I am a South Jersey Friend and dad with a love out of outreach and a passion for looking afresh at Friends' testimonies, language and practices. I am the publisher of Quaker Quaker, a community site for Friends, and write about online publicity, organizing and design on my business site at MartinKelley.com.
quaker testimony Posts
There's a nice remembrance of George Willoughby by the Brandywine Peace Community's Bob Smith over on the War Resisters International site. George died a few days ago at the age of 95 [updated]. It's hard not to remember his favorite quip as he and his wife Lillian celebrated their 80th birthdays: "twenty years to go!" Neither of them made it to 100 but they certainly lived lives more full than the average people.
I don't know enough of the details of their lives to write the obituary (a Wikipedia page was started this morning) but I will say they always seemed to me like the Forrest Gump's of peace activism--at the center of every cool peace witness since 1950. You squint to look at the photos at there's George and Lil, always there. Or maybe pop music would give us the better analogy: you know how there are entire b-rate bands that carve an entire career around endlessly rehashing a particular Beatles song? Well, there are whole activist organizations that are built around particular campaigns that the Willoughby's championed. Like: in 1958 George was a crew member of the Golden Rule (profiled a bit here), a boatload of crazy activists who sailed into a Pacific nuclear bomb test to disrupt it. Twelve years later some Vancouver activists stage a copycat boat sailing which became Greenpeace. Lillian was concerned about rising violence against women and started one of the first Take Back the Night marches. If you've ever sat in an activist meeting where everyone's using consensus, then you've been influenced by the Willoughby's!
For many years I lived deeply embedded in communities they helped create. There's a recent interview with George Lakey about the founding of Movement for a New Society that he and they helped create. In the 1990s I liked to say how I lived "in its ruins," working at the publishing house, living in a coop house and getting my food from the coop that all grew out of MNS. I got to know the Willoughbys through Central Philadelphia meeting but also as friends. It was a treat to visit their house in Deptford, NJ--it adjoined a wildlife sanctuary they helped protect against the strip-mall sprawl that is the rest of that town. I last saw George a few months ago and while he had a bit of trouble remembering who I was, that irrepressible smile and spirit were very strong!
I've written before that the closest modern-day successor to the Movement for a New Society is the so-called New Monastic movement--explicitly Christian but focused on love and charity and often very Quaker'ish. Our culture of secular Quakerism has kept Friends from getting involved and sharing our decades of experience. Now that Shane Claiborne is being invited to seemingly every liberal Quaker venue, maybe it's a good opportunity to look back on our own legacy. Friends like George and Lillian invented this form.
I don't know enough of the details of their lives to write the obituary (a Wikipedia page was started this morning) but I will say they always seemed to me like the Forrest Gump's of peace activism--at the center of every cool peace witness since 1950. You squint to look at the photos at there's George and Lil, always there. Or maybe pop music would give us the better analogy: you know how there are entire b-rate bands that carve an entire career around endlessly rehashing a particular Beatles song? Well, there are whole activist organizations that are built around particular campaigns that the Willoughby's championed. Like: in 1958 George was a crew member of the Golden Rule (profiled a bit here), a boatload of crazy activists who sailed into a Pacific nuclear bomb test to disrupt it. Twelve years later some Vancouver activists stage a copycat boat sailing which became Greenpeace. Lillian was concerned about rising violence against women and started one of the first Take Back the Night marches. If you've ever sat in an activist meeting where everyone's using consensus, then you've been influenced by the Willoughby's!For many years I lived deeply embedded in communities they helped create. There's a recent interview with George Lakey about the founding of Movement for a New Society that he and they helped create. In the 1990s I liked to say how I lived "in its ruins," working at the publishing house, living in a coop house and getting my food from the coop that all grew out of MNS. I got to know the Willoughbys through Central Philadelphia meeting but also as friends. It was a treat to visit their house in Deptford, NJ--it adjoined a wildlife sanctuary they helped protect against the strip-mall sprawl that is the rest of that town. I last saw George a few months ago and while he had a bit of trouble remembering who I was, that irrepressible smile and spirit were very strong!When news of George's passing started buzzing around the net I got a nice email from Howard Clark, who's been very involved with War Resisters International for many years. It was a real blast-from-the-past and reminded me how little I'm involved with all this these days. The Philadelphia office of New Society Publishers went under in 1995 and a few years ago I finally dropped the Nonviolence.org project that I had started to keep the organizing going.
I've written before that the closest modern-day successor to the Movement for a New Society is the so-called New Monastic movement--explicitly Christian but focused on love and charity and often very Quaker'ish. Our culture of secular Quakerism has kept Friends from getting involved and sharing our decades of experience. Now that Shane Claiborne is being invited to seemingly every liberal Quaker venue, maybe it's a good opportunity to look back on our own legacy. Friends like George and Lillian invented this form. I miss the strong sense of community I once felt. Is there a way we can combine MNS & the "New Monastic" movement into something explicitly religious and public that might help spread the good news of the Inward Christ and inspire a new wave of lefty peacenik activism more in line with Jesus' teachings than the xenophobic crap that gets spewed by so many "Christian" activists? With that, another plug for the workshop Wess Daniels and I are doing in May at Pendle Hill: "New Monastics and Covergent Friends." If money's a problem there's still time to ask your meeting to help get you there. If that doesn't work or distance is a problem, I'm sure we'll be talking about it more here in the comments and blogs.
