Warning: insider Quaker conversation to follow.
Over on her blog Robin M has a great post looking at the Convergent Friend conversation now. It’s kind of State of the Convergent Friends report. It’s very good and well worth a read and makes me wonder again where exactly I stand.
Even though I was around at the gestation and birth of the term, and even though it originally referred to a small group of bloggers who I all love, I go back and forth between using and refusing to use the label. I don’t feel the need to always be explicitly “convergent.” Sometimes I can just embody the spirit of it, which as a renewal movement is really just the same old spirit of Quakerism, which as its own renewal movement is the same old spirit of Christianity, with is just that spirit which animates the world.
See: it’s too easy to throw up terms as a defense shield or as a way of boosting ourselves. I know I’m prone to this trap. I’ll say “I’m doing this as a [Convergent Friend/Quaker/Christian]” as if that explains anything, as if careful listening to the Holy Spirit isn’t all the authority that any of us needs.
I think a central part of the convergent experience is stepping outside of the institutional boxes and walking into the discomfort zone of our brand of Friends – asking the thorny questions and pointing out the inconvenient elephants. If “Convergent Friend” ever settles down into a set definition and annual rituals (like a Gathering interest group?), we’ll see our own brier patches take root along those inconvenient pathways.
I’ve noticed Friends with bright ideas brand and sell themselves, and have wondered to myself how freely the gospel spirit is moving after ten years of Gathering workshops and Pendle Hill workshops. I’m not so much purist that I don’t understand that sometimes those of us led to the ministry have to push through doubts and present things we’ve promised to present even if we’re not in the best mood (praying that we find that groove). But I’ve also sat through committee meetings that felt like the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day, where I look around and realize the same people have been sitting in the same room having the same conversation for twenty years, and everyone is just so tired and the feeling is they’re all reading a script and would want to be anywhere but where they are.
A friendly amendment to Convergent
Just the last thing is that for me if our work isn’t ultimately rooted in sharing the good news then it’s self-indulgent. I don’t want to create a little oasis or hippy compound of happy people. Friends aren’t going to go to heaven in our politically-correct smugness while the rest of the world is dying off. It’s all of us or none of us. If we’re not actively evangelizing <liberal translation: sharing the spiritual insights and gifts we’ve been given />, then we are part of the problem. “Convergence” is Quaker lingo. When we say it we’re turning our back to the world to talk amongst ourselves: a useful exercise occassionally but not our main work.
I’ve been reading a lot of seeker blogs where Quakers are mentioned and I’m struck by how so many of the words we routinely use in our blogs and self-statements are totally alien to others.
It may be too late to throw a switch on the quickly-gathering-steam train that is the “Convergent Friends” express. But here’s my friendly amendment: Convergent Friends need to be ready to get out of the Quaker conference centers and need to be ready to put aside the Quaker arcana we’ve accumulated over the years. If all we’re doing is sitting around talking to roomfulls of Quakers in our hopeless-inaccessible lingo then we’re fooling ourselves that any real renewal is happening.
Frankly, I have no idea what this would look like. I’m as clueless and scared by the possibilities as most of y’all. I just know we need to do it. Even if I had all the travel money and time in the world (I have neither), I don’t know if I’d have enough motivation to get to the next Barnesville / Greensboro / Richmond / Newberg / wherever conference (I just realized I’m reinforcing my last Quaker post!). I love meeting other Friends and I soooo miss seeing other Friends in my current relative isolation. But. But. I wish I had a better ending to this post. I guess I’ll just throw it out to the comments: what are we being called to do to send this work into the world?
I’ll say it out loud: I’m really hoping way will open for you to come to California in February.
Hi Cath: I don’t see how you could expect anything that’s a mix of Conservative Friends and Emergent Church to be anything but explicitly Christian.
For liberal Quakers the elephant in the middle of the room that we need to call out is the centrality of the living, risen Jesus to our faith. That will make some people uncomfortable and cause some to question their identity among Friends. Renewal movements don’t make for very good bandwagons I’m afraid.
