In Fall 2005 I led a six-week Quakerism 101 course at Medford (NJ) Monthly Meeting. It went very well. Medford has a lot of involved, weighty Friends (some of them past yearly meeting clerks!) and I think they appreciated a fresh take on an introductory course. The core question: how might we teach Quakerism today?
This is the proposal for the course. I started off with a long introduction on the history and philosophy of Quaker religious education and pedagogic acculturation and go on to outline a different sort curriculum for Quakerism 101.
I took extensive notes of each session and will try to work that feedback into a revised curriculum that other Meetings and Q101 leaders could use and adapt. In the meantime, if you want to know how specific sessions and rolesplays went, just email me and I’ll send you the unedited notes. If you’re on the Adult Religious Ed. committee of a South Jersey or Philadelphia area Meeting and want to bring me to teach it again, just let me know.
Thoughts on a Quakerism 101 Course
Over the last few years, there seems to be a real groundswell of interest in Quakers trying to understand who we are and where we came from. There’s a revival of interst in looking back at our roots, not for history or orthodoxy’s sake, but instead to trying to tease out the “Quaker Treasures” that we might want to reclaim. I’ve seen this conversation taking place in all of the branches of Friends and it’s very hopeful.
I assume at least some of the participants of the Quakerism 101 course will have gone through other introductory courses or will have read the standard texts. It would be fun to give them all something new – luckily there’s plenty to choose from! I also want to expose participants to the range of contemporary Quakerism. I’d like participants to understand why the other branches call themselves Friends and to recognize some of the pecularities our branch has unconsciously adopted.
Early Friends didn’t get involved in six-week courses. They were too busy climbing trees to shout the gospel further, inviting people to join the great movement. Later Quietist Friends had strong structures of recorded ministers and elders which served a pedagogic purpose for teaching Friends. When revivalism broke out and brought overwhelmingly large numbers of new attenders to meetings, this system broke down and many meetings hired ministers to teach Quakerism to the new people. Around the turn of the century, prominent Quaker educators introduced academic models, with courses and lecture series. Each of these approaches to religious education fiddles with Quakerism and each has major drawbacks. But these new models were instituted because of very real and ongoing problems Friends have with transmitting our faith to our youth and acculturating new seekers to our Quaker way.
The core contradiction of a course series is that the leader is expected to both impart knowledge and to invite participation. In practice, this easily leads to situations where the teacher is either too domineering _or_ too open to participation. The latter seems more common: Quakerism is presented as a least-common-denominator social grouping, formless, with membership defined simply by one’s comfortability in the group (see Brinton’s Friends for 300 Years.) One of the main goals of a introductory course should be to bring new attenders into Quaker culture, practice and ethics. There’s an implicit assumption that there is something called Quakerism to teach. Part of that job is teasing out the religious and cultural models that new attenders are bringing with them and to open up the question as to how they fit or don’t fit in with the “gestalt” of Quakerism (Grundy, Quaker Treasures and Wilson’s Essays on the Quaker Vision).
The greatest irony behind the Quakerism 101 class is that its seemingly-neutral educational model lulls proudly “unprogrammed” Friends into an obliviousness that they’ve just instituted a program led by a hireling minister. Arguments why Q101 teachers should be paid sounds identical to arguments why part-time FUM ministers should be paid. A Q101 leader in an unprogrammed meeting might well want to acknowledge this contradiction and pray for guidance and seek clearness about this. (For my Medford class, I decided to teach it as paid leader of a class as a way of disciplining myself to practice of my fellow Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Friends.)
The standard Quakerism 101 curriculum compartmentalizes everything into neat little boxes. History gets a box, testimonies get a box, faith and institutions get boxes. I want to break out of that. I can recommend good books on Quaker history and point participants to good websites advocating Quaker testimonies. But I want to present history as current events and the testimonies as ministry. The standard curriculum starts with some of the more controversial material about the different braches of Friends and only then goes into worship, the meeting life, etc. I want discussion of the latter to be informed by the earlier discussion of who we are and who we might be. The course will start off more structured, with me as leader and become more participatory in the later sections.
Curriculum:
What I want to do is have one solid overview book and supplement it with some of those fascinating (and coversation-sparking!) pamphlets. The overview book is Thomas Hamm’s Quakers in America. Published last year, it’s the best introduction to Quakerism in at least a generation. Hamm wrote this as part of a religions of America series and it’s meant as a general introduction to contemporary Quakerism. His later chapters on debates within Quakerism should be easy to adapt for a Q‑101 series.
Session I: Introductions
- Worship
- In-class reading of two pages from Quakers in America (profile of Ohio Yearly Meeting sessions, p. 1), reflections. (maybe start this class 2?)
- Introductions to one another.
Session II: What Are Our Models
- Worship
- In-class reading of two pages from Quakers in America (profile of First Friends Church of Canton, p. 3), reflections.
- What are our models? Roleplay of “What Would X Do?” with a given problem: JC, George Fox, Methodists, Non-denominational bible church, college. Also: the “natural breaking point” model of Quaker divisions.
- Reading for this class: “Convinced Quakerism” by Ben Pink Dandelion
Session III: The Schisms
- Worship
- In-class reading of two pages from Quakers in America (profile of Wilmington Yearly Meeting sessions, p. 5), reflections.
- Reading for this class: Quakers in America chapter 3, “Their Separate Ways: American Friends Since 1800,” about the branches
Session IV: Role of our Institutions
- Worship
- In-class reading of two pages from Quakers in America (profile of Lake Erie Yearly Meeting, p. 7), reflections.
- Reading for this class: “The Authority of Our Meetings…” by Paul Lacey
Session V: Controversies within Friends
- Could pick any 2 – 3 controversies of Hamm’s: “Is Quakerism Christian?,” “Leadership,” “Authority,” “Sexuality,” “Identity,” “Unity and Diversity,” “Growth and Decline.” Early in the course I could poll the group to get a sense which ones they might want to grapple with. The idea is not to be thorough covering all the topics or even all the intricacies within each topic. I hope to just see if we can model ways of talking about these within Medford.
- Reading for this class: Quakers in America chapter 5, “Contemporary Quaker Debates,” p. 120
Session VI: Role of worship, role of ministry, role of witnesses.
- Focusing on Worship/Ministry (Witness)/MM Authority (Elders). If the calendar allows for eight sessions, this could easily be split apart or given two weeks.
- Reading for this class: “Quaker Treasures” by Marty Paxton Grundy, which ties together Gospel Order, Ministries and the Testimonies.
Session VII: What kind of religious community do we want Medford MM to be?
- This should be participatory, interactive. There should be some go-around sort of exercise to open up our visions of an ideal religious community and what we think Medford Meeting might be like in 5, 10, 25 years.
- Reading for this class: “Building the Life of the Meeting” by Bill & Fran Taber (1994, $4). I’ve heard there’s something recent from John Punshon which might work better.
- Also: something from the emergent church movement to point to a great people that might be gathered. Perhaps essays from Jordan Cooper & someone at Circle of Hope/Phila.
Books Used:
- “Quakers in America” is Thomas Hamm’s excellent new introduction to Friends is a bit pricey ($40) but is adapting well to a Q101 course.
- “Convinced Quakerism” by Ben Pink Dandelion mixes traditional Quaker understadings of convincement with Ben’s personal story and it sparked a good, wideranging discussion. $4.
- “Quaker Treasures” by Marty Grundy. $4
- “The Authority of Our Meetings…” by Paul Lacey. $4
- “Building the Life of the Meeting” by Bill and Fran Taber. $4
Considered Using:
- “Why Friends are Friends” by Jack Willcuts. $9.95. I like this book and think that much of it could be used for a Q101 in a liberal-branch Friends Meeting. Chapters: “The Wonder of Worship,” “Sacred Spiritual Sacraments,” “Called to Ministry,” “Letting Peace Prevail,” “Getting the Sense of the Meeting,” “On Being Powerful” – I find the middle chapters are the more interesting/Quaker ones).
- Silence and Witness by Michael Birkel. I haven’t read through this yet, but in skimming the chapters it looks like Birkel shys away from challenging the Quaker status quo. Within that constraint, however, it looks like a good introduction to Quakerism. $16.
- “Quaker Culture vs. Quaker Faith” by Samuel Caldwell.
