Quakers and the Emergent Church
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Over at the BarclayPress site there are a number of great articles on emergent church from the perspective of Evangelical Friends
In Reflections on Doing Church, A.J. Schwanz asks "where have all the youth gone?":
These thoughts began percolating a few months ago while I sat in church. I looked around and noticed I was one of the youngest folks present. My high school youth group had had a number of attendees: Where did they all go? I contacted a few and heard a number of explanations: “I’m too busy” or “Oh, I used to be spiritual, but my beliefs have changed” or “I can’t find a church that I like.” One thing remained clear: My peers no longer attended church. Ten years ago we all were passionate about Doing Church—what happened?
Sounds eerily like my lost Quaker generation stuff. Compare this to the articles by Jacob Kuntz and Kerensa Edinger in the Fifth Month issue of Friend United Meeting's Quaker Life and you've got something of a trans-Quaker movement going on (Kerensa gave more details on her FUM-alienation on the Livejournal Quaker pages). There's more to find on the BarclayPress site; don't miss the roundtable discussion that includes A.J. and C Wess Daniels.
Here's two things I wonder: why doesn't BarclayPress link to A.J. and Wess's blogs? And why do each of the four articles go out of their way not to mention the word "Quaker" or "Friends." A.J.'s blog Walking with the Dutchess has "Quaker" five times on the homepage listing of recent articles, Wess's twelve. These younger Evangelical Friends obviously aren't afraid of the word. To be honest, the world doesn't need another four generic essays on the talked-out "emerging church" but we do need to figure out how we as Friends--all of us, liberal, evangelical, conservative--might relate to any real movement underneath the hot air. I think the yearning for an emergent church is the sign there's still a great people to be gathered. So why don't we starting talking about that?
***
I've been looking at the emergent church movement for a couple of years now. I think it gives us a vocabulary for talking about generational issues in the church but that's it's ultimately a bit empty. It's too intent on being ecumenical and vaguely identity-less. There's not enough salt in there. I like rooting around in the attic of Quaker pecularities too much. I like opening the old boxes, trying out the old hats, seeing if they fit, putting them away if they don't. I touched on a little of this in What is Tradition (and Quaker Tradition), Anyway? but I never drew out the connection with the emergent church:
I’ve been redefining myself over the last few years. I’ve become more particular, more peculiar. I’ve moved from the Philadelphia area to a small town you’ve probably never heard of, I’ve acknowledged the Christian basis of many of my understandings, and I’ve embraced Quaker pecularisms in dress and theology... Relgious communities are more than theological constructs, certainly, and not everyone should go out and get a PhD in religion (egads!). But there should be a curiosity about the peculiarities and particularities of our faith and practice. We don’t need to agree, necessarily, but we do need to be open and curious. This means getting off the cloud of supra-religiosity and getting oneself dirty working the soil of history and culture.
I've had enough conversations with younger Friends outside the FGC world to know that there's a shared interest in moving beyond the group-think of our institutional affiliations to start figuring out what primitive Christianity revived might have to offer us. I don't want to become a walking museum piece but it seems going back and seriously engaging with our tradition might just be the work of our generation.
Related: Lloyd Lee Wilson's brand new Wrestling with Our Faith Tradition is a good place to start with the work of appropriating Quakerism. Embracing Complexity gives a well-heeded warning not to descend so far into peculiarity that we lose track of the people we might like to reach.
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About Martin
I’m a Quaker from
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Hello-
By way of a brief introduction, I'm a new commentor (is that a word?) in the Quaker blogosphere. I've been pretty active over on the Livejournal Quaker community for a while, which is how I found you, but have only recently been commenting around more widely.
To respond to your post, I too am looking for ways to make my meeting more . . . hmmm . . . salty. I'm not sure whether we agree fully on the pluralism question: I AM one of those "supra-religious" folks who believes that all religions point to the same Truth. Nevertheless, that by no means implies that I am a spiritual dabbler. I don't want to be a pagan-Quaker, a Buddhist-Quaker, or a Catholic-Quaker; I want to be a Quaker-Quaker (can't remember who I first heard say that!), and follow one path in great depth and detail, with all its peculiarities, as you say.
Anyway, I have the sense that the Quaker world is ripe for this sort of return to our roots, and not just among younger Friends. I was at a worship-sharing session with some members of my Meeting, and the topic was clearness. Over the course of an hour, there were many insightful comments about clearness, but no mention at all of the will of God, even from some Friends I knew to be Christocentric. Finally, right before we were supposed to be wrapping up the session, I blurted out, "All right, I'm a little more prone to God-talk than most Quakers, but . . . " and prepared to launch into a little spiel about clearness and the will of God. Before I got that far, an older Friend sitting near me opened her eyes a fraction, gave me a an arched-eyebrow Look out of the corner of one eye, and muttered under her breath tartly, "Don't worry. We like it."
Anyway. I feel strongly that bringing Quakerism back to its roots would revitalize our faith among the younger generation (I'm 21, myself)- especially if we can do it without sacrificing our tolerance and acceptance.
I do worry about a few things. Right now, I feel the most spiritual fellowship with my fellow bloggers, and I would love to have that sense of fellowship in my local Meeting. But is that fair of me? If the bulk of Quakers truly want UU-type spirituality (nothing against the UU's; it's just not for me), who am I to try to change their minds?
But if the Quaker world truly is filled with people like me, who very much want to be able to cherish our Christianity, the question is, how do we begin? Within our meetings? Outside of our meetings? On blogs? On the streets? Do we start Bible studies? Do we write essays? Do we . . . what?
In the light,
-Sarah
Hi Sarah,
Glad to see you over here. It looks like you have a good solid group of friends over on livejournal. That's cool. I'm glad to hear you're getting spiritual fellowship somewhere. I have to wonder if the net is helping to give some of us that extra dose of community that's keeping us going even when our meeting's aren't doing it for us. A lot of of the non-traditional Quaker organizations--national groups that bring Friends together based on special interests--have certainly played that role in the past (pretty much every Quaker employee I've ever met would sheepishly admit that their work associations give them community they can't find elsewhere).
I do agree with you that there are many paths. But it's one thing to posit that as a philosophical truism and quite another to try to build a religion out of it. It sounds like you'd agree. Getting metaphorical, we can agree there are many paths to a mountaintop but at some point the lonely trekker is going to have to stop surveying the paths and actually choose one up. I suppose it's possible to try to blaze your own trail in between two others but me, I prefer the companionship of a well-loved trail.
My guess is that we weirdos aren't so outside the Quaker norm as we sometimes feel. I just think we're all so afraid to talking. What do we do? The first motion is to sit still in the Spirit in prayer. We are constantly being given nudges of instructions. The work is everywhere, in every realm. But it's a waste of time if we try to force it onto our individual timelines.
Alright, I'm starting to sound like Yoda. Time to go. But thanks thanks again--I look forward to seeing you around these parts more!
Your friend and the spirit's servant,
Martin
Martin wrote:
I do agree with you that there are many paths. But it’s one thing to posit that as a philosophical truism and quite another to try to build a religion out of it. It sounds like you’d agree. Getting metaphorical, we can agree there are many paths to a mountaintop but at some point the lonely trekker is going to have to stop surveying the paths and actually choose one up. I suppose it’s possible to try to blaze your own trail in between two others but me, I prefer the companionship of a well-loved trail.
God does move in mysterious ways! Robin and I had almost the EXACT same conversation last night. At some point on your way up (or down) the mountain, you've got to stick to one path, or you risk running a rut around the mountain as you keep switching from one path to another. Or risk going the way opposite from the one you originally intended when you set out!
