On the train this morning I read Elizabeth Cazden’s “Fellowships, Conferences and Associations: The Limits of the Liberal Quaker Reinvention of Meeting Polity”:http://www.bhfh.org/Bhfh-PubDesc.html#FCA. This 36 page pamphlet is a must-read for all of us Quaker Ranters.
Quaker Ranter
A Weekly Newsletter and Blog from Martin Kelley
Tag Archives ⇒ Quaker
Missional Churches and Half-Hearted Welcomes
September 11, 2004
Over on my main “Nonviolence.org blog”:http://www.nonviolence.org/articles/000436.php I link to Punkmonkey’s great post, “refusing to get political”:http://ginkworld.blogspot.com/2004/09/refusing-to-get-political.html, where he talks about why Christian pacifism is more than simply anti-war activism. Oh how I wish more Quakers knew this! I like Punkmonkey’s blog a lot. He’s also recently written about what it would mean to be a “missional community of faith”:http://ginkworld.blogspot.com/2004/07/missional-community-of-faith.html:
bq. a missional community of faith is a living breathing transparent community of faith willing to get messy while reach out to, and bringing in, those outside the current community
Amen brother. The whole post is great. I love his critique of check-writing churches (perfectly applicable to most peace and social concerns committees I’ve seen). He also hits something I see a lot: Meetings that are “welcoming and excluding” in their cliquishness: “small groups of people who seem friendly, and welcoming but in actuality are not welcoming.” Punkmonkey’s not Quaker but Bebbeblog’s Joe Guada is and I started reading his posts next. There I found a really interesting counterpoint: “Can I be a (fill in the blank here) & be a Quaker, too?”:http://beppeblog.blogspot.com/2004/09/file-under-Quakerism-religion-can-i-be.html. Joe’s post also talks about identity, praxis and superficial half-welcoming. He quotes a friend who’s not joined Quakers:
bq. Yes, I know that everyone has the Inner Light. Yes, I remember how uncomfortable it is to be looking for a group and to feel left out (though it’s not as uncomfortable as feeling like you’re part of the group, getting deeply involved and then finding out that you’re a bad fit because people weren’t telling you up front that you didn’t fit).
Lots of great reading in all this!
Buying my Personality in a Store
September 8, 2004
A guest piece by Amanda
Originally posted as a comment to “My Experiments with Plainness”, Amanda’s story deserves its own post: “I’ve noticed that I’m becoming really attached to my clothes. As I was grimly and methodically culling my closet, a whiny, desperate voice in my head piped up, and I began to have a serious conversation with myself… [A] reservation I have is that plain dressing may just be another way of telegraphing the image I want the world to have of me. Only instead of that message being ‘I am cool and worthy of your attention and envy’ the message might be ‘I’m so hoooooly’.”
Hi there!
I am 21, and the only member of my family who attends meetings of Friends. (I am not a Friend yet, being young to the whole experience, and an ex-catholic, and having wandered for several years in strange paths!! 🙂 However, I am taking it very seriously, and reading all I can get my hands on. I feel a strong call towards plain dress, and have gone through fits and starts of it spontaneously, even as a Catholic child. At 12, I decided I would no longer wear colours in imitation of all the siants habits I saw in my books, and my friends and I (I grew up in rural Canada, homeschooled, the oldest of 11 kids, an anarchonism to begin with) tried sewing our own clothes ourselves, praire dresses and pinafores.
When I was 14, we moved to the States, to the suburbs, away from our uber-traditional Catholic enclave, and I began to normalize myself out of the “homeschooler uniform” (its own sort of plain dress — those terrible jumpers with ankle socks and canvas sneakers! Ack!) and into mainstream fashion, where I’ve been solidly entrenched ever since, especially since moving to NYC.
I am now in the process of purging a lot of my stuff, and seeking a simpler way of living. I quit smoking, and have decided that drinking as a recreational activity is out unless it’s an organized event. This may become more strict in time, but I have to ease into it a little bit. I got rid of several bags of clothes and a bunch of household items I was hoarding “just in case I might need them someday”. Classic. A lot of things have precipitated this, but one of them is my absolute horror at how I’ve gone from making $12,000 a year to nearly $30,000, and I still am saving no money at all, nor am I making any lasting purchase/investments, etc…I’m just spending it on vain and useless things. I’ve noticed as well, that I’m starting to have more and more big-salary fantasises, and recreationally go to stare in shop windows at clothes, not just to appreciate the asthetic value of some of the most gorgeous garments in the world (after all, this is Manhattan) but also to drool and covet. I found, while examining my concience, that it wasn’t even the thing — the piece of clothing that I wanted, and it wasn’t a simple desire to have something pretty. I saw myself linking these clothes and things to my self worth and future happiness. You know:
“Once I am thin and rich enough to wear this, I will be happy. I will be so happy. So very happy. Everything will be perfect, and my hair will always be straight, and I will have my teeth veneered, and I will have a handsome man who worships the ground I walk on, and three bright-eyed children who appear only on Sunday mornings to snuggle with me in my California-king-sized bed with the white crisp sheets, while I languidly smile at their frolicing and plan to buy them a golden retriever puppy later that afternoon as I stroll through an antique fair and buy a vintage wicker bird cage, which I will fill with finches and hang from my sun-drenched porch in my second house in the south of France, and I be happy. So happy. So very happy, if I am only thin and rich enough to wear those clothes.”
I really, really woke up one afternoon to find myself standing on 5th Ave and 59th street, on my lunch break, staring in a window, and having that fantasy with absolutely no internal ironic monolouge at all. At all.
It completley panicked me.
I’ve noticied that I’m becoming really attatched to my clothes. As I was grimly and methodically culling my closet, a whiney, desperate voice in my head piped up, and I began to have a serious conversation with myself.
“You can’t get rid of so many of your cool clothes. The clothes are you, they’re a huge part of who you are.”
“Wait,” the other voice in my head, the stern one, said (I am a schizophrenic and so am I) “You are saying that I am what I wear. That’s supposed to make me want to keep them? Do you even hear what you’re saying?”
The first voice was totally backtracking.
“No, no, no, I didn’t mean you were your clothes, or that you were only worth as much as your clothes, why do you always have to be so literal? I meant that your clothes tell people about you, about who you are and what you believe in. They’re an outside sign of who you are.”
“Ah.” said the second voice, rather sarcastically, I thought, “So we’d rather have people learn everything they need to know about us by our clothes, instead of having them take the time to get to know us from experience of us.”
“Well, that’s all very well!” said the first voice. “That’s nice in an ideal world. But the truth is, the sad truth is, most people won’t take the time to get to know you if you don’t seem cool.”
“Wow.” said the second voice. “Wow. This has nothing to do with fashion, does it? This totally has to do with your inferiority complex, dating back to about second grade, doesn’t it?”
At this point the first voice began to suck its thumb, and I realized to my horror that the second voice was right. It’s always right.
“Fashion is what you adopt when you don’t know who you are.” ~Quentin Crisp
I’ve actually begun buying my personality in a store, and telling myself that it’s okay because I’m buying it in a thrift store. I know from personal experience that the right headscarf or pair of vintage shoes, or funny t‑shirt will suddenly raise the value of my social currency off the charts. And I’m becoming really dependent on that, to the point where I’ve started to actually feel anxiety around my “style” and my clothes. I ironically played the role of fashion police for a boy at a party who was mocking me for being from Williamsburg, and although I was kidding around when I excoriated him for his American-Eagle shorts and surfer-boy hair, it struck me, I’m spouting all these “rules” as if I’m mocking them, but I actually live by them, don’t I?
And I’ve increasingly begun to obey them out of fear instead of out of a love of neat clothes or a sense of aesthetic. I have cooler clothes than ever, and sudenly I have a need to make more money so that I can keep looking cool, and keep fitting in, and keep proving to everyone, most of all myself, that I should be invited to Angelica’s birthday party because the whole rest of the class is and it’s not fair…oh wait. That was second grade.
Benjamin Franklin wrote: “Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one. If it satisfies one want, it doubles and trebles that want another way.”
This seems like a huge cliche, but you know, the more I think about it, the more it seems that the modern horror of cliches may have less to do with a love of originality than with a fear of the truth.
