Nontheist Friends

(Friends Journal, March 2006, pp. 18-20) – with added notes

The text of the Friends Journal article follows, and then notes expanding on several cryptic statements in the article. At the end is a brief reading list.

I grew up loving nature and feeling part of it—dirt, bugs, people, and everything. It was, and still is, amazing how the universe simply rolls along, no miracles required. You and I are orderly, physical events, like the weather. [NOTE # 1]

People have always fascinated me. How surprising to see the cousins of apes doing all this! Unfortunately, a naturalistic approach to human behavior left me with a big problem: how to motivate myself when meaning isn’t simply handed to me. The issue wasn’t the existence of God, but of free will. This took ten years to work out. Finally, I saw that it is enough to live meaningfully, behaving as do those who find meaning in other realms. I care just as much as they do and share many of their values and purposes even as I accept that my behavior is the universe dancing with itself, and nothing else. [NOTE #2]

I also grew up loving Quakers. About once a week we held a meeting for worship that we children called “quiet time.” It was in our home or that of neighbors because we lived far from a meetinghouse. Ours was a religion of daily life and I was allowed, even expected, to hold my own views. I was skeptical of the Quaker tradition of reaching beyond the physical to the spiritual and supernatural. This seemed unnecessary, but it was the way others find comfort in a difficult world—it was more of the marvelous diversity around us. [NOTE #3]

I noticed that Quaker behavior is available to all who would engage in it. This includes those who view it not as based in the supernatural, but as the behavior of an animal that has learned to wait in the silence and to follow leadings and so on. It is still wonderful and worthy of study and imitation.

As I have lived among Friends, certain characteristic Quaker behaviors have become apparent. I look at Quakers from the viewpoint of a naturalist. I see them in terms of observed behavior and the environments in which it occurs, rather than resorting to concepts from other levels beyond sense and reason. [NOTE #4]

We are passionate in our determination that each and every person merits our tender concern and that in each person is an element of goodness to which we can appeal. We search for what is essential in our lives, and we treasure what each other finds. There is no need for special training to do this.

These commitments affect all aspects of our lives. We wish to live lovingly and to love effectively. We witness to new possibilities in peace and education and human rights, to healthy communities and respect for the rest of nature, to simplicity and honesty and justice. We hope that our lives will speak of what we believe.

We accept people searching for truth and are not dissuaded by differences in the words with which we express the truths we find. We bind ourselves to no creed. Membership is a question of participation in the meeting community rather than how we talk about our faith. We are a diverse community.

Quaker faith is newly created in each of us. The results of our searches are colored by the conditions under which we search, the people involved, and the times. We commit to one another and we hold together as change goes on around and within us.

Collectively we worship, we celebrate in joy and sorrow, and we carry forward the business of the meeting. While worshiping, we try to yield our personal agendas. In the shared silence we wait to respond. The silence leads to messages and common purposes and action in the wider world.

We encourage learning and seek understanding of how nature, including humankind, works and how to mend it when there are problems. We seek to find appropriate ethical standards and to help each other hold to them.

We try to simplify our lives. This includes how we worship and think and relate to people and the rest of the environment.

This, then, is what I have seen Quakers doing. It is usually described in mystical terms, but some Quakers try to stick with what is obvious. Suns rise, birds sing, and Quakers worship. It is so simple.

For many years I was quiet about all this among Friends, not wanting to create a scene and doubting there were others who shared this approach. Even Quaker environmentalists seemed to be spiritualizing nature rather than naturalizing religion. This was one reason I held back from very much involvement in my Quaker meeting. Living as a Quaker was enough. [NOTE #5]

Then, in June 1992, as I walked into my parents’ home, Mother thrust a copy of Friends Journal into my hands, saying, “You’ll want to read that!” It was a reprint of Jesse Holmes’ 1928 appeal to scientists who might be interested in Quakers. He wrote, “It is a Society of Friends. Friends claim no authority but owe each other friendliness. . . . Our unity consists, therefore, in having a common purpose, not a common creed. . . . God is. . . . the name of certain common experiences of mankind by which they are bound together into unity.” [NOTE #6]

Suddenly I realized there had been naturalistic Quakers in the past and there probably were many of them today. The issue keeping me from Friends became a reason to reach out to them. I shivered at the thought.

This led to a sojourn at Pendle Hill and a search for those who love nature above all else, and who love being Quaker too. It turned out there are many and they are welcome in many meetings. I began to speak up and was sharply criticized a few times, and I began to feel empathy for Friends who are marginalized and to wonder how I could help. [NOTE #7]

Humankind today is being asked to consider a demotion, one in a series that have taken place during recent centuries. [NOTE #8] The question facing us is whether religion has to involve the supernatural. For me the experience of being part of the natural world is a religious experience. Atheists and other skeptics can lead good lives, good Quaker lives, and they can function well in our meeting communities. Quaker practices are available to us all, however we speak of them. [NOTE #9]

Sadly, naturalists who are not Quakers probably don’t know they would be welcome in many meetings. Wouldn’t it be a joy to declare this to the world?! Of course, we wouldn’t want to limit it to one perspective. We could announce our commitment to diversity of all kinds including religious faith and experience. Many sorts of minutes might accomplish this; one is offered in the sidebar. [NOTE #10]

A minute like this would be an invitation to all who wonder whether their religious experiences are acceptable among Friends. It would say: come and let us worship together and get to know each other. Let us try being Quaker together.

sidebar:

Let Each of Us Unite

To Friends Everywhere,

We, the members and attenders of this monthly meeting, gathered in a meeting for worship for attention to business on this day, unite in support of the following statements about membership in our meeting: [NOTE #11]

Decisions regarding membership are made by members and attenders participating in a clearness process. This includes the person or persons asking for membership. We seek to discern what is involved and what is appropriate for all concerned. [NOTE #12]

During this process we ask whether the applicant and the meeting are functioning well as a community. We look at how we live together as a monthly meeting and not at whether we have had the same religious experiences and hold the same beliefs. [NOTE #13]

We consider membership without being limited by the race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical condition, education, economic status, criminal record, political views, or religious beliefs and experiences of the applicant. We are committed to love that overcomes differences. Diversity in our meeting is a wonderful thing. [NOTE #14]

As a diverse community we speak in different ways. We expect speakers to speak and listeners to translate. We hope that members and attenders of our meeting will not bite their tongues, but will express themselves freely in their several religious languages. [NOTE #15]

When speaking with visitors, or writing materials for them, we try to make clear that each person is responsible for listening carefully to, and interpreting for themselves, the religious expressions of others. Writings published or distributed by our meeting are meant to serve as guides rather than rules. We are all called to express our religious views in our words and lives. [NOTE #16]

We describe the origins of this commitment to diversity in many ways. Some of us are led to it by the experience of the Divine in every person. Some are led by a conviction that all people are worthy. Some hold that the views expressed here are sufficient unto themselves and need no justification in other terms. All these approaches can work well for the people saying them and can address the same needs. [NOTE #17]

Amid diversity we seek and find unity. We join in a sense of the meeting even as we differ. We join in action inspired by our different faiths. We commit ourselves to love one another and to live together in harmony. [NOTE #18]

It is with joy in our hearts that we declare this to the world. [NOTE #19]

 

NOTES

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Os Cresson is a member of Mount Holly (N.J.) Meeting, where he is the recording clerk and a member of the Worship and Ministry Committee. He wrote “A Quaker Family in Afghanistan, 1949-1951,” published in Friends Journal in April 2002. He and other Quaker theists and nontheists have a website, <www.nontheistfriends.org>, and an e-mail discussion group that is described on the website. Also, an expanded version of this article can be seen at that site. He is one of the contributors to a forthcoming book of essays, Godless for god’s Sake: Nontheism in Contemporary Quakerism.

