A beautiful meditation by Brian Drayton on Quakers softening on the ideas of times and seasons and how he (and I suspect many other Friends) have come to more fully embrace the seasons of both the wider Christian Church and also the natural seasons of the earth and cosmos.
Quaker Ranter
A Weekly Newsletter and Blog from Martin Kelley
Tag Archives ⇒ Christ
Late September links
September 23, 2023
On Friends Journal, an account from Bruce Birchard of Central Philadelphia Meeting’s response to a sense that worship had gotten too chatty. They wanted to effect a “spiritual grounding of Friends worship” and so formally recorded eight ministers and asked them to prepare sermons for semi-programmed worship sessions. Oh wait, this is Central Philly, HQ of Liberal U.S. Quaker institutionalism, so they couldn’t call them ministers or sermons, and while they repeatedly call it a program they go out of their way to insist this isn’t any kind of programming. You can read their eight prepared sermons… *checks notes* eight prepared messages here. They’re good, and well worth reading.
Also on FJ, Greg Woods and Jen Newman finish off September features’s with an article about their work on vocational discernment for young adult Friends.
Working on some articles on Quaker testimonies and re-reading Anthony Manousos’s 2009 blog post, “How Howard Brinton Invented SPICE, the Quaker Testimonies,” and Paul Buckley’s 2012 talk, “The Origin of the SPICES.” Both gems.
Sad to read of the passing of Mariellen Gilpin in What Canst Thou Say? She was a consistently thoughtful writer on Quaker mysticism, ministry, and eldership for many decades.
A new QuakerSpeak this week: Spirituality on the Road: Five Years of Quaker RV Living, an interview with Betsey Kenworthy.
Are Quakers Christian?
April 15, 2019
Steven Davison takes on one of the trickier questions of modern liberal Quakerism:
I am going to make a bold apology for a clarified liberal Quaker identity that retains its roots and recovers worship in the spirit of Christ, but yet releases us from the orthodox Christian preoccupations that no longer speak to so many unprogrammed Friends.
Brian Drayton: One cost of our theological diversity
February 11, 2019
Responding to articles in the December Friends Journal:
Rather I am aware that a certain level of fellowship or companionship is missing. It can take a lifetime, I find, to explore the implications and meaning of the gospel life, to experience such a renewing of the mind that one can grow into the life of Christ, see and learn to honor the Sophia of God, the Logos in its appearing in humans, and in creation, and in ourselves in our measure. Fellowship with others who are following that same path ( a path “traditionally held by Friends”) is nourishing, stimulating, and educative in, well, particular ways. Fellowship with earnest seekers who understand their paths differently is also precious, and indeed necessary — but not the same.
Evangelistic malpractice
February 8, 2019
Johan Maurer on starting fresh in a corner of the Quaker world:
I was grateful that the “who” question was there — testifying that we are not centered on ourselves, dutifully inventorying our Quaker markers. For me, evangelism (paying urgent attention to the “who”) puts all those other testimonies in perspective. All those testimonies are “signs and wonders,” qualities of the Light by which we as the Body of Christ participate in making Jesus visible.
https://blog.canyoubelieve.me/2019/02/evangelistic-malpractice.html
Quakerism of the Future
October 26, 2018
Johan Maurer lifts up a 1974 publication by John Yungblut:
Granted, as a deep student of Carl Gustav Jung and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Yungblut’s definitions of those three adjectives may not have exactly been old-school. This particularly goes for his reflections on the word “evangelical.” But the dynamic conversation among these qualities — different definitions and all — may be vital if Friends are to grow in usefulness to the Body of Christ, and to those who’ve not yet been convinced.
https://blog.canyoubelieve.me/2018/10/quakerism-of-future.html
A New Quakerism
July 30, 2018
A cynic might file this under “hope springs eternal”:
A phrase that keeps coming to mind is “a new Quakerism,” and oddly enough, I’ve been hearing other Friends unknowingly echo this phrase back to me. It seems to me that many Friends, even those who consider themselves “convinced,” are hungry for more than what the Society has to offer.
Of course it’s part of our tradition that it needs to be forever reborn. You can’t recycle sermons or use the prop of your university learning as a crutch. We are never to know what might happen when worship starts, since the idea is that it’s directly led in the moment by Christ. It’s also a part of our tradition that forms are forever calcifying and that we need to remember why we’re here and who’s brought us together. Glad to see the work continue.
Developing a healing ministry
April 23, 2018
I’ve enjoyed John Jeremiah Edminster’s comments over the years, which is one reason I was happen to get the submission that became The Cost of a Healing Gift. It starts with the story of having a gift of ministry recognized but what I like even more is that he talks about his journey exploring and developing it. What’s surprising is that is he’s far from a purist:
we went to weekend training workshops; we read the writings of Christian healers; shamanic healers; and practitioners of Reiki, traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, and homeopathy. I longed to be able to inspect people’s etheric and astral bodies, their chakras and marmas, with a diagnostician’s eye. So long as it involved no straying from Christ, I aspired to know how to mobilize healing virtues in plant spirits, minerals, colors, and sounds, and how to recognize “holy” places.
Some of this reminds me of the wonderful work of the eighteen-century Friend Samuel Bownas, whose book A Description of the Qualifications Necessary to a Gospel Minister is full of very useful advice on ministry and warnings about pitfalls — romantic attachments, undue politicization.
