Johan Maurer - Quaker Ranter

Functional theology

Martin Kelley — Fri, 26 May 2023 13:31:17 +0000

Johan’s book group is reading an old lecture by Jones, The Nature and Functions of the Light in the Thought of George Fox and he reflects on the approach:

Canby exemplifies a typical Quaker approach to theology: it’s often functional. He doesn’t spend time defining “light,” he finds the distinction between “natural light” and the Light of Christ unhelpful; he doesn’t cling to or generate doctrines. Instead, he describes how the Light of Christ actually seems to work in our lives.
Source

I appreciate Johan’s distinction of functional theology here. Every so often my wife will ask me what I think about some specific point of doctrine, say the nature of Christ. As a Catholic, analytical thinker, and religion nerd, this is the kind of thing she naturally ponders, but I rarely give her a very satisfactory response. I often know the “right” answer according to traditional orthodox Christian creeds and I’m always curious what others make of questions like these, but what I myself believe is shaped and largely bounded by my own experiences of Christ working in my life. I’m adding Jones’s article to my reading list.

Johan Maurer on Inner Flashlights

Martin Kelley — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 15:52:21 +0000

I’ve written many times about the dumbing down of Quaker language into ever-more-ambiguous terms and like this latest blog post from Johan Maurer.

Whatever the causes, phrases such as “inner light” and “that of God” became even vaguer than they might have been individually. Increasingly, as some Friends meetings became gatherings of people who loved the atmosphere and found a refuge in the freedom of Quaker community, and as the surrounding culture became more hostile to claims of faith, the folkways of Quakerism became more important than the core teachings — at least in the London-Philadelphia axis and its offspring.
Let’s face it: that refuge became more important as certain quarters of Christianity became more obnoxious and authoritarian. It’s unfair to charge that hostility to Christianity simply became more fashionable. Too often, we Christians did it to ourselves, projecting a false certainty and a fearsome God instead of the actual Gospel.

He goes on to make the point that the Quaker avoidance of a kind of rigid certainty makes our faith inherently risky and it’s true, it’s always on the edge of either flying apart from centrifugal forces or collapsing in on itself in self-regard.

Our inner flashlights

Political and cultural observations in light of Quaker discipleship.

blog.canyoubelieve.me

Spirit-Led Evangelism

Martin Kelley — Fri, 01 Jun 2018 14:41:30 +0000

Spirit-Led Evangelism

Adria Gulizia guest posting on Johan Maurer’s blog: It is hard to talk about God, Jesus and the spiritual life in this moment in American history. Many of our non-Christian neighbors find the little they know about Jesus to be attractive or intriguing, but they know enough about the failings of the church to have very negative opinions about actual Christians. If we do have non-Christian friends, it may be despite our Christian faith rather than because of it — we may be seen as the exception that proves the rule.