NOTE #1: My Early Experiences of Science
There were many early experiences that drew me to the world of nature. In New Mexico, Asia, and Arizona we had mountains in the back yard, amazing weather, bugs to play with, birds to watch, and dogs as pets. There were lots of walks, camping and mountain climbing. I enjoyed building things and taking them apart.

At age 7 my favorite book was “The Little History of the Wide World” (Mable Pyne, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947). It traced geological evolution, humans developing from earlier animals, villages and civilizations rising up. All people are clearly related to each other and very similar, despite apparent differences. We are a recent innovation in a history that seems old until you count the generations since things happened. I treasured that book.

We traveled a lot, for fun and because my parents went many places looking for work as teachers, social workers, and school administrators. This made cultural diversity and history real. I could sense that we’re on a ball of rock. What each of us assumes is normal and best isn’t necessarily so.

I was mightily impressed at 9 watching Frank Laubach teach Afghan soldiers to read in 45 minutes: how easy it was and how different his methods than the ones I encountered in school (he drew the letters into pictures whose names started with the sound of the letter).

During my childhood, evolution was a god in our household. My parents had experienced the Scopes trial in their youth and it became the epitome of the triumph of new knowledge over old superstition. At 11, Dad and I were walking through fields and he made up a story of thistles and sithles: they were similar but sithles did not have the prickles of thistles and so were eaten by cows and died out! This impressed me in many ways.

NOTE #2: My Later Experiences of Science
I loved learning science: 7th grade general science, 9th grade history of science (the story of the Greek scientists, and of phlogiston and how even scientists fool themselves), 10th grade biology (impressed by protozoa, looking close at the world I was always amazed), and pre-med in college (but I kept asking who were approaching human behavior with the down to earth approach of the biologists?!). In college to learn to use an extremely delicate balance I used a beaker of water, but couldn’t get the same weight twice in a row. Looking at the numbers I had written down, each was slightly less than the one before. The water was evaporating during the weighing water – nothing is fixed, everything is in motion. Many years later, at a quiet moment seated in woods I felt the tree at my back sighing in the breeze – and again saw that all around me was in motion. In college in chemistry lab we were given black boxes and told to describe how the object reacted in many situations – NOT to tell what was in it, but how it functioned. We were told this is the method of science. At the end the professor opened one of the boxes, explaining that occasionally technologies lets us see in what had been a black box – and he held up another, smaller black box and said he wouldn’t open that one because we are always faced with black boxes. Years later I read Bertrand Russell on atoms known only by their effects and saw that humans are known by their effects, too. During college the best time was at a summer biology station (learning was fun, everywhere we looked was amazing, I focused on an algae at its intricate reactions to light, temperature, and oxygen). The worst times were much of the rest and I flunked out of Swarthmore before finishing at Earlham.

After college there were several key moments when my place in the rest of the world came into focus. Once was finding myself in a lawn of dandelions and suddenly seeing they were in all stages from tight buds to puff balls. I laid out a series and casting my eye up and down the line was like going back and forth in time. Another key moment was when working in a hospital lab gave me the opportunity to look at my own sperm. I was moved by their stubborn efforts to survive and their gradual death, one after another, until only one was left wiggling. Another moment was waiting in the sun, depressed, caught between the frontiers of Honduras and Nicaragua, sitting on a rock and a lizard lay across my sandal, dozing in the sun. I decided to wait until the lizard moved off on its own. Finally it looked up and sauntered off and my mood had lightened. All of these experiences reminded me I am part of a beautiful world and, even when life is most depressing, I am part of this world and therefore beautiful, too.

Then I went to medical school. That didn’t last long: I loved gaining intimate knowledge of the inner workings of human brains and heart muscles, but I hated the regimen. After leaving I worked with behavioral psychologists trying to invent new ways retarded people could learn and finding them to our amazement and making friends with people whose behavior was disordered. After a few months I saw this was finally the biologist’s approach applied to human behavior and it could be my personal as well as professional salvation. It became clear that this was one more turn in the spiral upward toward knowledge of ourselves, and these were views that I would have been burned for a few generations ago. I stayed in the field, working and studying, hating school and loving learning, through an MA and finally to a PhD in applied behavior analysis at the age of 53.

The title of the essay you are reading, “Quakers, from the Viewpoint of a Naturalist,” is in recognition of the work of John Broadus Watson, the progenitor of the field now called behavior analysis. In 1913 he launched the naturalistic revolution in psychology with the paper, “Psychology as the behaviorist views it” (Psychological Review, 20, 158-177). This was followed in 1919 by his book, Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist (Philadelphia: Lippencott). I offer to religion what he offered to psychology.

It was not until the last part of my education that I finally saw the critical features of the behavior of scientists: we respond to observations, and to reasoned statements about them, and nothing else as much as possible. Our passions are fully engaged in this responding (just as a designer such as Buckminster Fuller is simultaneously an artist and a scientist). Naturalists avoid explaining observations in terms of other levels never observed and described in their own separate languages. This is done around us all the time: people play the piano well because they have musical ability; hens are driven by a mothering instinct as they care for their chicks; sounds are language when they express symbolic meaning; our consciousness allows us to talk about ourselves; bridges hold up because they are strong. In all these instances the only evidence for the supposed causes are the observed effects. We have created an extraordinary panoply of explanatory fiction. Gods, minds, selves, wills, ideas, consciousness, abilities and instincts intervene between stimulus and response – unnecessarily. We can do very well without them. Less is more.

Our behavior is a response to the environments that surround us. Our bodies that are behaving were shaped by environments during the history of our species, just as our behavior is shaped by environments in the history of the individual. I often write of behavior without mentioning the environments that control it but I am writing about the nexus of behavior and environment, our BehaviorEnvironmenting, our BEing. I behave and therefore I am. BEing is as natural as the weather – gloriously so!

This is a functional rather than a structural approach. Atoms don’t exist apart from their motions. Matter and energy don’t exist apart from each other – this is how we talk about events. Time doesn’t exist apart from the sequence of events. Information doesn’t exist apart from useful (informative) stimuli. Knowledge doesn’t exist apart from effective (knowing) behavior. Truth doesn’t exist apart from statements that are useful.

