shrug Posts

Trying to catch up on the reading on the One Year Bible plan: I'm two days behind. That's a point where it's easy enough to catch up but another day or so becomes hard to catch up. The whole point of this for me is not to read the Bible in bursts or even to get through the whole thing in a year, but to develop the lifestyle habit of daily scripture reading.

I'm in Exodus 30 now and the Lord is giving Moses a list of very specific laws. In 30:17, he specifies how Aaron and the priestly caste must wash their feet everytime they come into the Tabernacle and gives the what else: "or they will die!" Then God makes the law firm: "This is a permanent law for Aaron and his descendants, to be observed from generation to generation."

I'm reading a special One Year Bible, where all of the daily readings are grouped together. There's not too much commentary and I tend to skip it but the editors did feel the need to address the laws of the Old Testament head on and asked in one sidebar "Do we need to follow these laws today?" The answer was yes and no: "The moral law is still to be followed... The ceremonial laws no longer need to be followed because of the final sacrifice for since has been made by Jesus."

God very clearly says in Exodus that the laws he's giving are permanent. I don't really read much wiggle room in there. Priests need to wash their feet... and kill a certain number of lamb every year... and splatter the sacrificial blood around the alter a certain way and... I know Jesus is the new law, etc., but still it's kind of funny how literal-interpretation Christians will shrug off a direct and permanent order from God. It seems obvious that the religious traditions in the Bible differ greatly, as do the modern lens we bring to them and the two centuries of shifting Christian practices we've brought to them.

Does anyone happen to know if there's any religious group still trying to follow the details of the Mosaic Law? I wonder close do certain Orthodox Jewish groups get?

Robin M's recent post on a Convergent Friends definition has garnered a number of fascinating commenters. The latest comes from Scott Savage, a well-known Conservative Friend (author of "A Plain Live," publisher of the defunct "Plain Magazine" and lightening rod for a recent culture war skirmish over homosexuality at Ohio State University). Savage's comment on Robin's blog follows what we could call the "Cranky Conservative" template: gratuitous swipes at Conservatives in Iowa and North Carolina, wholesale dismissal of other Friends, multiple affirmations of Christ, digs at the issue of homosexuality, a recitation of past failures of cross-branch communication, then a shrug that seems to ask why he should stoop to our level for dialogue.

Snore.

What makes my sleepy response especially strange is that except for the homosexuality issue (yay for FLGBTQC!) I'm pretty close to Scott's positions. I worry about the liberalization of Conservative Friends, I get cranky about Christian Friends who deny Christ in public, and I think a lot of Friends are missing the boat on some core essentials. When I open my copy of Ohio's 1968 discipline and read its statement of faith (oops, sorry, "Introduction") I nod my head. As far as I'm aware I'm in unity with all of Ohio Conservative's principles of faith and practice and if I signed up for their distance membership I certainly wouldn't be the most liberal member of the yearly meeting.

I'm actually not sure about Scott's yearly meeting membership, I'm simply answering his question of why he and the other Conservatives who hold a strong concern for "the hedge" (a separation of Conservative Friends from other branches) might want to think about Convergence. Of all the remaining Conservative bodies, the hedge is arguably strongest in Ohio Yearly Meeting and while parts of this apply to Conservatives elsewhere--Iowa, North Carolina and individuals embedded in non-Conservative yearly meetings--the snares and opportunies are different for them than they are for Ohioans.

Why Ohio Conservative should engage with Convergence:

If you have all the answers and don't mind keeping them hidden under the nearest bushel then Convergence means nothing.

But if you're interested in following Jesus and being a fisher of men and women by sharing the good news... Well, then it's useful to learn that there's a growing movement of Friends from outside Conservative circles (however defined) who are sensing there's something missing and looking to traditional Quakerism for answers.

Ohio Conservatives have answers and this Convergence movement is providing a fresh opportunity to share them with the apostate Friends and with Christians in other denominations seeking out a more authentic relationship with Christ. Engaging with Convergence doesn't mean Ohio Friends have to change anything of their faith or practice and it needn't be about "dialogue": simply sharing the truth as you understand it is ministry.

Yes, there are snares involved in any true gospel ministry; striking the right balance is always difficult. As the carpenter said, narrow is the way which leadeth unto life. We are beset on all sides by roadblocks that threaten to lead us away from Christ's leadership. Ohio Friends will need to be on guard that ministers don't succumb to the temptation to water down their theology for any fleeting popularity. This is a real danger and it frequently occurs but while I could tell eight years of great insider stories from the halls of Philadelphia, is that what we're here to do?

Let me put my cards on the table: I don't see much of Ohio effectively ministering now. There's too much of a kind of pride that borders on obnoxiousness, that loves endlessly reciting why Iowa and North Carolina aren't Conservative and why no other Friends are Friends, blah blah blah. It can get tiresome and legalistic. I could point to plenty of online forums where it crosses the line into detraction. Charity and love are Christian qualities too. Humility and a sense of humor are compatible with traditional Quakerism. How do we find a way to continue safeguarding Ohio's pearls while sharing them widely with the world. There are Ohio Friends doing this and while I differ with Scott Savage on some social issues I consider tangential (and he probably doesn't), I very much appreciate his hard work advancing the understanding of Quakerism and agree on more than I disagree.

