Comments on One Quaker Take: Sojourn Among Non Theist Friends

What Friends have believed on some issues has chan...

2007-07-17T22:56:00.000-07:00

What Friends have believed on some issues has changed over time, which brings into question the idea of the essential identity of a Friend.

It's clear from George Fox's letter to the Gov. of Barbados that Friends didn't always believe that all forms of slavery should be opposed. And, plain speech was seen as a stample of Quakerism early on but is not regarded as such today.

What seems clear as essential, though, is believing in the immediacy of Jesus as Teacher. And, His teaching must, at the most basic level, involve knowing that God exists and the He's God's Son, who comes to forgive us of sin through the Cross. This seems plain to me.

I'm a simpleton.I think a Quaker is someone who ha...

2007-06-10T21:47:00.000-07:00

I'm a simpleton.
I think a Quaker is someone who has asked for and been accepted into membership in a monthly meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. ONLY the membership process can take into account the richness and particular circumstances of the individual and the religious body they will be joining -- i.e., a particular monthly meeting.

As such, I am increasingly concerned about how we are using words, posted on blogs and elsewhere, to define who is and isn't a Quaker. I don't know by the written word, or a virtual relationship, who is and isn't called to be a Quaker. I can only know that through actual relationship with another human being within the context of the daily functioning of the Monthly Meeting.

So I am definitely in the camp of wanting to be clear about who is and isn't a Quaker. Not into watering it down. But the way we do that is through a well-functioning membership process -- and not through labels and practices described in words on a page.

And to Timothy's sense that he is called to be amongst non-theist friends (and others) I applaude the being amongst especially if that can be a real vs. just or primary a virtual relationship.
I sense and have experienced that only through being in relationship with another can we (and they) come to clearness as to the Quaker calling.

No, I agree, we are not called to win these people...

2007-06-08T04:43:00.000-07:00

No, I agree, we are not called to win these people over or change their outlook. But I would go one step further, and add that I am not persuaded that, as you put it, God sent us to them and them to us. Having a duty to love as our own selves whatever neighbor is right in front of us, is not really the same thing as being specifically sent by God to do so.

I am also not persuaded that "Friend" is an inclusive term like "neighbor". If it truly were so, we'd have no need for a membership process. Or for meetinghouses, either, since wherever we were -- on the city bus, in the supermarket, in the workplace, in the Republican party convention -- would qualify as a Friends meetingplace. Why bother to be involved with the Society of Friends at all, if everyone outside the Society is likewise a Friend?