My words often sound dichotomous, “our bodies…my behavior”, as if there was something to us other than body-behaving. This philosophical approach overcomes dualities that plague other philosophies. How could mind interact with body? If mind is just a metaphor it is hopelessly corrupted by our history of minds existing in addition to brains – that is why we invented the term and it is the way most of our listeners react to it. We would do well to abandon cognition the way we did phlogiston. It’s all BEing.

True, some BEing is only seen by the person behaving, and some not even by that person. But we don’t need to see it all. If behavior is a causal chain from environment back to environment, then two observed links in the chain can be correlated even when we don’t see the intervening links. This is not reductionist in that a behavioral scientist doesn’t need the physiologist’s results, although it is reductionist in that it assumes there are physiological links even when they are not observed. And there are, or could be, chemical and quantum explanations underlying the physiology although the physiologist can do useful science without them. This will become clear some day and we’ll look pretty foolish, but there’s no need to be embarrassed – our 600 times great-grandparents were living in the Stone Age and in many ways we’re still looking at the world as they did.

The miracle we see around us is that there are no miracles. The world is obedient to what has gone before. Life was described in the terms one uses for the world around us, nothing else was needed. The behavior itself became more important than anything I could say about it. Others followed another way involving other realms, which often served them well, but that was a way filled with peril.

After trying several terms for my approach to religion – pantheism, agnosticism, secular religion, materialism, nontheism – I settled on naturalism. This was decided by how people responded to each term: did the word come to control the same behavior for my listeners as it does for me?

I was reminded recently that David Hume wrote about natural religion at time when science was called natural philosophy. The word “nature” has a pleasant history and associations. It doesn’t bother me that some will confuse natural religion with nature worship. Any term generates some confusion and this one isn’t all bad – in fact, it’s attractive to be confused with biologists and nudists.

Today people often speak and write about nature as if it did not include humankind, as if it were a mere backdrop. Environment and animal are also used in ways that imply a separation of humankind from the rest of the universe which, of course, is our cultural history. This separation was the basis of the very old term, natural theology, which refers to the search for evidence in God’s works for the existence of God and a moral code. There used to be a Friends Committee on Unity with Nature which implied a division as would Black People in Unity with Good People. The organization has changed its name to Quaker Earthcare Witness, which leaves open the possibility that Earth includes Quakers.

Each term we could use leads to further questions. In this case, how do we define nature and natural? Naturalism implies a contrast with the supernatural, but some people assert that all sorts of magic is natural, such as synchronicity, free will, mental telepathy, and divine powers. At least natural is often used in reference to the physical, material, determined world which, in my experience, gives us a better start than when we attempt natural definitions of terms such as God and spiritual that were invented specifically to deny the natural world.

Naturalism has advantages over humanism in suggesting a healing of the ancient rift between humans and the rest of nature and in not requiring the reader to assume that humanism means secular humanism. Humanism seems to point to the human as the originator of human behavior, but I find the origin of behavior in the surrounding environment.

Natural religion is an attractive positive description of my approach. I am also a nontheist – that is, not a theist. This term can be combined with many other descriptors – one can be an agnostic nontheist or even a theist nontheist (during the intervals when God is unreachable).

Nontheism has served well among Friends for the last ten years and I’m not put off by it being a negative term. That allows individual nontheists to hold many different positive views. Besides, many negative terms are viewed positively such as nonviolence and nonconformity.

NOTE #3: My Early Experiences of Quakers
Growing up, meetings for worship were with friends in our homes (there were no organized meetings nearby). Being a Quaker was about how we lived, telling the truth, refusing to play with toy guns, refusing to fight with other children, treating everyone well.

When I was 6, my father played Santa Claus and my sister and I were costumed as helpers. We were solemnly told that many children believed Santa Claus was real and although we knew he was a fake, we must be gentle with those who believed. At about this time Mother chuckled when I put something on a Bible, explaining that some people never put anything on the Bible but in our house it was a book and treated as we treated other books. I was glad that we were beyond treating Bibles as magic.

At age 6 or 7, after Quaker meeting I asked what people suddenly spoke about and was told they spoke of what was most important to them. I offered to speak next time about what was in my history book and Mother laughed gently and said that is not what they think of as most important. I clearly remember turning away and saying to myself, “Then they don’t know what is important.”

At age 8, looking out a dusty window of our bus at sundown, Afghans were kneeling in the dirt with their heads on the ground. I asked Mother what they were doing and she answered, “They’re doing what we do in Quaker meeting.” After that when the bus stopped our family settled into silent worship.

Quakerism was about how people live until age 15 when it also became a matter of meetinghouses and committees and organizations. This always seemed secondary to me.

NOTE #4: Describing Quaker Behavior

In the seven paragraphs that follow, you will see most of the what appears in other writings on the essentials of Quakerism – described in terms of what those authors saw that prompted them to write as they did.

I am trying to offer an operational definition of Quaker behavior – that is, behavior defined in terms of what is observed. The test is whether another person could repeat it, reinforce (or punish) it, and otherwise respond appropriately to it. Whatever is important about the behavior will be observed, or we wont know about it. In some cases behavior is not observed but its effects are (products and other changes in the environment) or collateral changes are (for instance, hunger is observed only by the person feeling it but food seeking behavior and other collateral behavior is observable). Thinking and feeling are behavior, controlled by environments, even though they are only observed by the person behaving. Sometimes the only evidence I have of an event is what another person says about it.

For me, what you say is another example of what you do. Faith is another one of our practices. Worship is behavior. We have treated as separate what is whole.

Perhaps I should have added emotion to “sense and reason” as levels on which I operate. I think of emoting as a way of reasoning, or as something important to be sensed, and so for me it is included in sense and reason.

Quakers often assert that important areas of human life are beyond science, that we need a different approach for consciousness, the life of the mind, the act of worship, the subconscious, passion, values and so on. Here is how I respond to one such challenge:

Values are what we work for. Values, and everything else people claim to be beyond science, are human behavior and as such are physical events, like the weather, to which science is relevant in useful, amazing and awe inspiring ways. Of course, people often deny this and they live wonderful lives while doing so.

Science can help us find our values. Think of science as a method rather than a product. Science can help us see the consequences of living with different values. It can provide useful explanations of the act of valuing. It can help us learn to live according to our values.

Science methods are part of the story of the life of a naturalist but not all of it because we often act without full evidence. On these occasions we are behaving in the light of science, guided by a philosophy of science, applying science – but we are not doing science. Science and this associated near-science is all we need and may be demonstrably better, and certainly is personally preferable to me, than alternate approaches that are non-sensory, nonscience or antiscience.

I take all of the above as assumptions, in spite of the impression to the contrary that my words may give. These are not assumptions about the world around me – instead, they are assumptions about my behavior in response to that world. I am pointing to a way to live. Whether we agree is of little importance; whether we can live together and cooperate and love is of great importance, as is how our monthly meetings react to visitors who come to them bearing a naturalist’s perspective.

NOTE #5: My Accommodation with Quakerism
For me being Quaker is about participating in the Quaker practices of worship, seeking a sense of the meeting, witnessing to the testimonies. It is about living in such a way that an observer might say, “That is a Quaker life”.

