“[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.

It’s kind of interesting to look at the process by which new theologies are being added into Liberal Quakerism at an ever-increasing rate.

• Membership of individuals in meetings. There are hundreds of meetings in liberal Quakerism that range all over the theological map. Add to that the widespread agreement that theological unity with the meeting is not required and just about anyone believing anything could be admitted somewhere (or “grandfathered in” as a birthright member).
• A workshop at the Friends General Conference Gathering and especially a regular workshop at successive Gatherings. Yet as the very informed comments on a post a few years ago showed, theology is not something the planning workshop committee is allowed to look at and at least one proponent of a new theology has gotten themselves on the deciding committee. The Gathering is essentially built on the nondenominational Chautaqua model and FGC is perfectly happy to sponsor workshops that are in apparent conflict with its own mission statement.
• An article published in Friends Journal. When the the Quaker Sweat Lodge was struggling to claim legitimacy it all but changed its name to the “Quaker Sweat Lodge as featured in the February 2002 Friends Journal.” It’s a good magazine’s job to publish articles that make people think and a smart magazine will know that articles that provoke a little controversy is good for circulation. I very much doubt the editorial team at the Journal considers its agreement to publish to be an inoculation against critique.
• A website and listserv. Fifteen dollars at GoDaddy.com and you’ve got the web address of your dreams. Yahoo Group is free.

There are probably other mechanisms of legitimacy. My point is not to give comprehensive guidelines to would-be campaigners. I simply want to note that none of the actors in these decisions is consciously thinking “hey, I think I’ll expand the definition of liberal Quaker theology today.” In fact I expect they’re mostly passing the buck, thinking “hey, who am I to decide anything like that.”

None of these decision-making processes are meant to serve as tools to dismiss opposition. The organizations involved are not handing out Imprimaturs and would be quite horrified if they realized their agreements were being seen that way. Amy Clark, a commenter on my last post, on this summer’s reunion and camp for the once-young members of Young Friends North America, had a very interesting comment:

I agree that YFNA has become FGC: those previously involved in YFNA have taken leadership with FGC … with both positive and negative results. Well … now we have a chance to look at the legacy we are creating: do we like it?

I have the feeling that the current generation of liberal Quaker leadership doesn’t quite believe it’s leading liberal Quakerism. By “leadership” I don’t mean the small skim of the professional Quaker bureaucracy (whose members can get _too_ self-inflated on the leadership issue) but the committees, clerks and volunteers that get most of the work done from the local to national levels. We are the inheritors of a proud and sometimes foolish tradition and our actions are shaping its future but I don’t think we really know that. I have no clever solution to the issues I’ve outlined here but I think becoming conscious that we’re creating our own legacy is an important first step.

A lot of the search phrases are predictable for anyone who reads my blog enough: “modern liberal Quakers”:google, “Quaker peace testimony”:google, “Quaker decline”:google, “Quaker theology”:google, “emergent church movement”:google and “catholic Quakers”:google. By far the most popular searches are for the plain dress page. Every day I get searches for “modest dresses”:google, “plain dress”:google, “Quaker dress”:google, etc. Most Quakers might have long ago dismissed peculiarities like plain dress as relic of the nineteenth century, but a lot of twenty-first century net surfers are curious about this tradition of ours.
Sometimes I get search traffic that is downright bizarre. Who searches for “Its light that makes me uncomfortable?”:google (I like it; the Light spoken of by Friends is one that exposes and convicts before it comforts). “I’m going to hire a wino to decorate our home”:google is not a tactic I’ve ever considered (thanks Melynda). I’m apparently a world expert in “insecurities of young people from fashion modeling.”:google And if you want to know if “armageddon [is] gods way of getting rid of human race”:google I’m the guy to talk to. My Lutheran grandmother will rest easier in her grave knowing that I’m an important figure for “christian young adults”:google and a leading voice on “morality in twenty somethings”:google, but if all this righteousness gets to you I can also show you how to “beat a dead horse”:google.
More in the bizarro “why me?!” file: “baby arm picture”:google, “hand wash experiments”:google, “liberal protestantism and safe sex”:google, “unused cell phone numbers”:google. I’m not sure who thinks I know anything about the “statue of liberty holding a guitar”:google. “Do amish women wear bras”:google?: I don’t know.
Some of the phrases are so generic that I marvel that they point here. Are there really so few sites talking about “twenty-somethings”:google, even generically? Shouldn’t there be lots of mainline Protestants worried about their declining numbers and asking “why are churches dying”:google. There ain’t much movement to the “emergent church movement”:google if I’m the number one hit. I’d be happy to guide visiors to “gay christian websites”:google but I’m hardly an expert (or does Google know something about me that I don’t?). I’ve never been asked to give any major “Quaker speeches for peace”:google even though Google seems to think it’s about time; if you want lighter fare for your conference, I can also give a presentation on “fun things to to do with your Quaker”:google.
For the record: I have never met “mel gibson’s wife”:google, though I do know “Theo‘s mom”:google quite intimately, having been “married in south jersey”:google (want proof? How about some “baby Quaker pictures”:google ?). I don’t run “the social network for gorillas”:google but if I did it stands to reason I’d be something of an authority on the “theology of the planet of the apes”:google. If I knew “where thriving young adults can be successful”:google, do you think I’d be working for nonprofits?? I’m also afraid I don’t have much advice on “how to flatten new sod”:google. I do agree that “there were no good old days, these are the good old days”:google.
Finally, my favorite search phrase: “baby theo”:google. I have at least one Friend that uses this search phrase instead of bookmarking my site (he complained when my Baby Theo page temporarily fell out of first place).

h4. Methodology
bq. The linked words in this post are a sample of actual phrases that have brought actual visitors to my site from search engines. All of the links are to Google, the most commonly-used search engine, but some of these visitors used other search engines to find my site (which is why I won’t necessarily come up when you click the Google link).
h4. Updates
* “How crazy am I survey”“http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=active&q=HOW%20CRAZY%20AM%20I%20SURVEY (9/2006)