“Interesting short post”:http://kwakersaur.blogspot.com/2005/01/jesus-language.html from Kwakersaur about the different ways Friends have related to God circa 1660, 1950 and today. A snippet
bq. [The first generation of Friends’] language lacked the me-an-Jesus kind of spirituality that marks the 1955 minutes and characterizes a lot of Christian spirituality of today. For early Quakers — and I suspect early Christians — it was not so much Jesus as a friendly affable fellow who loved us in a warm and comfy positive-strokes-I’m-OK-You’re-OK kinda way.
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Johan Maurer: More about boldness
November 12, 2004
Johan has a great post about “Quaker evangelizing in Russia”:http://maurers.home.mindspring.com/2004/11/more-about-boldness.htm that really applies to Quakers reaching out anywhere. My favorite paragraph:
bq. I personally have a hard time with hobbyist Quakerism, especially when defined in terms of ultrafinicky prescriptions of how “we” do things, “our” special procedures and folkways, or anything else that detracts from Jesus being in the center of our community life. How can we present something so stilted and crabby and culturally specific as an answer to spiritual bondage? It is just another form of bondage!
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!
Plain Dress Discussion on Yahoo
April 19, 2004
Julie, my wife, has just started a Yahoo group called PlainAndModestDress.
Here’s her description:
This group is for Christians interested in discussing issues of religious plain and modest dress. It is not necessary to have grown up in a plain or modestly dressing group. We are especially interested in the experiences of those who have come to this point as a sort of conversion or a “recovery” of tradition that has been lost. Traditional Catholics, Anabaptists, conservative Quakers, and other Christians welcome here. Theological points and demoninational differences are open for discussion (not argument), as are the specifics of what type of plain dress you have been called to. Discussion of headcovering is also allowed here, as are gender distinctions in dress. We may also share prayers for one another, as well as the challenges we face in trying to live in obedience to the Lord. This is not a forum in which to discuss the validity of Christianity – no blaspheming allowed.
There is much to be said about plain dress. This is not an easy witness. It forces us to deal with issues of submission and humility on a daily basis – just try to go to a convenience store and not feel self-consciously set apart. Explaining this new ‘style’ to one’s more worldly friends can be quite a challenge. These are eternal issues for those adopting plain dress and I laugh with comradeship when I read old Quaker journal accounts of going plain.
Even so, I have a bit of trepidation about a newsgroup on plain dress. I don’t want to fetishize plain dress by talking about it too much. The point shouldn’t be to formulate some sort of ‘uniform of the righteous,’ and adoption of this testimony shouldn’t be motivated by peer pressure or ambition, but by a calling from the Holy Spirit – this is the crux of what I understand Margaret Fell to have been saying when she called pressured plainness a “silly poor gospel”. (I should say that some non-Quaker do dress more as an identifying uniform, which is fine, just not necessarily the Quaker rationale).
But like any outward form or testimony (peace, Quaker process, etc.), taking up plain dress can be a fruitful course in religious education. I think back to being seventeen and bucking my father’s wish that I attend the Naval Academy – my “no” made me ask how else my beliefs about peace might need to be acted out in my life. It became a useful query. Plain dress has forced me to think anew about how I “consume” clothing and how I relate to mass marketing and the global clothing industry. It’s also kept me from ducking out on my faith, as I wear an identification of my beliefs.
So join the plain dress discussion or take a look at the ever-growing section of the site called Resources on Quaker Plain Dress, which includes “My Experiments with Plainness”, my early story about going plain.
Visit with Christian Friends Conference & New Foundation Fellowship
March 15, 2004
In late January 2004, I went to a gathering on “Quaker Faith and Practice: The Witness of Our Lives and Words,” co-sponsored by the Christian Friends Conference and the New Foundation Fellowship. Here are some thoughts about the meeting.
Evangelical Friend’s Take on the Postmodern Church
March 1, 2004
I’ve long been curious about whether anyone in the Evangelical branch of Friends has been following the “emergent church” movement. Now I find that Bruce Bishop , former Youth Superintendent of Northwest Yearly Meetings, has written a primer called Postmodernism: Taste and See that the Lord Is Good
bq. “Postmodernism” – we see that label bandied about quite a bit these days. And like the once-frequent phrase “Generation X,” postmodernism is often seen as anti-Christian and something that the church needs to fight. I would beg to differ.
I don’t particularly like the term “postmodern,” as the philosophical and pop-culture definitions almost completely contradict one another, but he’s talking philosophy, so MTV watchers should listen past the words. (Bishop is in good company in his continued use in the term: “Here’s Jordan Cooper”:http://www.jordoncooper.com/2004_03_01_archives.html#107896665936703076 and “Brian McLaren”:http://www.emergentvillage.com/index.cfm?PAGE_ID=797 talking about the problems with the term and their explanations of why they’re still using it).
I really _really_ hope Bruce Bishop writes a follow-up addressing how Friends might relate to this movement (“see my thoughts here”:http://www.nonviolence.org/Quaker/emerging_church.php).
FGC on Quaker Religious Ed
February 12, 2004
One of the pieces I helped put online in my role of FGC webmaster is FGC Religious Education: Lessons for the 21st Century, by Beckey Phipps. It’s definitely worth a read. It’s comprised of interviews of three Friends:
Ernie Buscemi: “It is the most amazing thing, all the kids that I know that have gone into [Quaker] leadership programs – they’ve disappeared. I see the same thing [happening] as a woman and person of color, we are doing something wrong.”
Marty Grundy: “Our branch [of Friends] has discarded the tools by which earlier Friends’ practices were formed. We’ve lost our understanding of what it is that we are about.”
Arthur Larrabee: “We need to tap into God’s energy and God’s joy. Early Friends had that energy, they had a vision, they had the connection with the inward Christ, a source of infinite energy power and joy.”
While I wish this could be extended a bit (e.g., why not ask the ‘kids’ themselves where they’ve gone), at least these are the right questions.