My beliefs are collateral effects of the causes of my other behavior; they are what I say to make sense of life and the rest of the world, they follow rather than lead in my life. My religion is a question of ethics, of living, of behavior – and so naturalistic religion requires naturalistic psychology (without explanatory fictions). For me truth is measured by the outcome of living the truth.

I was supported by the traditional Quaker emphasis on tolerance (supporting each other as we try to find our way), the absence of creeds, individualism (we are each responsible for figuring things out and for our lives, we each seek to conscientiously decide every action), interpretation of the speech and writings of others, and how we treat each other (tenderly, honestly, by the Golden Rule, seeking alternatives to violence). However I was not drawn to be active in many of the traditional Quaker concerns of peace and equality perhaps because my parents were, or because this was justified in such theistic terms, or because I simply did not find crowds congenial. Instead I worked to help people learn while trying to manifest Quaker virtues in my daily life.

NOTE #6: Jesse Holmes
Jesse Holmes was extraordinary. He absorbed the principles of relativistic science at a very early date, for instance writing in 1912 that we test the law of gravity with every step we take walking downstairs! For him, God represented our common purposes and the principle of human brotherhood. T. Noel Stern wrote a fine biographical essay on Holmes in the June 1992 Friends Journal. There is also a biography by Albert J. Wahl (Jesse Herman Holmes, 1864-1942: A Quaker’s Affirmation for Man. Richmond IN: Friends United Press, 1979). It contains a lot of useful material, although personally I found it to be somewhat disordered and difficult to read.

He did not see religion as establishing truth. He wrote in 1912: “The accurate formulating of our ends and of the tested ways of attaining them is the function of philosophy and the sciences. The more difficult task of holding ourselves to the higher loyalties is that of religion. Not the discovery of truth but the patient using of it for the more abundant life is its task.”

In 1931 he wrote, “It has not been, and should never be, that knowledge of truth as revealed to the scientist, is out of place in our galleries. Certainly that vision of what should be which in all ages is the heart of religion, must be based on what is now, or our temple will lack foundation and be no more than a castle in the air. The spirit of the Society of Friends is closely allied to the spirit of the genuine scientists. It involves that intimate relation between ourselves and our world which makes any final statement of it in a formula impossible….I believe a very large and increasing number of the scientists of the world are in unity with the essential Quaker point of view.”

In an undated manuscript too radical to be published until the Quaker Universalist Fellowship did so in 2003 he wrote: “Meaningless phrases and irrational theologies have been moulded into rigid, authoritative institutions perverting and stultifying the adventurous, creative spirit which distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom. They turn our attention from the splendid possibilities of our mysterious life and toward a mythical, improbable life after death. Over all presides a despotic, unjust, and irrational deity of the medieval king type, who must be worshipped by flattery and blind obedience….I propose to a fairly intelligent people of a partially scientific age – a people easily carried away by words and phrases but feebly striving for meanings too – that all this is a sad mess of ancient and medieval superstition which should speedily be relegated to the storage rooms of the museum of history. We should stop the pretense of awe, or even respect, for teachings which lack even a slight amount of evidence or probability. We should substitute a religion based on actual repeatable, describable and testable experience, and which has some connection with the genuine values of life: not an absurd and impossible life in a stupid, idle heaven, but a rich, active, adventurous life in the world we live in….If we continue to hide behind an alleged belief in a devil’s world, a lost humanity, an irrational and arbitrary deity, undeserved heaven and undeserved hell, there is nothing to be done. But if those who reject all this medieval rubbish will join heartily in a real world-wide effort for an uplifted humanity; if they refuse to continue systems which involve contests in indiscriminate killing and destruction; if they will dedicate themselves to a general cooperation in mutual service, refusing all incitements to seek poser over each other; if they will accept the adventure of lives everywhere seeking harmony, good-will, understanding, friendliness; if they will turn aside from all claims of super-men for super-rights and privileges, whether in religion, in politics, in industry or in society; then indeed we may renew and revive the purposes of prophets, statesmen, scholars, scientists, and good people since the world began. This would be a real religion.”

It is important not to assign labels to other people, particularly when they are not present to object, but we can say that Jesse Holmes led the way for Quaker nontheists of today.

Here are the references to Jesse Holmes writings quoted above:

Holmes, Jesse (1912). The Modern Message of Quakerism. Philadelphia: Friends General Conference. Also published as: What is Truth? Philadelphia: Friends General Conference (undated).

Holmes, Jesse (1928/1992). “To the Scientifically-Minded.” Friends Intelligencer, 85(6): 103-104; reprinted in Friends Journal, (1992) 38(6): 22-23.

Holmes, Jesse (1931). The Quakers and the Sciences. Friends Journal, 88(6): 20.

Holmes, Jesse (2003). “‘Our Christianity’?” Universalist Friends, 39 (Fall & Winter, 2003): 15-22.

NOTE #7: After the Closet

I was moved to come out of the closet because a sympathy for three groups of people: nontheists who are already in Quaker meetings but feel they have to keep quiet (who are closeted and suffering); theists who are uncomfortable with nontheists and who think they have to bite their tongues when speaking of their theistic religious experience because others would take offense; and nontheist visitors who wonder if they will be welcome in among Friends. I am also moved by the prospect before the Religious Society of Friends: it must find ways to keep up its tradition of gradually changing with the times and of incorporating new knowledge as it becomes available, and of incorporating a naturalistic component, and of offering the world an example of a religion not based on creeds, doctrines, or required or expected religious belief or experience.

I try to speak quietly but it is a struggle not to become so passionate that the conversation breaks down. After speaking in a group, often someone comes up privately and thanks me for expressing what they were thinking but could not speak about. Speaking up has meant being knocked down by other Friends a few times. My reactions go through a consistent pattern: at first I was nervous and unclear as my response swung back and forth between dismissive and conciliatory options. Then I vented in private and began to seek a ways to cooperate with those who criticize nontheism among Friends. My hostile feelings changed into a stubborn personal commitment to do what I can to help assure that other Friends will not go through the same experience.

Since 1992 when I started working on this, a lot has been accomplished. We are gradually establishing a more modern and more open tradition for nontheist Friends. It is characterized by diversity of view and of style. We are adding the nuts and bolts required to secure a new religious specialty.

Personally, this effort has taken me away from my normal relationship with the RSoF which is as a backbencher, only occasionally coming to meeting and somewhat distant from the intimacy that is normal for many others. For me, interactions with other humans is usually difficult and confusing. It doesn’t seem worth it much of the time. The efforts of so many other Quaker nontheists, especially during the last ten years, along with my small contribution, has brought a change and promises more in the future. Fourteen years ago a vision caused me to shiver when it first loomed over me, unavoidable and tantalizing and scary. Progress has been made. I can rest happy.

NOTE #8: The Great Demotions

Friends may want to consider Carl Sagan’s description of the “Great Demotions” that humans have experienced since the advent of experimental science (in Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, 1994, pp. 20-57).
During the last five centuries we have been repeatedly challenged to release ancient views that exalted the place of humans in the world. Each successive demotion was strongly resisted, often in the same terms, such as that there was inadequate proof, that all meaning in life would be lost, that at least there was another closely related view that would save the day.
Friends may want to consider Carl Sagan’s description of the “Great Demotions” that humans have experienced since the advent of experimental science (in , 1994, pp. 20-57). During the last five centuries we have been repeatedly challenged to release ancient views that exalted the place of humans in the world. Each successive demotion was strongly resisted, often in the same terms, such as that there was inadequate proof, that all meaning in life would be lost, that at least there was another closely related view that would save the day.
Here are thirteen Great Demotions from Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot:
* The Earth is at the center of the Universe.
* The Earth is the only object of its kind in the Universe, the only ‘world’ made out of the stuff found on Earth.
* The Sun is at the center of the Universe.
* The Milky Way is the only galaxy in the Universe.
* The Milky Way is at the center of the Universe.
* Our Sun is the only star with planets.
* Our Sun and planets have been in the universe since very near its beginning.
* Our Sun and planets have been given special responsibilities by the Creator.
* The velocity of the Earth in space constitutes an absolute frame of reference for the rest of the Universe.
* Humans are different from other animals in that we were specially created in the Creator’s own image.
* Humans have special immunity from the laws of nature.
* Humans are different in kind from other animals: we have “reasoning, self-consciousness, tool making, ethics, altruism, religion, language, nobility of character”.
* Humans are the only intelligent beings in the Universe.
We could each add the great demotions we see going on around us. I would include for demotion the view that to be Quaker one must accept a transcendent divine love, power and authority; that religion must involve the supernatural; that we need view humans as free to act in ways that other physical objects are not; and that there are absolute frames of reference for ethics.
I find Carl Sagan’s approach greatly encouraging. No wonder Quaker nontheists sometimes fail to find common ground with other Quakers! We are suggesting demotions that are in a series that have been resisted with extraordinary passion again and again, beginning in 1543 when Copernicus published his book. That was during the lives of our 15-times-great-grandparents – which was not that long ago. A lot has happened and is still happening and we are part of it.

Here are Carl Sagan’s comments on the Great Demotions and his vision of a religion of the future (from Pale Blue Dot, pp. 20-57 and 403-405).

“Every…proposal, and their number is legion, to displace us from cosmic center stage has also been resisted, in part for similar reasons. We seem to crave privilege, merited not by our works but by our birth, by the mere fact that, say, we are humans and born on Earth….Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Many passengers would rather have stayed home.” (p. 23)

“But most of the debates have now been settled decisively in favor of a position that, however painful, can be encapsulated in a single sentence: We have not been given the lead in the cosmic drama. Perhaps someone else has. Perhaps no one else has. In either case, we have good reason for humility.” (p. 39)

“What do we really want from philosophy and religion? Palliatives? Therapy? Comfort? Do we want reassuring fables or an understanding of our actual circumstances? Dismay that the Universe does not conform to our preferences seems childish.” (p. 49)

“In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe….A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge.” (p. 52)

“But if our objective is deep knowledge rather than shallow reassurance, the gains from this new perspective far outweigh the losses. Once we overcome our fear of being tiny, we find ourselves on the threshold of a vast and awesome Universe that utterly dwarfs – in time, in space, and in potential – the tidy anthropocentric proscenium of our ancestors.” (p. 53)

“Religions arose in part as attempts to propitiate and control, if not much to understand, the disorderly aspect of Nature. The scientific revolution permitted us to glimpse an underlying ordered Universe in which there was a literal harmony of the worlds (Johannes Kepler’s phrase). If we understand Nature, there is a prospect of controlling it or at least mitigating the harm it may bring. In this sense, science has brought hope.” (p. 55)

“The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life’s meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable.” (p. 57)

“The pioneering psychologist William James called religion a ‘feeling of being at home in the Universe.’ Our tendency has been, as I described in the early chapters of this book, to pretend that the Universe is how we wish our home would be, rather than to revise our notion of what’s homey so it embraces the Universe. If, in considering James’ definition, we mean the real Universe, then we have no true religion yet. That is for another time, when the sting of the Great Demotions is well behind us, when we are acclimatized to other worlds and they to us, when we are spreading outward to the stars.” (p. 405)
NOTE #9: “Available to All”

Behavior we esteem can be accompanied by a variety of theories. This point is central to my efforts to cooperate with people whose religious views differ from mine and to assure other Quakers that nontheists can participate fully in Quaker life. We can focus on the behavior in front of us, the empirical data, and leave the theories to others.

This was suggested to me by the following lines in an article by Murray Sidman, for whom I worked after college: “The phenomena of aphasia can be classified empirically, without biasing the observations by preconceptions of what language ‘really’ is. The data will then be available to any theory.” (“The Behavioral Analysis of Aphasia,” Journal of Psychiatric Research, 1971, 8, 413-422.)

Many people have suggested that Quaker practices are independent of Quaker belief and thus available to all. Consider these words:

“Men are to be judged by their likeness to Christ, rather than their notions of Christ.” (William Penn, 1693, often quoted by Lucretia Mott)

“The faithful and persistent doing of duty in the routine of life is a means of grace which is open to us all.” (William Littleboy, 1916)

“Our unity consists, therefore, in having a common purpose, not a common creed”. (Jesse Holmes, 1928)

“The history of all religions indicates that religion is more what it does than what it thinks. People who differ in their thinking can worship together in harmony, if the manner of worship is congenial to all. At the time of Christ, for example, a Jew might be an atheist; he might be a Platonist; he might have one of many types of religious philosophy. But as a Jew his membership was defined by his practices rather than by his opinions. This seems to be true in most religions.” (Howard Brinton, 1954, p. 197)

“Some people suppose a certain religious faith – like belief in God, in future life, in the role of Jesus is essential. Experience shows devotion, sincerity, even saintliness can go along with more than one type of theological position. This is much like what Oliver Tomkins said at Oxford in ‘52 speaking on behalf of the World Council. ‘You Friends are a standing perplexity to other Christians, you enjoy the spirit of Christian life without the forms…that we have supposed essential.’” (Henry Cadbury, 1962, p.4)

“They take the view that truth can be reached by more than one path. Yet because they believe in the Quaker way of life, and that Quakerism is universally valid and not dependent on Christianity, they have no wish to cut themselves off from the Society of Friends.” (John Linton, 1978, in a letter announcing the formation of the Quaker Universalist Group)

“My proposal is that we recover the meaning of our distinctive practices. If we have largely lost a distinctive way of speaking, we at least still have a distinctive set of practices….This no doubt is what…holds our meetings and Society together. It is also – whether we recognise it or not – what give us our identity.” (Eric Ambler, 1997)

“Universalist Friends do not have a creed or uniform set of beliefs, but we do have a set of unique corporate spiritual practices for discerning spiritual guidance—silent meetings for worship and unprogramed ministry, meetings for business, meetings for learning, worship sharing, clearness committees for personal concerns, and the personal and corporate responding to Queries. Now the question is not “Are you faithful in your belief?” but “Are you faithful in your spiritual practice?”” (Richard Barnes, 2003)

My position is a bit more complicated because I consider faith a form of practice. For me language is simply more behavior, but that is a topic for another occasion!

