What you must believe

Some time ago I wrote a little essay based on ministry I gave in worship with the title “It’s not about belief.”  In it, I assert that Quakerism has room for all kinds of theological beliefs because it is based not on faith but on practice.

I now think this assertion is not wholly true, because there is one thing you have to believe to be a Quaker: You have to believe it works.

You have to believe that Quaker practice is not utopian, but works in the real world.  It is not for saints who have achieved perfection, but for ordinary people like us.

A Friends Meeting, or an organization trying to operate by Friends’ principles, is in big trouble if too many members don’t believe it works.  A few who doubt or are disillusioned are not destructive, but you have to believe that decision-making by unity, seeking and speaking truth, equality among members and intentional testing of leadings will work, or else the collective body is sick unto death.

Fortunately, application of Friends’ practice can be healing.  Belief is reinforced by experience more often than not.  But it takes work, discipline and time to gain that experience – time during which your faith must sustain itself.

To be a Friend, you have to believe that Quaker worship works:

If you do not believe that you can still your mind and set aside your ego, then surely you will be beset by jangling thoughts the whole hour you sit in outward silence.

If you do not believe that collective worship offers something absent in individual meditation, then surely even as you sit among us, you will be alone.

If you do not believe that deep within is a Light greater than any spark you can ignite by your own will, then surely when that Light shines directly upon you, you will close the eyes of your soul and remain in darkness.

            -Eric E. Sabelman

              7 April, 2013