Pics: George in 2002, from War Resisters International; the Golden Rule, 1959, from the Swarthmore Peace Collection. George at Fort Gulick in Panama (undated), also from Swarthmore.
January 9, 2010 10:39 AM.
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Categories: generational , peace , quaker , testimonies , vision , youth | Tags: brandywine peace community, Christianity, george willoughby, movement for a new society, new monastic, pendle hill, quaker, Religious Society of Friends, Shane Claiborne, War Resisters International
Just finished: Kenneth S.P. Morse's "A History of Conservative Friends" from 1962. Like most histories of Conservative Friends, it's both heartening and depressing. It's great to read the quotes, which often put the dilemma very clearly, like this one from Iowa Friends in 1877:In consideration of many and various departures in Doctrine, Principle and Practice, brought into our beloved Society of late years by modern innovators, who have so revolutionized our ancient order in the Church, as to run into views and practices out of which our early Friends were lead, and into a broader, and more self-pleasing, and cross-shunning way than that marked out by our Savior, and held to by our ancient Friends.... And who have so approximated to the unregenerate world that we feel it incumbent upon us to bear testimony...and sustain the Church for the purpose for which is was peculiarly raised up.I love this stuff. You've got theology, polity, culture and an argument for the eternal truths of the "peculiarly raised" Quaker church. But even in 1962 this is a story of decline, of generations of ministers passing with no one to take their place and monthly and yearly meetings winking out with disarming regularity as the concept of Friends gets stretched from all sides. "It is certainly true that most of those who call themselves Friends at the present time are only partial Friends in that they seem not to have felt called to uphold various branches of the Quaker doctrine."
Putting the book down the most remarkable fact is that there are any Conservative Friends around still around almost fifty years later.
The task of sharing and upholding the Quaker doctrine is still almost impossibly hard. The multiplicity of meanings in the words we use become stumbling blocks in themselves. Friends from other traditions are often the worst, often being blind to their own innovations, oftener still just not caring that they don't share much in common with early Friends.
Then there's the disunity among present-day Conservatives. Geography plays a part but it seems part of the culture. The history is a maze of traditionalist splinter groups with carefully-selected lists of who they do and do not correspond with. Today the three Conservative Yearly Meetings seem to know each another more through carefully-parsed reading of histories than actual visitation (there is some, not enough). There's also the human messiness of it all: some of the flakiest liberal Quakers I've known have been part of Conservative Yearly Meetings and the internet is full of those who share Conservative Friends values but have no yearly meeting to join.
No answers today from me. Maybe we should take solace that despite the travails and the history of defeat, there still remains a spark and there are those who still seek to share Friends' ways. For those wanting to learn more the more recent "Short History of Conservative Friends" (1992) is online and a good introduction.
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December 13, 2009 7:49 PM.
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Categories: catholic , conservative , quaker | Tags: Christianity, conservative friends, Denominations, doctrine, history, iowa, kenneth s. p. morse, ministers, principle, quaker, Religion and Spirituality, Religious Society of Friends, Theology
John S made an interesting comment at the end of my last post (all ) about live twittering tonight's Presidential Debate got me thinking about a Quaker response to the debates might be. As I've admitted I can be rather snarky and partisan. So I prepared some interesting quotes from some old Quaker tesimonies and have been sprinkling them throughout my twitter commentary.
- 1762: Friends ought not be active in electing to offices, the execution whereof tends to lay wast our Christian testimony
- <1879: Members should maintain inoffensive, circumspect emeanour towards all men, manifesting peaceable spirit of Christ.
- <1879: Friends should avoid those heats & controversies respecting the policies and govt's of the world.
- 1874: The mere natural wisdom and will of man have no palce in the church of Christ.
- 1808: The preservation of love and unity is a duty in every state of religious attainment.
- 1853: It is upon the simplicity of the Truth as it is in Jesus that our testimony to plainness and moderation rests.
- <1879: Friends are to avoid electing brethren to civil govt as may subject them to temptation of violating testimonies.
- 1808: Friends are not to unite in warlike measures, either offensive or defensive, we are subj of Messaih's peaceful reign.
- 1843: Fds must decline acceptance of any office or station in civil govt w/duties inconsistent w/our religious principles.
- 1843: Friends warned vs. raising & circulating paper credit w/appearance of value w/o intrinsic reality.
- 1843: Friends should be open-hearted and liberal in raising funds for relief for members in indigent circumstances.
- 1843: So may we be living members of the Church militant on earth; and inhabitants of that city which hath foundations.
- 1853: The standards which the world adopts in pursuit of trade and desire for riches in not safe for disciple of Christ.
- 1853: May no Friends involve themselves in worldy concerns disqualify for right use of their time, talents & temporal substance.
