February 27, 2013

Fundamentalism Among Quakers — Brinton’s View stimulated a number of comments. Some of them were posted on QuakerQuaker, and some on Facebook, after Friends Journal…

Perhaps the dateline should read “January 10, 1959″ because, rummaging around in the Friends Journal archives, I stumbled across a piece by Howard H. Brinton entitled “The Place of Quakerism in Modern Christian Thought.” It was…

“‘Friends have no creeds’ is a creed.” That was a favorite reader comment on my recent blog post Deal or No Deal? Creed or No Creed?  The commenter adds, “Sheesh, have these people never studied recursion or self-reference. Goedel, Escher, Bach?”

True enough. But ‘Friends have no creeds’ is a very small creed. And I could even be comfortable with a slightly longer statement such…

“Friends have no creeds.”  We Quakers often say that. We are committed to no human words but rather to following the Holy Spirit. We believe God speaks to us today – speaks to all who still their hearts and listen. “No official words can substitute for a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.” We believe that commitment to creed would be a kind of idolatry.

Most Christian denominations, on the other hand, do have a creed. They have an official statement of faith they use…