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.
From Mark Russ:
As a Christian Quaker living in a post-Christian Quaker culture, I’m occasionally called upon to explain my Christianity to my fellow Quakers. I recently did this by saying ‘Jesus is the key that unlocks my experience of the world’. I was then asked ‘could you say more about that?’, and I didn’t really have an answer prepared
I sometimes like to highlight the comments that people leave here on the blog. A few days ago, Carl Abbott replied to a link to a Steven Davison post on community as a testimony. He wrote:
William Penn’s introduction to George Fox’s Journal (1691) speaks to something very like community:
“Besides these general doctrines, as the larger branches, there sprang forth several particular doctrines, that did exemplify and farther explain the truth and efficacy of the general doctrine before observed, in their lives and examples: as,
Communion and loving one another. This is anoted mark in the mouth of all sorts of people concerning them: They will meet, they will help and stick one to another. Whence it is common to hear some say: Look how the Quakers love and take care of one another. Others, less moderate, will say: The Quakers live none but themselves: and if loving one another. and having an intimate communion in religion, and constant care to meet to worship God, and help one another, be any mark of primitive Christianity, they had it, blessed be the Lord in ample manner.”
This certainly sounds like community to me.
From the BBC of all places:
While known as a traditionally quiet community within Christianity, in Kenya their gatherings are loud and proud. For some, being ‘noisy’ is the reason young people are still being attracted to the Church.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p072kcm0
From Isaac Smith:
I have tended to describe this shift in understanding as the moment when Quakerism “clicked” for me — when it ceased to be just the weird subculture I grew up in, and more a matter of conviction. Practices that I ignored or never quite understood, like making group decisions without taking a vote, now made sense, because they were borne out of an attempt to make Christ the present teacher in all affairs.
Isaac’s piece stems in part from the December Friends Journal, on Quakers and Christianity. A large percentage of the submissions we received for the issue had remarkably similar personal stories: people had grown up in a restrictive religious tradition and come to Liberal Friends because of its openness to spiritual seeking. If anything they were hostile to Christianity and distinctive Quaker peculiarities when they joined but over time they slowly shifted, often after getting to know grounded elder Friends. Now they quietly identified as Christian Friends.
We could have printed a whole issue of (mostly) convinced Liberal Friends who had rediscovered Christianity. Instead we picked a representative sample for the print edition and published the rest as part of our our extended online edition; you can read it all at the online contents. Although Isaac’s story is different (he grew up as a Friend) it shares a similar trajectory.
(Issac also has some questions about Quaker publishing, with a link to a great 2009 blog post from Johan Maurer. I feel I should talk about this issue too but that’ll take a bit more pondering on my part).
From Transition Quaker:
The Quaker way offers us a key to recognising what is authentic within any religious tradition, including Christianity, and distinguishing it from the distortions of power, privilege, literalism and dogmatism that tend to corrupt every human enterprise. Whatever stories and images display the guiding power of the Inward Light, in any tradition, can help to reveal the life of the Spirit and encourage us to encounter it for ourselves.
transitionquaker.blogspot.comFeatures on Friends Journal this week, Jeff Rasley’s article on “stealth worshipers” and religious doubt in the professional clergy:
Because I went to seminary, I came to know quite a few Christian ministers. As an attorney, I represented several churches and Christian ministers in legal matters. Several ministers of Protestant denominations and two Catholic priests came clean with me about their personal beliefs. I discovered that when they were not “on,” many pastors would admit to the same doubts about the dogmas and superstitions of their churches as I had about mine.
December’s issue is on Christianity and there are opinions on various sides of the issue but Rasley’s piece gets right to a core strength of Liberal Quakerism: its ability to so easily invite and engage with those unsure of their beliefs. Because of family, I get to a lot of non-Quaker services a lot and wonder how many of the people around me aren’t following their church’s teachings on various issues. One way of ordering Christian denominations is to see if they prefer a tidy and pure but small congregation or a messy big tent come-as-you-are congregation.
It seems like Quakers are taking something of a different path: come but follow your own integrity and engage in the way that honors whatever level of truth has been given you. It’s a pretty powerful stance, though of course it gives us our own special set of headaches when it comes time to speaking in a collective voice.
Two much-discussed threads on /reddit/Quakers, the first pondering Quakerism with Jesus, and the second — a response—arguing for Jesus’s centrality. Both original posts are perhaps a bit predictable but the conversations go into interesting contradictions and dilemmas.
Also, an early plug that the December Friends Journal will focus on Quakers and Christianity.
Friends Journal