Tag Archives ⇒ experience

British Quakers take long hard look at faith

May 7, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Britain Year­ly Meet­ing has decid­ed to under­take a once-in-a-generation rewrite of its Faith and Practice

Reg­u­lar revi­sion and being open to new truths is part of who Quak­ers are as a reli­gious soci­ety. Quak­ers com­piled the first of these books of dis­ci­pline in 1738. Since then, each new gen­er­a­tion of Quak­ers has revised the book. A new revi­sion may help it speak to younger Quak­ers and the wider world.

This pos­si­bil­i­ty of this revi­sion was the basis for the inac­cu­rate and overblown click­baity rhetoric last week that Quak­ers were giv­ing up God. Rewrit­ing these books of Faith and Prac­tice is not uncom­mon. But it can be a big fraught. Who decides what is archa­ic? Who decides which parts of our Quak­er expe­ri­ence are core and which are expend­able? Add to this the long­stand­ing Quak­er dis­trust of creedal state­ments and there’s a strong incen­tive to include every­body’s expe­ri­ence. Inclu­sion can be an admirable goal in life and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty of course, but for a reli­gious body defin­ing itself it leads to lowest-common-denominationalism.

I’ve found it extreme­ly reward­ing to read old­er copies of Faith and Prac­tice pre­cise­ly because the sometimes-unfamiliar lan­guage opens up a spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tion that I’ve missed in the rou­tine of con­tem­po­rary life. The 1806 Philadel­phia Book of Dis­ci­pline has chal­lenged me to rec­on­cile its very dif­fer­ent take on Quak­er faith (where are the SPICES?) with my own. My under­stand­ing is that the first copies of Faith and Prac­tice were essen­tial­ly binders of the impor­tant min­utes that had been passed by Friends over the first cen­tu­ry of our exis­tence; these min­utes rep­re­sent­ed bound­aries – on our par­tic­i­pa­tion on war, on our lan­guage of days and times, on our advices against gam­bling and tav­erns. This was a very dif­fer­ent kind of doc­u­ment than our Faith and Prac­tice’s today.

It would be a per­son­al hell for me to sit on one of the rewrit­ing com­mit­tees. I like the mar­gins and fringes of Quak­er spir­i­tu­al­i­ty too much. I like peo­ple who have tak­en the time to think through their expe­ri­ences and give words to it – phras­es and ideas which might not fit the stan­dard nomen­cla­ture. I like pub­lish­ing and shar­ing the ideas of peo­ple who don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly agree.

These days more new­com­ers first find Friends through Wikipedia and YouTube and (often phe­nom­e­nal­ly inac­cu­rate) online dis­cus­sions. A few years ago I sat in a ses­sion of Philadel­phia Year­ly Meet­ing in which we were dis­cus­sion revis­ing the sec­tion of Faith and Prac­tice that had to do with month­ly meet­ing report­ing. I was a bit sur­prised that the Friends who rose to speak on the pro­posed new pro­ce­dure all admit­ted being unaware of the process in the cur­rent edi­tion. It seems as if Faith and Prac­tice is often a impre­cise snap­shot of Quak­er insti­tu­tion­al life even to those of us who are deeply embedded.


Quakers take long hard look at faith

Quak­ers take long hard look at faith 

Quak­ers in Britain are to rewrite their book of dis­ci­pline that has guid­ed their work and wit­ness across…

Quakers Quakers 

We don’t need God?

May 5, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Jeff Kisling responds to the click­baity Guardian piece about Quak­er don’t need God

My expe­ri­ence that ‘con­ser­v­a­tive’ Friends do believe in God. But I have heard many Friends say they have not them­selves had a per­son­al expe­ri­ence with God. I often won­der what that means for their spir­i­tu­al life. Hav­ing been blessed to have had such expe­ri­ences myself has been so mean­ing­ful, in so many dif­fer­ent ways, in my own life.

https://​kisling​j​eff​.word​press​.com/​2​0​1​8​/​0​5​/​0​5​/​w​e​-​d​o​n​t​-​n​e​e​d​-​g​od/ a

Ask Me Anything: How easy is it to become a Quaker?

April 25, 2018
· Martin Kelley

I have an Ask Me Any­thing request from read­er Ruby M:

Hel­lo! I’m study­ing The Friends Church for aca­d­e­m­ic pur­pos­es and I’d love to hear from some­one with first­hand expe­ri­ence. How easy is it to become a quak­er? Do you ever feel peo­ple treat you dif­fer­ent­ly because you’re a quak­er? Do you think there should be more rep­re­sen­ta­tion of quak­ers in the media? Thank you so much for your time. I’m very eager to hear back from you!

Since my expe­ri­ence is just one data point, I hope oth­ers will use the com­ment sec­tion below to add their stories.