- The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Quakerism 101 curriculum. It’s not as bad as it could be but it’s too heavy on history and testimonies and too focused on the Jones/Brinton view of Quakerism which I think has played itself out. I’ve seen Q101 facilitators read directly out of the curriculum to the glazed eyes of the participants. I wanted something fresher and less course-like.
I recently fell in love with Rufus Jones again. As someone who is not a Friend, but a friend of Friends (and an Earlham alumnus) I am most moved by what he has to say to all of us, both inside and outside your Society. I hope Quakers don’t feel they have “moved beyond” someone who used traditional Christian language as Jones did, often to express universal truth, but often to express things he felt to be the particular gifts of Christ. I draw on him extensively in the essay on Purpose linked to from my web page referenced above.
Want to come to my Meeting to teach? 🙂 This is a great beginning! I like the way that you interweave the various “teaching” strands typical in other Quaker 101’s (history, testimonies, etc.). It’s also great that you’re including information about the various different forms of Quakerism (many Friends & newcomers are typically unaware of these differences).
Do you plan to do more lecturing/pedigogical, discussions, or worship-sharing? I agree that there is a strong bias toward the latter two versus the first approach. However, my experience is that new comers typically want to learn SOMETHING versus only listening to others’ opinions/personal experiences about the topic or sitting in silence. I’d be interested in learning more on how you envision the process of the classes will go.
Also, regarding the controversies: although it seems like a good idea to focus on those that the group was most interested in, I find that I am more comfortable in leading such discussions where I have more experience with the controversy (e.g. Christianity, sexuality). Just a thought…
I’m interested in learning more about this curriculum and how the exerpeince goes for you and the group!
As I read your curriculum, the thought that kept running through my head was “I hope he’s not going to lecture too much and I hope that there are a few long-time Friends in the group as well as newcomers” and then I read Joe G’s response. I thought then about difference.
Joe assigns a certain kind of learning style to all newcomers and I am not one of those kind of learners.
The Q101 class I took eight or nine years ago was led by a birthright Friend who I felt intimidated by. She seemed so centered and always said the right things at Meeting for Worship for Business. The class was made up of newcomers and not-so-newcomers and longtime Friends.
We read Friends for 300 Years as well as excerpts from other things (that I don’t remember). I didn’t learn anything from the books and readings. I am an experiential learner – I learned that this birthright Friend didn’t have any better access to God than I did. I learned that we truly are all equal. This Friend who taught Q101 humbled herself before us and God.
The class taught me all those things. And it taught me that I had a lot more to learn about Quakerism and the only way to do that (because we are *ahem* apophatic) is to experience it over years.
So my advice to you is to be humble and not stress one kind of learning style over another. People will come to your class for different reasons and all get different things out of it.
Thanks for igniting this good set of comments!
And thanks for mentioning Why Friends Are Friends by our late pastor Jack Willcuts. By the way, this booklet has been translated into Russian, along with another Northwest Quaker’s book, Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline. I’m part of a small group that is trying to pin down good materials for use with inquirers and at inquirers’ retreats in Russia; a current project is the translation of Wilmer Cooper’s A Living Faith.
Jeanne’s comments are very wise. Self-disclosure is so important. Autobiography (“testimony”!) is, for some of us, the most powerful communicator of spirituality.
Mary Kay Rehard has written some wonderful introductions to Friends faith and practice for use in Kenya. Somehow she has managed to produce material that doesn’t presuppose intellectual sophistication (yes, I know that’s a problematic label!!) while retaining genuine depth. I hope this material becomes available here someday.
Speaking of Kenya, the Pendle Hill Pamphlets by Liz and Tom Gates are an introduction to at least one segment of the Quaker-Africa relationship. I’ve actually used them as “tracts” to introduce Friends.
Finally: Reedwood Friends Church uses our yearly meeting’s Faith and Practice as our primary text for our equivalent classes, supplementing as needed with other material. The book is used not to indoctrinate but to organize all the disparate dimensions of Quaker history and belief and organizational details in a way that gives newcomers insights into the actual processes that are going on around them, and also gives them permission to question the discrepancies they sometimes see between what we say and what we do.
