QuakerQuaker

Primitive Christianity Revived, Again

Am I a Quaker?

I came to my first Quaker meeting around 1960, because (even though I'd been raised an atheist) my best friend had invited me. And though I found that meeting a good experience, I remained an atheist & therefore didn't think I should return. Later, after I'd been drawn into the "psychedelic" mass-awakening of the time, I occasionally attended Meeting, but didn't really fit in.

Later in the 60's I read a line in a friend's Sufi book, that really clicked-- about God teaching people. And there'd also been a snatch of song on an Incredible String Band album, the first time I heard them:

"Who would lamb, and who would lion,
and who would be the tamer?

"And who would hear, directions clear,
from the Unnamed All-Namer?"

whereupon I said to myself+ :

"Hmmmmm! Does this mean I could do that?!"

It was not as though I ever literally heard such directions, but in the expectation of being led, I followed; and found that I was indeed being led, and indeed being taught. As I've always been stubborn, and had very much to learn, I found myself occasionally being led through really interesting briar patches, but overall it's been illuminating, and quite a gas!

I came to regular attendance in 1991, due to a friend of mine starting a pro-homeless activist/advocacy organization. I'd been suggesting churches to contact, and told him, "You should try the Quakers, if you want to find anyone who's still practicing Christianity, the way it's supposed to be." And then I burst into tears, after which I had much to think about: how much I unexpectedly wanted that!

That weekend, Anne and I came to the San Diego Meeting, and I knew I belonged there. I would have joined right then, but no one was in a hurry; it seemed more as if eagerness was suspect there.

So five years later I was saying: "As an outsider, I think ___, but as a Friend... " and Lowell Tozer caught me at it. So I sent in a letter, and saw my committee, and when Lowell said, "Some people are eager to join, but leave when they get disillusioned..." I said I was already disillusioned.

It's been a very wonderful time since then, much of it from having joined the Friends, from going to Yearly Meetings, and to Pendle Hill-- a long, glorious Divine Education in which many things remained the same, while some meanings have been utterly transformed, more than once!

But you know, I really don't share a belief-system with modern Friends, certainly not with most.

Here, for example, are (my understandings of) what seem the most common beliefs among modern Liberal Friends:

1) There is no such thing as Truth, nor could anyone know it if there were such a thing, nor would it matter.

2) Christianity is merely an afterlife-insurance racket, of no interest once you realize that you probably aren't going to Hell, unimportant except for a few moral exhortations you'd want to follow anyway, so far as they're 'practical.'

3) The only thing that matters is what you do, and particularly the concrete results of your efforts; thinking and seeking understanding are only excuses for not continually running around Doing Good.

4) God? Didn't Science prove something about Him not existing? Besides, He doesn't care what we think about Him (See 1, 2, 3 above.)

While I've never agreed 100% with Early Friends-- We would have argued, but our disagreements had certain mental landmarks in common:

1) God exists; and our relationship to God is of crucial importance!

2) Jesus, and the Scriptures, are helpful toward knowing God better.

3) Truth matters! And the Spirit can lead us into greater truth! It will, if you care to know more.

4) The important thing about Good Works is that they are empowered and directed by the Spirit. If we start following our personal good intentions, but forget to be attentive and obedient, the best we can achieve will be flawed-- undependable & possibly even corrupting in its effects.

If the most important element of a good Meeting For Worship is decorum, but I am incorrigibly contentious and irrepressible? Early Friends were sometimes chided for being too rowdy and emotional, sometimes groaning with the Spirit, calling out encouragements like Pentecostals at a lively sermon... but I laugh at absurdities, and people think I mean disrespect, but I mustn't speak twice to clarify...

Instead of wondering: Are "nonTheist Friends" an example of false labeling?-- Shouldn't I ask: Is calling myself "a Quaker" false labeling?

Perhaps I am being led elsewhere?

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Comment by Tom Smith on 9th mo. 13, 2010 at 1:42am: What is a "modern Friend?" Who are "most" Friends? The latter question may have a response that the large majority of Friends in the world today that is very different and almost the antithesis of your description of "modern Friends." I believe that most Friends in California (Southwest Region of the Evangelical Friends Church International) certainly would disagree with your description of Friends beliefs. I also happen to believe that in many ways they also happen to disagree with many of the beliefs of "early Friends."

Who wears the label "Quaker?" I will not attempt to answer.

Comment by Forrest Curo on 9th mo. 13, 2010 at 12:01pm: Well, the circumstance I need to deal with is "What does 'Quaker' mean around here?"

We just had a potluck at which a former Jonestown resident shared her history... from which I have concluded: Most people would kill themselves before they'd change their minds or make an unseemly fuss.

I am very much divergent from my home Meeting, fond as I can be of them. Why should they have to humor me on issues they have no interest in; why should I be trying to light a fire in a bed of ashes?

I agree that the label "Quaker" is quite undecidable in these times... and in many ways that's to the good, that we can sit together in disagreement with no yelling or fisticuffs. But if that has to mean, 'without taking an interest or self-questioning', this is not only nonQuaker (in the old sense) but nonfunctional and (in these times) counter-survival. & it drives me up the wall! (Would someone like to say, "Wurra wurra wurra... That's all right, Forrest," now?)

