(As I write that it strikes me as the logic of the Defense of Marriage Act and shows us the shortcoming of reasoning done badly. I digress...)
(And why didn't this arise earlier--at least to the extent it does now--re Buddhist Friends? Buddhism is a non-theist "religion." Trust me. I know this.)
(Also, I think, personally, that doing the will of God is the center of living out one's spirituality. It is not seeking the will of God or seeking an understanding of the will, character or purpose of God or any such other thing. I digress...again.)
How is it, I wonder, that people who say that they are not seeking the will of God in a meeting for worship for business can be sure that they aren't? Because their reason tells them they couldn't be doing that? Well, clear the decks and think that over for a moment in the context of people who say they are (or are not) "doing things" they are obviously doing.
"I am not angry, but..."
"I am not a judgmental person, but..."
"I don't hold a grudge, but..."
How do they know they aren't seeking the will of God?
How would they know if they were?
Are they making/jumping to conclusions based on "definitions" of God that very few of us would own? With all due respect, Dr. Dawkins does not get to define God and then dismiss us all as nut cases regardless of our spiritual experience. What makes him think that experiences he has had in his life were not the same ones that some of us characterize as spiritual or even "supernatural?"
When someone says "I don't believe in God" why do those of us who do take their word for it, or even care that they say this?
Have we taken so many steps (as a Society or as individuals) back toward propositional beliefs based on this or that reasoning from stories in the Bible that we have forgotten that it is how we live, and not what we believe, that saves us?
Have we given up on discerning and following the daily promptings we receive directly (from whatever we call the "source") that nudge us toward the love and charity that some of us express in the five (here today but called something else tomorrow) testimonies in the Liberal domain of the Society?
Does some propositional belief (like God doesn't want us to have same sex life partners or God demands that we all confess "Jesus Christ" by that name) cause us to ignore the promptings to love and live out our spirituality with those around us?
Not withstanding what they say they are up to, non-theist Friends seem to take part in doing business and other meeting process in a range of behavior not discern-ably different from the range of behavior as us "believers" in our meetings. And we are not sure whether we can include them just because they refuse to characterize as we do what we are all (more or less) doing in the same way?
I once heard a dharma talk on the radio during which the teacher said "...and then a thought bubbled out of my psyche..."
I snorted and said aloud "Huh! Nothing bubbled out of anywhere! You heard God talking to you."
And then I heard God talking to me: "Shut up and listen."
It was an edifying, helpful and skillful thing that was said and I might have rejected it or missed it altogether if I was hung up on "where" it came from.
Sure, I am a bit annoyed at times when people who never ask me what I mean by God (or people who classify me as "Christo-centric ") say that I believe in God because of some flaw in my character--some need to have a "God" to make up for some unwholesome hole in my humanity. But it's just as likely, you know, that a lack of a "belief" in God is based on the same human shortcomings in them that they decry in me.
If one can be kind to others, and respectful of them, and allow for all the same opportunity to go through the potluck (or any other) line or serve on a committee in a role consistent with their gifts then one can and should be included in my spiritual community (even if they say it isn't "spiritual" at all).
If one needs some work to be able to do those things then I say work with them--and abide with them. (It amounts to working and abiding with oneself, you know.)
But if they cannot do those things--and do not own that these are the things to which they aspire, to which they are being led (by whom or whatever)--then I don't care if they say they are seeking the will of God or not, whether they "believe" in God or not.
Call it what you will, it--just like all of us-- "is" and it "is becoming."
5 comments:
Hi Timothy,
I would agree that Quaker need to be inclusive; Jesus certainly is as the NT demonstrates so many places.
Also, what is most important, isn't belief in abstractions, but being open to experience the reality of God, and to love God with all one's being.
Where I disagree is when seekers try to redefine the Society of Friends into a nontheistic social group. In my understanding, Friends are friends of God, all humans have "that of God" in them,Friends meet to worship and love God, to receive vocal ministry from God, to do business in the Light of God, etc.
When people aren't seekers, but rather strongly claim there is no God, claim they don't worship God, don't experience God--actively deny God, then I don't see how they can be actively involved in a movement whose Center is God.
There is a difference between seeking/doubting versus a total denial of God; the former shows how human and caught in error and sin we all are; the latter is just that a denial of the Truth, a refusal to love the Truth.
Such nontheistic individuals are still welcome to come, even when they deny God, but I don't think they should set the direction of our movement as is currently the case.
Secondly,I would disagree with you on Buddhism. Certainly some, maybe most Buddhists are not centered on God. Buddha had seen so much hypocrisy and abstract doctrine, that he focused his life on practical truth, and wouldn't spend lots of time speculating about the eternal. My own understanding is that Buddha did experience God, but didn't want to set up his experience as doctrine.
And therefore some Buddhists are strongly nontheistic. I have a scholarly book here on my shelf which claims Buddhism is strongly atheistic.
However, I have other Buddhist books which are theistic such as those by Thich Nhat Hanh which speak of God, even the Holy Spirit and Christ, page after page, which emphasize the Transcendent ceaselessly.
Like Christianity, Buddhism is wide and covers many different movements which do contradict each other.
