suspicious Posts

Over on One Quaker Take, Timothy is surprised to read a definition of "Convergent Friend" that sounds a lot like a certain flavor of West Coast liberal Quakerism. It doesn't seem so surprising for me as it comes from Gregg Koskela, a pastor at an Evangelical Friends church. It was five years ago this month that I went to a loud pizza shop in Philadelphia to attend a  "Meet-Up" of readers of emerging church blogs and realized I had more common ground with these younger Evangelicals than I would have ever thought:

Just about each of us at the table were coming from different theological starting points, but it's safe to say we are all "post" something or other. There was a shared sense that the stock answers our churches have been providing aren't working for us. We are all trying to find new ways to relate to our faith, to Christ and to one another in our church communities. There's something about building relationships that are deeper, more down-to-earth and real. Perhaps it's finding a way to be less dogmatic at the same time that we're more disciplined. For Friends, that means questioning the contemporary cultural orthodoxy of liberal-think (getting beyond the cliched catch phrases borrowed from liberal Protestantism and sixties-style activism) while being less afraid of being pecularily Quaker.

Rich the Brooklyn Quaker was recently asking about early Friends views of atonement and heaven and hell and it's a great post, but so is Marshall Massey's comment about how later Friends altered the message in distinctly different ways. The different flavors of Friends have spent a lot of energy minimizing certain parts of the Quaker message and over-emphasizing others and maybe the truth lies in some of the nuances we long ago paved over.

I have a working theory that a movement of "Convergence" will feel suspiciously liberal in evangelical circles, suspiciously evangelical in liberal circles, and suspiciously worldly in Quaker conservative circles. But that's almost to be expected. The work to be done is different depending on where we're starting from.

I don't think Friends are alone in these kinds of matters. I see this phenomenon in other religious denominations--the post-Evangelicals I broke pizza with back in 2003 weren't Quakers. But Friends might have a better way out of the existential puzzles that arise. For we (generally) believe that our action should be motivated first and foremost by the direct instruction of the risen Christ working on us now. That means we can't rely on canned answers. What worked in the past might not work now. The faith is the same. But what needs to be done and what needs to be preached is very much a here-and-now kind of proposition.

I can't help but think of Howard Brinton. Back in the 1950s his generation managed a reunification of East Coast Quaker factions that had been warring for over a century. One way they did it was hanging out together and then redefining what it meant to be a Friend. In Friends for 300 Years, Brinton argued that tests for membership shouldn't look at one's beliefs or practices. It was a truce and I'm sure it made sense at the time: there was a fairly strong consensus on what Quakerism meant and the fights at the edges over details were distracting. Fifty years later, there's little consensus among Philadelphia Friends and even those in leadership positions are loathe to talk about faith or practice except in a kind of code. I can't think of a single Philadelphia Friend who publicly expresses Quaker belief with the clarity or passion of mid-century figures like Brinton, Thomas Kelly or Rufus Jones.

What worked in the past might not work now. What sounds like old hat to to us might be very liberating for others. Convergence isn't very new. It's just keeping ourselves from ossifying into our own human concepts and staying open to the direct Christ. It's finding a way to maintain that crazy balance between tradition and the inward light. Same as it ever was.

I had an interesting opportunity last Thursday. I skipped work to be talk with two Quakerism classes at Philadelphia's William Penn Charter School (thanks for the invite Michael and Thomas!). I was asked to talk about Quaker blogs, of all things. Simple, right? Well, on the previous Tuesday I happened upon this passage from Brian Drayton's new book On Living with a Concern for Gospel Ministry:

I think that your work will have the greatest good effect if you wait to find whether and where the springs of love and divine life connect with this opening before you appear in the work. This is even true when you have had an invitation to come and speak on a topic to a workshop or some other forum. It is wise to be suspicious of what is very easy, draws on your practiced strengths and accomplishments, and can be treated as an everyday transaction. (p. 149).

Good advice. Of course the role of ministry is even more complicated in that I wasn't addressing a Quaker audience: like the majority of Friends schools, few Penn Charter students actually are Quaker. I'm a public school kid, but it from the outside it seems like Friends schools stress the ethos of Quakerism (here's Penn Charter's statement). Again Drayton helped me think beyond normal ideas of proseltyzing and outreach when he talked about "public meetings": "We are also called, I feel to invite others to share Christ directly, not primarily in order to introduce them to Quakerism and bring them into our meetings, but to encourage them to turn to the light and follow it" (p. 147). What I shared with the students was some of the ways my interaction with the Spirit and my faith community shapes my life. When we keep it real, this is a profoundly universalist and welcoming message.

I talked about the personal aspect of blogging: in my opinion we're at our best when we weave our theology with with personal stories and testimonies of specific spiritual experiences. The students reminded me that this is also real world lesson: their greatest excitement and questioning came when we started talking about my father (I used to tell the story of my completely messed-up childhood family life a lot but have been out of the habit lately as it's receded into the past). The students really wanted to understand not just my story but how it's shaped my Quakerism and influenced my coming to Friends. They asked some hard questions and I was stuck having to give them hard answers (in that they were non-sentimental). When we share of ourselves, we present a witness that can reach out to others.

Later on, one of the teachers projected my blogroll on a screen and asked me about the people on it. I started telling stories, relating cool blog posts that had stuck out in my mind. Wow: this is a pretty amazing group, with diversity of ages and Quakerism. Reviewing the list really reminded me of the amazing community that's come together over the last few years.

One interesting little snippet for the Quaker cultural historians out there: Penn Charter was the Gurneyite school back in the day. When I got Michael's email I was initially surprised they even had classes on Quakerism as it's often thought of as one of the least Quaker of the Philadelphia-area Quaker schools. But thinking on it, it made perfect sense: the Gurneyites loved education; they brought Sunday School (sorry, First Day School) into Quakerism, along with Bible study and higher education. Of course the school that bears their legacy would teach Quakerism. Interestingly enough, the historical Orthodox school down the road aways recently approached Penn Charter asking about their Quaker classes; in true Wilburite fashion, they've never bothered trying to teach Quakerism. The official Philadelphia Quaker story is that branches were all fixed up nice and tidy back in 1955 but scratch the surface just about anywhere and you'll find Nineteenth Century attitudes still shaping our institutional culture. It's pretty fascinating really.

Just stumbled on the website of the National Study of Youth and Religion.

This fall Zachary Moon and I put together a workshop proposal for the 2005 Gathering, which has been approved: Strangers to the Covenant is the title and here's the short description:

This is for young Friends who want to break into the power of Quakerism: it's the stuff you didn't get in First Day School. We'll connect with historical Quakers whose powerful ministry came in their teens and twenties and we'll look at how Friends wove God, covenants and gospel order together to build a movement that rocked the world. We'll mine Quaker history to reclaim the power of our tradition, to explore the living power of the testimonies and our witness in the world.

In this election, religious conservatives were able to craft a message making same-sex marriages look like an afront to apple pie and baseball and of course people voted against it. What if we could have somehow framed this election with the details of human suffering that these laws suggest?

Now available for the fashionable Bush-era bumper. Proceeds go to support the Nonviolence.org websites: