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Primitive Christianity Revived, Again

The Odd Man at the Dinner Party

When I first began attending Quaker meeting 16 years ago, I quickly noticed a notable absence. Sunday after Sunday would pass (or First Day after First Day, as the Quakers insisted on calling it) without a mention of Jesus. I mean, Quakers were Christians, weren't they? It was as if he had dropped down a rabbit hole somewhere in the Quaker past to be replaced by - well, nothing. There was no central figure, no icon, no rallying point. I brought the subject up with the folks that I figured were the "weighty Friends" and received a set of thoroughly unsatisfactory answers, all equally vague and non-committal: "teacher," "model," "significant religious figure," or (my favorite) "metaphor." No matter how hard I tried I couldn't flush out anyone who would give the stock answer: "Divine Son of God who was born to a virgin and died on the cross to atone for my sins and then was resurrected from the dead to sit on the right hand of God until such time as he returns to judge the quick and the dead." I mean, that's the right answer, isn't it? The one that, at the very least, would get you a gold star from the sweet Sunday School teacher - or, more to the point, save you from a miserable fiery eternity if you would just sign on to this version of the Christ story. Eternal damnation, fire and brimstone, or its alternative, wafting around forever on a cloud sporting a pair of wings and plucking a harp didn't appear to be part of the Quaker way.

Frankly, this was a big relief, but I remained disconcerted by the generally Quakerly discomfort with Jesus to whom I took to referring as "the odd man at the Quaker dinner party." He was there if you looked for him, sitting at the far end of the table, sort of awkwardly squeezed in. Most of the other guests were happy to make small talk with him, but no one really wanted to engage with him in any serious way, particularly since some of the guests were determined to ignore him altogether. Poor Jesus. "I'll talk to you," I would squeak inwardly. "I still care."

Of course, I came to Quakerism fairly unmolested spiritually. Unlike many people who cross the Meetinghouse threshold, I was not a member of the walking wounded who had been chewed up and spat out by their previous faith communities (or at least by those brethren in charge of their previous faith communities). Born with a fairly big "God gene," I had thus far enjoyed a fairly riveting walk through a number of religious venues - transcendentalism as expressed in "Little Women," born-again-ism (more than once), transcendental meditation, Mormonism, a brief dabble in Buddhism-lite. All of this my resolutely non-religious family bore with fairly good grace even though I think they found me a little odd and occasionally a real pain in the butt. ("No, I won't give Grandpa his Scotch at 6 because it goes against my religious principles.") I enjoyed all of these sortees and came away pretty positive about all of it even if I couldn't permanently swallow the whole tamale.

By the time I came to Quakerism, I had been off the path for about a decade, getting married, having children, and, shall we say, worshiping at the shrine of Bacchus. But children have a bad habit of getting one thinking about stuff other than the next good time. For reentry into the religious life, I took them to the local Methodist church. Everything a family could want - good people, nice minister who didn't look as if he was going to demand anything scary, terrific youth program. Except I just couldn't do it. I couldn't serve up the usual Christian boilerplate to my children and look them in the eye and say, "It's all true." So I asked my Quaker friend Catherine to take me to Meeting with her. I loved the idea of Quakers. Peaceful, serene, emanating, no doubt, a faintly ethereal glow powered by all of that brotherly love. Also, unusual and vaguely exotic, which I considered a plus. And if I wanted a spiritual path devoid of Christian boilerplate this was definitely it. So why did I feel so bereft at the absence of Jesus?Head Upon A Stone blogspot

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Comment by Mackenzie on 12th mo. 6, 2011 at 11:06am: Questions for the Conservative & Orthodox type of Friends here, since Jesus-as-teacher and Jesus-as-saviour came up:

Fox said "Christ has come to teach his people himself," and I recall instances (though I can't quote chapter/verse) in the Bible where the Apostles refer to Jesus as "teacher," so I think there's general support for him as a teacher. So is it a matter of belief in atonement that separates us? Is the atonement on the cross something central to your belief, or is it "well yes he saved us, but now let's get down to the work of following his teachings"?