 

NOTE #10: Minutes
Very few meetings have taken the step of declaring doctrinal openness, even though many yearly meeting Disciplines are moving in that direction.

Twin Cities Friends Meeting has been seeking their way carefully and recently shared their story publishing a draft minute in the Quaker Universalist Fellowship newsletter (http://www.universalistfriends.org/uf043.html#Draft).

Last year another monthly meeting approved a short minute with four sentences expressing their support for the view of the worth and dignity of all people and their universal capacity to perceive the Inner Light. They committed themselves to welcome all, whatever their understanding of God and their spiritual views. (I am not at liberty to publish the name of this meeting.)

In 1991, Friends Meeting in Washington (DC) approved a minute calling for Friends to be open and receptive to the differences in our religious languages. In a list of examples are feminists, fundamentalists, evangelicals, Buddhists and agnostics.

In 1953, Arthur Morgan wrote a minute on universal brotherhood that was given careful attention by his yearly meeting. Although it was not approved, this represented an opening. This is the minute: “Many men and women of many faiths have shared in the search for truth and love and human brotherhood. Each faith has helped its sincere followers in that search. Each faith has something to learn form the others, and something to give. The Lake Erie Association of Friends desires to be a unit of such a brotherhood, and welcomes into its membership and to its meetings all sincere, concerned seekers whose ways of life and ethical standards and practices are compatible with its own. Also, the Lake Erie Association of Friends would welcome affiliation with other fellowships of sincere seekers, whatever may be their religious origin or affiliation.”

In 1976, Friends who had gathered in a workshop at the FGC Gathering in Ithaca, NY approved a report calling for increased cooperation among Friends of all religious perspectives. This was titled “Report from the Workshop for Non-Theistic Friends” and is available on nontheistfriends.org. Here are some excerpts:

“There are non-theistic Friends. There are Friends who might be called agnostics, atheists, skeptics but who would, nevertheless, describe themselves as reverent seekers. The fifteen to twenty of us who joined this workshop did so out of the need to share ideas with others who are searching for an authentic personal religious framework. The lack of an adequate religious vocabulary which could be used as an alternative to traditional concepts has led to mistaken assumptions about individual non-traditional beliefs, thus hindering dialogue and real communication among Friends….

“The tradition of Friends’ respect for the individual as autonomous and responsible is an important shared feeling. We are a seeking group, as Friends have been for 300 years. We might be seeking from a different source but our actions in the world for the improvement of the human condition often finds non-theist side by side with Friends of all persuasions….

“By listening to other’s expressions of their feelings and beliefs and by following our own guiding and strengthening “inner sources” we can develop our innate potential and experience personal growth. To continue to grow we feel a need to express our minority beliefs more openly and an obligation to listen to ourselves and others on a level which allows us to work together.

“Recognizing that there are energies and ideas that may well be part of a new spiritual consciousness in the making, we want to develop an awareness of our diversity and a respect for it through responsibly shared dialogue. We hope for sensitivity and trust in our Meetings which allow us to grow in a community of seekers despite our differences. Unable to accept traditional theology, we are skeptical about substituting new concepts lest they become yet another theological system, but we felt it important to share the thoughts that sprang from this workshop with old and new Friends, young Friends and those who are considering becoming Friends. We believe Quakerism can accommodate this minority, and find part of its vital creativity in the process.”

Finally, in 2004 Friends gathered at a conference approved the following minute:

“To Friends everywhere:

“Greetings from thirty-seven British and American Friends gathered at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre on January 9th to 11th, 2004, for a workshop titled, ‘Beyond Universalism: The Experience and Understanding of Nontheism in Contemporary Quakerism.’ During deep and fruitful sessions of worship and discussion we found a great variety in the paths that have brought us here, and the religious views we hold. We sought greater clarity about our beliefs and our relations with other Friends. Amid this diversity of experience and belief we found unity in our support for any Friends who may be in difficulty because their views differ from those of other Friends. With joy we affirm that people can live wonderful Quaker lives while holding a variety of religious views, and that we find this diversity is no bar to unity in the meeting community and that it can be a source of strength. We commit ourselves to learning to live in harmony with all those who share the Quaker way and with all other seekers. In Friendship, David Boulton, David Rush, and Kitty Rush for thirty-seven Friends gathered at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham, England, on January 11, 2004.”

 

NOTE #11: Membership
Quakers are moving toward a functional rather than structural definition of what makes a Quaker. This means unity on the basis of common behavior and purposes rather than beliefs and experiences. Our goal can be harmony rather than agreement on doctrine, unity on practices rather than belief, how you live rather than what you say about it. Quaker Disciplines have been moving toward this and examples are in my essay, “Doctrinally Open Membership in the RSoF”, on nontheistfriends.org.

In my experience, membership is overrated. The three meetings I have been a member of as an adult have treated attenders as members as much as possible (one of them excluded a few key positions but the other two did not). I join Henry Cadbury in calling for a return to the old way of considering as members all those who function in the meeting community. Membership can be the evidence of participation in a community, rather than the permission to participate.

If a Friends meeting accepts belief in God as a membership requirement, it will be a difficult policy to administer. What about pantheism? (Would you accept panentheists but reject pantheists?) What about agnostics? (Accept those who are genuinely confused but reject those who insist there is no way of knowing?) Would you distinguish between atheists who simply assert that they find no God in their own life and those who assert anyone who believes in God is wrong? What about those who accept God as a metaphor: would some metaphors be acceptable and others not? (My metaphor for God is silence.) What about theists who are unable to contact God?

And then there is this lovely question: as evidence of belief in God would you go by what the person says or perhaps look at the rest of the person’s life? Would it be enough to live as if you believe in God, to hold beliefs that function in your life as the belief in God functions in the lives of others?

The US Supreme Court has ruled that ones beliefs are religious, whatever you call them and whether or not they involve a Supreme Being, if they function in your life as religion does in many people’s lives. This was in their decisions that allow atheists and agnostics to qualify for religious exemption from military service.

Nontheists are already in the Religious Society of Friends in large numbers, as the surveys show, and so finding how to live together is better than setting up filters based on religious belief or experience. The issue of membership involves not the presence of nontheists in the RSoF, but the presence of diversity of religious thought.
NOTE #12: The Clearness Process

People ask if doctrinally open membership means we have to accept everyone who applies. My answer is that there is still the clearness process in which members of the meeting and the applicant concentrate worshipfully on the issues involved for as long is necessary. The central question is the meeting community (including the applicant), how it is functioning, how one tests this, what it means to those involved, what purposes give shape to the community and how to move toward them. The object is to find unity – not grudging agreement but commitment to go forward together.
NOTE #13: Community Instead of Unanimity

Unity for Quakers does not mean unanimity or consensus – it means forming a community based on common purposes rather than doctrinal similarity. We seek this when conducting our business, when addressing membership questions, and generally in our life as a Friends meeting.