What was so wonderful to me, as a person who was raised entirely as a Charismatic Christian, was discovering what Quakerism wasn’t. 🙂
Just found your blog, and I find it fascinating. Can’t wait to digest your writings. I belong to an Evangelical Friends church, but find myself moving a bit more towards the classic liberal Quaker stances. I have put to your blog at my blog. Hope my readers find their way to you.
Friend Martin, I’ve been wondering how this course went/is going, if it’s already been done? I’m devouring all I can learn these days — there have been murmurs of a Q101 course at 15th St — only faint rustlings, mind you, and I’m curious about how it might go.
Hi Amanda! Actually the course finished up the past First Day. It went surprisingly well. Medford can be a bit of an intimidating Meeting: there’s a Quaker retirement community nearby and lots of very experienced weighty Friends. But they were all very open to talking about the issues I raised and quite willing to engage in the exercises I put them through (“Friends, we have a problem. Lil’ ol’ Obadiah’s grown up and he’s just signed up for the Marines…”). The last session turned out to be about attracting young seekers and while I don’t think I was fully heard, it was still an important discussion.
I took pretty extensive notes after each of the sessions. I’d like to rework the curriculum to reflect the changed I’d make if I were to do it again. I’m still sceptical of the “Quakerism 101” model but I hope 15th Street will have some adult R.E. program to help pull you into the fold and stoke the fires higher!
Right now I am reading Friends for 350 years — and seeking out some of the other reading material you suggested.
Last 1st day there was a mini seminar on traditional Quaker practices, such as eldering and vocal ministry. What was fascinating was that it quickly turned into a very gathered meeting with a concern for the life of the meeting. There have been about half a dozen seekers of about my age attending the meeting on and off — and a Friend raised the question of attracting younger members, or fallen away teenage and twenties friends — this lead to some great discussions, and though I didn’t end up learning much new about Quaker traditions, I did end up meeting many friends I had only exchanged friendly glances with at social hour. We are going to organize a young friend’s meeting for Weds nights, with older seasoned friends attending and being open for questions afterwards. There seems to be a renewed interest in uniting the generations and reaching out to newcomers in a more meaningful way. A visiting friend from another meeting said that they had just discovered that that the teenagers in her meeting were not attending the First Day meeting but were quietly arranging and holding their own meetings — and she was shocked at how “hardcore” and faithful they were. “I think we are too “tame” for them.” she said. Another young friend, also in his early twenties, who was in attendence and myself acknowledged that we too have a desire for something deeper, and for the traditions and fire of the first Friends.
I don’t know what fruit will come of it, but it was a very hopeful afternoon.
Amanda
I forgot to say — I bet if you typed up some of the notes, we’d be interested in seeing them here!
A
Hi Amanda, the Wednesday night groups sound great. I’m kind of wanting something like that in Philadelphia. I have almost constant conversations with twenty- and thirty-something Friends and seekers who do want to be serious and involved – that line about most meetings being “too tame” really rings true. I’d dare say that most of my peers have left, incredibly frustrated and I’d really hate if another generation left because older Quakers didn’t tend the fire. I don’t know why anyone would think twenty-somethings would be anything other than “hardcore.” Why do we sell young ministers so short?
_Friends for 350 Years_ is dated and tends toward that 1950s outward affiability, but it’s a good way of understanding where that generation of Friends is coming from. Tell your meeting librarian that he needs to order a supply of the new _Quakers in America._ It’s pricier but _so_ much better. And as I’ve written Samuel Bownas’s _Description of the Qualifications Necessary for Gospel Ministry” is a breath of fresh seventeenth century air: wonderful and also something I totally thing you should read.
Well, I was warned by the librarian that I have two months to think up good reasons why I shouldn’t be on the library committee because come January he wants me there. Should that come to pass, I will certainly turn to you for more suggestions. As it is I am going to ask Eli to order those books.
It was really very touching to see the eagerness with which some of the older friends responded to the comments that I, a bold newcomer who seems to have dropped out of the sky and this other young man, who had just attended his 2nd meeting there offered. While I agree that there can be a degree of smugness in the older generations, I think there has also been fault on the side of younger people for not speaking out and making their needs known.
