Four of us were asked to talk about our work in marketing our Quaker organizations. We represented a mix of organizations. In addition to myself representing Friends Journal, there was: Chris Hardie, founder of a Summersault LLC, a technology and web hosting business; Margaret Stark, director of marketing and admissions at Kendal at Oberlin, a continuing care retirement community “in the Quaker tradition”; and Tom Farquhar, head of of Washington, D.C.

Other recorded talks include plenary talks from Ian Joyce and Thom Jeavons, and the first speakers panel that included Norval Reece, Barry Crossno, Betty Tonsing, and Christina Repoley.

The future of the traditional evangelical church as I see it is: a.) mega churches continuing to grow, consolidating what is left of the Christendom populations…; b.) smaller churches of under 200 slowly dying and eventually closing, and c.) the birthing of new missional communities through  either seeding new missionary communities or transitioning (the aforementioned) dying small churches into vibrant places of mission.

On the face of it, it’s bizarre to compare liberal Friends to mainstream Christian evangelicals, but there are similarities if you scale back the numbers. I think some larger Friends meetings have mega-church-like dynamics. They have strong family programs and connections to nearby Friends schools and/or retirement communities. They serve as the local progressive liberal hub of their communities. They’re not deeply rooted in Quaker spirituality and are proud of the spiritual heterodoxy. They’re very organized–name tags, “Friendly 8” dinners, experienced clerks. They stand in contrast to the bulk of smaller meetings that are dying fast and won’t be around another generation.

Fitch clearly thinks the interesting work falls under the last category, “missional communities” and argues that a “significant part” of church resources should be devoted to “efforts in training missionary pastors.” His big question is whether the small “b” churches can evolve into the “c” missional communities.

I’m not sure that we really need training programs but for argument’s sake let’s say Fitch is right. Liberal Friends don’t have anyone to devote church resources to training (the closest analogue be the Earlham School of Religion). We do have small missional communities springing up but so far there’s been little support or recognition from local meetings or larger Friends bodies. What would it look like to equip these efforts in an unprogrammed Quaker setting? Is it all but inevitable that they’ll have to rely on self-organized associations? Will they remain as worship groups? Is that fine?

“[T]he first generations of English and America Quaker liberals like Jones and Cadbury were all birthright and they wrote books as well as pamphlets. Before unification, PYM Orthodox and the other Orthodox meetings produced philosophers, theologians, and Bible scholars, but now the combined yearly meetings in FGC produce weighty Friends, social activists, and earnest seekers.”
…
“The liberals who created the FGC had a thirst for knowledge, for linking the best in religion with the best in science, for drawing upon both to make ethical judgments. Today by becoming anti-intellectual in religion when we are well-educated we have jettisoned the impulse that created FGC, reunited yearly meetings, redefined our role in wider society, and created the modern peace testimony. The kinds of energy we now devote to meditation techniques and inner spirituality needs to be spent on philosophy, science, and Christian religion.”

This talk was hugely influential to my wife Julie and myself. We had just met two days before and while I had developed an instant crush, Frost’s talk was the first time we sat next to one another. I realized that this might become something serious when we both laughed out loud at Jerry’s wry asides and theology jokes. We ended up walking around the campus late into the early hours talking talking talking.

But the talk wasn’t just the religion geek equivalent of a pick-up bar. We both responded to Frost’s call for a new generation of serious Quaker thinkers. Julie enrolled in a Religion PhD program, studying Quaker theology under Frost himself for a semester. I dove into historians like Thomas Hamm and modern thinkers like Lloyd Lee Wilson as a way to understand and articulate the implicit theology of “FGC Friends” and took independent initiatives to fill the gaps in FGC services, taking leadership in young adult program and co-leading workshops and interest groups.

Things didn’t turn out as we expected. I hesitate speaking for Julie but I think it’s fair enough to say that she came to the conclusion that Friends ideals and practices were unbridgable and she left Friends. I’ve documented my own setbacks and right now I’m pretty detached from formal Quaker bodies.

Maybe enough time hasn’t gone by yet. I’ve heard that the person sitting on Julie’s other side for that talk is now studying theology up in New England; another Friend who I suspect was nearby just started at Earlham School of Religion. I’ve called this the Lost Quaker Generation but at least some of its members have just been lying low. It’s hard to know whether any of these historically-informed Friends will ever help shape FGC popular culture in the way that Quaker academia influenced liberal Friends did before the 1970s.