I found becom­ing a Quak­er to be some­thing of a spi­ral process. I first walked into a Friends meet­ing­house at the age of 20 and only slow­ly took on an iden­ti­ty as a Friend. At each step of the process, I learned more clear­ly what that might mean and have strived to grow into deep­er faith­ful­ness. I didn’t for­mal­ly apply for mem­ber­ship until a decade or so after I became a reg­u­lar atten­der. This time lag is not unheard of but I don’t think it’s usu­al. It’s more of an insight into my own care­ful­ness and ret­i­cence about join­ing things than it is an indi­ca­tion of any­thing the meet­ings I attend­ed required. When I did final­ly apply for mem­ber­ship I was quite qual­i­fied and want­ed the clear­ness process to be exact­ing: again, this is an insight into my psyche!

Most peo­ple on the street don’t quite know what Quak­ers are so I can’t say I’m always treat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly. I guess see­ing more Quak­ers in the media would be help­ful, though giv­en our over­all small num­bers I sus­pect even our fleet­ing appear­ances in TV shows and movies are more than we might pro­por­tion­al­ly expect.

I’m inter­est­ed to hear how oth­er Friends would answer Ruby’s question.

 

Update: reader answers by email and commentary

Jes­si­ca F: I’ve want­ed to be a Quak­er since I learned about the Abo­li­tion­ists who helped with the Under­ground Rail­road and prison reform. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the movie Gen­tle Per­sua­sion pre­sent­ed Quak­ers as being against music so I became a Uni­tar­i­an instead. Even­tu­al­ly I learned that wasn’t true for many Quak­ers and I found that all of the val­ues I had devel­oped through the years were also Quak­er val­ues and so becom­ing a Quak­er gave me a sup­port sys­tem and a com­mu­ni­ty of like minds.

Eternities

April 24, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Sam Barnett-Cormack brings a grammarian’s eye to our use of the old Quak­er phrase, “The Things Which Are Eternal”:

To know one anoth­er in that which is eter­nal is to share our grace, our Light, our spir­i­tu­al expe­ri­ence. It goes beyond the sort of know­ing that might come from social activ­i­ties and ice­break­ers; indeed, it is of an entire­ly dif­fer­ent char­ac­ter… For it comes down to this – to know one anoth­er in that which is eter­nal is to know the Divine, and to know the Divine is to know one anoth­er in this way; they are two sides of one coin, and we can only pro­mote one by also pro­mot­ing the other.

https://​quakeropen​ings​.blogspot​.co​.uk/​2​0​1​8​/​0​4​/​w​h​a​t​-​a​r​e​-​t​h​i​n​g​s​-​w​h​i​c​h​-​a​r​e​-​e​t​e​r​n​a​l​.​h​tml

The open (Quaker) web

April 23, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Chris Hardie’s semi-viral man­i­festo cham­pi­oning the open inter­net isn’t about Quak­erism per se, but Chris is a Friend (and one time web host to every­thing Quak­er with­in a hun­dred miles of Rich­mond, Ind.). Since the rise of cor­po­rate gate-keeping web­sites and then social media, I’ve wor­ried that they rep­re­sent some of the largest and least vis­i­ble threats to the Quak­er movement.

I use it all as a tool, for sure. But there are many ways in which we’re increas­ing­ly defined by cor­po­ra­tions with no Quak­ers and no inter­est in us except for what­ev­er engage­ment num­bers they can gen­er­ate. Look at the non­sense at many of the open Quak­er Face­book groups as an obvi­ous exam­ple. Peo­ple with lim­it­ed expe­ri­ence or knowl­edge and rel­a­tive­ly fringe ideas can eas­i­ly dom­i­nate dis­cus­sion just by post­ing with a fre­quen­cy that involved or care­ful Friends couldn’t match. Face­book doesn’t care if it’s a zoo as long as peo­ple come back to read the lat­est out­ra­geous com­ment thread. Just because the top­ic is Quak­er doesn’t mean the dis­course real­ly holds well to our val­ues, his­tor­i­cal or modern.

Add to this that Google and Face­book could make any of our Quaker-owned web­sites near­ly invis­i­ble with a tweak of algo­rithms (this is not hypo­thet­i­cal: Face­book has dinged most pub­lish­er Pages over the years).

