new england yearly meeting Posts

I was able to make up this list that displays QuakerQuaker.org membership profiles and upcoming gatherings in a geography-focused way.

Wess Daniels posts about Quaker theology on his blog. I responded there but got to thinking of Swarthmore professor Jerry Frost's 2000 Gathering talk about FGC Quakerism. Academic, theologically-minded Friends helped forge liberal Quakerism but their influenced wained after that first generation. Here's a snippet:

"[T]he first generations of English and America Quaker liberals like Jones and Cadbury were all birthright and they wrote books as well as pamphlets. Before unification, PYM Orthodox and the other Orthodox meetings produced philosophers, theologians, and Bible scholars, but now the combined yearly meetings in FGC produce weighty Friends, social activists, and earnest seekers." ...
"The liberals who created the FGC had a thirst for knowledge, for linking the best in religion with the best in science, for drawing upon both to make ethical judgments. Today by becoming anti-intellectual in religion when we are well-educated we have jettisoned the impulse that created FGC, reunited yearly meetings, redefined our role in wider society, and created the modern peace testimony. The kinds of energy we now devote to meditation techniques and inner spirituality needs to be spent on philosophy, science, and Christian religion."

This talk was hugely influential to my wife Julie and myself. We had just met two days before and while I had developed an instant crush, Frost's talk was the first time we sat next to one another. I realized that this might become something serious when we both laughed out loud at Jerry's wry asides and theology jokes. We ended up walking around the campus late into the early hours talking talking talking.

But the talk wasn't just the religion geek equivalent of a pick-up bar. We both responded to Frost's call for a new generation of serious Quaker thinkers. Julie enrolled in a Religion PhD program, studying Quaker theology under Frost himself for a semester. I dove into historians like Thomas Hamm and modern thinkers like Lloyd Lee Wilson as a way to understand and articulate the implicit theology of "FGC Friends" and took independent initiatives to fill the gaps in FGC services, taking leadership in young adult program and co-leading workshops and interest groups.

Things didn't turn out as we expected. I hesitate speaking for Julie but I think it's fair enough to say that she came to the conclusion that Friends ideals and practices were unbridgable and she left Friends. I've documented my own setbacks and right now I'm pretty detached from formal Quaker bodies.

Maybe enough time hasn't gone by yet. I've heard that the person sitting on Julie's other side for that talk is now studying theology up in New England; another Friend who I suspect was nearby just started at Earlham School of Religion. I've called this the Lost Quaker Generation but at least some of its members have just been lying low. It's hard to know whether any of these historically-informed Friends will ever help shape FGC popular culture in the way that Quaker academia influenced liberal Friends did before the 1970s.

Rereading Frost's speech this afternoon it's clear to see it as an important inspiration for QuakerQuaker. Parts of it act well as a good liberal Quaker vision for what the blogosphere has since taken to calling convergent Friends. I hope more people will stumble on Frost's speech and be inspired, though I hope they will be careful not to tie this vision too closely with any existing institution and to remember the true source of that daily bread. Here's a few more inspirational lines from Jerry:

We should remember that theology can provide a foundation for unity. We ought to be smart enough to realize that any formulation of what we believe or linking faith to modern thought is a secondary activity; to paraphrase Robert Barclay, words are description of the fountain and not the stream of living water. Those who created the FGC and reunited meetings knew the possibilities and dangers of theology, but they had a confidence that truth increased possibilities.

In early February I'm leading a young adult workshop up at New York Yearly Meeting's Powell House. I don't have any desire to get into the "spiritual workshop circuit," but I was asked and it seemed like an opportunity to gather some interesting folks to talk about what we hunger for. The workshop is called "Food for Fire: Breaking into the Power of Quakerism" (already regretting the "breaking in" metaphor--shouldn't it be "broken in by?").

I hope that some of the extended Quaker Ranter family will be able to make it out. This could be a kind of Mid-Atlantic/New England gathering of whatever this of informal movement/network is. Because this is a workshop model I am expected to impart knowledge but while I'll come with an worked-out agenda, I'm happy to loosen and/or toss it aside if needed. The workshop description:

Many of the classic themes of Quakerism speak to the condition of a world wracked by consumerism, war, bigotry and environmental disregard. Friends have a history of uniting truth and love and turning it into action. We'll reach into the Quaker attic to dust off gospel order, plain living, traveling ministry, prophetic witness; we'll try them on and see how they fit into our experiences of the living Spirit. There will be plenty of time to share stories in small groups and together. How are our monthly meetings doing recognizing the gifts of ministry and service among younger Friends? How are Friends doing spreading the good news of the Quaker way? There is a great people to be gathered still but how can we enter into the faithfulness required? Jesus came up the fishermen and said "Come, follow me;" what would we do if we got that call? Like any programmed Quaker event the workshop is really an excuse to assemble Friends together in prayer and faithfulness to God. The most important thing we could do this weekend is build friendships: friendships of support, mutual accountability, and peer mentorship. Friends from all branches of Quakerism welcome, as are the newest of seekers.

The price is $180 for the weekend (registration form) but if that's a burden then try to get your meeting to pay--I suspect they'll be happy to see that you're showing an interest in Quakerism. I'll be driving up from South Jersey and will probably be able to pick up folks from Philly & New York. Email me if you have or need a ride from other points and I'll try to connect you with other travelers.

If you're too old or too impatient to wait for Second Month to roll around, pick up Brian Drayton's new book On Living with a Concern for Gospel Ministry and read that instead. Yes, I plugged it five days ago and yes, my paycheck comes from the publisher--but I've now now read the first chapter and it really is that good. Reading it feels like putting that soon-to-be-favorite pop album on the turntable for the first time. Where were you when you first heard Sgt Peppers? (for the YAFs in the audience: yes I'm being silly with the Beatles reference; if you remember first putting that album on a turntable in 1967 then this isn't your workshop!).

Just a quick note to everyone that I haven't posted more lately. It's a busy time of the year. I've had my hands full keeping up with articles and links to the Christian Peacemakers.

I've also been doing some freelance sites. One is launched: Quakersong.org, the new online home of Annie Patterson and Peter Blood of Rise Up Singing fame. It's just the start to what should soon be an interesting site.

Geek-wise I've been interested in the Web 2.0 stuff (see this Best Of list of sites, link courtesy C Wess Daniels). I've talked about some of this back in June but it's getting more exciting. In the Fall I was asked to submit a proposal for redoing the website of a Quaker conference center near Philadelphia and it was all Web 2.0-centric--maybe too much so as I didn't get the job! I'll post an edited version of the proposal soon for the geeks out there. Some of the new tech stuff will undergird a fabulous new Quakerfinder.org feature that will allow isolated Friends to connect to form new worship groups (to launch soon) and even more is behind the dreams of a new Quakerbooks.org site.

In the meantime, I encourage everyone to order On Living with a Concern for Gospel Ministry, the new book by New England Yearly Meeting's Brian Drayton (it arrived from the printers yesterday). It's being billed as a modern day version of "A Description of the Qualifications" and if it lives up the hype it should be an important book for the stirrings of deepening faithfulness we've been seeing among Quakers lately. While you're waiting for the book to arrive in your mailbox, check out Brooklyn Rich's Testing Leadings post.

A Guest Piece by Jeffrey Hipp

"I take this commitment of membership very seriously – to labor, nurture, support and challenge my fellow Friends; to walk in the Light together, and to give, receive, and pray with my fellow sojourners when the next step is unclear. My feet are on solid ground."

On the train this morning I read Elizabeth Cazden's Fellowships, Conferences and Associations: The Limits of the Liberal Quaker Reinvention of Meeting Polity. This 36 page pamphlet is a must-read for all of us Quaker Ranters.

It's time to explain why I call this site "The Quaker Ranter" and to talk about my home, the liberal branch of Quakers. Non-Quakers can be forgiven for thinking that I mean this to be a place where I, Martin Kelley, "rant," i.e., where I "utter or express with extravagance." That may be the result (smile), but it's not what I mean and it's not the real purpose behind this site.

Friends and Ranters

The Ranters were fellow-travelers to the Friends in the religious turmoil of seventeenth-century England. The countryside was covered with preachers and lay people running around England seeking to revive primitive Christianity. George Fox was one, declaring that "Christ has come to teach his people himself" and that hireling clergy were distorting God's message. The movement that coalesced around him as "The Friends of Truth" or "The Quakers" would take its orders directly from the Spirit of Christ.

This worked fine for a few years. But before long a leading Quaker rode into the town of Bristol in imitation of Christ's entry into Jerusalem. Not a good idea. The authorities convicted him of heresy and George Fox distanced himself from his old friend. Soon afterwards, a quasi-Quaker collection of religious radicals plotted an overthrow of the government. That also didn't go down very well with the authorities, and Fox quickly disavowed violence in a statement that became the basis of our peace testimony. Clearly the Friends of the Truth needed to figure out mechanisms for deciding what messages were truly of God and who could speak for the Friends movement.

The central question was one of authority. Those Friends recognized as having the gift for spiritual discernment were put in charge of a system of discipline over wayward Friends. Friends devised a method for determining the validity of individual leadings and concerns. This system rested on an assumption that Truth is immutable, and that any errors come from our own willfulness in disobeying the message. New leadings were first weighed against the tradition of Friends and their predecessors the Israelites (as brought down to us through the Bible).

Ranters often looked and sounded like Quakers but were opposed to any imposition of group authority. They were a movement of individual spiritual seekers. Ranters thought that God spoke directly to individuals and they put no limits on what the Spirit might instruct us. Tradition had no role, institutions were for disbelievers.

Meanwhile Quakers set up Quarterly and Yearly Meetings to institutionalize the system of elders and discipline. This worked for awhile, but it shouldn't be too surprising that this human institution eventually broke down. Worldliness and wealth separated the elders from their less well-to-do brethren and new spiritual movements swept through Quaker ranks. Divisions arose over the eternal question of how to pass along a spirituality of convincement in a Society grown comfortable. By the early 1800s, Philadelphia elders had became a kind of aristocracy based on birthright and in 1827 they disowned two-thirds of their own yearly meeting. The disowned majority naturally developed a distrust of authority, while the aristocratic minority eventually realized there was no one left to elder.

Over the next century and a half, successive waves of popular religious movements washed over Friends. Revivalism, Deism, Spiritualism and Progressive Unitarianism all left their mark on Friends in the Nineteenth Century. Modern liberal Protestantism, Evangelicalism, New Ageism, and sixties-style radicalism transformed the Twentieth. Each fad lifted up a piece of Quakers' original message but invariably added its own incongruous elements into worship. The Society grew ever more fractured.

Faced with ever-greater theological disunity, Friends simply gave up. In the 1950s, the two Philadelphia Yearly Meetings reunited. It was celebrated as reconciliation. But they could do so only because the role of Quaker institutions had fundamentally changed. Our corporate bodies no longer even try to take on the role of discerning what it means to be a Friend.

We are all Ranters now

Liberal Quakers today tend to see their local Meetinghouse as a place where everyone can believe what they want to believe. The highest value is given to tolerance and cordiality. Many people now join Friends because it's the religion without a religion, i.e., it's a community with the form of a religion but without any theology or expectations. We are a proud to be a community of seekers. Our commonality is in our form and we're big on silence and meeting process.

Is it any wonder that almost everyone today seems to be a hyphenated Quaker? We've got Catholic-Quakers, Pagan-Quakers, Jewish-Quakers: if you can hyphenate it, there's a Quaker interest group for you. I'm not talking about Friends nourished by another tradition: we've have historically been graced and continue to be graced by converts to Quakerism whose fresh eyes let us see something new about ourselves. No, I'm talking about people who practice the outward form of Quakerism but look elsewhere for theology and inspiration. If being a Friend means little more than showing up at Meeting once a week, we shouldn't be surprised that people bring a theology along to fill up the hour. It's like bringing a newspaper along for your train commute every morning.

But the appearance of tolerance and unity comes at a price: it depends on everyone forever remaining a Seeker. Anyone who wants to follow early Friends' experience as "Friends of the Truth" risks becomes a Finder who threatens the negotiated truce of the modern Quaker meeting. If we really are a people of God, we might have to start acting that way. We might all have to pray together in our silence. We might all have to submit ourselves to God's will. We might all have to wrestle with each other to articulate a shared belief system. If we were Finders, we might need to define what is unacceptable behavior for a Friend, i.e., on what grounds we would consider disowning a member.

If we became a religious society of Finders, then we'd need to figure out what it means to be a Quaker-Quaker: someone who's theology and practice is Quaker. We would need to put down those individual newspapers to become a People once more. I'm not saying we'd be united all the time. We'd still have disagreements. Even more, we would once again need to be vigilant against the re-establishment of repressive elderships. But it seems obvious to me that Truth lies in the balance between authority and individualism and that it's each generation's task to restore and maintain that balance.

Over the years a number of older and wiser Friends have advised me to live by Friends' principles and to challenge my Meeting to live up to those ideals. But in my year serving as co-clerk of a small South Jersey Meeting, I learned that almost no one else there believed that our business meetings should be led by the real presence of the living God. I was stuck trying to clerk using a model of corporate decision-making that I alone held. I would like to think those wiser Friends have more grounded Meetings. Perhaps they do. But I fear they just are more successful at kidding themselves that there's more going on than there is. I agree that the Spirit is everywhere and that Christ is working even we don't recognize it. But isn't it the role of a religious community to recognize and celebrate God's presence in our lives?

Until Friends can find a way to articulate a shared faith, I will remain a Ranter. I don't want to be. I long for the oversight of a community united in a shared search for Truth. But can any of us be Friends if so many of us are Ranters?

In friendship,
Martin Kelley

ps: for those interested, "We all Ranters Now" paraphrases (birthright Friend) Richard Nixon's famous quote about the liberal economist John Maynard Keynes.

More Reading

Bill Samuel has an interesting piece called "Keeping the Faith" that addresses the concept of Unity and its waxing and waning among Friends over the centuries.

Samuel D. Caldwell gave an interesting lecture back in 1997, Quaker Culture vs. Quaker Faith. An excerpt: "Quaker culture and Quaker faith are... often directly at odds with one another in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting today. Although it originally derived from and was consistent with Quaker faith, contemporary Quaker culture in this Yearly Meeting has evolved into a boring, peevish, repressive, petty, humorless, inept, marginal, and largely irrelevant cult that is generally repugnant to ordinary people with healthy psyches. If we try to preserve our Quaker culture, instead of following the leadings of our Quaker faith, we will most certainly be cast out of the Kingdom and die."

I talk a bit more about these issues in Sodium Free Friends, which talks about the way we sometimes intentionally mis-understand our past and why it matters to engage with it. Some pragmantic Friends defend our vagueness as a way to increase our numbers. In The Younger Evangelicals and the Younger Quakers I look at a class of contemporary seekers who would be receptive to a more robust Quakerism and map out the issues we'd need to look at before we could really welcome them in.