So those are the motivations — that much is worked out. But the practice of it is hard. Was I experienceing a genuine calling to plain dress as a child, or did I just read too much “Little House”? (Is there such a thing as too much “Little House”?) And now, am I just a costume-loving poser?
I feel a bizarre attraction to head-covering as well, though I recoil with my whole post-feminist self from those passages in the bible. I don’t think I believe in submission to anybody. In fact, I’m not sure even God wants me submissive ‑I feel he wants my co-operation.
“I will not now call you servants: for the servant knoweth not what his lord doth. But I have called you friends: because all things whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you.” John 15:15
Another reservation I have is that plain dressing may just be another way of telegraphing the image I want the world to have of me. Only instead of that message being “I am cool and worthy of your attention and envy” the message might be “I’m so hoooooly”. Or, perhaps more positively, it might be a message that is “witness” — a concept I am struggling with on its own — what if I make mistakes and my witness is mistaken, etc.
My compromise was to get rid of all the clothes I’d bought just for attention, all the clothes I was keeping for purely sentimental reasons, everything that didn’t fit, or match with anything else, etc. And to be honest, that just pared it down to where I can actually fit all my clothes in my 1 closet and dresser, a feat heretofore unknown to me. Also, a big part of this move was to start taking care of my clothes, something I’ve never done. I’ve made an active dicipline of something as simple as hanging up my clothes each night, as an act of respect and gratitude. It occured to me that when I am so fortunate as to have many posessions, it seems extremely wrong that I should mistreat them the way I’ve been doing.
Wow. Forget plain dress, plain speech is going to be an even bigger problem. I’ve written a novel.
* blush *
Anyhow, it is wonderful to see it discussed, sometimes I feel like I’m just nuts. I mean, I know I’m nuts, but I don’t like feeling that way. 🙂
in friendship,
Amanda
Quakerism 101
August 10, 2004
In Fall 2005 I led a six-week Quakerism 101 course at Medford (NJ) Monthly Meeting. It went very well. Medford has a lot of involved, weighty Friends (some of them past yearly meeting clerks!) and I think they appreciated a fresh take on an introductory course. The core question: how might we teach Quakerism today?
This is the proposal for the course. I started off with a long introduction on the history and philosophy of Quaker religious education and pedagogic acculturation and go on to outline a different sort curriculum for Quakerism 101.
I took extensive notes of each session and will try to work that feedback into a revised curriculum that other Meetings and Q101 leaders could use and adapt. In the meantime, if you want to know how specific sessions and rolesplays went, just email me and I’ll send you the unedited notes. If you’re on the Adult Religious Ed. committee of a South Jersey or Philadelphia area Meeting and want to bring me to teach it again, just let me know.
Thoughts on a Quakerism 101 Course
Over the last few years, there seems to be a real groundswell of interest in Quakers trying to understand who we are and where we came from. There’s a revival of interst in looking back at our roots, not for history or orthodoxy’s sake, but instead to trying to tease out the “Quaker Treasures” that we might want to reclaim. I’ve seen this conversation taking place in all of the branches of Friends and it’s very hopeful.
I assume at least some of the participants of the Quakerism 101 course will have gone through other introductory courses or will have read the standard texts. It would be fun to give them all something new – luckily there’s plenty to choose from! I also want to expose participants to the range of contemporary Quakerism. I’d like participants to understand why the other branches call themselves Friends and to recognize some of the pecularities our branch has unconsciously adopted.
Early Friends didn’t get involved in six-week courses. They were too busy climbing trees to shout the gospel further, inviting people to join the great movement. Later Quietist Friends had strong structures of recorded ministers and elders which served a pedagogic purpose for teaching Friends. When revivalism broke out and brought overwhelmingly large numbers of new attenders to meetings, this system broke down and many meetings hired ministers to teach Quakerism to the new people. Around the turn of the century, prominent Quaker educators introduced academic models, with courses and lecture series. Each of these approaches to religious education fiddles with Quakerism and each has major drawbacks. But these new models were instituted because of very real and ongoing problems Friends have with transmitting our faith to our youth and acculturating new seekers to our Quaker way.