The open web has a lot of plus­es. I’m glad to see a Friend among its promi­nent cham­pi­ons and I’d like to see Quak­er read­ers seek­ing it out more (most eas­i­ly by stray­ing of Face­book and sub­scrib­ing to blogs’ email lists). From Hardie:

Of course, there is an alter­na­tive to Face­book and oth­er walled gar­dens: the open web. The alter­na­tive is the ver­sion of the Inter­net where you own your con­tent and activ­i­ty, have min­i­mal depen­dence on third par­ty busi­ness mod­els, can dis­cov­er new things out­side of what for-profit algo­rithms show you, and where tools and ser­vices inter­act to enhance each oth­er’s offer­ings, instead of to stamp each oth­er out of existence.

https://​chrishardie​.com/​2​0​1​8​/​0​4​/​r​e​b​u​i​l​d​i​n​g​-​o​p​e​n​-​w​e​b​/​a​m​p​/​?​_​_​t​w​i​t​t​e​r​_​i​m​p​r​e​s​s​i​o​n​=​t​rue

Could Quakerism? Yes? Will Quakerism? Ehh…

April 21, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Chris Ven­ables spent a year work­ing with Quak­ers in Britain (see update below) and now asks Could Quak­erism be the rad­i­cal faith that the mil­len­ni­al gen­er­a­tion is look­ing for?

The nature of reli­gion has changed, with­in Quak­ers we have seen the num­bers of young peo­ple engag­ing in our com­mu­ni­ty fall as the effects of eco­nom­ic inse­cu­ri­ty have tak­en hold. And per­haps more impor­tant­ly, because ‘young adults’ have no time for insti­tu­tions that often seem arcane and irrel­e­vant, and which have failed to engage with the real­i­ties of life for the vast major­i­ty of peo­ple in our society.

I wish I could share more of his enthu­si­asm. I’m not see­ing any­thing par­tic­u­lar­ly game-changing in his arti­cle. Half of it is gener­ic clich­es about mil­len­ni­al pref­er­ence with extrap­o­la­tion that they should align with decon­tex­tu­al­ized Quak­er val­ues. He cites a few hap­pen­ing young adult Quak­er scenes in the UK and a promis­ing Young Quak­ers pod­cast five episodes old; he’s fond of Amer­i­can Emi­ly Provance’s blog. Good stuff to be sure, but you could pick pret­ty much any year in recent mem­o­ry and point to sim­i­lar evi­dence and imag­ine an immi­nent surge. It’s 2018 and we’re still say­ing “hey this could hap­pen!” It could but it has­n’t so why has­n’t it and what can we do about it?

Also in these con­texts “rad­i­cal faith” some­times sounds like buzz­words for non-faith. Is the Quak­er meet­ing­house just a qui­et emp­ty room for par­tic­i­pants to BYOF (bring your own faith)?


Could Quakerism be the radical faith that the millennial generation is looking for?

Could Quak­erism be the rad­i­cal faith that the mil­len­ni­al gen­er­a­tion is look­ing for? 

After a year of work­ing with young adult Quak­ers, Chris Ven­ables shares three ways to wel­come in young…

Quakers Quakers 

Update: Chris chimed in via Twit­ter to add that his piece’s obser­va­tions aren’t just from the year of work­ing with BrYM Friends:

Ah, I’ll take a read of yours too — but those thoughts come from my expe­ri­ence of being around Quak­ers over the last 8 years, inc set­ting up a new young adult group (West­min­ster!), vis­it­ing Qs across Britain, and inter­view­ing many of our com­mu­ni­ty over the last year!

None of us is a volunteer

April 5, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Sam Barnett-Cormack is a pro­lif­ic non-theist British Friend. His lat­est post, Doing It Our­selves, has some thoughts on com­mu­ni­ty dis­cern­ment that I find interesting.

Quak­erism “done right” is not “do it your­self” in either sense… No task is done by one per­son alone; it is always the work and respon­si­bil­i­ty of the com­mu­ni­ty, though we might not always clear­ly see the sup­port and assis­tance we are giv­en. Some would say that we are “upheld in prayer,” a term that does not speak to my expe­ri­ence, but we are cer­tain­ly upheld by the love and nur­ture of our com­mu­ni­ty – unless our com­mu­ni­ty is failing.

How does Truth prosper among us?

March 7, 2018
· Martin Kelley

New Eng­land Friend Bri­an Dray­ton recent­ly vis­it­ed Philadel­phia and recount­ed host min­istry on the old Quak­er query, How does Truth pros­per among us?

Friends in the past used “Truth” in ways that went well beyond a sim­ple propo­si­tion or asser­tion of fact, a “truth claim,” some spe­cif­ic con­tent. “Truth” instead con­not­ed some­thing of the action and the real­i­ty of God’s work in the world, as we expe­ri­ence and try to live it.

Used by indi­vid­u­als as a greet­ing, some vari­a­tion of “How does the truth fare with thee?” can be a reminder that the friend­ships of Friends can be spir­i­tu­al­ly deep­er than “yo, whas­sup?” infor­mal­i­ty (at one point Friends would even eschew “Good morn­ing” as a greet­ing on the chance that the morn­ing might actu­al­ly not be com­par­a­tive­ly good).