In the course of talking to Robin, I really clarified my thinking as a Christian universalist: As far as I know there are several paths to God, and the one I'm on is labeled Christian. It's true that I'd likely fail any doctrinal test that might theoretically be posed by almost any explicitly Christian church. I don't subscribe to a particular creed. And yet I do know that the wrestling that's been set up for me to do is with the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and that Jesus and the Bible are inseparable parts of that. (Side note: I just re-read Genesis 34 the other night, where Jacob wrestles with the man at the border and comes away with a new name, Israel. Fascinating story.)
The Buddhist concept of non-attachment to concepts is important to me, too. The way I choose to apply it is to not stress out too much which path is "right," but to assess accurately and clearly where I am and where the next few steps are leading.
Finally, the importance of these Quaker blogs is simply to HAVE these conversations. They allow those of us who post, at least, to clarify our thinking by expressing our thoughts "aloud"/in writing to other people, and receiving their comments in turn. Even lurking provides one a chance to think about these things from new perspectives, maybe even to learn that there are others share one's own perspective. I'm blessed to have a Quaker wife who shares a lot of the same perspectives as me, I'm blessed to be part of a pretty thriving monthly meeting, and I'm blessed to be a participant in these blogs too. Thanks, Martin!
how do we begin? Within our meetings? Outside of our meetings? On blogs? On the streets? Do we start Bible studies? Do we write essays?
Well, I think it depends on our individual spiritual gifts. If you can write, write. If you're interested in Bible study, join or start one. The important thing is to start, to not feel so isolated, so unempowered, that we fail to act on the leadings of the Spirit, of Christ within us. One of the best essays I ever read on housework said, whenever you have a housewifely impulse, act on it. Just start and see how far you get. I think the same is frequently true of the leadings of the Spirit.
One of the things I am trying is to not edit Christian language and metaphors out of my everyday communication. I find that I actually know more biblical references than I would have guessed. In my head, I use more Christian metaphors than I realized. When I just use it as part of my everyday speech, usually people don't even blink. I'm not speaking in tongues or telling people how they should find Christ, I'm just using those stories to illustrate my points. I'm practicing in a particular language to express myself, and I'm gaining fluency. And I'm finding that other people speak this language too, in my Meeting and outside my Meeting. I'm not hanging on street corners much these days, but I did have a very interesting conversation about the need for a spiritual community with my hairdresser.
Another thing to keep in mind is to try out the parts of our Meetings that we think we wouldn't like. Like the Bible study full of old people. Or being on the committee that just makes coffee and washes dishes. To paraphrase first grade teachers everywhere, if you want to have a Friend, be a Friend. And hang in there at meeting for worship. God will meet you there, even if the people around you don't all know it.
seriously engaging with our tradition might just be the work of our generation
What a thrill to be part of this generation. What is that line about how Jesus promised his disciples that they would be extremely joyful and always in trouble?
I love this conversation and have found myself strongly identifying with each comment, especially Robin's.
how do we begin? Within our meetings? Outside of our meetings? On blogs? On the streets? Do we start Bible studies? Do we write essays?
Every single one of these ways, I think, and most likely in all sorts of other suprising ways that would never have occured to anyone else. (Like Evan's motorcycle pilgrimage.)
A Catholic friend said to me the other day that Quakerism seemed incomplete to her. I started, and then felt gentle, joyful mirth rising up in me. Of course! That's part of the point of Quakerism. We are not complete, and we acknowledge our need for God to "finish us" and make us whole. There's a tender dichotomy here, I find. On the one hand, "He has no hands but yours". I don't intend to sit around waiting for God and his heavenly host to swoop down and start sweeping things up for us. On the other hand, our own brittle human plans for "cleaning up the mess" are likely to be infected with our ego and all of its attendant shortcomings. So I do intend to sit around waiting for God to show me how to use my hands. One recent opening I've had is a lot like Robin's advice about "housewifely urges". Whenever I find myself feeling that God's given me nothing to do, I often discover that I've been so busy waiting for my burning bush that I've missed a thousand tiny nudges to as many tiny tasks.
And so on...