In 1908, looking forward to the eventual reunification of the two Philadelphia yearly meetings, a Friend made this dramatic announcement during annual sessions: “Unity does not necessarily mean agreement; indeed, it is not inconsistent with wide difference in opinion, expression and purpose. Unity is love, not likeness.” (quoted in Moore, 1981, p. 136)

Unity in Philadelphia did not come quickly. Henry Cadbury started working on it as a young Friend in 1913 and kept at it for 42 years until the memorable day in 1955 when Friends walked out of the Race Street meetinghouse and into the Arch Street meetinghouse for their first unified meeting for worship for attention to business in 127 years. Two years later during a Swarthmore Lecture he said: “It would be a pity if the natural variety in Quakerism were artificially restrained. Even unconsciously we are subject to powerful tendencies to conform to a single standard in religion as well as in other ideologies and practices. If the role of Quakerism among the denominations is precisely one of enriching the variety and challenging their standards of uniformity, we ought by the same token to welcome variety within our own small body and ought to object to the impoverishing effect of attempting to get ourselves and our fellow Quakers into one mould.” (1957, pp. 47-48)

This emphasis on community instead of similarity is found in our yearly meeting Disciplines:

“Within the community there is a diversity…of experience, of belief and of language….The deeper realities of our faith are beyond precise verbal formulation and our way of worship based on silent waiting testifies to this.” (The Yearly Meeting in Britain, 1995, #1.01)

“Because membership in a meeting means membership in a community, one of the tests of membership is compatibility with that community. Applicants need to feel in harmony with the community they are joining. They should be able to accept the diversity of Friends, both locally and at the national and world levels.” (New England Yearly Meeting, 1985, p. 128)

“Membership includes a willingness to live in spiritual unity with other members of the Religious Society of Friends. Members are expected to participate in communal worship, to share in the work and service of the Society, and to live in harmony with its basic beliefs and practices.” (Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1997/2001, p. 34)

“Are you comfortable with a Society whose unity of spirit coexists with a diversity of beliefs? Are you prepared to join a Meeting family which includes people whose perspectives may differ considerably from yours?” (Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1997/2001, p. 36)

“Friends accept into active membership those whose declarations and ways of life manifest such unity with Friends’ views and practices that they may be expected to enter fully into religious fellowship with the meeting.” (New York Yearly Meeting, 1998, p. 82)

“In the Religious Society of Friends we commit ourselves not to words but to a way.” (The Yearly Meeting in Britain, 1995, p. 17)
NOTE #14: Diversity

There have been many Friends’ minutes calling us to embrace diversity in one form or another. Here is a recent minute approved by the Executive Committee of Friends General Conference:

“Our experience has been that spiritual gifts are not distributed with regard to sexual orientation or gender identity. Our experience has been that our Gatherings and Central Committee work have been immeasurably enriched over the years by the full participation and Spirit-guided leadership of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer Friends. We will never go back to silencing those voices or suppressing those gifts. Our experience confirms that we are all equal before God, as God made us, and we feel blessed to be engaged in the work of FGC together.”

Diversity can bring problems but when we surmount them there are great advantages. We have greater resources to draw on, more perspectives, more people who are interested and experienced when some situation requires our attention. We also become appealing to more people.

All this can be done without losing our identity, but an identity based on common purposes, on commitments that are more fundamental than our apparent differences.

A pleasant little essay on Quaker diversity has been written by David Boulton. It is “Facing Up To Diversity” (The Friend, 18 October 2002, pp. 6-7). You will find a copy posted on nontheistfriends.org. David gives us an example of the challenge eternally tormenting Quaker nontheists: when and how to confront assertions about the RSoF that tend to exclude nontheists? He points out what a rich resource our diversity is and how it is built into the fabric of our Society. The fundamental issue isn’t who is right but how to live in a diverse Society. To do this we need to look carefully at the many consequences of living in such a Society. David reminds us that nontheists are already among us, and not just as interlopers, and that nontheists are diverse just as theists are. Diversity within diversity – we are challenged on all sides to find community. Our Quaker identity is not based on theological formulations, doctrines, opinions, beliefs, faiths, creeds or experiences. It is our commitment to the practices and testimonies that bind us. (And he could add, our common purposes.) If I were to learn one thing from this essay, I hope it would be to work for dialogue on these questions within our meetings. This may be the most important contribution nontheists will make to their brethren.
NOTE #15: Language

For me language is simply more behavior. It is behavior shaped by my community for the purpose of engaging in language interactions with them. The meaning of words is found in the history of their use. The effectiveness of my language is tested by the reactions of my listeners and readers. The test of a description is whether it allows another person to identify, or repeat, or respond effectively to the what I have described. This is enough.

Many key Quaker concepts are often defined theistically, such as discernment, leading, message, and sense of the meeting. God also comes into discussion of Quaker identity, unity, and membership and then there is a whole vocabulary not specifically Quaker such as religion, worship, faith, belief, holy, sacred and mystical. The issue of nontheism goes way beyond questions about the existence of God.

In my view, all of these words describe behavior a person can participate in however we explain the behavior. Cooperation is easier if we already know and trust each other in our meetings – then we may conclude that we are doing what the other is doing when we discern, respond to leadings, etc.

Each nontheist takes and redefines some words, and leaves others aside as inevitably bonded to views that are not ours. The variety in this taking and leaving among nontheists is dramatic. It will help if we Quakers learn to speak in our own languages while translating the languages of others.

Another language issue is the trouble we have listening to the religious language of others. How many Quaker nontheists have trouble listening to fundamentally Christian speech? How many of the strongly Christian Friends around us are biting their tongues for fear of offending others? Is this healthy? How can we change?

Surprisingly, in a Philadelphia Yearly Meeting survey of 552 Friends, 21% answered that they were uncomfortable with Friends using Christian language in meeting for worship. This discomfort went up to 32% among those who said they did not believe in a traditional God who actively intervenes by answering prayers. (The survey was called Making New Friends, done in 2002-03; I am indebted to David Rush for bringing this survey to my attention in his chapter in “Godless for God’s Sake”.)

If many Friends cringe when we hear people speak in richly Christocentric terms, then this needs to be addressed. Nontheist Friends are in a special place to help, since we are often exposed to views that differ from our own.

But first we need to address the cringe in each of us. How are we doing?

If about 20% of the adult members of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting are uncomfortable listening to strongly Christian language. If this is generally true and if an unknown number of Friends are uncomfortable listening to openly nontheistic talk, then we need to work on how to live in religiously diverse communities. We can ask what to do when we find ourselves cringing, and when differences in religious language matter, and how our meetings can be loving, diverse communities.

