Comments on: For other uses, see Light (disambiguation)

By: Nancy A

Nancy A — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 22:20:11 +0000

Martin
Maybe the problem isn’t language (although your idea about one’s ability to speak Quakerese correlating with one’s status as a Friend did strike a chord!!!!). I wonder if the problem has to do with individualism.
Quakers aren’t supposed to be individuals in the “rugged individualism” kind of way. Meetings are a collective, surrending kind of activity. We are who we are through each other. Families the same.
Are Quakers perhaps subconsciously living out their lives as individuals, as their culture demands, but using tricks of the mind and language to create a perception that they are living as a collective?
Maybe I haven’t worded this idea right… It just strikes me when I hear Quakerese that it’s the product of a subtle disconnect between who we are and who we think we are.
Another problem at the root of this language thing might be fear. It’s easier to see with the fundamentalists that they use language, images, doctrines, quotes, rules, and other forms of rigidity to hide from threatening ideas. They are afraid that if they admit this one thing might not be verbally true, in the ordinary sense of truth, then their whole religion might cave in. Might Quakers have this fear too? Are some of us afraid that if we use language from the gospels that we might be opening the floodgates of fundamentalism?
And if so, are those fears well-founded or ill-founded?
Great post, Martin. It got us all thinking…

By: Calista

Calista — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 12:52:50 +0000

Martin and all the responders, thank you for the discussion, the insightfulness, the lessons. Besides acting as a dialogue among yourselves, your words reach out to those of us who believe, who follow, who need more than we are finding in ourlives at the moment. Or just want to bolster our insights and continue to learn. Thank you

By: Marshall Massey

Marshall Massey — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 09:29:12 +0000

Hello again, Martin. Reading your comments to Timothy on membership, I am struck by the fact that they represent a tremendous shift in understanding of the reason for membership.
Early Friends, as I’m sure you know, had a prophetic message to the world, which led them to travel to every corner of England and beyond, confronting those who were not living in accordance with Truth. But in carrying that message, they had to deal with adherents to their movement who muddled or undercut that message with unhelpful words or bad behavior. This included adherents who acted with seeming blasphemousness (Nayler’s followers in the streets of Bristol), adherents who engaged in outright immorality or amorality (Quaker preachers conducting extramarital affairs), and adherents who did things in contradiction to the movement’s prophetic testimonies (Friends who paid tithes in order to avoid the confiscation of their property).
In order to handle such challenges, the first Friends first eldered and then disowned those who muddled or undercut their message and could not be brought back to good behavior. And the second, third and fourth generations of Friends developed their formal membership system as a way of clarifying who was positively owned. Being owned as a member meant that you were committed to upholding the testimonies, and that the Society in turn would support you in what you did. It also meant you were included in Friends’ corporate decision-making, because you were trusted to discern on a right basis.
Your response to Timothy does not seem to reflect any concern for such issues. But should it? If Friends own as members anyone who walks in off the street, what is to keep members’ behavior any different from the general behavior of the populace? What is to make our corporate decision-making any different from the popular vote?
I am in unity with Timothy’s concerns as I understand them, but I understand him as asking a very different question from the one you have responded to.

By: Martin Kelley

Martin Kelley — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 20:29:29 +0000

@Joe: ohmegod!, I'm never going to wash this keyboard again!! That sounds as good an analysis as any. There's sort of a "nostaligification" of Christianity that has occurred. It's been demystified, the supernatural taken out and turned into folksy stories. That's fine and such--Jesus was a good storyteller and moral leader in addition to everything else--but if you don't think there's anything supernatural going on then you're not a Christian. I know some people will rail at this statement--"how dare you define Christianity for me?!" blah blah blah, but it's been the definition since the days of the apostles and it's the only definition that makes much sense. Pretty obvious stuff except that many people long to hold onto that identity. There's comfort in the nostalgia. Some have made careers in it--religious leaders who don't really believe. The only phenomenon I'd add to your list is the effects of draft-dodging on American religion. Read the personal stories of many of the "nostalgic Christian" leaders now in their early sixties and there seem to be quite a few whose choice to get their MDiv was motivated in part by the deferment it gave them from military service. I know Quakers too, who joined way earlier than they might have (should have?) in order to get the benefits of "Quaker" in their conscientious objector applications. A little more "seasoning" of the decision might have made the religious vocation clearer--either stronger and more committed or perhaps allowed them to see they weren't really called. I'm a "pacifist":www.nonviolence.org of course and I've long campaigned for expanded rights to conscientious objection but I wonder how many people who only half-felt the call to religious service went the other half for the wrong reasons? @Timothy: yes, well I think we've reached the theoretical limit of the 1950s redefinition of Quaker membership--that belief and practice mean nothing and the prime qualification is comfortable-ness in the meeting community (see FWCC statements from the time or Howard Brinton's "Friends for 300 Years"). Membership means nothing in the spiritual sense, it simply marks a certain social status in the community. We could radicalize our situation one more degree and treat as members--as Friends--everyone who comes into our doors, everyone we meet on the street. When someone asks for help or spiritual advice we don't ask how long they've been coming to meeting but we help them and minister them as best we can with the Light we're given. Of course this means valuing the community of "those who might be Friends" more highly than the community of "those who are already Friends." Jesus was quite ready to do this but I fear we modern day "Friends of Jesus" might be a little too cozy in our meetinghouses to make such a radical move.

