I want to provide some context that may shed light on what I intended to say, but apparently failed to communicate to some.

In 2007, I became involved with the Christian and Interfaith Relations Committee of FGC. We are the caretakers of FGC's relationships to other religious bodies. One of the key relationships we have is with the World Council of Churches, an association of many of the largest Protestant and Orthodox Christian denominations. During a work meeting on an ecumenical document, I was given the assignment of composing our response to the WCC. I was honored and a bit stunned.

The topic was the calling of Christians to be "The One Church" of Jesus Christ. I wrote a paper that utilized the themes of the document but with a point of view that was Quaker and Christian. I brought out concerns about church government, creedalism, divisiveness, love, and peacemaking that drew on the teachings of Jesus and early Friends.

The exercise actually gave me the chance to use my theological background in a constructive way to speak to Christians about what unity among Christians might mean to the world if Christians were as loving and peacemaking as Jesus seems to have called them to be. The paper was well-received, even praised by the Friend who gave me the assignment, herself an orthodox Christian Friend.

I was asked to take a different approach to the paper and expand or re-write what I had done. I wrote several pages of section by section reflections and considerations. This second commentary was more candid, explicitly referencing my nontheism, the internal Quaker issues of theological diversity, and the continuing relevance of Christianity in a SoF that was becoming post-Christian in some circles.

After we reconvened, I asked me to take the second set of notes and work them into a final draft, using some of the material from the first paper. Then, in a truly unexpected twist, I was asked to take the original draft, some of my sections on diversity within Quakerism, post-Christian trends, and other comments and write them up for a theological journal article. This Christian Friend' s words, as best I can remember were, "Charley, I think this is original, amazing theological writing."

I fell off my chair!!

Ann Riggs has multiple degrees in theology, was formerly an Associate Secretary of the WCC and is currently Principal of Friends Theological School in Kenya. To get a compliment like that just added to the bizarre situation I had was now in. I haven't fully grasped it all.

Why does that matter to a discussion about the Christian basis of Quakerism? Because world peace cannot come if Christians do not try and make it happen. They make up over 2 billion humans and the largest single bloc of religious people. Nontheists number around 0.5 billion, somewhere between Chinese
traditional religion at 400 million and Hinduism at 900 million. Nontheists do matter, but the theists have us outnumbered by a long shot.

So, my perspective on this has shifted dramatically in the past two years. I am still a nontheist and I still want FGC meetings to welcome and fully include non-Christians, but I also want FGC to challenge the Christians of the world to become radical peacemakers. There is an interfaith component here as well, and Islam numbers over 1.5 billion, so bringing Christians and Muslims together is a key piece of this, as recent history makes obvious.

In the scenarios I proposed, either the death of FGC by attrition or its explosive rebirth as a Progressive Christian juggernaut, I realize the real outcome will be neither one, but some odd little mixture of both. I would stress that my understanding of Progressive Christianity is both theologically tolerant and socially progressive.