How come the rest of the church is taken up with missional or emerging church as if it were something new? We are only doing what the apostles did two thousand years ago, and what the regular old Christian in the street did – helped the neighbour, fed the poor, nursed the sick, visited the imprisoned, clothed the naked…
I’ve been reading John P. Bowen’s book Evangelism for “Normal” People, (Augsburg Fortress 2002). What is “normal” evangelism? Not approaching strangers with “Are you saved?” or handing out leaflets on street corners! It’s living peacefully, helping our neighbours, reaching out to those in need, and generally following Christian principles. It’s taking some risks when people question us about faith. It’s being bold in witness, but in witnessing with love.
On Archive.org. Disregard its listing as Orthodox, this is the Hicksite version. The “Book of Discipline” is more commonly known as “Faith and Practice” these days and is the most official document of Friends beliefs for the region & group it serves. I love the handwritten note on the inside back cover, which is a copied passage on Friends from Rufus Jones. Via Chris Pifer on a Facebook thread.
Archive.org has a lot of Quaker material, some originally scanned by Google, so it should be there too.
It has been said that wisdom is perishable. Unlike information or knowledge, it cannot be stored in a computer or recorded in a book. It expires with each passing generation. Elders who are truly…
One of the blueprints for Quaker community is the “Epistle from the Elders at Balby” written in 1656 at the very infancy of the Friends movement by a gathering of leaders from Yorkshire and North Midlands, England.
It’s the precursor to Faith and Practice, as it outlines the relationship between individuals and the meeting. If remembered at all today, it’s for its postscript, a paraphrase of 2 Corinthians that warns readers not to treat this as a form to worship and to remain living in the light which is pure and holy. That postscript now starts off most liberal Quaker books of Faith and Practice.
But the Epistle itself is well worth dusting off. It addresses worship, ministry, marriage, and how to deal in meekness and love with those walking “disorderly.” It talks of how to support families and take care of members who were imprisoned or in need. Some of it’s language is a little stilted and there’s some talk of the role of servants that most modern Friend would object to. But overall, it’s a remarkably lucid, practical and relevant document. It’s also short: just over two pages.
One of the things I hear again and again from Friends is the desire for a deeper community of faith. Younger Friends are especially drawn toward the so-called “New Monastic” movement of tight communal living. The Balby Epistle is a glimpse into how an earlier generation of Friends addressed some of these same concerns.
For Dr. Zinn, activism was a natural extension of the revisionist brand of history he taught. Dr. Zinn’s best-known book, “A People’s History of the United States” (1980), had for its heroes not the Founding Fathers — many of them slaveholders and deeply attached to the status quo, as Dr. Zinn was quick to point out — but rather the farmers of Shays’ Rebellion and the union organizers of the 1930s.
Howard was a real nice guy. Back when I was in book publishing we knew we could ask him for a nice back-cover quote and he’d always say yes. He was just that kind of person, supportive of the whole movement, the real deal.
He also had some of the best eyebrows on the Left!
I for one have been thrilled with the out-of-print work I’ve found on Google Books and I’m glad they’re figuring a way past the lawyers and institutional inertia to make them accessible again.
But the vast majority of books ever written are not accessible to anyone except the most tenacious researchers at premier academic libraries. Books written after 1923 quickly disappear into a literary black hole. With rare exceptions, one can buy them only for the small number of years they are in print. After that, they are found only in a vanishing number of libraries and used book stores. As the years pass, contracts get lost and forgotten, authors and publishers disappear, the rights holders become impossible to track down.
For 175 years, the prevailing image of Elias Hicks has been a false one. His opponents in the Religious Society of Friends have successfully misrepresented him as denying Christ and the scriptures. In his last year of life, Hicks reluctantly penned a reply to these charges, recounting in his journal how God had ordered his life. But the published Journal was edited into a bland portrayal of one of the most dynamic figures in Quaker history. Paul Buckley has meticulously compiled a new edition of The Journal of Elias Hicks from the original manuscripts – most in Hicks’ own handwriting – that restores more than 100 pages of missing material.