Friends have many ways to respond when they find themselves cringing at the religious language of others. It will be good to hear from others on this. In general, my reaction is to simply accept the situation, or work on my own reactions, or ask the speaker to change. This last is usually out because I’ve almost never seen a situation in which it was appropriate to ask someone to change the Christian or theistic content of their language. I don’t want other Friends to bite their tongues. The exception is when speaking to visitors or children who don’t know that they need to interpret what they hear. Many times the language I cringe at is accompanied by something else inappropriate, such as haranguing at great length or giving a prepared speech during meeting for worship, but these are separate issues best dealt with in cooperation with other Friends.

We each have ways but to work on our own reactions. I first describe, in as specific terms as possible, what is happening just before I cringe: who is speaking, in what situations, how was I feeling that day, what did they say, and how did I react? Surprisingly, often just by describing the speech it loses its power to evoke my negative reactions! If it still has power over me I decide what to do when I hear the words. This might be to immediately take a deep breath and look around and concentrate on the first beauty that hits my eye and really soak it up, emptying myself of all negative reactions. Or it might be to concentrate on some admirable quality of the speaker. Or to respond to the intention behind the words, to the purposes I might unite with or the common ground we might build on.

Part of the problem may be what the language is in aid of. I object when the speech effectively drives away visitors (this includes the written form as in literature distributed in the meetinghouse). The speaker may be teaching a strongly Christian message in First Day School. The meeting may be celebrating Christian holidays and only Christian holidays. The speaker may be describing Quakerism so as to exclude nontheists or asserting that nontheists (under some guise) can not live ethical, meaningful lives. All of these are separate issues from the language and are best treated in cooperation with others in the meeting. The same suggestion will be received very differently depending on who it comes from.

To do any of this it is best to have already built trust and friendship, to be an exemplary Quaker. This will affect how our suggestions are received and allow us to be more open to others.

Our meetings might want to frankly address the differences in religious language and issue a call to be theologically diverse. A disclaimer can be displayed on the literature table and included in the brochures authored by the meeting itself, explaining that the views are meant as guides rather than rules, that they represent some but not necessarily all members of the meeting and that readers are responsible for forming their own interpretations.

Be of good cheer, cringing can give way to milder reactions and even to loving acceptance.
NOTE #16: Visitors

Visitors are in such a tender situation. They know little of what is around them. It seems so strange. They often don’t have any idea of what a noncreedal religion might be like, or that religion without the supernatural is possible, or that they are expected to interpret what they hear.

My home meeting in Mount Holly, NJ has placed this statement wherever Quaker literature is displayed in our meetinghouse: “These statements are meant to be guides rather than rules. We place on the individual’s heart and mind the responsibility for the discipline of the spirit.” (The wording was suggested by similar passages in the Disciplines of Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative) and Monteverde Friends Meeting.)

For me, a central motivation for going to all this trouble to present a nontheist Quaker alternative is the empathy I feel for the visitor who loves the Quaker way and who loves the natural way and who may easily miss that these can be combined in such a pleasing and useful way.
NOTE #17: Explaining Our Commitment

Providing a paragraph of different explanations is a way to include diverse opinions without implying that all those who support the minute support the language. This can be useful in many kinds of writing. It gives each participant the opportunity to be heard. Often commonalities emerge from the list – perhaps more so for the reader than for the writers who are biased by our commitment to what we write.

I have used the phrase “describe the origin of this commitment” but other words would serve: this is how we explain, justify and summarize the position we take. It is the underpinning, the source, the ground of this aspect of our lives. It is a description, a label, a finger pointing toward who we are.

These descriptions are independent of the behaviors they describe. A person can be a Christian or a nonChristian and uphold a woman’s choice on abortion or the right of an embryo to life. Belief, experience, faith and creed are usually independent of the rest of our lives. We behave as we must and these come along and explain or justify what we are committed to do. There are occasions where there is a causal relation but, in my experience, these are much rarer than claimed and they are not necessary connections (we can do very well without them).
NOTE #18: Unity

Three kinds of unity are mentioned in this paragraph and they are all very similar. There is the unity in a sense of the meeting. Quakers have spent their lives showing that this is more than consensus or grudging agreement – it is a wholehearted commitment to go forward together, to behave together as if we would if we were in unanimous agreement. There is also the unity of a coalition committed to act together, a unity that comes from a common purpose. Finally, there is the unity of the meeting family, a family that requires love rather than agreement.

None of these forms of unity require agreement on the explanations we give, or our beliefs and experiences, or our religious language, or our personal idiosyncrasies. Families are not bound by creeds.

The question of Quaker identity in the absence of an agreed upon doctrine is answered in the same way: our identity is seen in our lives, our purposes, our cooperative efforts, our love.

If we can find unity amid our diversity in our home meetings, then perhaps this may show us how to reach out to others. I am thinking of other groups of Friends, and those who share our purposes although they are of other faiths. And what we do on the question of doctrinal diversity may show the way to overcome problems of many other kinds of diversity.
NOTE #19: Time to Declare to the World…

If we hold these views, let us make them known. Quakers often wonder how to reach out to others without overdoing it. Local circumstances and individual characteristics will affect how we each share the good news, but the world is waiting to hear it. Living well is important and sometimes all we can manage, but the benefit spreads when we helping others live well. Are we called to speak to the world? What will we say?
A READING LIST:

1928/1992: Holmes, Jesse. “To the Scientifically-Minded.” Friends Intelligencer, 85(6): 103-104; reprinted in Friends Journal, (1992) 38(6): 22-23; see also Stern, T. Noel (1992). “Jesse Holmes, Liberal Quaker.” Friends Journal, 38(6): 21-21

1936/2000: Cadbury, Henry J. “My Personal Religion” (Talk at the Harvard Divinity School). Universalist Friends, 35 (Fall-Winter 2000): 22-31, with corrections in 36: 18; see also Bacon, Margaret Hope (1987). Let This Life Speak: The Legacy of Henry Joel Cadbury. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press

1968: Morgan, Arthur. Necessity. Unpublished manuscript; excerpts in Kahoe, Walter (1977) Arthur Morgan: A Biography and Memoir. Moylan PA: The Whimsie Press

1969: Loukes, Harold & H. J. Blackham. Humanists and Quakers: An Exchange of Letters. London: Friends Home Service Committee

1976: Workshop for Non-Theistic Friends. Report From The Workshop for Non-Theistic Friends. Friends General Conference Gathering, Ithaca NY, June 26-July 3, 1976.

1979/1986: Linton, John. “Quakerism as Forerunner.” Friends Journal, 25(17): 4-9; reprinted as Quakerism as Forerunner (Pamphlet #1) (1979). London: Quaker Universalist Group; also reprinted in Quaker Universalist Fellowship (1991), The Quaker Universalist Reader Number 1: A Collection of Essays, Addresses and Lectures. Landenberg, Pennsylvania: (author)

1980: Swayne, Kingdon. “Confession of a Post-Christian Agnostic.” Friends Journal, 26(3): 6-9. Also in Quaker Universalist Fellowship (1990), Variations on the Quaker Message. Landenberg, PA: (author)

[Expanded Essay, Version 3-01-06]

No Comments »

Link to Trackback | Link to RSS Feed for comments on this post