I am at least as susceptible as anyone I know to self-deception and wishful thinking, to being untrue to myself and to God, and to looking outside myself, at the external aspects of thought and practice among people of faith, trying to distract myself from the work of the Spirit in my heart. But it is less easy to distract the Holy Spirit, and so I have been called back again and again to these uncomfortable, at times downright dangerous, places, out in the saltmarshes of the heart.

The sowing of seeds

On the face of it, this is an easy question. Early Friends were loath to recognize any liturgical practices and they were lower‑p puritanical about anything that smacked of paganism. Famously, they didn’t use the common names of the week or months because many of them referred to non-Christian deities, like Thor and Janus.

They were especially grumpy about anything that smacked of latter-day syncretism. Many of the church holidays were seen as pagan festivals with a superficial Christian overlay. I’ll be the first to admit they could get kind of obnoxious this way. Wikipedia explains some of this attitude:

Other Protestant groups took a different attitude, with most Anabaptists, Quakers, Congregationalists and Presbyterian Puritans regarding such festivals as an abomination. The Puritan rejection of Easter traditions was (and is) based partly upon their interpretation of 2 Corinthians 6:14–16 and partly upon a more general belief that, if a religious practice or celebration is not actually written in the Christian Bible, then that practice/celebration must be a later development and cannot be considered an authentic part of Christian practice or belief—so at best simply unnecessary, at worst actually sinful.

In Latin, Easter is called Pascha, a reference to the Jewish Passover festival. But in England, Pascha took place in the month the old English called Ēostre after a goddess whose festival was celebrated in that month. This made it doubly hard for English Protestant groups that wanted to cleanse Christianity of “popish” or “pagan” influences. So for right or wrong, they ignored it like they did the day the world calls Christmas.

Symbolically, Quakers love the idea of Easter. One of George Fox’s most key openings was that“Christ has come to teach the people himself!” The idea that Jesus rose again and is with us is pretty central to traditional Quaker beliefs.

These days Easter is largely celebrated by Friends standing up on Sunday to break the silence of worship with nostalgic stories of Easters in their pre-Quaker youth. Sometimes they’ll admit to having attended a Easter service at another church before coming to meeting that morning. If you’re really lucky, you’ll get ministry about flowers or hats.

It’s not anti-Christian to say you have doubts about your relationship with Jesus. It’s perfectly human. Most of us would get bogged down in the intellectualism if we tried to map out a precise God/Christ relationship. One thing I’ve always liked about Friends is our radical honesty in this regards. A priest in a strictly orthodox liturgical tradition is expected to preach on topics on which they have no direct divine experience and to base their words on church teachings. When a Friend rises in ministry they are expected to be speak from a moment of direct revelation.

We also have church teachings of course. Robert Barclay is our go-to guy on many theological matters, and certain journals have become all-but-canonized on the way we understand ourselves and our tradition. It’s just that this second-hand knowledge needs to be presented as such and kept out of the actual worship time. As my Quaker journey has progressed, I’ve directly experienced more and more openings that confirm the tenets of traditional Quaker Christianity. That’s built my trust.

I’m now willing to give the benefit of the doubt to beliefs that I haven’t myself experienced. If someone like William Penn says he’s had a direct revelation about a particular issue, I’ll trust his account. I know that in those cases where we had similar openings, our spiritual experiences have matched. I won’t minister about what he’s said. I won’t get defensive about a point of doctrine. I’ll just let myself open to the possibility that even the more intellectually outlandish parts of orthodox Christian doctrine just might be true.

It’s tempting to go to “holy” sites to expect some special revelation. In her post, Jess reports feeling a sense of feeling “bored and indifferent” when visiting the Western Wall and the Garden of Gethsemane. I think this is perfectly normal. There’s the story of the Quaker minister traveling through the American colonies with a local Friend as guide. They come to a crossroads and the local Friend points to tree stump and proudly proclaims that George Fox himself tied his horse to that tree when it was alive. The traveling minister dismounts his horse and walks to the stump. He stands there silently for awhile and walks back to his traveling companion with a sober look. The local is excited and asks him what he saw. The traveling minister replied: I looked into the face of idolatry.

The Holy Spirit is not confined or enshrined in any place–be it the Western Wall, the gilded steepled church or the tree George Fox sat under. Jesus’ death tore the Temple shroud in two and His spirit is with us always, even when it’s hard to feel or see. I think the boredom we experience in “holy” sites or with “holy” people is often  a teaching gift–a guidance to look elsewhere for Spiritual truth.