The Problem of Religious Skeptics in Quaker Meetings
Posted by Os Cresson on Mar 25 2005 | Tagged as: Blogroll
What problems arise when Quaker meetings accept religious skeptics into membership? Listed below are some of the points often heard in discussions of this question and some possible replies. This is meant to help skeptics who are considering membership and to help the rest of us learn about what they are facing. This paper is not meant for those who oppose membership for skeptics. Catechisms are mainly useful with those already favorably disposed. Please send suggestions and comments to the author so we can improve this document.
By religious skeptic I mean someone whose personal religious experience contrasts strongly with those of the members of the meeting in question. This may involve the concept of God, but a similar discussion could be triggered by many other issues. In this paper the following words are considered synonymous: belief, experience, view and approach. In the sentences where one of these appears, the others would serve as well.
Here are the some of the problems mentioned during discussions of the place of religious skeptics in Quaker meetings.
1) Accepting skeptics would mean the meeting would have to admit everyone who applies.
2) Skeptics reject the views of others and that limits the relationship we can have. I question whether skeptics can respect people whose views they dismiss. I don’t trust that they will behave appropriately (leading ethical lives, behaving as Quakers traditionally do, and so on.)
3) Skeptics aren’t doing what we do when we engage in typical Quaker behavior. If someone in the meeting is doing something different than the rest of us, it interferes with the group’s efforts. This can be when we worship, seek a sense of the meeting or clearness or discernment, when we search for God’s will, or receive divinely inspired messages or leadings, or when we engage in actions that are faith based.
4) Why would a skeptic go to meeting for worship? For them it is just a form of human fellowship. They would be better off going where people agree with them.
5) It would destroy our identity as Quakers and the unity of our meeting communities.
6) It would end all hope of accommodation with other branches of the Religious Society of Friends. It would also lessen the possibility of cooperation with other faith communities.
7) This isn’t what Quakers have traditionally stood for.
Whatever you say, I just can not abide accepting skeptics into membership.
Here are some of the ways a person could reply when these problems are raised:
1) Accepting skeptics would mean the meeting would have to admit everyone who applies.
a) There is still the clearness process. Membership is limited to occasions where the applicant and the meeting are clear that the step is appropriate, where the applicant has already become and active participant in the meeting community. All of this is true of any applicant, not just the skeptic.
b) There are meetings that have admitted skeptics and yet they don’t simply admit everyone. There are yearly meeting disciplines that encourage doctrinally open membership. (Also see 2b, 3h, 5c & d, 6e, 8b)
c) Let’s attend to the act of living as Quakers rather than the particulars of Quaker thought. Let’s attend to the lives we lead and set aside how we explain those lives. It is often said that you can see people’s beliefs in their lives; isn’t that sufficient? I am uncomfortable insisting on particular ways of talking. (Also see 2c, 3b, 5b, 6c)
d) Quaker beliefs are sets from which we each take some items and leave others. No one belief need be required.
e) This would not open membership to just anybody, but it would open our membership to many new Friends. (Also see 6g)
2) Skeptics reject the views of others and that limits the relationship we can have. I question whether skeptics can respect people whose views they dismiss. I don’t trust that they will behave appropriately (leading ethical lives, behaving as Quakers traditionally do, and so on.)
a) We can love people we disagree with, in fact we are enjoined to do so. Our survival may depend on becoming ever more capable of this. Let it begin in our lives and in our meetings. We all have experienced love that transcends barriers and this barrier of doctrinal differences can be transcended. People live good lives, even Quaker lives, while holding dramatically different beliefs. People also live bad lives while holding beliefs similar to ours. It is best to treat people individually, to reach out to the person behind what is said.
b) There are already differences in belief lovingly accepted by our members. Why must this suddenly stop when the issue is theism or Christianity? We can reject the views and still accept the person.
c) Are we going to deny the Quaker way of life to people of a particular outlook regardless of the lives they are leading? Let each person’s life be a witness to that person’s faith.
d) Some assertions about what skeptics think of you may reflect what you think of them. Perhaps they react to you differently. Do not assume skeptics are what you would be like without your faith; this is not necessarily what they are like.
