A great article by Marcelle Martin in this month’s Friends Journal: Quaker Dreams. I love the story of Margaret Fell being prepared for the wild entrance of George Fox by way of a dream. And Robert Pyle’s image-rich dream that led him to abolitionism is truly amazing. I also appreciate Martin’s exploration of more recent Quaker dream work. I interviewed her this week in an FJ Author Chat:
Quaker Ranter
A Weekly Newsletter and Blog from Martin Kelley
Why they left the Quakers
February 1, 2024
Here’s a sobering factoid: one of the more Googled search terms bringing people to Friends Journal is “Why I left the Quakers.”
They find two things. The first match is a 22-year-old article from Jack Powelson, “Why I am Leaving Quakers.” He notes the political diversity of the Quakers he joined in the 1940s and bemoans that “over the years, unprogrammed Quakers have narrowed their views”:
Back in 1943, as many Republicans sat in the benches as Democrats, and meeting was a place for the spiritual enrichment of persons of all political beliefs; even soldiers in uniform came to meeting. If the spirit of the 1940s existed now, right-to-lifers might today sit next to pro-choicers, each being equally blessed in the eyes of God. With the spiritual under-girding of the meeting, different political beliefs would be advocated in secular organizations.
I think it worthwhile to note that when Jack wrote his own obituary(!), he still identified as a Friend. This is not atypical. I can quickly think of a half-dozen people who have publicly left Quakers but are still active in Quaker social media spaces. I’m really grateful for that, as many of them are personal friends, mentors, and inspirations and I appreciate their perspective on the Quaker dramas of the day. Quaker spiritual principles aren’t really that unique and it’s quite possible to follow them outside of Quaker religious bodies and these nominally ex-Quakers show how this can be done.
The second FJ article that those searching for “why I left Quakers” turn up is Betsy Blake’s 2013 “Quakerism Left Me.” I’m a big Betsy Blake fan and worked on her as editor on this article. I know it was brave to write and that she got some serious pushback after publication. She too was talking of polarization:
We knew we would be affected by a divisiveness that we did not experience and found contrary to the forgiveness and peacemaking that we were being taught. Though younger, we did sympathize. We too had dealt with conflicts, fights, bullying, and popularity contests. We knew enough to know that there was passion and genuine care among the adults, mixed in with something that was telling them to cut off their brothers and sisters in Christ.
Betsy of course wasn’t declaring that she herself was leaving. The polarizations she spoke of soon led to schisms in both the Indiana yearly meeting of her youth and the North Carolina (FUM) of her teen years. I don’t know Betsy’s formal membership status nowadays but she’s active on Quaker social media. (Professionally, she designs websites nowadays and offers a template for Quaker meetings that looks great. I would totally recommend her if you’re looking to revamp your site!)
Another data point in all this might be George Amoss Jr.’s recent blog post, “Leaving Liberal Quakerism: What Love Would Have Me Do.”
George talks about by the “exacerbated” “self-righteousness” he’s encountered:
The proximate cause of that alienation is the adoption among Liberal Friends of sociopolitical ideologies that I find reductive, dishonest, divisive, and destructive, leading even to the defense of violent crime. But that, at least in its current extreme form, is a recent development, facilitated by the fundamental unsoundness of contemporary beliefs.
Friends are a big, messy group of people with all sorts of opinions. While we can agree on broad principles (racism bad, peace good), it’s rare to develop a real sense of unity on either analysis or strategy. We should of course thresh out issues; interest sub-groups of like-minded individuals can build momentum and do a lot of good within both our religious society and in the greater world. If we can tolerate this messy diversity in our meetings, then our shared community can be great incubators for something more radical than itself. With time and spiritual discernment the radical position can become mainstream among Friends.