October 15, 2008 10:22 PM.
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Categories: politics , quaker | Tags: election, politics, quaker, quaker discipline, twitter
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The line that seems to be working is this: 'We're not trying to convert anybody who's not interested. We're just trying to make it easier for the people who are looking for a faith community to find us.'
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I've finished Shane Claiborne's Irresistible Revolution. Claiborne's Christianity looks almost identical to Christ-centered Quakerism. He embodies the Quaker testimonies of simplicity, peace, equality, community and integrity.
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I am a member of the Ohio Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends; that is, I am a Conservative Quaker. Although the Peace Testimony of the Friends is what drew me to the Society, it is actually their worship that "convinced" me.
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Christine Trevett, early Quakerism scholar and co-organizer of research on Religion and Autism.
April 17, 2008 12:37 AM.
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Video from a presentation in Maine USA.
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Ann Yasuhara of the Princeton Friends Meeting shares the writings of slain activist Tom Fox and quotes from the longstanding peace testimony of the Quakers at the Spiritual Pilgrimages of Peacemaking retreat.
March 10, 2008 12:24 AM.
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Lots of links today as I finally checked through my blogrolls!
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Coinciding with meeting of Friends World Committee for Consultation. "Want to come? If you're reading this, and the idea of an informal meal with Friends you've never met before sounds good to you, you're invited."
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I came to Meeting today with an angry and resentful heart and I almost didn't come. As I sat here in worship, I felt such a shift in me. I'm thinking about the sword that I am called again and again to lay down, my need to be right.
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It made me wonder how many other folks have visited Friends and wondered if somebody had forgotten their part of the program? Do we do anything to help people know what to expect? A little pamphlet on silence and worship hardly seems like enough.
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With out the Quaker blogosphere I would not know Robin, or the term convergent. I would not know Peterson Toscano, or Marvin Bloom. I would not have met Wess and Emily. I would not know my fellow Quaker Agitator who quits blogging more often than I post.
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Friends have been contacting the World Office asking how they can help in the current emergency, and with peace and reconciliation in the longer term.
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Sounds to me like Jesus isn't just telling us that we need to be kind and loving. Seems to me that Jesus is actively shaming our little cookie-seeking lawyer. I'm going with the shame-on-you version of the story, 'cause I like that Jesus best.
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Peggy P has a blogger contest the week I'm too busy to surf!
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We need to talk with one another, worship together, play together. Since there is such value to our gathering as Friends, shouldn't our meetings labor to support means of travel that allow us to live more fully our testimonies?
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The doctrine of forgiveness shows up in a lot of different places. It is explicit in the Lord's Prayer, but it is also inherent in the commandments that we love our neighbors as ourselves, that we love our enemies, and that we not judge others.
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What if we reframe "meeting" as a verb? We could add a comma to the sign out front, making it "Plainfield Friends, meeting" -- as in "these are Plainfield Friends, who are meeting here." However, this would probably only confuse people more.
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And I think how my faithfulness to the Peace Testimony and honesty and the command to love my neighbor and to bless those who persecute me would be tested if I were to find myself in such a situation. And I pray for [those] faced with exactly that test.
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I have a large extended family, so thinking of Quakers (and more broadly, Christians) in that way is constructive for me: we don't necessarily have to agree with or like one another, but there is an imperitive to at least respect if not love one another.
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Peace groups on bus caravan asking hard questions of candidates
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An introduction to the Friends Meeting House, Watford, UK
January 12, 2008 11:22 PM.
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Today, three detectors - two bought by the Quakers for about $1,500 and a third donated as part of a deal with the manufacturer - are being used under U.N. auspices in Tajikistan. And Lenik, his fellow Quakers, and others are raising money to buy more.
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If George Fox had lived in 1981, he might have written a sentence like that. I think this is where the RsoF at its best is headed again. We may or may not name the force ... “Christ.” We are nonetheless hearing the call to conversion.
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We are trying to help people know who and what we are, what we believe and where they might or might not fit in. In another sense, we have a sense that there are some answers here among our Quaker faith and it is important to share it.
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Holding the tension that surrounds faith, religion, sexual orientation and sexual identity In The Light
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Because I am married to a man, the assumption is that I'm straight. This leads me to the awkward question: Am I violating our Testimony of Integrity by allowing people to believe something about me that isn't true?
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I’ve been thinking, for a couple of years now, about a Young Adult Friends (YAF) workshop on Quaker romance. I was hoping this blog post might try to address some of the questions that come up for me about what it means to date as a Friend.
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My understanding of discernment is that it is a process of seeking the will of God in a particular situation. Can this be done with a questionnaire?
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Jesus: Has had popular times, but once his church grew to 5000 he managed to offend them all, and then this church dwindled down to twelve people. Seldom stays in one place very long. And, of course, he's single -- at his age, you have to wonder why.
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Martin Kelley is a Quaker who blogs about . . . being a Quaker. The South Jersey resident blogs at Quaker Ranter, his site on life in the religious movement that dates back to 17th century England.
December 10, 2007 11:24 PM.
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