By: Timothy Travis

Timothy Travis — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 23:45:08 +0000

I have been thinking a lot about the ambiguity of “Quaker Speak,” lately, but had not considered that some people may not use that ambiguity in a conscious way to obscure what they mean to avoid contention or to consciously create the misapprehension of unity for some other reason. I have been thinking of it as some kind of ironic joke we are playing on one another–without even knowing that we are doing it. Can it be a joke if no one really appreciates the humor? If the humor isn’t funny?
Strong stuff, that!!!
Strong stuff, also, the idea that some want to turn the Society of Friends into a competing brand of UU, or the suggestion (no, the fact) that this has already happened in a number of places.
I recently encountered a Friend who said that if “transformation” was the essence of “Quakerism” that she never would have been a Quaker.
I can only stand still, at that.
What, I have been wondering lately, is a reason to turn away someone who seeks membership? Well, what, then?

By: Joe G.

Joe G. — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 20:51:54 +0000

Just so you know, Martin, I do read your blog on occasion and still dabble with QuakerQuaker. See, I can "come out of retirement" for you, too! All good comments. I don't wish to besmirch Humanism, it has much to offer, but I think the form of Humanism from the 1920's through the 1960's had a big impact on liberal Quakers. I understand that the humanists (or at least some ormost) had issues with the supernatural, theism, miracles, etc. But, they equated all of that to a form of Christianity that was truly either condemning or comfortable or both. Maybe that was present amongst Friends back in the early 1900's when so many were influenced by the modern ideas blowing through academia, etc? Then along came the 1960's and a stronger sense of personal freedom, but also individualism, seemed to have influenced Quakerism in the U.S., too. Reject the confines of a supernatural Christianity stuck in the Middle Ages + I have my own truth = ?? Of course, one can also point at the individualism and comfortableness of a lot of Christian churches, including quite a few evangelical ones, too! P.S. I like reading blogs instead of regularly blogging...well, I don't know. I'm twittering right now at twitter.com. It can't get any easier to blog than that! Ha!

By: Marshall Massey

Marshall Massey — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 07:16:10 +0000

To respond first to Liz: the line about the physician is to be found at Mark 2:17, Matthew 9:12 and Luke 5:31. It is Jesus’s explanation to the Pharisees as to why he is associating with known sinners rather than with them.
Then to respond to Liz and Martin both: If we are to base our policy on this teaching from the synoptic gospels, then it cannot be used to justify continuing to associate with meetings that see nothing wrong with themselves. For such meetings are the equivalent of the Pharisees Jesus was declining to associate with.
Christ associated, not just with any old known sinners, but specifically with those known sinners who were bothered by the way they were living. This sense of being bothered was their awareness of their own Inward Guide. Their awareness of their own Inward Guide made them ready for the guidance of Christ.
And that is the sort of person we, too, should be associating with — for the company of such people reinforces our own willingness to hear and be taught and corrected by that same Guide.
The perfume of the sandal tree
is communicated to other trees nearby:
they become scented as the sandal itself.
And in just the same way,
having associated with saints,
I have become somewhat Godlike myself.
— Kabîr, Bhairo 5, from the Âdî Granth
I … understand that Saint Paul was also weak in faith.… An angel stood by him at sea, and comforted him, and when he came to Rome, he was comforted as he saw the brethren come out to meet him. Hereby we see what the communion and company does of such as fear God. The Lord commanded the disciples to remain together in one place, before they received the Holy Ghost, and to comfort one another; for Christ well knew that adversaries would assault them.
— Martin Luther, Table Talk, trans. William Hazlitt, §308
All this is not to say that we should outright shun the company of comfortable Friends. Christ didn’t outright shun the Pharisees. But we, like Christ, should know what our home community is. It is the company of such as fear God.

By: Martin Kelley

Martin Kelley — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 20:40:46 +0000

@Marshall: sorry your comment didn't come through immediately. Deliberate ambiguity or denying the Lord? Frankly I'm not sure I see much of a substantive difference between the two. Last night I watched a documentary on social rank among a species of Great Apes. Using that methodology, I think social status among liberal Friends rises if you can speak good Quakerese but drops if you sound Christian. The phenomenon's not limited to Friends: Liberal America has an achingly strong nostalgia for Christianity and the rootedness it promises but a flat-out fear of religious conviction. We've forgotten that it's possible to be a believer without being a NASCAR-watching, Coors-swilling KKK member (pick your favorite liberal stereotype), that the solid ground of progressive Christianity has given us heroes like Martin Luther King and John Woolman. @Barb: so I'm a jazz smooth talker am I? That's good, as long as I'm not a smooth jazz talker if you catch the diff. We can coordinate one of my visits to Middletown meeting sometime if you want though my schedule is making meeting-going rather difficult. I think you're right: Quakers often fail to live up to our own billing. We don't need to be perfect but we can do better than this. @LizOpp: The physician metaphor is useful but I think the way you used it misses the point I was trying to raise. Recasting it: as a doctor do you always insist that everything's fine despite all evidence, simply because you want the patient to like you? Do you hedge and haw with your diagnoses, stressing the cup half full even when you know it's almost completely empty because you don't want to see them upset? If you haven’t noticed I’m not a leaver either, even after being treated pretty shabbily and even after I realized that a lot of people I considered friends were going to leave me out to dry.