I do see some Friends nowadays trying to press for more ideological conformity than actually exists. The ever-interesting and challenging Adria Gulizia has a long comment on George’s Amos post about trying to reconcile Quaker beliefs with an antiracism statement being considered by New York Yearly Meeting. She concludes: “But what some of us have learned is that, while the stakes could not be higher, it is not in victory but in the struggle itself that we find our blessing, that in facing our reckoning with faith and courage, we may be strengthened and deepened and transformed, not just as individuals but as a people of faith.”
I hope we can continue to respect the diversity and messiness of Liberal Friends.
As I see it, the purpose of Quaker community is the spiritual and community part of our work. Our specific political languages and analyses will evolve and change every decade or so; what I hope will remain constant is our desire for truth, our reliance on the Holy Spirit for guidance, and our genuine love of neighbors in all their contradictions and messiness. In 2006 Paul Buckley wrote The Temptation to Do Something: A Quietist Perspective, that I think speaks to some of this.
I do hope George Amoss finds a way to stay engaged with Friends.
Thanks!
January 30, 2024
A big thank-you to all the Quaker Ranter fans who donated last week to get the websites back up. Two nonprofit jobs and four kids mean web bills are not always near the top of the family’s must-pay juggle of expenses. The websites should be good for another few months. If anyone missed on on the fund appeal, you can always click on the support link to help keep the lights on.
Links
January 30, 2024
Wanna work with me? Friends Journal is looking for a part-time, paid intern to work on Quakers Today podcast. You’ll get to work most directly with its most excellent host, Peterson Toscano. Learn more at Friendsjournal.org/job.
It was wild for me to read this story about housing, race, and money in West Philadelphia and realize it wasn’t just an article about my old block but my actual apartment. I lived upstairs in 1250 South 45th and Margaret Strothers was my landlady. It was easily my favorite apartment ever and it’s a shame to see that most of the row has been leveled for shitty student housing.
Faith and Public Ministry
December 29, 2023
Windy Cooler is back with the second of a multipart series based on interviews with public Friends, this installment called “The Concerns of Public Ministry” (see my take on part one). This one is about the power dynamics that public ministers face in institutional Quakerism. Here’s one quote:
Resentment about power imbalances and the suppression of acknowledging power imbalances is at the heart of many public ministers’ call to right relationship, in fact: “What I thought was wrong with me was that I have leadership potential. Being wrong, it turned out, was just leadership abilities. Nothing was wrong with me. “
This is a brave topic to cover and I’m glad Windy’s doing it.
Notably absent is much talk about faith in this. Where’s this call to leadership coming? What is it in service to? I suspect that if you asked this question of rising leaders in Liberal Friends you’d get all sorts of answers. That’s not terribly surprising. In theologically diverse meetings secularized language is the lingua franca. The Hicksite Quaker movement was born in large part as a critique of power and this remains an easy conceptualization to turn to. I myself often look at Quaker history and current dynamics in a sociological way; it’s not a wrong framework, just incomplete if left unmoored.
Personally I don’t think I could have made it through Friends this long without trusting in the inward Christ and simultaneously deepening my life in traditional Quaker theology. It’s helpful context to read the journals of old ministers. The challenges they faced aren’t always so very different from those of the present day. George Fox was serially disappointed and betrayed by the ministers of his time until he had a vision and realized that this disappointment was literally the lesson he was being taught. From one of the most famous passages in his Journal:
I saw there was none among them all that could speak to my condition. And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then, oh then, I heard a voice which said, “There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition,” and when I heard it my heart did leap for joy. Then the Lord did let me see why there was none upon the earth that could speak to my condition, namely, that I might give him all the glory; for all are concluded under sin, and shut up in unbelief as I had been, that Jesus Christ might have the pre-eminence who enlightens, and gives grace, and faith, and power. Thus, when God doth work who shall let [i.e. hinder] it? And this I knew experimentally.
