On Dressing Plain

March 3, 2005

A guest piece from Rob of “Con­sid­er the Lillies”:http://consider-the-lilies.blogspot.com/
Rob describes him­self: “I’m a twenty-something gay Mid-western expa­tri­ate liv­ing in Boston. I was inspired to begin a blog based on the writ­ings of oth­er urban Quak­er blog­gers as they reflect and dis­cuss their inward faith and out­ward expe­ri­ences. When I’m not read­ing or writ­ing, I’m usu­al­ly with my friends, trav­el­ing about, and/or gen­er­al­ly mak­ing an arse of myself.”

Con­tin­ue read­ing

Selling Quakerism to The Kids

November 23, 2004

A few weeks ago I got a bulk email from a promi­nent sixty-something Friend, who wrote that a pro­grammed New Age prac­tice pop­u­lar in our branch of Quak­erism over the last few years has been a “cru­cial spir­i­tu­al expe­ri­ence for a great many of the best of our young adult Friends to whom [Lib­er­al Friends] must look for its future” and that they rep­re­sent­ed the “ris­ing gen­er­a­tion of ded­i­cat­ed young adult Friends.” Real­ly? I thought I’d share a sam­pling of emails and posts I’ve got­ten over just the last cou­ple of days.

Con­tin­ue read­ing

“Conservative Liberal Quakers” and not becoming a least-common-denominator, sentimental faith

July 13, 2004

Over on beppe­blog, occas­sion­al QR com­menter Joe Gua­da talks about start­ing a Bible study group in his Friends meet­ing. It’s a great post, which real­ly pulls togeth­er some of the issues of those of us try­ing to be both con­ser­v­a­tive and lib­er­al in our Quakerism.

None of their con­cerns were a sur­prise to me; I’ve had many of the same myself. What did sur­prise me was how long it took mem­bers to final­ly approach me with their “con­cerns” (a Friend­ly euphemism for being in com­plete dis­agree­ment with anoth­er). They seemed to be tak­ing the Bible too literally…

I doubt that I changed any minds dur­ing our lengthy, but respect­ful con­ver­sa­tion. But, unlike what seems like the opin­ion of the major­i­ty of lib­er­al Friends, where per­son­al and cor­po­rate rev­e­la­tion is the sole arbiter of faith, I believe that indi­vid­u­als and groups need far more than that to keep us from dete­ri­o­rat­ing into a “least-common-denominator”, sen­ti­men­tal faith that tries to be all things to (most) every­body (as long as they agree with our pol­i­tics). I believe that Friends have a rich his­to­ry to draw from, which includes our present Faith & Prac­tice (along with past F&P’s), the writ­ings and tes­ti­mo­ny of pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions, and (hold your breath) the Bible.

This past week I’ve been won­der­ing whether the best descrip­tion of my spir­i­tu­al state is a “con­ser­v­a­tive lib­er­al Friend,” 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). I feel a kin­ship with Joe and with some of the peo­ple I met this year at the FGC Gath­er­ing. There is a small-scale “con­ser­v­a­tive lib­er­al” move­ment going on and it seems like we should fig­ure out a name for ourselves.

Back in the 1970s and 80s there was a group dubbed “neo­con­ser­v­a­tive Quak­ers,” lib­er­al Friends who moved to con­ser­v­a­tive year­ly meet­ings (espe­cial­ly Ohio) and out­did the home­grown con­ser­v­a­tives, adopt­ing plain dress and gain­ing a rep­u­ta­tion for being stick­lers on con­ser­v­a­tive the­ol­o­gy and practice.