3) Skeptics aren’t doing what we do when we engage in typical Quaker behavior. If someone in the meeting is doing something different than the rest of us, it interferes with the group’s efforts. This can be when we worship, seek a sense of the meeting or clearness or discernment, when we search for God’s will, or receive divinely inspired messages or leadings, or when we engage in actions that are faith based.
a) I can behave as you do, as do those who believe differently, as if we agreed – and do so sincerely. Quakerism is available to all.
b) Quaker behavior is independent of the explanations of it. The behavior of Friends, within the meeting and in the rest of the world, is independent of the behavior of explaining that behavior. Quaker behavior can and does combine with a variety of ways of talking about that behavior, and this is not limited to theists or any other particular religious doctrine. Let’s attend to all our behavior not just how we talk.
c) Your way is fine for you, and I support you, but is it appropriate to apply your way to me? Must I agree with you to be a member of this meeting?
d) Friends have acknowledged that people’s experiences differ and they have succeeded in building a religious society in which this is accepted.
e) Your definitions are not the only ones. Individual Friends are enjoined to interpret what they read, to consider it in light of the times or experiences of the authors and of the readers. The same is true of speakers and listeners. This may mean expressing the spirit of the message in new ways.
f) Skeptics vary. For instance the skeptic may have an experience of God but it may be different from that of another Friend. Or the skeptic may be living without the concept of God while acknowledging it as important to others. Each skeptic has to be listened to individually. I dream of a Religious Society of Friends open to people who speak of their beliefs differently, a Society that declares this to the world.
g) Faith and action have a more varied relation than just that of faith being a source of action. Action can be a direct response to circumstances, not mediated by ones faith. (Some say this was how Friends behaved in the first years.) Faith can be a collateral effect caused by whatever caused the action. Sometimes faith grows out of action, or simply justifies the action. Faith and action do not always correlate: you will find people of different faiths taking the same action and people of the same faith taking markedly different actions. We can relax about the differences in our faiths and cooperate even as we differ.
h) There are skeptics you know and love but you don’t know they are skeptics! The same is true of leading Friends in the past who kept their views to themselves. Wonderful Quaker lives are and have been accompanied by a wonderful variety of Quaker beliefs.
i) Of course, I may be doing just what you are doing in meeting but talking about it differently. Maybe God believes in all people, not just those who believe in God. Maybe God is influencing my actions and acting through me, challenging you to find new ways to be loving toward those whose experience of the world differs from your own, even to accepting their presence in your meeting community.
4) Why would a skeptic go to meeting for worship? For them it is just a form of human fellowship. They would be better off going where people agree with them.
a) The behavior of worshiping can be fulfilling however you talk about it. Worship can be explained in theistic terms but that is not the only way.
b) The skeptic goes to meeting for many of the same reasons the theist does, such as for the calm centering effect, the inspiration of the messages, the opportunity to consider serious issues.
c) For whatever reasons meeting for worship and other aspects of Quaker life have become central to me.
d) Worship is human fellowship of a particular kind unlike any other in my experience.
e) We don’t have to agree in order to love each other and worship together and otherwise cooperate.
5) It would destroy our identity as Quakers and the unity of our meeting communities.
a) Unity can be directly established rather than by first establishing agreement on beliefs. Unity on the basis of agreement is one way but not the only way of finding unity. There are many examples of united groups (such as families) where the members disagree on fundamental points of religious faith. Quaker unity and Quaker sense of the meeting goes deeper than agreement; it is a willingness to go forward together, to act as you would if you agreed.
b) We can unite on daily life rather than how we talk about it; on lives rather than notions about lives. This can be a common ground that allows disparate groups to move forward in unity.
c) There are monthly meetings where Friends have a great diversity of religious experience and yet are a unified religious community. It can happen, and its vital that we learn to encourage it to happen.
d) There is already a lot of doctrinal diversity in your meeting. There is no need to change this. There is a need to understand more about the implications of a commitment to diversity.
6) It would end all hope of accommodation with other branches of the Religious Society of Friends. It would also lessen the possibility of cooperation with other faith communities.
a) It would be a false accommodation if we are required to deny membership to deserving people, or ask them to reject their sincerely held views, or to hold these views in private but not speak of them openly.
b) We are called to show love to those with whom we disagree, and to seek new ways to do so.
c) There is much common ground between the groups of Friends.
d) This separation is sad but we have been separate before and it has not been the end of the Religious Society of Friends.
e) There have been examples of love across this divide and there will be again.
f) If it were not this issue that divides us, it might be another such as the presence of people who do not accept Jesus as their savior, or who are gay.
g) Although accepting skeptics would make some relations more difficult it would open the way for other relations. Many people in coming years may find a religious home among Friends who would not if we define Quakerism narrowly.
7) This isn’t what Quakers have traditionally stood for.
a) Friends have continually changed over the years, and this will go on. We would all be heretics to many of the early Friends. Quakers have always had their skeptics that have caused concern at one time and were later accepted, such as the deists and unitarians, to which I would add naturalists (including nonmystics and nontheists) and universalists (including nonChristians).
b) Religious skepticism is consistent with many Quaker traditions such as the authority of the individual, the importance of being seekers, the absence of a creed, the need for interpretation (let speakers speak and listeners translate), an acceptance of change (continuing revelation), an emphasis on the daily act of living, and placing of community over doctrinal conformity.
c) Early Friends were not as attached as we might think to particular formulations of belief. They were impelled to act by the circumstances they encountered. Later this was codified as a set of principles. Traditionally Quakers have been leery of “notions”, putting their faith in experience and trusting each person’s experience and accepting the diversity of experience.
Whatever you say, I just can not abide accepting skeptics into membership.
a) Let’s live with this situation some more; perhaps a way to abide our differences will be found. For the time being let’s continue onward together. Let love work.
b) You are comfortable with some differences in belief already, perhaps with more different than you know.
c) The views of religious skeptics vary a lot. There is as much variety among Quaker nontheists as among Quaker theists. You need to take us individually. Some will be easier to abide than others.
d) My manner of presenting these views is not a necessary part of the views. Perhaps I am too argumentative or overly intellectual. We skeptics are few and new voices will emerge that are more varied and effective.
SOME GENERAL COMMENTS:
Much of what has been suggested above is useful to all Friends, whatever their personal beliefs. (See 1a, 2a, 3a & b, 5a & b, 8a & b)
Some of the replies apply to several of the problems. Here are six replies that come up in discussions of most of the problems. These are closely related to each other: if you accept one, the others can derive from that. Some of them may speak to any one person more than others.
a) The behavior of a Quaker can be separated from explanations of that behavior. There are many ways to describe what Quakers do, no one’s way is the only way. We can still talk with each other by translating what the other is saying into our own terms. (See 3a & b & c & e, 4a)
b) I am a Quaker, and engage in Quaker behavior, and enjoy Quaker behavior for many of the same reasons you do. This is clear when you are not speaking theistically, such as some of your description of the benefits of a meeting for worship. When you are speaking theistically, then we may be saying the same things in different words. (See 4b)
c) We don’t have to agree in order to love each other and worship together and cooperate. It is vital that we learn to do this. (See 2a, 4e, 5a, 6b & e)
d) Let’s center on the act of living as a Quaker rather than particulars of Quaker thought. Let’s try to live as well as we can. (See 1c, 2c, 3b, 5b, 6c)
e) For whatever reason, there are skeptics for whom Quaker behavior is vital to their lives. I am one of these and there are many others. Apparently Quaker behavior can be reached by many paths. (See 1b, 2b, 3h, 4c & d, 5c & d, 6c, 8b)
f) When I behave as a Quaker perhaps I am doing what you do but talking about it differently. Perhaps God is moving in my life, even as I deny it. Isn’t the important thing that it is happening? (Only mentioned in 3i but may be helpful in any discussion.)
Let’s look at the issue of diversity, rather than any particular example of it such as nontheism or nonChristianity. How can we love people we do not agree with?
I do not seek to impose my views on you except by asking you to accept my presence, to love me as you love those you agree with, to help me be a Friend. I am asking you to accept that there are many ways to be a Friend and this is not restricted to people who hold certain views about God. I am not asking you to change your views about God; I celebrate your way which is a good way for you.
Is this an issue of the limits of the Quaker approach? Do Friends treat people differently according to the views they hold about God? Can panentheists be Quakers but not pantheists? Or pantheists but not agnostics? Or agnostics but not atheists? Or Christian theists but not nonChristian theists? Perhaps when people cross the line from one of these beliefs to another they do not change but our reactions to them change. Is the umbrella of Quaker love just for theists? Can skeptics live as other Friends do?
Instead of focusing on our differences we can look at what sort of Quaker lives people are leading and how we are functioning as a religious community and let this guide our discernment of how to proceed on the question of membership? There are examples of Quaker lives accompanied by views you reject and of harmony in the meetings where these skeptics are members. The issue is not whether diversity in a meeting is possible but how to make it work.
It is difficult to know when to bring up which points, and how to do it so there is a positive discussion rather than just a hardening of positions. One must wait before speaking as one waits in meeting for worship. We are each different. We need to learn from each other. Please send in your comments so that these materials will become more useful to those who would engage in these dialogues.
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