I do not know what my purpose being there will be. But I feel like I am completing my call by showing up. I will bring with me the spirituality of generous orthodoxy and Christ-centered inclusion that we have found at Freedom Friends Church. I am sure that I will have many interesting conversations, with sisters from Africa and America. We will sing together study together and worship together. I will take all of me and all of the Christ within me, to meet them and the Christ they carry.
"It strikes me that Quakerism has over-reacted against the dangers of institutional Christianity. It has got rid of priests, dogmas, rules – and whoops! – there goes a rather important baby along with all that bathwater. If Quakerism could somehow be re-rooted in reference to Jesus Christ, and be the minimalist, anti-authoritarian form of this particular religion, I think it might be for me."
Over in the Guardian (left), a post by a Theo Hobson sure to elicit many comments: If Quakers were more Christian.
My response in the comments:
Hi Theo: your article made it up to QuakerQuaker.org and I see that regulars over there are starting to pop up here. I started the site and the tag line is currently “primitive Christianity Revived again.” There are many of us who think that the original Quaker message is still relevant. There are Friends meetings and churches that are rooted a bit more in the Quaker understanding of gospel but they can be hard to find. If you visit one of these, you’ll certainly hear the Lord’s name and Christian ministry.
At this point “Friends” and “Quakers” mean so many different things depending where you go (and you just experienced one end of the spectrum) that the name is not really descriptive of anything anymore. I written about these sorts of things a lot on my blog, the Quaker Ranter, but here’s one article where I hope liberal Friends don’t simply become a least-common-denominator faith.
Thanks for sharing your observations and stirring the pot a bit. God bless.
It’s clear that the “small” gestures of the early Quakers—not taking off their hats, not theeing and thouing—sent tremors through the society disproportionate to the gestures themselves. They were powerful symbols of a new way of living. They were simple acts affirming human dignity that resonate with us to this day.
