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Here are a few photos from our trip to Barnesville Ohio for yearly meeting sessions. The panel talk on Convergent Friends with C Wess Daniels and Ohio’s David Male seemed to be well received. In some ways I thought it was silly for us to travel so far to tell them about convergence, as OYM© Friends have been doing important outreach and renewal work for years, supporting isolated Friends with the bi-annual Conservative Gatherings and though their affiliate member program. One place to learn more about current outreach efforts is ConservativeFriend.org.

There’s an interesting discussion in the comments from my last post about Convergent Friends and Ohio Conservatives. and one of the more interesting comes from a commenter named Diane. My reply to her got longer and longer and filled with more and more links till it makes more sense to make it its own post. First, Diane’s question:

I don’t know if I’m “convergent,” (probably not) but I have been involved with the emerging church for several years and with Quakerism for a decade. I also am aware of the house church movement, but my experience of it is that is is very tangentially related to Quakerism.

I really, really hope and pray that Christian revival is coming to liberal Friends, but personally I have not seen that phenomenom. Where do you see it most? Do you see it more as commitment to Christ or as more people being Christ curious, to use Robin’s phrase?

As I wrote recently I think convergence is more of a trend than an identity and I’m not sure whether it makes sense to fuss about who’s convergent or not. As with any question involving liberal Friends, whether there’s “Christian revival” going on depends on what what you mean by the term. I think more liberal Friends have become comfortable labeling themselves as Christ curious; it has become more acceptable to identify as Christian than it was a decade or two ago; a significant number of younger Friends are very receptive to Christian messages, the Bible and traditional Quaker testimonies than they were.

These are individual responses, however. Turning to collective Quaker bodies there are few if any beliefs or practices left that liberal Friends wouldn’t allow under the Quaker banner if they came wrapped in Quakerese from a well-connected Friend; the social testimonies stand in as the unifying agent; it’s still considered an argument stopper to say that any proffered definition would exclude someone.

I’d argue that liberal Quakerism is becoming ever more liberal (and less distinctively Quaker) at the same time that many of those in influence are becoming more Christian. It’s a very proscribed Christianity: coded, tentative and most of all individualistic. It’s okay for a liberal Friend to believe whatever they want to believe as long as they don’t believe too much. Whether the quiet influence of the rising generation of conservative-friendly leadership is enough to hold a Quaker center in the centrifuge that is liberal Quakerism is the $60,000 question. I think the leadership has an inflated sense of its own influence but I’m watching the experiment. I wish it well but I’m skeptical and worry that it’s built on sand.

Some of the Christ-curious liberal Friends are forming small worship groups and some of these are seeking out recognition from Conservative bodies. It’s an achingly small movement but it shows a desire to be corporately Quaker and not just individualistically Quaker. With the internet traditional Quaker viewpoints are only a Google search away; sites like Bill Samuel’s Quakerinfo.com and blogs like Marshall Massey’s are breaking down stereotypes and doing a lot of invaluable educating (and I could name a lot more). It’s possible to imagine all this cooking down to a third wave of traditionalist renewal. Ohio Yearly Meeting-led initiatives like the Christian Friends Conference and All Conservative Gatherings are steps in the right direction but any real change is going to have to pull together multiple trends, one of which might or might not be Convergence.

Our role in this future is not to be strategists playing Quaker politics but servants ready to lay down our identities and preconceptions to follow the promptings of the Inward Christ into whatever territory we’re called to:

From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. Matthew 16:21-28.

Robin M’s recent post on a Convergent Friends definition has garnered a number of fascinating commenters. The latest comes from Scott Savage, a well-known Conservative Friend (author of “A Plain Live,” publisher of the defunct “Plain Magazine” and lightening rod for a recent culture war skirmish over homosexuality at Ohio State University). Savage’s comment on Robin’s blog follows what we could call the “Cranky Conservative” template: gratuitous swipes at Conservatives in Iowa and North Carolina, wholesale dismissal of other Friends, multiple affirmations of Christ, digs at the issue of homosexuality, a recitation of past failures of cross-branch communication, then a shrug that seems to ask why he should stoop to our level for dialogue.

Snore.

What makes my sleepy response especially strange is that except for the homosexuality issue (yay for FLGBTQC!) I’m pretty close to Scott’s positions. I worry about the liberalization of Conservative Friends, I get cranky about Christian Friends who deny Christ in public, and I think a lot of Friends are missing the boat on some core essentials. When I open my copy of Ohio’s 1968 discipline and read its statement of faith (oops, sorry, “Introduction”) I nod my head. As far as I’m aware I’m in unity with all of Ohio Conservative’s principles of faith and practice and if I signed up for their distance membership I certainly wouldn’t be the most liberal member of the yearly meeting.

I’m actually not sure about Scott’s yearly meeting membership, I’m simply answering his question of why he and the other Conservatives who hold a strong concern for “the hedge” (a separation of Conservative Friends from other branches) might want to think about Convergence. Of all the remaining Conservative bodies, the hedge is arguably strongest in Ohio Yearly Meeting and while parts of this apply to Conservatives elsewhere—Iowa, North Carolina and individuals embedded in non-Conservative yearly meetings—the snares and opportunies are different for them than they are for Ohioans.

Why Ohio Conservative should engage with Convergence:

If you have all the answers and don’t mind keeping them hidden under the nearest bushel then Convergence means nothing.

But if you’re interested in following Jesus and being a fisher of men and women by sharing the good news… Well, then it’s useful to learn that there’s a growing movement of Friends from outside Conservative circles (however defined) who are sensing there’s something missing and looking to traditional Quakerism for answers.

Ohio Conservatives have answers and this Convergence movement is providing a fresh opportunity to share them with the apostate Friends and with Christians in other denominations seeking out a more authentic relationship with Christ. Engaging with Convergence doesn’t mean Ohio Friends have to change anything of their faith or practice and it needn’t be about “dialogue”: simply sharing the truth as you understand it is ministry.

Yes, there are snares involved in any true gospel ministry; striking the right balance is always difficult. As the carpenter said, narrow is the way which leadeth unto life. We are beset on all sides by roadblocks that threaten to lead us away from Christ’s leadership. Ohio Friends will need to be on guard that ministers don’t succumb to the temptation to water down their theology for any fleeting popularity. This is a real danger and it frequently occurs but while I could tell eight years of great insider stories from the halls of Philadelphia, is that what we’re here to do?

Let me put my cards on the table: I don’t see much of Ohio effectively ministering now. There’s too much of a kind of pride that borders on obnoxiousness, that loves endlessly reciting why Iowa and North Carolina aren’t Conservative and why no other Friends are Friends, blah blah blah. It can get tiresome and legalistic. I could point to plenty of online forums where it crosses the line into detraction. Charity and love are Christian qualities too. Humility and a sense of humor are compatible with traditional Quakerism. How do we find a way to continue safeguarding Ohio’s pearls while sharing them widely with the world. There are Ohio Friends doing this and while I differ with Scott Savage on some social issues I consider tangential (and he probably doesn’t), I very much appreciate his hard work advancing the understanding of Quakerism and agree on more than I disagree.

But how do we find a way to be both Conservative and Evangelical? To marry Truth with Love? To not only understand the truth but to know how, when and where to share it? I think Convergence can help Ohio think about delivery of Truth and it can help bring seekers into the doors. When I rhetorically asked last month what Convergent Friends might be converging toward, the first answer that popped in my head was Ohio Friends with a sense of humor. I’m not sure it’s the most accurate definition but it reveals my own sympathies and I find it tempting to think about what that would look like (hint: kraken might be involved).

A reminder to everyone that I’ll be at Ohio Yearly Meeting Conservative sessions in a few weeks to talk more about the opportunities for Ohio engagement with Convergence. Come round if you’re in the area.

Also check out Robin’s own response to Scott, up there on her own blog. It’s a moving personal testimony to the power and joy of cross-Quaker fellowship and the spiritual growth that can result.

Robin M posts this week about two Convergent Events happening in California in the next month or two. And she also tries out a simplified definition of Convergent Friends:

people who are engaged in the renewal movement within the Religious Society of Friends, across all the branches of Friends.