One more thought: I wonder if some of the Quaker nontheists aren't actually philosophical nontheists but nontheistic in the sense that they don't trust in the "God" of some other humans.
For instance, once a student came to the famous liberal Christian leader Henry Emerson Fosdick and said he no longer believed in God. Fosdick wisely answered, Well tell me about this God you don't believe in; it is probably the case that I don't believe in him either.
Such seekers need to find the Truth as so many seekers in the past did like George Fox to Thomas Kelly.
In the Light,
Daniel
Yo, Brother Timothy! Just found yr blog, and am digging it. Us Quaker old farts with military exposure need to hang together, eh wot?.
And did I mention that the phrase "radical inclusiveness" tends to set my teeth on edge? It's one of those newer Quaker cliches which, whenever I've looked closely at groups which claim it, usually turns out in practice to fall so far short of being anywhere near "radical" that when it comes up I put one hand on my wallet and cast an eye toward the nearest exit.
For background, let me urge you and everyone to dip into a fabulous book, "Restless Souls," by Leigh Schmidt. It's a history of liberal American spirituality, and there's lots of Quakes in his narrative.
Fortunately, Schmidt has a clear cold eye, and little of our generously over-inflated group sense of itself (cf. "radically inclusive") escapes the sting of his quiet but truly aimed research.
One of the key themes of Schmidt's story, and this applies to most of the "liberal" religions, not just Friends, is that our vaunted "inclusiveness," "universalism" and related notions come with paradoxes and contradictions galore, over which their advocates frequently stumble and stagger, and not infrequently have taken embarrassing pratfalls.
The only safe cushions for such hazardous progress are generous doses of humility, frequently and "liberally" applied. Yet humility is one of the least practiced virtues or disciplines among Friends as a people these days, in my observation. (He said modestly.)
More of that when the notion strikes again. Meantime, it's a kick that you're clerking the F&P revision committee out there. That must be quite a trip; but then, my past lives detector tells me that in another incarnation thee was the baddest cat-herder west of the Pecos . . . .
Good Friend Timothy:
Regarding Buddhism and non-theism, I think it depends on how one comprehends God. When the Buddha refers to the "deathless" there is a lot of overlap with the Monotheistic tradition. There is a famous passage that appears in several discourses where he says, "There is that which is deathless, unborn, uncreated, unconditioned. If there were not the deathless, unborn, uncreated, unconditioned liberation would not be possible. But there is the deathless, unborn, uncreaetd, unconditioned. Therefore liberation is possible." This is just one example; one can cull the Discourses of the Buddha for such references and they are surprisingly supportive of a kind of theism.
On the other hand, there is no support for a creator God. The Buddha's view was that "there is no discernible beginning to this existence", a point he would repeat numerous times. For many monotheists God as creator of existence is central and from this perspective Buddhism would be non-theistic.
I think there is a possible reconciliation to these two points of view. It has to do with how one views the act of creation. If one views creation as occuring in the past, ex nihilo, then the two traditions are at odds. If, on the other hand, one views creation as ongoing, as every moment as an act of creation, then it is possible to build a bridge between the two traditions on that basis.
This is very abstract, I know, but since the topic came up I thought I would offer my two cents.
Best wishes,
Jim Wilson
Thanks for the post.
"How is it, I wonder, that people who say that they are not seeking the will of God in a meeting for worship for business can be sure that they aren't?"
To me the challenge is to avoid getting caught up in what you're not doing. And sometimes this happens when others presume to tell them what they are doing:
A: "I hear the spirit of Christ coming through your words."
B: "I appreciate the warmth of your sentiments, but I want to let you know that I believe the source of my words is not an external God or Christ."
A: "You're a non-theist? Here?"
B: "I guess, yeah."
A: "Hmph"
Both the characters here made a mistake focusing on the source, A by reflex from A's own sense of the universe, and B by rising to bait that A never intended to be bait. It would be great in these sorts of interaction to respond to each other with a positive-for-positive. If B had responded with something like, "It felt important to say, though I find the source of that importance mysterious at best," then it would have been on A's watch to listen that level deeper to B's understanding of the true nature of the universe.
Just part my little part-time crusade against the term "non-theist."
Thanks for the post.
"How is it, I wonder, that people who say that they are not seeking the will of God in a meeting for worship for business can be sure that they aren't?"
To me the challenge is to avoid getting caught up in what you're not doing. And sometimes this happens when others presume to tell them what they are doing:
A: "I hear the spirit of Christ coming through your words."
B: "I appreciate the warmth of your sentiments, but I want to let you know that I believe the source of my words is not an external God or Christ."
A: "You're a non-theist? Here?"
B: "I guess, yeah."
A: "Hmph"
Both the characters here made a mistake focusing on the source, A by reflex from A's own sense of the universe, and B by rising to bait that A never intended to be bait. It would be great in these sorts of interaction to respond to each other with a positive-for-positive. If B had responded with something like, "It felt important to say, though I find the source of that importance mysterious at best," then it would have been on A's watch to listen that level deeper to B's understanding of the true nature of the universe.
Just part my little part-time crusade against the term "non-theist."
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