Of course we shouldn’t romanticize grief and disappointment. Sometimes a soul-crushing disappointment is a lesson but sometimes its just people doing shitty things. The old adage “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” overlooks the people left as roadkill in the first place. I talked about the “Lost Quaker Generation” a lot twenty years ago; it remains an open question if some of the ones who left were the smarter ones.1
Also in my news feed is a post from Brian Drayton, “New wine, new wineskins.” Brian uses very Christian language and is talking about current wars in the world, but it’s possible to read much of this as a take on public ministry:
Thus, our response in our living and thinking to the conditions of today, leavened with His life within us, must be put in vessels that not only contain the new life, but enable it to keep working and gaining in virtue, in active power. These are vessels of thought, of collaboration, of priorities or valuation, of hope and intention, of method and of celebration.
Year-end list
December 29, 2023
We’ve done the year-end numbers at Friends Journal and have the list of the top-five most-read articles this year. This stats are for the website of course — no way to tell what articles people might be skipping past in the print issues — but since we have more online readers than print subscribers these days, it’s a fair count. Interesting to see that Olivia Chalkley’s “Young Adults Want What Early Friends Had” took the top spot. I think that’s because it combines three topics that people love to read about: the boundaries of Quaker beliefs; what’s happening with young Quakers; stories of beloved Quaker institutions.
Another perennial favorite topic among Friends is membership and FJ is looking for articles on that for next May’s issue. Good chance that 2024’s most-read list might have something from this issue. If you or anyone you know might want to write for it, read our Editor’s Desk call for submissions.
Links
December 14, 2023
In UK’s The Friend, Craig Barnett writes of false dichotomies between spiritual and activist Friends and has wise thoughts on discernment: “Most often, the Inward Guide seems to work by showing us not the ultimate destination, but just the next step.”
At Friends journal, Judith Appleby writes about charitable giving and Steven Davison has an ambitious piece taking on the Quaker covenant with creation.
Guarding Dreams, Making Opportunities
December 6, 2023
I had a great time talking with Debbie Ramsey about Dream Protectors, her article in this month’s Friends Journal. Even before we hit record we were chatting away like old friends, despite this being the first time we’ve never talked. Eventually we had to stop ourselves just so I could hit record and start the interview. Debbie is a retired police detective who works with youth in Baltimore — it’s their career dreams she’s helping to protect — but we talked about being open in all sorts of settings. One of her stories in the article, which she retold in the interview, revolves around an unexpected opportunity for ministry that arose from a casual conversation with a stranger on a bench. She told me it felt like “the universe wanted me to be there” to have that talk.
It felt very much in line with the mysterious promptings I talked about last month so of course I had to explore that with her:
Martin Kelley: I really love the old Quaker lingo of opportunities. An opportunity is like this kind of worship-connection-love that happened spontaneously when you run into someone and realize there’s so much more that it’s going to happen here. It’s just being open to these sorts of moments where we might find ourselves on a bench next to someone and we’re suddenly deep into connection and ministry. It’s hard to do this in our lives now. We’re always rushing about, but I do try to think that sometimes I need to stop and have conversations with people right here and now.
Deborah B Ramsey: Yes, yes. And then as we were departing he said to me, “I want to take our conversation back to my wife.” So on another dimension, I was at his home. He literally, on another level, took me to his home. Physically, I was not there, but the spirit, and the vibration, and the rhythm, and the conversation, and how we related to his wife what my words meant to him. Hopefully, they would give her some comfort. So I feel like the non-tangibles: we don’t them enough credit. Oftentimes we invite 50 or 100 people, if there’s not a large crowd, then we’re feel like we’re not getting anything across. But who’s to say that she would not say something about what her husband told her to someone else — or either to her son! Is it the quantity or the quality? It’s easy to start a conversation with someone you’re in a relationship with, but how about a stranger? As Quakers, can we be so curious about one another’s condition that we would take — as you say an opportunity— to just take a look? As Quakers we have so much opportunity to speak to conditions, out of a general concern and love. How can you go wrong with that?
Deborah B. Ramsey: Guardians over Dreams. A Friends Journal author chat.
Watch the full interview: