As the blog name implies, I am a member of the Religious Society of Friends, known colloquially as Quakers. Many of my blog posts deal with issues of our society and its interactions with the larger world. I generally only include my own posts in this list. I share many many Quaker links in my Links Blog category and on QuakerQuaker.
Important Posts:
The Lost Quaker Generation (2003)
Peace and Twenty-Somethings (2003)
We’re All Ranters Now (2003)
Passing the Faith, Planet of the Quaker Style (2004)
Quaker Testimonies (2004)
Hey, Who Am I To Decide Anything? (2007)
The Biggest Most Vibranty Most Outreachiest Program Ever (2010)
Getting a Horse to Drink (on Philadelphia YM) (2010)
Tell Them All This But Don’t Expect Them to Listen (2010)
On Ekklesia, a love letter between Friends in the two counties most affected by the UK pullout from the European Union.
We recognise that Brexit is not an endpoint, but a step in the continuing relationship between our respective countries. We know that there will be a wide range of emotions felt in our Quaker and wider communities about our arrival at this point, and we ask Quakers to be truthful but tender with those around us.
On Abiding Quaker, Patricia Dallmann tells a story of two very different Quakers:
Unbeknownst to him or to me that morning, we each embodied a force that in relation to the other, as Penington wrote, had “no communion or peace between them”; these forces contend (like the two kings referred to in the epigraph) for the soul of humanity: to edify or to destroy. Though this Sunday morning incident involved only two people in an empty meetinghouse, it was, nevertheless, the Lamb’s War: a skirmish in which the powers clashed, powers which when pitted against one another on a grander scale determine history.
From Steven Davison:
This transference of blame, hurt, and anger to the meeting calls for a special kind of pastoral care that we don’t seem to do very well or even talk about much. I am not at all clear about what’s called for myself, but I grieve for the people I know who have been hurt in this way and also for the meetings in which this pain and tension lives as a shadow on the fellowship.
He has some good observations here, like this one: “Friends also have a perverse tendency sometimes to minister to the perpetrator in a fraught situation, rather than the victim.” This is certainly a phenomenon. I remember a meeting situation some years back in which everyone at the meeting privately agreed that a certain member was being mean-spirited in their characterization of other members but didn’t say anything even as people started leaving the meeting.
He talks about early Friends’ use of the concept of gospel order, but admits that “modern-day Friends hardly even know it exists.” I’ve seen a relatively traditionalist meeting fail a fairly straight-forward test of gospel order. Why would we pass up an opportunity to help a recalcitrant member find some inner heal? Do we secretly think that people can’t change?
The Friends Journal “From the Editor’s Desk” blog began as ideas for future which I posted here on Quaker Ranter. At a certain point I realized I should share it on Friends Journal website directly. But I still want readers here to know about upcoming issues and to share them to potential writers. Don’t underestimate your ability to inspire: often an article’s birth starts with an experienced friend suggesting a topic to a new writer. If you know a Quaker who might have something interesting to say on this topic, please share this with them. Here’s an excerpt to my Editor’s Desk blog post.
Thin spaces is a term mystics use for those places where our human world and the Divine come closer together. They’ll often cite those historic sacred spaces that catch our breath when we enter, locations where one can feel the echoes of generations of worshipers.
But for Friends, every place has the potential of being a thin space. Indeed, perhaps every place is already brimming over with divinity and only waits on our ability to settle. Our physical spaces testify to that ethos by making worship rooms plain, unconsecrated, and functional, and our worship is based on a divine imminence that needs no pastor or liturgical ritual.
Learn more at the blog post Writing Opp: Thin Spaces.
Via Hidden City blog, I’ve learned of a new podcast called Found in Philadelphia. It’s only one episode long so far but it’s a good one: a look at the Germantown Protest of 1688. This was the letter written by four Dutch and German Quakers protesting slaveholding — in particular, slaveholding as practiced by leading Philadelphia Friends. The language and diction is a bit awkward (English not being their first language) but many of their arguments are surprisingly modern. The next time some tiresome bot on Twitter or Facebook friend-of-a-friend starts whining about how times were different in the past and how were people to know slavery was so bad, just show them this letter. Clear-eyed people knew and spoke up.
Host Lori Aument interviews two people known to Friends Journal readers: Katharine Gerbner, author of September’s Slavery in the Quaker World; and Mary Crauderueff, who last wrote for us in November 2017. I’m a big fan of uncovering the stories of the 1688 protest, especially the dismissal it received from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. My review of Gerbner’s book will appear in the January books section of FJ.
In the NYTimes Opinion section, a fascinating comparison of the language politics of early Friends and today’s pronoun expansionists. By Teresa M. Bejan:
Modern practitioners of pronoun politics can learn a thing or two from the early Quakers. Like today’s egalitarians, the Quakers understood that what we say, as well as how we say it, can play a crucial part in creating a more just and equal society. They, too, were sensitive to the humble pronoun’s ability to reinforce hierarchies by encoding invidious distinctions into language itself.
Yet unlike the early Quakers, these modern egalitarians want to embrace, rather than resist, pronouns’ honorific aspect, and thus to see trans‑, nonbinary and genderqueer people as equally entitled to the “title” of their choosing.
I should note that while Bejan’s discussion of Friends ends in Herman Melville’s time, many of us are still very aware of how language can liberate and oppress. Friends Journal uses the singular “they” upon author request, for example.
The one place we do have tensions is around honorifics. The Quaker testimony has been clear against using them — in a manner Bevan describes as “leveling down” but there are instances in which honorifics have been used to level up. The most common occurrence is the use of titles for Black clergy. I understand the arguments on both sides but in the end the reason we still talk about Martin Luther King Jr. is his bravery, clear-sightedness, and stirring words. His doctorate degree contributed to his development I’m sure, but as Friends we know that his academic record is not the source of his moral authority.
QuakerSpeak is taking on one of the thorniest questions of modern Quakerism: Are Quakers Christian?
We talked to 11 Quakers from across the United States and asked about their relationship with Christianity.
I watched an early draft this morning and was impressed with both the nuance and humor of the interviewees and also the way videographer Jon Watts cut and edited the segments in a way that heightens the differences and “yes, but, maybe” answers.
http://quakerspeak.com/are-quakers-christian/
The March 2020 Friends Journal will look at “Unnamed Quaker Creeds.” The submission deadline is December 9. I’ve written up some of our thoughts on potential article ideas and published it online at: https://www.friendsjournal.org/unnamed-quaker-creeds/
Unprogrammed Friends will often tell visitors we have no creeds or set practices in worship. Our worship is spontaneous, open-ended, and free to follow the unexpected promptings of the Living Spirit. But in practice, this isn’t exactly true. There are all sorts of expectations and unwritten rules when we come together First-day mornings. Who can give ministry? How long should a message go? What themes should it follow? What time does worship end?
There are also unwritten rules about our behavior and conduct. What if we talk too loudly or share our beliefs too strenuously? Do our individual tastes in clothes, music, politics fit the meeting? What are the divides between core Quaker faith and optional Quaker culture?
The March issue is our chance to look at unwritten rules and social conformities and question any that may be making our meeting spaces unfriendly to newcomers. What boundaries do we need to make more explicit? What practices do we need to make less mandatory? How do we need to change to be more accessible? And in what ways do newcomers feel they have to change to fit us?
Different flavors of Friends have answered these questions differently. Programmed Friends have more explicit worship structures. They’re also more comfortable making creedal statements like the Richmond Declaration of Faith. How have these tools helped ground the spiritual community? What new problems have they perhaps created?
I’m hoping this issue will be especially helpful for us all to think about including new visitors. And as always, the ideas we list here are just suggestions. We’re happy to read whatever readers think about the issue of unnamed Quaker creeds. Submissions due December 9, 2019.