Rereading Frost’s speech this afternoon it’s clear to see it as an important inspiration for QuakerQuaker. Parts of it act well as a good liberal Quaker vision for what the blogosphere has since taken to calling convergent Friends. I hope more people will stumble on Frost’s speech and be inspired, though I hope they will be careful not to tie this vision too closely with any existing institution and to remember the true source of that daily bread. Here’s a few more inspirational lines from Jerry:

We should remember that theology can provide a foundation for unity. We ought to be smart enough to realize that any formulation of what we believe or linking faith to modern thought is a secondary activity; to paraphrase Robert Barclay, words are description of the fountain and not the stream of living water. Those who created the FGC and reunited meetings knew the possibilities and dangers of theology, but they had a confidence that truth increased possibilities.

Yesterday my old friend Chris Parker posted a comment to “The Lost Quaker Generation” essay where he wondered if “the Quaker community has lost its vitality” (scroll down to third entry). I first met Chris at a 1997 conference in Burlington NJ for “Quaker Volunteer Service, Training, & Witness.” I had been excited by the prospect of a group of people deepening and exploring the roots of Quaker witness and wasn’t disappointed with the conversations and new friendships. Chris had a recent MDiv from the Earlham School of Religion and was working at the American Friends Service Committee; he left the conference passionate about helping to create something new. While working with AFSC, he started pulling together a national Quaker network of volunteer opportunities. This was a ministry, pure and simple, from one of the more active, visionary, and hardworking twenty-something Friends I’ve known. But frustrations mounted and support evaporated. As I remember even his monthly meeting couldn’t unify around supporting this ministry. The project eventually fell apart as our email correspondence grew sketchy.

A month or so ago I got an email from Chris with his new address, a yoga retreat center in New England. I responded back with personal news but also with regrets that Quakerism had apparently lost him. Part of his comments from yesterday:

Well, I’m one of these thirty somethings that has drifted away. I’m sure each of us has our own story. I did try to help organize, but that turned out to be a bitter and unsuccessful experience. A long story for another time. But the spirit flows in many directions and if the Quaker community has lost it’s vitality or doesn’t work for some people, there are other places there. Holding on too tightly to Quakerism is to hold on to a human creation.

I am now living and working at Kripalu yoga center, a place that many call a spiritual home. We have 60,000 people on our mailing list, of whom about 68% have come here as a guest. There are about 30,000 unprogrammed Quakers.

He’s right of course: Kripalu undoubtedly touches more spiritual lives than unprogrammed Quakerism. But the real lesson is that Kripalu knows what a gem they have in Chris: they’ve given him the kind of responsibilities and encouragement that Quakers didn’t.

Chris was one of those involved Friends I had hoped to grow old with. I had imagined us running into each other in half a dozen committees over the next fifty years. We could have gone on backpacking trips together, invited each other to our kids’ weddings, had catch-up lunches at Quaker conferences, consoled each other through grief, thought about how to “transmit our faith” to the next generation of Friends. Chris Parker was worth more to Quakerism than any number of outreach initiatives or peace networks. Chris was the real deal: a committed, impassioned Friend. And now he’s one of Quakerism’s scarred and rusted statues, tributes to what could have been.

He put his story up on a website way back when. I’m just going to extensively quote it here:

I feel an urgency about this project because it has come to me that Quakers are about to be needed by the larger culture. Underneath the ills we face as a nation is a spiritual problem of violence and dominance over other people and life. Friends have a tradition that presents an alternative. The essential gem of Quakerism is the knowledge that each person is part of the divine, that we need to treat everybody as equal and sacred. While I am comfortable with more witness than Friends usually muster, I do believe that faith is more easily caught than taught. Service has been an experience where many are exposed to Quakers, with the opportunity to inspire and bring transformations.

But the Society of Friends is not in great shape. Friends are unfocused and tired. Often young adult Friends are missing. I have listened jealously to an ear-lier generation tell how AFSC workcamps formed them and taught them how to be leaders. While Quakerism is very good for seekers, my generation seems to need an experience given to them, which is a different energy. My friends from Brethren Volunteer Service were inspired and equipped for a life of commitment they probably wouldn’t have otherwise choosen.

My inspirations have assembled slowly over the last six years. I went to Earlham School of Religion to prepare to be of service. There I was inspired by friends who had participated in Brethern Volunteer Service. At the same time I worked as Assistant Director of a peer counseling program where I watched the teens blossom and transform when trusted with the opportunity to help others and have a real impact.

Can Quakerism survive if we can’t keep Friends like this?