The core contradiction of a course series is that the leader is expected to both impart knowledge and to invite participation. In practice, this easily leads to situations where the teacher is either too domineering _or_ too open to participation. The latter seems more common: Quakerism is presented as a least-common-denominator social grouping, formless, with membership defined simply by one’s comfortability in the group (see Brinton’s Friends for 300 Years.) One of the main goals of a introductory course should be to bring new attenders into Quaker culture, practice and ethics. There’s an implicit assumption that there is something called Quakerism to teach. Part of that job is teasing out the religious and cultural models that new attenders are bringing with them and to open up the question as to how they fit or don’t fit in with the “gestalt” of Quakerism (Grundy, Quaker Treasures and Wilson’s Essays on the Quaker Vision).
The greatest irony behind the Quakerism 101 class is that its seemingly-neutral educational model lulls proudly “unprogrammed” Friends into an obliviousness that they’ve just instituted a program led by a hireling minister. Arguments why Q101 teachers should be paid sounds identical to arguments why part-time FUM ministers should be paid. A Q101 leader in an unprogrammed meeting might well want to acknowledge this contradiction and pray for guidance and seek clearness about this. (For my Medford class, I decided to teach it as paid leader of a class as a way of disciplining myself to practice of my fellow Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Friends.)
The standard Quakerism 101 curriculum compartmentalizes everything into neat little boxes. History gets a box, testimonies get a box, faith and institutions get boxes. I want to break out of that. I can recommend good books on Quaker history and point participants to good websites advocating Quaker testimonies. But I want to present history as current events and the testimonies as ministry. The standard curriculum starts with some of the more controversial material about the different braches of Friends and only then goes into worship, the meeting life, etc. I want discussion of the latter to be informed by the earlier discussion of who we are and who we might be. The course will start off more structured, with me as leader and become more participatory in the later sections.
Curriculum:
What I want to do is have one solid overview book and supplement it with some of those fascinating (and coversation-sparking!) pamphlets. The overview book is Thomas Hamm’s Quakers in America. Published last year, it’s the best introduction to Quakerism in at least a generation. Hamm wrote this as part of a religions of America series and it’s meant as a general introduction to contemporary Quakerism. His later chapters on debates within Quakerism should be easy to adapt for a Q‑101 series.
Session I: Introductions
- Worship
- In-class reading of two pages from Quakers in America (profile of Ohio Yearly Meeting sessions, p. 1), reflections. (maybe start this class 2?)
- Introductions to one another.
Session II: What Are Our Models
- Worship
- In-class reading of two pages from Quakers in America (profile of First Friends Church of Canton, p. 3), reflections.
- What are our models? Roleplay of “What Would X Do?” with a given problem: JC, George Fox, Methodists, Non-denominational bible church, college. Also: the “natural breaking point” model of Quaker divisions.
- Reading for this class: “Convinced Quakerism” by Ben Pink Dandelion
Session III: The Schisms
- Worship
- In-class reading of two pages from Quakers in America (profile of Wilmington Yearly Meeting sessions, p. 5), reflections.
- Reading for this class: Quakers in America chapter 3, “Their Separate Ways: American Friends Since 1800,” about the branches
Session IV: Role of our Institutions
- Worship
- In-class reading of two pages from Quakers in America (profile of Lake Erie Yearly Meeting, p. 7), reflections.
- Reading for this class: “The Authority of Our Meetings…” by Paul Lacey
Session V: Controversies within Friends
- Could pick any 2 – 3 controversies of Hamm’s: “Is Quakerism Christian?,” “Leadership,” “Authority,” “Sexuality,” “Identity,” “Unity and Diversity,” “Growth and Decline.” Early in the course I could poll the group to get a sense which ones they might want to grapple with. The idea is not to be thorough covering all the topics or even all the intricacies within each topic. I hope to just see if we can model ways of talking about these within Medford.
- Reading for this class: Quakers in America chapter 5, “Contemporary Quaker Debates,” p. 120
Session VI: Role of worship, role of ministry, role of witnesses.
- Focusing on Worship/Ministry (Witness)/MM Authority (Elders). If the calendar allows for eight sessions, this could easily be split apart or given two weeks.
- Reading for this class: “Quaker Treasures” by Marty Paxton Grundy, which ties together Gospel Order, Ministries and the Testimonies.
Session VII: What kind of religious community do we want Medford MM to be?
