QuaCarol: You Don't Want to Be Ranters Anymore
By QuaCarol
Sometimes I have to lift up comments and make them their own posts. Here's one of QuaCarol's reply to Uh-Oh: Beppe's Doubts: "I see this community of bloggers, reaching out to each other and connecting, when meetings (and here I venture to say “all”) are focused on keeping their pamphlet racks filled, rather than posting URLs on their bulletin boards or creating a newcomer’s URL handout."
I see new seekers arriving who are trying to come to terms with September 11. They want more than to be handed a copy of “Friends for 350 Years” and to be told to stick around. Some of us are catching on to that, finally.
I see the 20- and 30-somethings arriving because they have read Woolman or Fox or Kelly and thus already know more than many oldtimers. (I say “many.” Not “all.”)
I see this community of bloggers, reaching out to each other and connecting, when meetings (and here I venture to say “all”) are focused on keeping their pamphlet racks filled, rather than posting URLs on their bulletin boards or creating a newcomer’s URL handout.
I see you(I’m still a nonblogger)trying to support each other in your searching and trying to provide for each other the depth and spiritual friendships that your meetings probably aren’t providing.
I see a real shift among many Friends who came into the Society in the 1960s and early 1970s, the Vietnam generation. Many rabid universalist Friends who couldn’t stand to hear Christ language have become more nearly Christ-centered and are now questioning the rigidity and fundamentalism of the universalist Friends. Some of these Friends are in leadership positions in yearly meetings now.
I see a real interest in and hunger for prophetic voices. I see a renewed interest in the Bible. In dressing plain as a testimony. In discerning spiritual gifts. These younger-than-the-aging-hippie Friends do not have the hair-trigger revulsion against leadership that the 60-somethings do.
Put simply, you don’t want to be Ranters anymore.
These are my reasons for hope.
This piece originally appeared as a comment on Uh-Oh: Beppe's Doubts about a favorite blogger's questioning of his Quaker faith.
See also: Liz Opp's take on this in Quakerism, From Generation to Generation on the Good Raised Up, Rob's What Keeps Us Quaker? on Consider the Lillies and my own It's My Language Now/Thinking About Youth Ministries
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About Martin
I’m a Quaker from
South Jersey with a love of
outreach and ministry.
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Martin, I want to tell you how much I appreciate the gift and ministry you have in sharing other Friends' posts, so that more of us can have greater access to one another's perspectives, concerns, and ideas. In this way, I feel as though we are "lifting one another up by a tender hand," to paraphrase Isaac Penington.
Blessings,
Liz
This is the problem a small faith community that doesn't hedge itself well constantly have to face: that the religious milieu in its congregations/meetings depend on the cultural melieu of different generations of its members.
This is less true with larger denominations, with much more diverse bodies of believers. They are very difficult to be hijacked by a single generation of Ranters who joined them in fluxes (Just think about whether it is possible at all for the Catholic Church to be hijacked by, say, a band of abortion-doctor-shooters.)
This is also less true with better hedged faith communities. Is it possible at all for anti-Vietnam protestors to infiltrate the Amish communities in Lancaster or the Hutterites in Saskatchewan?
". . . that the religious milieu in its congregations/meetings depend on the cultural melieu of different generations of its members."
Thanks, James, for that very astute comment. That gives me a lot to ponder.
Of course, in our pastoral meetings, the milieu will be defined by the pastor. The problem there is that there aren't enough Quaker pastors now, so Friends' churches are calling Baptists and
Disciples of Christ, among others, and Quakerism is getting lost as these meetings turn into community churches.
And by the way, I don't want to be a Ranter any more either.
My use of the word "you" reflects my newness to this community, my observations as a non-blogging outsider coming in.
I hope to get over that shortly. Bear with me.