Reviving Quakerism in the New Millennium
What are our truths? What do we believe as a community? What is our witness in the world today? How are we building the Beloved Kingdom here on Earth? Quakerism is not a do-it-yourself individualistic religion. If it is, why do we even come to Meeting for Worship anymore?
The process proved difficult more for legal than technical reasons, he said, and Concord Quakers hope its success “will inspire other churches, nonprofits, and private homeowners to form their own groups.”
http://www.concordmonitor.com/solar-power-quaker-canterbury-group-net-metering-17129177
Earlham college profesor and Quaker author Michael Birkel decided to reach across religious divides by simply talking to his neighbors, a project which came to span the United States: Reading the Qur’an as a Quaker
What is it like to read someone else’s scripture? I think it’s quite possible that it can change you in ways that I can’t predict for any reader, except to say that it will make your life richer.
In addition to the QuakerSpeak video there’s also a book of Birkel’s project, Qu’ran in Conversation.
I have an Ask Me Anything request from reader Ruby M:
Hello! I’m studying The Friends Church for academic purposes and I’d love to hear from someone with firsthand experience. How easy is it to become a quaker? Do you ever feel people treat you differently because you’re a quaker? Do you think there should be more representation of quakers in the media? Thank you so much for your time. I’m very eager to hear back from you!
Since my experience is just one data point, I hope others will use the comment section below to add their stories.
I found becoming a Quaker to be something of a spiral process. I first walked into a Friends meetinghouse at the age of 20 and only slowly took on an identity as a Friend. At each step of the process, I learned more clearly what that might mean and have strived to grow into deeper faithfulness. I didn’t formally apply for membership until a decade or so after I became a regular attender. This time lag is not unheard of but I don’t think it’s usual. It’s more of an insight into my own carefulness and reticence about joining things than it is an indication of anything the meetings I attended required. When I did finally apply for membership I was quite qualified and wanted the clearness process to be exacting: again, this is an insight into my psyche!
Most people on the street don’t quite know what Quakers are so I can’t say I’m always treated differently. I guess seeing more Quakers in the media would be helpful, though given our overall small numbers I suspect even our fleeting appearances in TV shows and movies are more than we might proportionally expect.
I’m interested to hear how other Friends would answer Ruby’s question.
Jessica F: I’ve wanted to be a Quaker since I learned about the Abolitionists who helped with the Underground Railroad and prison reform. Unfortunately, the movie Gentle Persuasion presented Quakers as being against music so I became a Unitarian instead. Eventually I learned that wasn’t true for many Quakers and I found that all of the values I had developed through the years were also Quaker values and so becoming a Quaker gave me a support system and a community of like minds.
So a curious statistic: so far no one has submitted any articles for the August Friends Journal issue, “Going Viral with Quakerism.” Is this a sign that we’ve all just given up all hope of Quaker spirituality making a difference in the world?
Probably not: there are many issues for which we only get submissions in the last week before deadline (or the week after deadline, which is not to be encouraged). But if you are thinking of writing, or have been meaning to encourage a friend with vision to send us something, then by all means sit down in front of a keyboard.
Also, the issue after that is non-themed. If you’ve ever had any questions for writing a general submission, let me know in the comments or direct message me. I’m writing something about that process this week.
Sam Barnett-Cormack brings a grammarian’s eye to our use of the old Quaker phrase, “The Things Which Are Eternal”:
To know one another in that which is eternal is to share our grace, our Light, our spiritual experience. It goes beyond the sort of knowing that might come from social activities and icebreakers; indeed, it is of an entirely different character… For it comes down to this – to know one another in that which is eternal is to know the Divine, and to know the Divine is to know one another in this way; they are two sides of one coin, and we can only promote one by also promoting the other.
https://quakeropenings.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/what-are-things-which-are-eternal.html
Chris Hardie’s semi-viral manifesto championing the open internet isn’t about Quakerism per se, but Chris is a Friend (and one time web host to everything Quaker within a hundred miles of Richmond, Ind.). Since the rise of corporate gate-keeping websites and then social media, I’ve worried that they represent some of the largest and least visible threats to the Quaker movement.
I use it all as a tool, for sure. But there are many ways in which we’re increasingly defined by corporations with no Quakers and no interest in us except for whatever engagement numbers they can generate. Look at the nonsense at many of the open Quaker Facebook groups as an obvious example. People with limited experience or knowledge and relatively fringe ideas can easily dominate discussion just by posting with a frequency that involved or careful Friends couldn’t match. Facebook doesn’t care if it’s a zoo as long as people come back to read the latest outrageous comment thread. Just because the topic is Quaker doesn’t mean the discourse really holds well to our values, historical or modern.
Add to this that Google and Facebook could make any of our Quaker-owned websites nearly invisible with a tweak of algorithms (this is not hypothetical: Facebook has dinged most publisher Pages over the years).
The open web has a lot of pluses. I’m glad to see a Friend among its prominent champions and I’d like to see Quaker readers seeking it out more (most easily by straying of Facebook and subscribing to blogs’ email lists). From Hardie:
Of course, there is an alternative to Facebook and other walled gardens: the open web. The alternative is the version of the Internet where you own your content and activity, have minimal dependence on third party business models, can discover new things outside of what for-profit algorithms show you, and where tools and services interact to enhance each other’s offerings, instead of to stamp each other out of existence.
https://chrishardie.com/2018/04/rebuilding-open-web/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
I’ve enjoyed John Jeremiah Edminster’s comments over the years, which is one reason I was happen to get the submission that became The Cost of a Healing Gift. It starts with the story of having a gift of ministry recognized but what I like even more is that he talks about his journey exploring and developing it. What’s surprising is that is he’s far from a purist:
we went to weekend training workshops; we read the writings of Christian healers; shamanic healers; and practitioners of Reiki, traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, and homeopathy. I longed to be able to inspect people’s etheric and astral bodies, their chakras and marmas, with a diagnostician’s eye. So long as it involved no straying from Christ, I aspired to know how to mobilize healing virtues in plant spirits, minerals, colors, and sounds, and how to recognize “holy” places.
Some of this reminds me of the wonderful work of the eighteen-century Friend Samuel Bownas, whose book A Description of the Qualifications Necessary to a Gospel Minister is full of very useful advice on ministry and warnings about pitfalls — romantic attachments, undue politicization.
Friends Journal 