It sounds good but what does it mean? Specifically: who isn’t for renewal, at least on a theoretical level? There are lots of faithful, smart and loving Friends out there advocating renewal who don’t fit my definition of Convergent (which is fine, I don’t think the whole RSoF should be Convergent, it’s a movement in the river, not a dam).

When Robin coined the term at the start of 2006 it seemed to refer to general trends in the Religious Society of Friends and the larger Christian world, but it was also referring to a specific (online) community that had had a year or two of conversation to shape itself and model trust and accountability. Most importantly we each were going out of our way to engage with Friends from other Quaker traditions and were each called on our own cultural assumptions.

The coined term implied an experience of sort. “Convergent” explicitly references Conservative Friends (“Con-“) and the Emergent Church movement (“-vergent”). It seems to me like one needs to look at those two phenomenon and their relation to one’s own understanding and experience of Quaker life and community before really understanding what all the fuss has been about. That’s happening lots of places and it is not simply a blog phenomenon.

Nowadays I’m noticing a lot of Friends declaring themselves Convergent after reading a blog post or two or attending a workshop. It’s becoming the term du jour for Friends who want to differentiate themselves from business-as-usual, Quakerism-as-usual. This fits Robin’s simplified definition. But if that’s all it is and it becomes all-inclusive for inclusivity’s sake, then “Convergent” will drift away away from the roots of the conversation that spawned it and turn into another buzzword for “liberal Quaker.” This is starting to happen.

The term “Convergent Friends” is being picked up by Friends outside the dozen or two blogs that spawned it and moving into the wild—that’s great, but also means it’s definition is becoming a moving target. People are grabbing onto it to sum up their dreams, visions and frustrations but we’re almost certainly not meaning the same thing by it. “Convergent Friends” implies that we’ve all arrived somewhere together. I’ve often wondered whether we shouldn’t be talking about “Converging Friends,” a term that implies a parallel set of movements and puts the rather important elephant square on the table: converging toward what? What we mean by convergence depends on our starting point. My attempt at a label was the rather clunky conservative-leaning liberal Friend, which is probably what most of us in the liberal Quaker tradition are meaning by “Convergent.”

I started mapping out a liberal plan for Convergent Friends a couple of years before the term was coined and it still summarizes many of my hopes and concerns. The only thing I might add now is a paragraph about how we’ll have to work both inside and outside of normal Quaker channels to effect this change (Johan Maurer recently wrote an interesting post that included the wonderful description of “the lovely subversives who ignore structures and communicate on a purely personal basis between the camps via blogs, visitation, and other means” and compared us to SCUBA divers (“ScubaQuake.org” anyone?).

Robin’s inclusive definition of “renewal” definitely speaks to something. Informal renewal networks are springing up all over North America. Many branches of Friends are involved. There are themes I’m seeing in lots of these places: a strong youth or next-generation focus; a reliance on the internet; a curiosity about “other” Friends traditions; a desire to get back to roots in the simple ministry of Jesus. Whatever label or labels this new revival might take on is less important than the Spirit behind it.

But is every hope for renewal “Convergent”? I don’t think so. At the end of the day the path for us is narrow and is given, not chosen. At the end of day—and beginning and middle—the work is to follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance in “real time.” Definitions and carefully selected words slough away as mere notions. The newest message is just the oldest message repackaged. Let’s not get too caught up in our own hip verbage, lecture invitations and glorious attention that we forget that there there is one, even Christ Jesus who can speak to our condition, that He Himself has come to teach, and that our message is to share the good news he’s given us. The Tempter is ready to distract us, to puff us up so we think we are the message, that we own the message, or that the message depends on our flowery words delivered from podiums. We must stay on guard, humbled, low and praying to be kept from the temptations that surround even the most well-meaning renewal attempts. It is our faithfulness to the free gospel ministry that will ultimately determine the fate of our work.

My F/f Thomas T emailed me about the Blogphiladelphia “unconference” happening next month in downtown Philly. It sounds like it could be silly and interesting at the same time so I’ve signed up.