- This should be participatory, interactive. There should be some go-around sort of exercise to open up our visions of an ideal religious community and what we think Medford Meeting might be like in 5, 10, 25 years.
- Reading for this class: “Building the Life of the Meeting” by Bill & Fran Taber (1994, $4). I’ve heard there’s something recent from John Punshon which might work better.
- Also: something from the emergent church movement to point to a great people that might be gathered. Perhaps essays from Jordan Cooper & someone at Circle of Hope/Phila.
Books Used:
- “Quakers in America” is Thomas Hamm’s excellent new introduction to Friends is a bit pricey ($40) but is adapting well to a Q101 course.
- “Convinced Quakerism” by Ben Pink Dandelion mixes traditional Quaker understadings of convincement with Ben’s personal story and it sparked a good, wideranging discussion. $4.
- “Quaker Treasures” by Marty Grundy. $4
- “The Authority of Our Meetings…” by Paul Lacey. $4
- “Building the Life of the Meeting” by Bill and Fran Taber. $4
Considered Using:
- “Why Friends are Friends” by Jack Willcuts. $9.95. I like this book and think that much of it could be used for a Q101 in a liberal-branch Friends Meeting. Chapters: “The Wonder of Worship,” “Sacred Spiritual Sacraments,” “Called to Ministry,” “Letting Peace Prevail,” “Getting the Sense of the Meeting,” “On Being Powerful” – I find the middle chapters are the more interesting/Quaker ones).
- Silence and Witness by Michael Birkel. I haven’t read through this yet, but in skimming the chapters it looks like Birkel shys away from challenging the Quaker status quo. Within that constraint, however, it looks like a good introduction to Quakerism. $16.
- “Quaker Culture vs. Quaker Faith” by Samuel Caldwell.
- The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Quakerism 101 curriculum. It’s not as bad as it could be but it’s too heavy on history and testimonies and too focused on the Jones/Brinton view of Quakerism which I think has played itself out. I’ve seen Q101 facilitators read directly out of the curriculum to the glazed eyes of the participants. I wanted something fresher and less course-like.
Quaker Youth Ministry
August 9, 2004
h2. Incremental vs. Prophetic
Since I’ve written a lot about “young adult minstry among Quakers”:http://www.nonviolence.org/Quaker/young_adult_friends.php I feel obligated to post the address of a new “Yahoo group”:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/QuakerYouthMinistry/ about the topic, focused on high school youth. I really don’t feel led to contribute. No one there is looking at root causes for the crisis in youth retention. The suggestions for improvement offered so far are incremental when what’s wrong is fundamental: deep-rooted institutional ageism and a fear of a robust and challenging prophetic ministry. There is hope for youth ministry among liberal Friends but I don’t think it will come from this quarter. Still, it’s worth checking out and some Quaker Ranter readers might want to join in the discussion.
Gohn Brothers, broadfalls, & men’s plain dress
July 26, 2004
A few years ago I felt led to take up the ancient Quaker testimony of plain dressing. I’ve spoken elsewhere about my motivations but I want to give a little practical advice to other men who have heard or even gotten ahold of the “Gohn Bros.” catalog but don’t know just what to order. I certainly am not sanctioning a uniform for plain dress, I simply want to give those so inclined an idea of how to start.
Just as background: I’m a thirty-something Philadelphia native, brought up without any formal religion in a Philly suburb. I first started approaching Quakers (Friends) back in college. In my early twenties, I started working at a collectively-run pacifist book publishing house and living in what was then the sort of downscale hipster neighborhood of West Philadelphia. In 2002 I attended a week-long workshop that had some plain dressing Friends and felt the nudge to experiment. I’ve left Philadelphia to become a resident of a small farming town in South Jersey (what love will do) but I still spend a lot of time in the city and in decidedly urban settings. I don’t aim to be historically correct with my plain dress and I don’t want to simply “look like an Amish” person.
