Comment by Isabel Penraeth on 7th mo. 27, 2012 at 10:22am

Howard--

I think this is one of those things where if someone says they feel a compunction against swearing oaths, thee must accept they are honestly expressing the Guidance they are receiving. All sorts of things that seem legalistic, empty and meaningless to one person (weekly or monthly communion, plain dress, plain speech, not swearing oaths) can be a powerful witness, a spiritual experience, and an obedience to another. Even if people give the "wrong" reason for something, I think that unless the Lord has given thee particular spiritual insight into that particular person and their particular life and a command to elder them in a spirit of truth and love, thee would do best to choose the path of loving acceptance (or at least agnosticism) rather than argumentation and disagreement.

I wear plain dress because I feel it is an obedience to God, a witness he has called me to, and a personal leading. I don't believe most people I meet have been called to the same and are being disobedient; I believe most people I meet haven't been called to it and are probably being as obedient and disobedient as I am (pulling it off here, falling short there). Similarly, though other plain dressers would give different reasons than I (and in fact reject my reasons) having a communal-witness basis for their plain dress, I don't presume they are either doing it wrong or doing it more right than me. That is a different witness that still speaks volumes in certain contexts. I am not going to deny the Lord can work that way. So, perhaps with a little irony, I am asking thee to be a little less judgmental and a little more accepting of the scruples thy sisters and brothers report about swearing oaths in court.

Isabel

Comment by Howard Brod on 7th mo. 27, 2012 at 12:33pm

Of course Isabel, you are correct and I agree with you. I was somewhat writing in tongue and cheek, and didn't make it very clear I was speaking in regards to the place I have been led. I respect where others are led for their life's journey. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to say you speak my mind.

My intensity in expressing a different point of view about oath swearing was over-done. And I apologize about that.

I will also say that there are some, Adria, who are led to limit judging to virtually nil. I for one do not have the strength, nor composition to be so virtuous. Those that do wish to leave all judgement (discernment, mercy, etc.) to God. Further they are reluctant to participate in the world's judicial system because it does not always act with spiritual or Christian principles in mind. I brought that up as perhaps a greater concern for some than oath swearing.

Thank you both for offering thought provoking responses to my post!

Comment by Timothy on 7th mo. 27, 2012 at 12:53pm

I have read the posts and have been encouraged in the Silent participation from the side. That would be reading. . .

Everyone has had some rather interesting comments here. I, having very little experience, can only offer very little. Yet what I have seen, I could offer volumes. Thank ye all for thy insights.

One thing more, my late father, though he raised me to swear oaths as he himself did and though I no longer agree with that, he was called to be one of the jury on a more serious case in the mid to late 1970s, and he put in a request that his conscience would not agree to it. I do not recall the details, as I was still young. That sort of spoke something to me even then.

Just a few thoughts. . . .

Comment by Jim Wilson on 7th mo. 27, 2012 at 3:38pm

Friends:

This is a good discussion.  Paula, I had a similar experience during the last census.  I registered as a census worker and took a 3-day course, with many others, on how to go about it.  At the end of the three days we were all asked to rise to swear an oath to the state, as we were now government workers.  I quickly asked one of the officials if I could be exempted as I had religious objections, being a Quaker.  The gentleman signaled the guy who was reading the oath and he backtracked, adding 'or affirm'.  It might seem like a small thing, but I was gratified to have the point made.

There is an aspect about oath taking which I don't think has been touched on; at least I didn't see it.  And that is that oath taking is a kind of idolatry.  It is a form of worship of the state.  From this perspective it runs counter to the second commandment, as well as the New Testament injunctions along these lines.

That, to my mind, is why there is a distinction between communion and swearing an oath which is state administered.  Communion is not a form of idolatry; Quakers put aside communion for different reasons.  In the reading I have done by early Quakers regarding communion there is a strong streak of disgust at how communion has been used to serve worldly and sometimes savage sectarian interests.  My impression is that Quakers put aside communion out a sense of disgust with how often it was exploited for base ends. 