Comment by Tom Smith on 9th mo. 13, 2010 at 2:39pm: I apologize if I "drove you up the wall."

Comment by Isabel Penraeth on 9th mo. 13, 2010 at 3:11pm: Forrest,

It seems to me that acquiring, maintaining or abandoning a label, any label, depends upon the use thee wants to make of it.

I don't believe there is another similar religious label to turn to . . . I think that is what most Conservative Quakers (I am not saying thee is in any way a Conservative Friend, only that similar concerns are raised regularly) are really mourning when they bemoan "hyphenated" Quakers--the loss of a perfectly good word that for several hundred years sufficiently accurately described what it was they were experiencing in their relationship with God and how they were expressing it through their faith and practice. There are no substitutes, and it is somewhat galling to imagine coming up with a new term to differentiate ourselves from the those under Quaker label that have arrived at what thee describes. So we suffer a bit and have to explain what type of Quaker we are and mourn the loss of anything remotely approaching meaningful Christian unity in the Society of Friends.

If it is any consolation, I also failed the decorum test. Several times.

Isabel

Comment by Forrest Curo on 9th mo. 13, 2010 at 4:14pm: Tom, thee did not fuss me; I was just trying to clarify.

The real issue is, Why am I worshiping with a group who have little interest in the things that matter most to me? Because they, and I, are "Quakers"?

I personally am not bothered by the 'hyphenated Quaker' issue, because the division that matters to me is "awake" vs "asleep", or as Jesus might have put it, "alive" or "dead"-- something that cuts across the sectarian distinctions.

So where this 'word usage' issue pinches: We've got people who fulfill their own expectations perfectly well, of what this word ought to mean-- but those expectations lead to disappointment for me and annoyance to them. I'm just having to work this out; if not them, who do I worship with? (It's not at all the first time I've read things by other people going through a very similar issue.)

Comment by Martin Kelley on 9th mo. 13, 2010 at 4:14pm: One thing I like about the internet is that we don't have to come up with any kind of definitive answer for "Am I a Quaker?" It's the yearly meeting we belong to that answers that question. Who's discipline are you under? What does it say? There are few Friends that would fit comfortably into every yearly meeting's answer.

Some yearly meetings are culturally uneasy with this sort of question and have monthly meetings that are more congregational in nature. Each MM decides the qualifications for "Quaker" based on their own criteria. My yearly meeting's "Faith & Practice" is still officially subtitled "A Book of Christian Discipline" though there's a sizable minority of members who would howl in protest if we called ourselves a Christian body.

I try to stay clear of most of the politicking that goes on around labeling. It leads to endless bickering among ourselves. I don't want all my spiritual energy wasted in a go-nowhere argument with someone who disagrees with our Discipline and thinks our tradition and founding principles are irrelevant, wrong or only to be applied through the lens of wildly creative rewrites.

I've also seen plenty of instances where those promoting more fringy theories actually do "get" some basic Quaker principles. Most Pagan Friends I've met are actually pretty sensitive to gathered meetings and believe there's a power outside themselves which can guide and comfort. How does this compare to those seemingly-orthodox Christian Friends who ram their pet projects through business meeting and believe that every concern should be addressed with a creaturely program?

Rather than fight, I just try to share the full package of Jesus' good news as Friends have understood it: Christ the messenger and mediator, and free gospel ministry, prayer and obedience as the process. I'll share it among Friends and I'll share it with the world: everyone is our neighbor to be loved. Those who have eyes to see and ears to hear will respond. If their heart has been opened by the Living Jesus then God might use me as the instrument to bring them closer to the Master. But it seems this is mostly like to happen only through love and meekness.

Comment by Rosemary Gould on 9th mo. 13, 2010 at 4:50pm: Thanks for a very inspiring message, Martin.

Forrest, surely everyone goes through periods where the people around them and their faith community seem dead? Catholic monastics write a lot about the problem of "dryness." This dryness is really a gift. It is likely to be a call to you to look within for guidance so that you can find what you seek. There's One that can speak to thy condition, but it ain't me!

Comment by Forrest Curo on 9th mo. 14, 2010 at 12:01pm: It's good to focus the argument on what's really at stake... and/but sometimes people really need to have the 'go-nowhere' argument to get to that point.

I don't think the Discipline or the tradition were ever made to be perfect instruments; I do think we need some creative rewrites, occasionally allowing a bit of wildness. They are instruments that help us navigate together through some ugly pitfalls, like arguments that really won't go off the hamster wheel... because the point is not to stop arguing, but to let the argument have its way... in meekness, as Martin says.

Meetings were meant to be 'marriages'... although we likely won't be ready for the Oneida way for some time, if ever. We were meant to be families in the spiritual sense.

If we're in something like a big marriage, and people aren't putting out (so to speak), and the rules won't let us talk, and some of us are honeymoon-shy, years into this thing... People can hide behind talk and they can hide behind silence; I believe we desperately need to shift modes and learn to 'get naked'. Not like Margaret Atwood's "men who take off their clothes to reveal other clothes" but like people who need to be vulnerable because the alternative is slow death.

Some of us have found something "that changes everything". And we can't rest with that, with people who don't think it can matter and can't imagine it might be anything but another sales pitch for afterlife insurance. God is wounded in this; it isn't just my self-pity, though we all know I can do self-pity!

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