Gohn Brothers is a store in Indiana that sells “Amish and Plain Clothing.” It is currently celebrating it’s 100th year in business. It’s known for it’s simple print catalog, which is updated every few months. It does not have a website. You should get a copy of the catalog to get current clothing and shipping prices. It’s address is:
PO Box 1110, 105 S. Main St., Middlebury IN 46540
Phone: (574) 825‑2400. Toll-free: 800 – 595-0031
When I first started “going plain,” I simply wore regular dark pants with suspenders found at a generic department store. It was important to me that I was wearing clothes I already had, and I wanted to be “Sears Plain,” by which I meant I didn’t want to go to any extremes to find plain clothing. When I first bought a pair of broadfalls (the zipperless pants favored by plain men), I didn’t wear them for months. Slowly I started started wearing them out and feeling more at ease in them. They were made of rugged denim, wore well and were quite comfortable.
As my pre-plain clothes have worn out, I’ve started replacing them with Gohn Brothers-produced broadfalls. They’re just as inexpensive as any cheaply-made jeans from Old Navy but they hold up and are presumably made in Indiana by seamstresses earning a decent wage.
Broadfalls
Gohn Brothers offers many different weights and fabrics for their broadfall pants, numbering them for ease of ordering. I have bought two pair, both of which I like:
- #66: 10 oz. solid grey denim, 100% cotton: $22.98
- #92: 100% cotton blue jean denim (11 oz.): $24.98
Coats
Gohn Brothers produces a number of coats, also called “overshirts.” In these purchases I have tended to be more distinctly Quaker. I have two Coats:
- #225: 9oz. Poly, cotton. $41.98 at the time of this post. I have opted for a few alterations: A “regular cut” for $3.00, a “standup collar” for $2.00, “button holes with metal buttons” for $3.00 and a “quilted lining” for $5.00.
- #125 9 oz. Black drill denim. Poly/cotton. Unlined Jacket, black drill. Alterations: “standup collar” for $2.00. (for this I had the default “snaps” in place of buttons and the default “full cut”).
I’ve prefered the specialized “regular cut” coat over the standard “full cut.” The regular cut feels more like the standard suit jacket that most professional men wear to work, while the full cut felt more like a wind-breaker. I also prefer the buttons, as the snaps contributed to the wind-breaker feel.
Suspenders
Also known as “braces,” all you need are dark broadfalls and suspenders to really look “plain” to the world. “Tabbed” suspenders fit over buttons in your pants, while “clip-on’s” use alligator clips to fasten onto standard pants. Tabbed look better but I can’t help thinking of Michael Douglass in “Wall Street”; a lot of ordinary anabapist men I see have clip-on’s.
I’ve heard the story that there’s a good-hearted ribbing between the Iowa and North Carolina Conservative Quakers about whether thin or wide suspenders is more plain. I’ve started to throw my lot in with Iowa and have gotten the three-quarter inch suspenders. (Fashionistas will remember that thin suspenders were popular with a certain kind of high school geek in the mid-1980s – think Cameron in Ferris Beuler’s Day Off; fair disclosure requires that I admit that I wore them around Cheltenham High). Again Gohn Brothers:
- #550T 3/4″ tab. Black: $7.98
- #552C 3/4″ clip. Black: $6.98
Hats
While Gohn Brothers does hats, I haven’t bought any of theirs. Instead I’ve gone for the Tilley T3 hat. I’m not complete happy with this, as Tilley’s seem to be associated with a certain kind of clueless traveler, but I’ve noticed that there are a lot of men in my yearly meeting who wear them, I think as an unconscious nod toward plainness. The Tilley is also friendlier to bike commuters: its tie-down strings wrap easily around bike handlebars, and it’s very crushable and washable.
Not a Uniform
Again, let me stress: I am not trying to specify a modern plain dress uniform. The only time you should adopt plain dress is when you’re feeling actively led by it. Sometimes that leading is an intution, which is fine, but you need to follow it on your own terms. My practice has evolved over time and yours should too. I’ve become more plain since I started this witness simply because I had to replace worn clothes and couldn’t see spending more money for shoddier clothes than I could get at Gohn Brothers. You don’t need to get broadfalls to be “plain,” as “plainness” is as much a state of mind and an attitude toward God and your spiritual community as it a set of clothes. I think of it now as a spiritual discipline, one very fitting for our consumeristic times.
I’d love to hear from others about their plain dressing.
Avoiding Plain Dress Designer Clothing
July 21, 2004
A guest piece by “David,” originally posted on the Plain and Modest Dress Yahoo Group.