Swearing an oath to the state raises the state to a place which only God should inhabit in our consciousness.  Though I personally would like to see Quakers rethink communion (I know I'm a minority on that), I do think there is an important difference between taking communion and swearing fealty to the state.

Thy Friend Jim

Comment by Forrest Curo on 7th mo. 27, 2012 at 11:17pm

Quakers put aside communion as "a vain practice." As a ceremony which didn't do the job it advertised.

"And I was to bring people off from all the world's religions, which are vain, that they might know the pure religion; might visit the fatherless, the widows, and the strangers, and keep themselves from the spots of the world. Then there would not be so many beggars, the sight of whom often grieved my heart, as it denoted so much hard-heartedness amongst them that professed the name of Christ.

"I was to bring them off from all the world's fellowships, and prayings, and singings, which stood in forms without power; that their fellowship might be in the Holy Ghost, and in the Eternal Spirit of God; that they might pray in the Holy Ghost, and sing in the Spirit and with the grace that comes by Jesus; making melody in their hearts to the Lord, who hath sent His beloved Son to be their Saviour, and hath caused His heavenly sun to shine upon all the world, and His heavenly rain to fall upon the just and the unjust, as His outward rain doth fall, and His outward sun doth shine on all.

"I was to bring people off from Jewish ceremonies, and from heathenish fables, and from men's inventions and worldly doctrines, by which they blew the people about this way and the other, from sect to sect; and from all their beggarly rudiments, with their schools and colleges for making ministers of Christ, -- who are indeed ministers of their own making, but not of Christ's; and from all their images, and crosses, and sprinkling of infants, with all their holy-days (so called), and all their vain traditions, which they had instituted since the Apostles' days, against all of which the Lord's power was set: in the dread and authority of which power I was moved to declare against them all, and against all that preached and not freely, as being such as had not received freely from Christ."

In any case, if Jesus did in fact institute the practice (which is doubtful), he said to do this in his memory until he "came." Which early Friends held he had already done, being present in their meetings.

Comment by Timothy on 7th mo. 28, 2012 at 8:59am

I am reminded of a martyr in the "Bloody Theater or Martyr's Mirror," where a man refused to take off his hat as the procession of the priests, cardinals, etc. was approaching. He refused to bow, to cross himself, and to remove his hat. For this he was taken to the castle dungeon and later was tortured most severely.

To place a hand upon the scriptures would seem to lessen them, and make them a symbol for merely the house of justice (so called) and thus the Teachers words reduced to only something to place a hand upon.

My school friend, years ago, was falsely accused of shooting senior class president of Lychburg Colledge, leaving him without the use of his legs for the rest of his life. The two with him did not get punished, but laid the blame on my school mate. This was in 94th year, one thousand and nine-hundred. He got fifty years, the other two zero. He will be 67 when he gets out. 

This is justice? This is what I am putting a hand to the Bible for, making sure I tell the truth, but the legal system worketh these lies and the innocent suffer? This is ". . Justice for all"? I have stayed away from courts as much as possible since that incident with my classmate. Will I ever swear an oath? Nay. With God's help, never shall I.

When and where possible, I would see that settling a matter without going to court would be best. If someone strikes one cheek, I offer them the other. If someone stole something from me, I would not take him to court.

Timothy (Just a few more of my thoughts.)

Comment by Forrest Curo on 7th mo. 28, 2012 at 12:18pm

Basically, they require a prospective juror to either lie or resign his conscience. 'Agree to follow the law'? What law? Just, reasonable, merciful? Not likely.

The modern 'restorative justice' movement is as close to the kind of justice Jesus was talking to as we're going to find in any worldly institution -- and that approach is still the exception in a system of "1984 for the poor, Brave New World for the rich".

We can see how well what we've been doing instead works! How many people have we locked up for trying to make a living in a system that "can't afford" to pay people for anything constructive?

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