Please let me know whether you’ve found Quaker books, pamphlets, videos, anything, from recent years, that [shed light on the reader’s situation]. Whether our motive is to make Quakers simply glow in the dark, or to one-up somebody else, internal or external, it’s all about us. If we can simply speak from where we are at this moment… that’s all I really yearn for. That’s what I want Friends to be known for.
Full text online and it’s a relatively short read.
How much continuity is there from this and your yearly meeting’s current book of discipline? If you gave an elevator pitch about what Quakers believe, could you find matching evidence of it in an early Faith & Practice?
President George Washington also briefly occupied the Deshler-Morris House, a two and a half story stuccoed stone house at 5442 Germantown Avenue. The National Park Service restored this building to the way it looked when George Washington was the occupant between 1793 and 1794. A group of dedicated volunteers provides tours of the property, while the National Park Service continues to maintain the house and grounds. Here in 1793, the executive branch of the government dealt with the problem of Edward Genet, the former French minister. He had commissioned privateers in American ports to prey on British ships along the American coast and in so doing jeopardized relations and risked war between Great Britain and the new nation. The next summer, Washington rented the house again hoping to protect his family from yellow fever, while he carried out his duties as president. The home became known as “the Summer White House.”
My mother Liz says she was given a lot of reading to prepare herself to give tours. I’m not too worried about qualifications, as we had framed pictures of Germantown on our walls growing up (she carefully cut out her favorite scenes from a neat old book and framed them herself with red felt matting!). I think the “summer White House” was actually one of the pictures on our walls!
I had spent the evening wondering if this is what would become of my library when I’m gone - divvied up and donated by my heirs. But then I decided that it was fitting. Perhaps when book lovers die,…
What follows below are answers to what I suspect will be frequently asked questions regarding the creation of the book Writing Cheerfully on the Web: A Quaker Blog Reader.
Arthur Berk lives in New York City Friend but is a member of Ohio Yearly Meeting (Conservative). Recorded 6/20/09 at the Conservative Friends Gathering in Lancaster County, Pa.
ARTHUR BERK: Quakerism originated as a Christ-centered Christian religion which accepted Christ not only as the author of the Sermon on the Mount and other great stuff but as a living God, as a living creator, as the one who brings us to peace, and the one who shows us love, as the one who brings us together so we can hear God’s voice when he speaks to us. When we are open to Christ we can accept his peace and disarm ourselves, not just with outward weaponry, but with our own hostilities, prejudices and our own thinking.
We’re supposed to open ourselves to what God expects of us and not what we expect of each other. Too much in Quakerism is individual expectation and how much intellect one has rather than what one is hearing from the Lord.
MARTIN: What kind of suggestions do you have for people who want to get closer to Christ?
ARTHUR BERK: First, have waiting worship yourself within a group that has experienced Christ. Then you share that experience with others. You’ll see that Christ is not only speaking to thee, but to all of us. We have to sometimes suspend intellectual judgement. I’m not anti-intellectual, but we need to be able to hear and do what Jesus expects of us. God created us to bring this world into his Holy Kingdom. When we accept that we can be brought into his Kingdom. When brought into the Kingdom, we can disarm ourselves and stop thinking to exploit others so we can make a bountiful living. We can seek the good in others and encourage them to wait on the Lord so that they too can experience the same Christ that we experience.
MARTIN: People can come to gatherings like this one, an weekend gathering each year happening in Lancaster County and Barnesville, Ohio. This is one of the places people come. What other places might they look?
ARTHUR BERK: You can meet Christ-centered people in other meetings and have gatherings with them. You don’t have to wait until Ohio has something. You can encourage those who are inclined to want that type of worship where we hear and love to be able to gather together. We need to encourage that type of gathering. Wwe could go far off and speak to ourselves but that’s not the point. The point is to reach people. An important aspect of George Fox’s ministry was reaching out to those who could experience Christ. He preached to the Blacks, Native Americans and other people. People can be open to Jesus’s message if we’re willing to gather and share it.
Full text online and it’s a relatively short read.