From: “mquadd” <mquadd@y…>
Date: Wed Jul 21, 2004
Subject: Introduction and questions
Hi. My name is David and I attend but am not a member of the Friends Meeting here. I was actually raised as an Episcopalian although I had several uncles who were birth-right Quakers. I grew up (for my first 10 years) in Chester County, PA which traditionally was an area with a high concentration of Quakers. I would expect that this is no longer true as the area has become quite suburban with a big influx of new residents. Nonetheless, I grew up attending meeting now and then with relatives at various meetings in Chester County and northern Deleware. That was in the 1960s and was a time when some people, mostly older people (people most likely born in the 1800s meaning these people were in their 70s or 80s in the 1960s), still used plain talk. Even in the 1960s, in a fairly rural area, this was more of an excepting than the rule and was limited to the oldest members of the meeting and never used outside the Quaker community. Those who used plain talk never used it outside of the Quaker community – home, Friends, and meeting. As far as I know, they never used this type of talk for business or relations or outside the community.
At age 10 we moved to Lancaster County. At that time, many Memmonites who now no longer dress plain or wear coverings did still did both of these. I went to school with many Mennonite kids. In addition I became friends with several Old Order Amish families (and one Beachy family) with whom I am still friends. That was 35 years ago, I have witnessed the plain testimony weaken in each of these groups including the Old Order Amish. I actually spent much of my childhood and teenage years hanging out with one paticular Old Order Amish family as way to escape the insanity of having drug addicted and alcoholic parents. In their very simple and unstated Christianity, they were very willing to provide food, shelter, and love to a very confused boy (me).
Anyway, the Lancaster Conference Mennonites (now part of the largest Mennonite group) seem to be totally mainstream. Perhaps there are some who still follow the former order. The Beachy Amish now dress like conservative Mennonites and less and less like Amish. Finally, I was watched the Amish allow lots of modern changes in their discipline although their basic clothing is pretty much unchanged but sun glasses are now allowed and many Amish girls and women pluck their eyebrows – both not allowed in the 1970s. By the way, in the late 1960s they had already adopted cotton-poly blends for both clothing and quilts!
The reason for that, perhaps odd, biographical sketch is to give some background on my exposure to plain groups and, more importantly, plain thought. I have toyed with the idea of plain dressing although I can’t give a clear reason why I feel this. Is it a calling or am I just crazy? I do know that the stability I found in that Amish house in the 1970s most likely had a giant influence on me (a happy Amish family where I had fun vs. living in a family that was in the self-distruct mode due to addiction). I also I have clear memories of having Quaker teachers in elemently school and vanity and worldliness was a bad thing. It was during the height of the Viet Nam war, so there was this odd hippy-Quaker thing going on with some of my teachers. I am sure some of you who were around the RSF in the 1960s can relate. So here I am still toying with these ideas and still attempting to define my own religious feelings at the middle of my life (I am 45).
Here are a few things I do know that apply to me. First, I feel very at odds with our society that focuses on the most superfical things. Our society spends BILLIONS on make-up, hair dye, plastic surgery, breast inplants, push-up bras, designer clothes (that are no different that basic clothes except the label and might even be of lower quality).… People are judged on the these issues. Character and morality (a loaded term that seems to have been highjacked by the rightwing and ultraconservatives)seems to be secondary to these very superficial things. What we tell ourselves and our children is that we are not adequate as we are. We have to change our body and then drape it was overly priced clothes to count. The outside is more important that the inside. This is sick. It is distructive. It is a sin.
Beyond that, my feelings about plain dressing get less clear. Is a uniform what I am seeking? Those groups who were very uniform clothing tend to be insular and often attact as much attention to themselves as a belly shirt and designer jeans! If you doubt this, go to Lancaster County and attempt to drive on Rt. 340. The attraction that the plain people attract in that area rivals any movie star or rock concert. Lancaster gets literally millions of tourists each year. So is that type of uniform dressing that is quite distinct serving a good purpose? I am not sure but am just offering a question rather than a judgement. Other groups that dress quite plain such as ultra-orthodox Jews are not so much a tourist attraction but clearly are insular and seperate from the larger society. Many people view this as being “stand off-ish” which I hope is nobody’s goal. I have heard people apply this type of judgement to plain christian groups also.