Personal stalkers making summer plans should keep mid-August open. It looks like my blog/IM/Twitter/Facebook buddy C Wess Daniels and I are going to add yet another social media to our repertoire and actually meet face to face as co-presenters for an evening event at Ohio Yearly Meeting Conservative. Along with Ohio’s David Male we’ll be banging on that ever-popular “Convergent Friends” drum. I’m not sure I’ve ever actually given my two cents on the term and the phenom. I’ll probably post about it in the lead up to the August event as a kind of preparation. Anyone within road-trip distance of Barnesville is invited to come over Friday evening the 17th to hear the talk.

And speaking of Conservative Friends, everyone should check out the great newish website called The Conservative Friend, an unofficial outreach initiative of Ohio Yearly Meeting. It’s simple but attractive, walks that fine line between truth telling and humility with grace and has a wonderful sense of humor and self-awareness that sneaks up on you as you read through. Now who knew Ohio Conservatives had a sense of humor? Seriously, it’s really nice work.

I’ll be missing the Conservative Gathering of Friends being held in the Lancaster, PA, area next weekend. I’d like to claim that money and time is keeping me from attending but it’s hard to argue that when I drove by its meeting sites only a few days ago just to look at trains. Well, let’s just say at this moment of life my spirit needed family time more than Quaker gathering time. I hope it goes well; if any QuakerRanter readers do attend I’d love to hear their impressions.

Over on Nontheist Friends website, there’s an article looking back at ten years of FGC Gathering workshops on their concern. There was also a post somewhere on the blogosphere (sorry I don’t remember where) by a Pagan Friend excited that this year’s Gathering would have a workshop focused on their concerns.

It’s kind of interesting to look at the process by which new theologies are being added into Liberal Quakerism at an ever-increasing rate.

• Membership of individuals in meetings. There are hundreds of meetings in liberal Quakerism that range all over the theological map. Add to that the widespread agreement that theological unity with the meeting is not required and just about anyone believing anything could be admitted somewhere (or “grandfathered in” as a birthright member).

• A workshop at the Friends General Conference Gathering and especially a regular workshop at successive Gatherings. Yet as the very informed comments on a post a few years ago showed, theology is not something the planning workshop committee is allowed to look at and at least one proponent of a new theology has gotten themselves on the deciding committee. The Gathering is essentially built on the nondenominational Chautaqua model and FGC is perfectly happy to sponsor workshops that are in apparent conflict with its own mission statement.

• An article published in Friends Journal. When the the Quaker Sweat Lodge was struggling to claim legitimacy it all but changed its name to the “Quaker Sweat Lodge as featured in the February 2002 Friends Journal.” It’s a good magazine’s job to publish articles that make people think and a smart magazine will know that articles that provoke a little controversy is good for circulation. I very much doubt the editorial team at the Journal considers its agreement to publish to be an inoculation against critique.

• A website and listserv. Fifteen dollars at GoDaddy.com and you’ve got the web address of your dreams. Yahoo Group is free.

There are probably other mechanisms of legitimacy. My point is not to give comprehensive guidelines to would-be campaigners. I simply want to note that none of the actors in these decisions is consciously thinking “hey, I think I’ll expand the definition of liberal Quaker theology today.” In fact I expect they’re mostly passing the buck, thinking “hey, who am I to decide anything like that.”

None of these decision-making processes are meant to serve as tools to dismiss opposition. The organizations involved are not handing out Imprimaturs and would be quite horrified if they realized their agreements were being seen that way. Amy Clark, a commenter on my last post, on this summer’s reunion and camp for the once-young members of Young Friends North America, had a very interesting comment:

I agree that YFNA has become FGC: those previously involved in YFNA have taken leadership with FGC … with both positive and negative results. Well … now we have a chance to look at the legacy we are creating: do we like it?

I have the feeling that the current generation of liberal Quaker leadership doesn’t quite believe it’s leading liberal Quakerism. By “leadership” I don’t mean the small skim of the professional Quaker bureaucracy (whose members can get too self-inflated on the leadership issue) but the committees, clerks and volunteers that get most of the work done from the local to national levels. We are the inheritors of a proud and sometimes foolish tradition and our actions are shaping its future but I don’t think we really know that. I have no clever solution to the issues I’ve outlined here but I think becoming conscious that we’re creating our own legacy is an important first step.