But although I’ve picked up plain dress, I’m not a 1970s “neo­con­ser­v­a­tive” Friend. First off, I’m not mov­ing to Ohio (it’s a love­ly state I’m sure, but roots trump ide­ol­o­gy for me any day of the week). I’m not even seri­ous­ly con­sid­er­ing leav­ing Lib­er­al Quak­erism. For all the some­times muddied-thinking, I’m proud of our branch. I’m proud that we’ve said yes to gay and les­bian Friends and I see it as our pos­i­tive come­up­pance that so much of our reli­gious lead­er­ship now comes from the FLGBTQC com­mu­ni­ty (so many of whose mem­bers are sol­id Chris­tians dri­ven out of oth­er denom­i­na­tions). I see us as one of the most dynam­ic, forward-thinking branch of Friends. Besides, lib­er­al Quak­erism is my home. I’ve been giv­en enough hints that I think my min­istry is here too. Not that I’m not grate­ful for all the branch­es of Quak­erism. I am graced with new Friends met through this blog from all the branch­es of Amer­i­can Quak­erism and I’ve found that there are those seek­ing out to reclaim Quak­erism in each of them. I have broth­ers and sis­ters through­out Quak­er­dom, blessed be! But my role, my home, and my min­istry is to be a Conservative-leaning voice among Lib­er­al Friends. And it’s becom­ing increas­ing­ly clear that I’m not alone. Some­thing is afoot in lib­er­al Quakerism.

So what might we call our­selves? Is “con­ser­v­a­tive lib­er­al Friends” a use­ful term?

Insuring Violence Never ends

August 22, 2003

“Bill Hobbs”:http://hobbsonline.blogspot.com/2003_08_01_hobbsonline_archive.html#106139209827725521 chal­lenged Non​vi​o​lence​.org about the recent lack of con­dem­na­tions of Pales­tin­ian vio­lence. It’s a fair cri­tique and a good ques­tion. For the record, Non​vi​o​lence​.org agrees with you that bomb­ing bus­es is wrong. Hamas should be con­demned, thank you. Of course, Israelis build­ing in the occu­pied ter­ri­to­ries is also wrong and should also be con­demned. The zealots in the con­flict there demand that every­one take sides, but to be paci­fist means nev­er tak­ing the side of evil and always demand­ing that the third way of non­vi­o­lence be found.
The Israelis and Pales­tini­ans have so much in com­mon. Both are a historically-persecuted peo­ple with con­test­ed claim to the land. The war between them has been large­ly fund­ed and egged on by out­side par­ties who seem to have a vest­ed inter­est in the vio­lence con­tin­u­ing ad infini­tum. Both sides chron­i­cle every bus bombed and bul­let fired, using the out­rage to ral­ly the faith­ful to fresh atroc­i­ties. Blogs like Bill Hobbs’ and orga­ni­za­tions like the Inter­na­tion­al Sol­i­dar­i­ty Move­ment help insure that the bomb­ings will nev­er stop. Caught in the mid­dle are a lot of naive kids: sui­cide bombers, sol­diers, and activists who think just one more act of over-the-top brav­ery will stop the violence.
The war in Israel and Pales­tine will only stop when enough Israelis and Pales­tini­ans declare them­selves trai­tors to the chants of nation­al­is­tic jin­go­ism. We are all Israelis, we are all Pales­tini­ans. There but for the grace of God go all of us: our hous­es bull­dozed, our loved ones killed on the way to work.
Once upon a time we in Amer­i­ca could think that we were immune to it all; the idea that we’re all Israelis and Pales­tini­ans seemed a rhetor­i­cal stretch. But I was one of the mil­lions who spent the night of 9/11/01 call­ing New York friends to see if they were safe (I was on my hon­ey­moon and was so shak­en that one of my calls was to an ex-girlfriend’s par­ents; my wife grace­ful­ly for­gave me). On that day, we Amer­i­cans were deliv­ered the mes­sage that we too are com­plic­it. We too must also declare our­selves trai­tors to our coun­try’s war mytholo­gies and start being hon­est about our his­toric com­plic­i­ty with war. As a peo­ple, Amer­i­cans weren’t inno­cent vic­tims at either Pearl Har­bor or the World Trade Cen­ter tow­ers (though as indi­vid­u­als we were, which is the point of non­vi­o­lent out­rage of nation­al­is­tic vio­lence). every blog post com­mem­o­rat­ing a vic­tim­hood, whether in New York City or Tel Aviv, sup­ports the cause of war. I will not con­demn every act of vio­lence but I will con­demn the cause of vio­lence and I will expose the mytholo­gies of war.