I have taken inspiration from the way you don’t back down when rebuffed — and I think it is equally important not to back down if we feel ignored or unheard. I think that examples of that Early Quaker cleverness, humour, earnestness, and fire, administered in regular doses, might unblock some plugged ears. If we want to be serious and involved, we shouldn’t wait to be invited. Why the constant conversations instead of constant action? We should organise, attend our meetings for business, put forth our ideas, plans, dreams — and then put them into action. As long as we give up, drifting away, licking our wounds about how the present state of the society doesn’t speak to our condition, nothing is going to change.
I’m not sure where I am going to find all these other young people for our Weds. meeting — friends like you and I seem to be scattered. But if I build it, I have faith they will come.
I am going to take full advantage of what I know is perceived by some as typical newly-convinced overeagerness. Perhaps it is, but why not turn it to our advantage? We young and newly convinced Friends are not burnt out yet, we are not discouraged yet, we have not yet been lulled into a state of false complacency — and so it seems to me that this lot and responsibility falls naturally to us. Even if we are destined to become staid old back-benchers some day, why not leave something behind us?
Bah, I’ve just needed to blurt that for a bit. Thank thee for thy online ministry, Martin, it encouragesme, for one, very much.
Interesting development — one of our Elders discovered Quakers in America and LOVES it, and spontaneously decided it would be a great basis for a Q101 course. We were chatting about it, and so I sent him here.
This could be good!
Hi, Martin –
Finally, I’m getting around to reading your materials. I like your approach.
Every time I’ve taught Quakerism 101, I’ve started in a different place, depending upon the life and needs of the particular Meeting. I use the Q101 curriculum as a guide only, and have used Wilmer Cooper’s A Living Faith, with Tom Hamm’s book as a secondary text, along with Richard Foster’s and Jack Willcuts’ writings.
I particularly like the questions at the end of each chapter in Cooper’s book, and some of Richard Foster’s reflections.
When I teach Q101, I tend to start with church history, and weave into the discussion a comparison of Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, Calvinist and Pentecostal understandings. I feel it important to maintain perspective and to acknowledge previous religious experience as “spiritual stepping stones.” We’re not the “only kids on the block.”
I’m taking a break from all PYM committees/working groups to concentrate on writing and teaching. One of my hopes is emphasize deeper spiritual experiences within my Quarterly Meeting and my Monthly Meeting. Perhaps we should get together. All of us need something of substance… It isn’t just the 30-something folks.
Amanda, Martin, perhaps we should get together sometime in 2005. I hang out at the Tract Association office twice a week. We still have a few copies of the Bownas book.
Absolutely, Christine. There are so many of us active online-Quakers who should meet up. Martin, thee, me, Jeff Hipp, my 15th St. Friend Ryan, just to name a few.
One of the first things I did here in San Francisco (well, after six months) was to organize a Seeker’s Class. Some of my husband and my first dates were after a similar class at 15th St. in 1992. However, instead of a preprogrammed curriculum, I used the Pacific Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice as a text and invited Friends from our Meeting to teach different weeks of a six week series.
If I were to do it now, I would start with the premise that the main point of Quakerism is that God can change your life. And then look at how that happens and has happened in different ways at different times.
My favorite book of last year, maybe it’s the text for Quakerism 301, is Plain Living by Catherine Whitmire.
Yo Martin,
So quickly I find your web presence and my Friend friends Johan and Christine responding to it! Great to see you at QUIP again and I echo Johan’s appreciation for our late pastor Jack L. Willcuts.
I have been a yearly meeting representative from Reedwood long ago and participated in some revisions of the NWYM Faith and Practice. In my view, it needs to be revised again. That was the beginning of my huge respect for the editorial process vs. Friends and consensus. Gracious!
Glad also to see your use of the materials by Thomas Hamm and by Ben Pink Dandelion. This is an exciting time to be a Friend.
Blessings,
Rosalie V. Grafe
I was raised Baptist, in a small community. If I “converted” to Quakerism, would I have to move north, to Philidelphia or somewhere such as that?
Hi Laura: there are Quakers all over and most have introductory Quaker classes. You can see if one is listed in your local phone book or you can use an online service such as Quakerfinder.
Your Friend, Martin