I tend to say that I think there are two sometimes-competing definitions of Christian:

- People who believe Jesus is the Son of God whose death was atonement for the sins of the world

- People who try to live as Jesus instructed & follow his example

I suppose you could also say "REAL Christians do BOTH," but this starts to remind me of the people who say "well that person who claims to be a Christian may have been a jerk to you, but that's just because they're not a REAL Christian, and I get to set and move the goal posts in such a way as to never let Christians look bad." This is not to say there aren't people who do both, just that I think the intersection of the sets is much smaller than the union of the sets.

Comment by William F Rushby on 12th mo. 6, 2011 at 11:36am: I would say that the Atonement and Christian discipleship are both essential to Christian faith.

Comment by Patricia Barber on 12th mo. 6, 2011 at 11:48am: Mackenzie -- I would encourage you to read Conservative Friend Lloyd Lee Wilson's Pendle Hill Pamphlet 409, entitled "Who Do You Say I Am?" which answers a lot of these questions (at least from his perspective). Personally, I have come to regard Jesus as both teacher and savior (although not in the atonement sense). I also see him as wholly human and wholly divine, an exemplar of the promise of perfectability that is open to each of us if we are faithful to the Christ Within. I have come to this place of belief through insights from all branches of Friends, from writers and other people across the spectrum of Christianity, and from my own attendance to the Inward Light. I sometimes think that in our intra-Quaker disputes we are all focusing too hard on the trees and not on the forest.

Comment by Patricia Barber on 12th mo. 6, 2011 at 11:58am: William - I think a lot of it depends on our understanding of the Atonement. I very much like Lloyd Lee's discussion of atonement in the PHP I mentioned above. I need to be careful not to assume I know what atonement means. I do know that I have never been able to comprehend the traditional idea of Jesus's suffering and death on the cross as a sort of "get out of jail free card" for that portion of humanity willing to take God up on the offer. I remain open though for a further measure of the Light on this issue.

Comment by Tom Smith on 12th mo. 6, 2011 at 12:40pm: I will not spend much time or words on the topic, but just wanted to interject that exclusionary practices are alive and well even at the Yearly Meeting level. 6 churches withdrew from Western Yearly Meeting in the last couple of years (in VERY OVERSIMPLIFIED terms) over the theology of the divinity of Jesus and Indiana YM has "agreed" to lay itself down so the churches/meetings can decide which "new" organization they will join based on the authoritarian nature of the organization (Again OVERSIMPLIFIED - with the question of the acceptance by the church/meeting of homosexuals(sic))

Comment by Aaron J Levitt on 12th mo. 6, 2011 at 2:43pm: Given the importance of Jesus as atonement to at least some Christians' concept of the Christian faith, I'm wondering whether Christians have a concept of being a follower of Jesus that is distinct from being a Christian. Would Christians for whom atonement is important see a person who attempted to live by Jesus' example as a legitimate follower of Jesus, though not a Christian; or would belief in atonement be seen as prequisite to being a follower of Jesus, as well; or is being a follower of Jesus just not a concept, and people are simply Christian or not?

I welcome and respect testimony concerning Jesus in meeting, but I rarely have a clear sense of what "Jesus" means to the speaker, and many of the alternatives have radically different resonance for me. It's the same with testimony concerning "God", come to think of it. Similar to Patricia's comment, perhaps, it feels important not to take the meaning of such powerful, yet ambiguous (to me), names for granted.

Comment by William F Rushby on 12th mo. 6, 2011 at 4:50pm: Patricia: I think the Atonement is complex and a mystery that does not lend itself to simple explanations. I do not consider myself equipped to give any definitive statement of its meaning. Theologians have attempted to do that for centuries, and with some limited success, but their answers do not exhaust its meaning.

Aaron: I would not want to put myself in the position of attempting to determine who is and who is not a Christian. I also believe that we are human beings, and cannot answer questions of who will and who will not be saved. Christ will judge the quick and the dead, not Bill Rushby, Aaron Levitt, Richard Wigton, or even LLoyd Lee Wilson!

Another crucial question of Christian doctrine and faith is the Resurrection. If Christ be not resurrected, then our faith is in vain!

Comment by Forrest Curo on 12th mo. 6, 2011 at 5:37pm: Re "atonement" (although there's much to be said for the word "atunement" as a substitute...) it seems unlikely that God would require a sacrifice in order to forgive anyone. But many people have great difficulty realizing that God forgives them-- and great difficulty recognizing their own misconduct, so long as they feel the need to defend themselves against the hostility they have projected on God.

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