But how do we find a way to be both Conservative and Evangelical? To marry Truth with Love? To not only understand the truth but to know how, when and where to share it? I think Convergence can help Ohio think about delivery of Truth and it can help bring seekers into the doors. When I rhetorically asked last month what Convergent Friends might be converging toward, the first answer that popped in my head was Ohio Friends with a sense of humor. I'm not sure it's the most accurate definition but it reveals my own sympathies and I find it tempting to think about what that would look like (hint: kraken might be involved).

A reminder to everyone that I'll be at Ohio Yearly Meeting Conservative sessions in a few weeks to talk more about the opportunities for Ohio engagement with Convergence. Come round if you're in the area.

Also check out Robin's own response to Scott, up there on her own blog. It's a moving personal testimony to the power and joy of cross-Quaker fellowship and the spiritual growth that can result.

There have been a few recent posts about the state of the Quaker blogosphere. New blogger Richard M wrote about Anger on the Quaker blogs and LizOpp replied back with Popcorn in the Q-blogosphere?.

A special investigatory panel chaired by former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft is now finishing a report that faults the White House's Uranium Claim: bq. The board believes the White House was so anxious "to grab onto something affirmative" about Hussein's nuclear ambitions that it disregarded warnings from the intelligence community that the claim was questionable. With the White House featuring such an obvious forgery as the Niger uranium documents, the question has long been if they knew they were forged or not. Are the members of the Bush Administration scoundrels or fools? Scowcroft's conclusions are unsettling: A year after the 9/11 attacks and months away from a second major war, he found that "there was no organized system at the White House to vet intelligence, and the informal system that was followed did not work in the case of that speech." An anonymous source talking to CNN described the mistake as a "goof by fact checkers":http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/12/24/white.house.uranium/index.html. The main justification for the war, given in the President's most important annual speech is just shrugged off as a "goof"? Doesn't this make the whole war against iraq a "goof" too? It is beyond obvious that this war wasn't driven by facts or policy but by forces far more powerful in the current administration: greed and the raw use of power, not only against iraq but against the U.S. intelligence agencies who long argued that there was insufficient evidence of iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Burning up the blogosphere is a post and discussion on Michael J Totten's site about the "Workers World Party and International ANSWeR":http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/000131.html. He calls them "the new skinheads" (huh?), but his critique of these organizations and the "unconditional support" they give to anti-U.S. fascists the world over is valid. As a pacifist it's often a tough balancing act to try to remain a steady voice for peace: this spring we were trying to simultaneously critiquing both Saddam Hussein and U.S. war plans against iraq. Both left and right denounce pacifists for this insistence on consistency, but that's okay: it is these times when nonviolent activists have the most to contribute to the larger societal debate. But hard-left groups like International ANSWeR refuse to draw the line and refuse to condemn the very real evil that exists in the world. International ANSWeR has sponsored big anti-war rallies over the last year, but anti-war is not necessarily pro-nonviolence. Many of the participants at the rallies would never support International ANSWeR's larger agenda, but go because it's a peace rally, shrugging off the politics of the sponsoring group. I suspect that International ANSWeR's support base would disappear pretty quickly if they started rallying on other issues. International ANSWeR just had another rally last weekend but you didn't see it listed here on Nonviolence.org. Other peace groups co-sponsored it, echoing the All-caps/exclamation style of organizing. It's very strange to go the site of "United for peace," a coalition of peace groups, and look down the list of its next three events: "Stop the Wall!," "Stop the FTAA!, "Shut Down the School of the Americas" When did pacifism become shouting for attention alongside the Workers World Party? Why are we all about stopping this and shutting down that?

From the War Resisters League's Judith Mahoney Pasternak, "an honest look at the challenge pacifism faces in places like the Congo":www.warresisters.org/nva0703-1.htm: bq. There are those who challenge the pacifist position with such questions as, “A man with a gun is aiming it at your mother. You have a gun in your hand. What nonviolent action do you take?” Our usual answer is, “I’m a pacifist. I don’t have a gun in my hand. Next question.” But at least once in every generation—more frequently, alas, in these violence-ridden years—the challenge is a harder one to shrug off with a flip answer. The answer of course is to stop wars before they start, by stopping the arms trade, the dictatorships, and the crushing economic reforms demanded by Western banks _before_ these forces all combine and erupt into war. Pasternak outlines four parts to a blueprint that could end much of the violence in the Congo. I've always been impressed that the folks at War Resisters are willing to talk about the limits of nonviolence (see David McReynolds seven-part "Philosophy of Nonviolence":www.nonviolence.org/issues/philosophy-nonviolence.php). While war is never the only option (and arguably never the best one), it's much more effective to stop wars ten years before the bullets start flying. In each of the wars the U.S. has fought recently, we can see past U.S. policies setting up the conflict ten, twenty and thirty years ago. The largest peace marches in the world can rarely prevent a war once the troops ships have set sail. If U.S. policy and aid hadn't supported the "wrong" side in Iraq and Afghanistan twenty years ago, I don't think we would have fought these current wars. Pacifists and their kin need to start asking the tough questions about the current repressive regimes the U.S. is supporting--places like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan--and we need to demand that building democracy is our country's number one goal in the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations (yes, prioritize it _over_ security, so that we "don't replace Saddam Hussein with equally repressive thugs":www.nonviolence.org/articles/000130.php.