joe talks Posts

On electronic fellowships, online magazines and the freedom of this patchwork of independent cross-linked blogs: "Maybe the web's form of hyperlinking is actually superior to Old Media publishing. I love how I can put forward a strong vision of Quakerism without offending anyone--any put-off readers can hit the "back" button. With my Subjective Guide to Quaker Blogs and my On the Web posts I highlight the bloggers I find particularly interesting, even when I'm not in perfect theological unity. I like that I can have discussions back and forth with Friends who I don't exactly agree with. I have nothing to announce, no clear plan forward and no money to do anything anyway. But I thought it'd be interesting to hear what others have been thinking along these lines."

Over on my main Nonviolence.org blog I link to Punkmonkey's great post, refusing to get political, where he talks about why Christian pacifism is more than simply anti-war activism. Oh how I wish more Quakers knew this! I like Punkmonkey's blog a lot. He's also recently written about what it would mean to be a missional community of faith:

a missional community of faith is a living breathing transparent community of faith willing to get messy while reach out to, and bringing in, those outside the current community

Amen brother. The whole post is great. I love his critique of check-writing churches (perfectly applicable to most peace and social concerns committees I've seen). He also hits something I see a lot: Meetings that are "welcoming and excluding" in their cliquishness: "small groups of people who seem friendly, and welcoming but in actuality are not welcoming." Punkmonkey's not Quaker but Bebbeblog's Joe Guada is and I started reading his posts next. There I found a really interesting counterpoint: Can I be a (fill in the blank here) & be a Quaker, too?. Joe's post also talks about identity, praxis and superficial half-welcoming. He quotes a friend who's not joined Quakers:

Yes, I know that everyone has the Inner Light. Yes, I remember how uncomfortable it is to be looking for a group and to feel left out (though it's not as uncomfortable as feeling like you're part of the group, getting deeply involved and then finding out that you're a bad fit because people weren't telling you up front that you didn't fit).

Lots of great reading in all this!

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?