I’m not particularly looking for another label to divide Friends. What I want is a society of un-hypenated Quakers (aka Quaker-Quakers). That can and should include a wide diversity of background and different emphases on faith and practice but the group should have more in common than not.
Martin – Your post spoke to me in so many ways! Thank you for the thoughts and suggestions. I’ve been wondering, myself, if there could be a place for people like me (non-Christian Friend) in the “Convergent” renewal, and haven’t yet felt there would be.
To be fair, sometimes names take on a life of their own. I think it’s human nature to seek handy ways of saying long thoughts in short ways. But I hope we are not wedded to the word “Convergent” as yet another adjective to put in front of the word Quaker (or Friend).
And also, changes do tend to gather steam after one or two (or a small group) start feeling the potential. What I hope folks will be wary of is simply jumping on the train, assuming that someone else will do all the thinking and defining.
I love the Convergent conversation for having put some life into the idea of renewal – an idea that I hear people mention and then not mention again, or never mention at all. At least now, people have some impulse to think about it, even if they are not so sure they want specific definitions just yet.
If “Convergent Friend” becomes yet another branch of the Quaker tree in the US, then I’m not interested. But if the discussions and insights lead us to new ways of relating to one another, new ways of bridging the divides already in place, and new ways of welcoming in those who may be following a Spirit who says “Bandwagons are not for thee” then we have the beginnings of something that will enhance us all as a greater body.
For over a year now, I have felt that there is a new day coming for Friends. I don’t know what it will look like, but I think the Covergent conversation will play a part in shaping it. I wouldn’t like to see this one aspect of a greater conversation overshadow other ways of envisioning the future, but it is good that people have the urge to start the ball rolling and then stick with that particular ball until others can get their balls in play.
cath
Martin – I agree with you that a mix of Conservative Friends and the Emergent Church is probably going to be Christian. But Friends (even those who believe that Jesus rose from the dead) have resisted making statements of creed for a long time.
I respect and gain great strength from the ministry of Jesus and try to let that be a guide for my life, but I part ways when it comes to things like the atonement and the resurrection, etc. So I find it hard to call myself a Christian when there are so many standardized belief points that the world at large feels defines a Christian.
I do, however, believe in God and God-in-Spirit.
It seems to me that any renewal of the RSOF that eliminates people and narrows the belief set is not a really a renewal at all – it’s a re-definition of what the entire religion is about. And it seems to ignore the workings of the Spirit, which isn’t bound by the limitations of humankind.
I came into the Quaker faith as a Christian by all standard definitions, and through many deep revelations have come to see that this is not my spiritual truth. I believe there are others like me who have moved away from certain aspects of Christianity (while holding onto others) using the practices and traditions of the Quaker faith, most especially a reliance on nurturing the inner guide and listening for leadings and promptings of God’s Spirit.
If we are following those leadings in good faith, it would be hurtful to close the door on us.
cath
Hey, Martin–
As always, a thoughtful and insightful (inciteful?) post. …This year at the “annual” interest group at FGC’s summer Gathering, I made it a point to say that while a number of Friends see me as a Convergent Friend, it’s not a label I use to describe myself. I also added that I don’t identify as a Christian but I labor over the Christ-centered nature of our faith.
It also wasn’t lost on me that there still are Friends coming to these events, wanting to understand what the heck is going on, can they be a part of it, etc. etc. A couple of Friends made it a point to approach me after the interest group and told me how alone they had been feeling and/or how unsure they were of how to get their meeting to start looking at some of the topics that the online conversation has been addressing.
So why do I participate in this conversation? Because there is Life in it for me. Because I grow into a more complete understanding of the Religious Society of Friends, across the schisms. Because I started a blog not to be part of an “in” crowd, but to add my voice to the discussion that was brewing about how to deepen the spiritual nature of our meetings without (1) blowing off the handle or (2) disappearing entirely.