Lazy guy I am, I’m going to cut-and-paste a comment I left over at Rich the Brooklyn Quaker’s blog in response to his post What This Christian Is Looking For In Quakerism. There’s been quite a good discussion in the comments. In them Rich poses this analogy:

During the Great Depression and World War II, I have been told that Franklin Roosevelt rallied the spirits of the American people with his “fireside chats”. These radio broadcasts communicated information, projected hope, and called for specific responses from his listeners; including some acts of self-sacrifice and unselfishness… Often people would gather in small groups around their radios to hear these broadcasts, they would talk about what Roosevelt had said, and to some extent they were guided in their daily lives by some of what they had heard.

I tried to post this as a comment on this piece by James Riemermann on the Nontheist Friends website but the site experienced a technical difficulty when I tried to submit it (hope it’s back up soon!). James describes his post as a “rant” about “conservative-leaning liberal Friends,” and one theme that got picked up in the comments was how he and others felt excluded by us (for that is a term I use to try to describe my spiritual condition). Rather than loose the comment I’ll just post it here.

Hi James and everyone,
Well, I think I was one of the first of the Quaker bloggers to talk about conservative-leaning liberal Quakers back in July 2003. I too am not sure it’s anything worth calling a “movement.”

I hear this feeling of being excluded but I’m not sure where that’s coming from. When James had a really wonderful, thought-provoking response to my “We’re All Ranters Now” piece, I asked him if I could “reprint” the comment as its own guest piece. It got a lot of attention, a lot of comments. I didn’t realize you were using nontheistfriends.org as a blog these days but Robin M of What Canst Thou Say did and has added a link to your post from QuakerQuaker.org, which again is a validation that yours is an important voice (I can pretty much guarantee that this is going to be one of the more followed links). You and everyone here are part of the family.

Yes, we have some disagreements. I don’t think Quakerism is simply made up of whoever makes it into the meetinghouse. I think we have a tradition that we’ve inherited. This consists of practices and values and ways of looking at the world. Much of that tradition comes from the gospel of Jesus and the epistles between the earliest Christian communities. Much of what might feel like neutral Quaker practice is a clear echo of that tradition, and that echo is what I talk about that in my blogs. I think it’s good to know where we’re coming from. That doesn’t mean we’re stuck there and we adapt it as our revelation changes (this attitude is why I’m a liberal Friend no matter how much I talk about Christ). These blog conversations are the ways we share our experiences, minister to and comfort one another.

That people hold different religious understandings and practices isn’t in itself inherently exclusionary. Diversity is good for us, right? There’s no one Quaker center. There’s mulitiple conversations happening in multiple languages, much of it gloriously overlapping on the electronic pathways of the internet. That’s wonderful, it shows a great vitality. The religious tradition that is Quakerism is not dead, not mothballed away in a living history museum somewhere. It’s alive, with its assumptions and boundaries constantly being revisited. That’s cool. If a particular post feels too carping, there’s always the “eldering of the back button,” as I like to call it. Let’s try to hear each other from where we are and to remain open to the ministry from those who might appear to be coming from a different place. Love is the first movement and love is unconditional and accepts us for who we are.

I better stop this before I get too mushy, with all this talk of love! See what I mean about being a liberal Quaker?
Your Friend, Martin

This past week I’ve been wondering whether the best description of my spiritual state is a “conservative liberal Quaker,” i.e., someone in the “liberal” branch of Friends who holds “conservative” values (I mean these terms in their theological sense, as descriptive terms that refer to well-defined historical movements). Is there a small-scale “conservative liberal” movement starting up?

In late January 2004, I went to a gathering on "Quaker Faith and Practice: The Witness of Our Lives and Words," co-sponsored by the Christian Friends Conference and the New Foundation Fellowship. Here are some thoughts about the meeting.

Colleen Carroll’s book The New Faithful is an attempt to examine the religious phenomenon of Christian theological “orthodoxy” among current twenty and thirty-somethings. We purchased this book out of a sense of longing to hear the stories of fellow young Christians sympathetic to the issues we face. We opened The New Faithful eager to hear the voice of someone in our age bracket crying from the rooftops. But her book is hardly unproblematic: she weakened the book when she decided to make it a Republican-Party calling card…

I guess folks might wonder why the son of the Quaker Ranter is getting baptized in a Roman Catholic church…