So, I would be very interested in hearing what drives others to dress plain? If you are a Quaker, what has been the reaction at your meeting? I once met a plain dressing Quaker who said that he had received more negative than positive reactions when visiting other meetings. Are there any meetings where all or most members dress plain? In my childhood experiences, there was no plain dressing in any Quaker meetings in Chester County or in Deleware. I have not even run into anyone who uses plain language for over 30 years except that one plain dressing man. Clearly, I know no Quakers who have been raised with the idea of plain dressing or plain language including some of my cousins who are worldly to say the least. What makes plain. I know of “black bumper Mennonites” who drive a black bumper Mercedes. Is that plain? Why is a Volvo often considered ok but a BMW is bad? They both cost $40K. Often I see this type of thinking in those who claim to follow a less than worldly life style. I think there is always a risk of falling into the mindset of some labels being good and others being bad. Once a particular brand, say a type of hat or type of jeans, is thought to be the proper “plain uniform” does that not become the designed clothing of the plain dressers? I am not sure. What I find is that once you jump into this topic, it becomes complicated and that is not the point.
One final question, what benefits do you recieve from plain dressing?
Thanks. David
“Conservative Liberal Quakers” and not becoming a least-common-denominator, sentimental faith
July 13, 2004
Over on beppeblog, occassional QR commenter Joe Guada talks about starting a Bible study group in his Friends meeting. It’s a great post, which really pulls together some of the issues of those of us trying to be both conservative and liberal in our Quakerism.
None of their concerns were a surprise to me; I’ve had many of the same myself. What did surprise me was how long it took members to finally approach me with their “concerns” (a Friendly euphemism for being in complete disagreement with another). They seemed to be taking the Bible too literally…
I doubt that I changed any minds during our lengthy, but respectful conversation. But, unlike what seems like the opinion of the majority of liberal Friends, where personal and corporate revelation is the sole arbiter of faith, I believe that individuals and groups need far more than that to keep us from deteriorating into a “least-common-denominator”, sentimental faith that tries to be all things to (most) everybody (as long as they agree with our politics). I believe that Friends have a rich history to draw from, which includes our present Faith & Practice (along with past F&P’s), the writings and testimony of previous generations, and (hold your breath) the Bible.
This past week I’ve been wondering whether the best description of my spiritual state is a “conservative liberal Friend,” i.e., someone in the “liberal” branch of Friends who holds “conservative” values (I mean these terms in their theological sense, as descriptive terms that refer to well-defined historical movements). I feel a kinship with Joe and with some of the people I met this year at the FGC Gathering. There is a small-scale “conservative liberal” movement going on and it seems like we should figure out a name for ourselves.
Back in the 1970s and 80s there was a group dubbed “neoconservative Quakers,” liberal Friends who moved to conservative yearly meetings (especially Ohio) and outdid the homegrown conservatives, adopting plain dress and gaining a reputation for being sticklers on conservative theology and practice.
But although I’ve picked up plain dress, I’m not a 1970s “neoconservative” Friend. First off, I’m not moving to Ohio (it’s a lovely state I’m sure, but roots trump ideology for me any day of the week). I’m not even seriously considering leaving Liberal Quakerism. For all the sometimes muddied-thinking, I’m proud of our branch. I’m proud that we’ve said yes to gay and lesbian Friends and I see it as our positive comeuppance that so much of our religious leadership now comes from the FLGBTQC community (so many of whose members are solid Christians driven out of other denominations). I see us as one of the most dynamic, forward-thinking branch of Friends. Besides, liberal Quakerism is my home. I’ve been given enough hints that I think my ministry is here too. Not that I’m not grateful for all the branches of Quakerism. I am graced with new Friends met through this blog from all the branches of American Quakerism and I’ve found that there are those seeking out to reclaim Quakerism in each of them. I have brothers and sisters throughout Quakerdom, blessed be! But my role, my home, and my ministry is to be a Conservative-leaning voice among Liberal Friends. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that I’m not alone. Something is afoot in liberal Quakerism.
So what might we call ourselves? Is “conservative liberal Friends” a useful term?