting community. It's my understanding that when we stand in the Light that gave forth the scriptures we can understand how we and those authors are under the same teacher. We can do the peacemaking dialogue in the holy spirit with the text.

Are there ways of being sure that the Light within, of which you speak, is not a relativistic and experiential concept only? Are there writings or "helps" which help one to know that this is, in fact The Light of Christ....... that Meetings and indivicuals are rightly discerning of this Light?

These are very good questions! I guess for me it is the other way round. The conviction in me is so strong that God is for justice, God has a special love for the poorest and weakest, God turns on its head the hierarchies of this world, God does not want us to mindlessly trash the beautiful earth we live in. That sense of who God is, and the indications of the holy spirit - e.g. Galatians 5:22. I am trying to listen for the spirit which animates the person - is it the one holy spirit which we all can recognize?

Permalink Reply by Margaret B on 6th mo. 7, 2009 at 2:38pm

Alice,

I love what you have written here:

No leader but the present risen Christ; disputing only in love, as far as we are able, and according to the Gospels, in the faith that amongst us and through our disagreements we will learn what is true and get to a deeper understanding of what God is telling us?

I am currently reading a book about the Apostle Paul in which one finds this same type of faith and illumination...... The author of the book suggests that Paul deepened and developed his own theology in the whole dynamic of the disputes and difficulties of the early followers.

Permalink Reply by Margaret B on 6th mo. 7, 2009 at 2:59pm

Forrest,

I keep coming back to this comment of yours, and the wonderful way you have evoked the otherness of God.

"Experiential', you seem to say cuts deeper than what we can observe or explain. It is almost fruitless to try to define movement and breath of God's Spirit.

A meditation I attended last week among a small home group focused on the prayer: "Take not thy holy Spirit from me. " We may experience the Spirit in discernable or indiscernable ways, and always need to be experiencing this, even when it is less 'tangible' an experience than others. Thus, probably, the 'ripening' of which you speakoccurs.

From what I read in many of the discussions here on Quaker Quaker, there does seem to be an enviable (!) (oops!) tangible quality to this experience of God among Friends.

Thanks to all for the comments here. Lots of food for reflection.