Do I wrestle with Jesus at the center of our Quaker tradition? Yes. Do I see fruits of the love and faithfulness that a number of us have engaged in, since this whole Convergent conversation got started? Yes. Do I think the word “Convergence” should be put on hiatus for awhile? I don’t know. Let me sit with that…
Thanks for making me think… and for not (1) blowing off the handle or (2) disappearing entirely.
Blessings,
Liz Opp, The Good Raised Up
I’m not at all interested in an argument with you. If you want to write about your beliefs on your blog, that’s fine, but don’t start filling my comments up. You disagree. Great: noted. Now please move on, thanks.
Hi, Martin,
I don’t think we’ve ever conversed, but I really appreciate your work with quakerquaker.org as well as your own blog. Thanks.
Thanks also for this post. I, too, have been struggling with discussions about Convergent Friends. I like this point you made:
If all we’re doing is sitting around talking to roomfulls of Quakers in our hopeless-inaccessible lingo then we’re fooling ourselves that any real renewal is happening.
When I first heard about Convergent Friends (in Robin’s article in Friends Journal) I was beside myself with joy. I had been feeling for some time the movement of the Spirit towards a renewal among Friends, and here was confirmation that I was not alone. Others were being blown in a similar direction, and from many different places. Praise God! was my immediate reaction.
But our paths have not been made to cross just so we can sit back and marvel that our paths are crossing! We are called to live more authentic lives of faith and thereby help to bring about the Kingdom of God right here and now. We have been brought together to kick each of us out of our comfort zones and open us up to the presence of the Living Christ among us. We need each other for spiritual growth and encouragement. We don’t need each other for debating what we should be called or who should be considered “in” or “not in.”
Thanks for opening up this conversation in a way that encourages me. I am 100% aligned with the (Liberal Christian/Conservative Quaker/Progressive Evangelical) renewal that is upon us. I’m just finding no life in continuing to discuss “Convergent Friends” as if that should be our common goal. It is a convenient label so we can find each other, but then the label needs to be set aside so we can do the important task set before us: working for the Kingdom of God.
Cathy Habschmidt
Ohio Valley YM
Richmond, Indiana
I know of at least 4 worshipping groups which call themselves Emergent Quaker, 3 pastoral and 1 non-pastoral. Most of them don’t seem much tied into the Convergent Friends conversation. Are there any which call themselves Convergent Friends?
Convergent Friends gets a lot of attention because it is very public being based in blogs. But on the ground the Emergent Quaker movement seems much stronger. I guess one difference is that the Emergent Quaker movement doesn’t tend to feel much of a connection to Conservative Friends, while the CF conversation sometimes does. And Emergent Quakers are definitely interested in sharing the Good News.
There is actually considerable interest among pastoral Friends in learning from the Emerging Church movement. But most of them do not seem interested in Convergent Friends, and some of them are downright suspicious of it, mainly because elements of it seem to shy away from a focus on Jesus Christ.
Will “Convergent Friends” fade from the scene without leaving much of a noticeable impact? I think that’s a real possibility.
Martin, great thoughts and I completely agree with you on your main point/amendment. To be entirely evangelical there’s a sense in which the great commission needs to be behind this. That sense of “go” (or mission as sharing the good news) is to be the fundamental starting point for all the church not just this little group. While you call it an Amendment, I do want to suggest that this has been an important part of this entire thing for at least some of us. The very reason why I personally got interested in this is because of the point you make, and I know you, robin and others have been on the same page the whole time. Regardless, it’s a good corrective and reminder.
Bill — I’m a bit surprised by your comment. It’s weird to me that you want to draw some kind of line between “emerging Quaker congregations” and the convergent Friends. For one, there’s no more than 10 congregations we could rightly call emerging (so far as I know) and it’s a pretty early phenomena. I know of people who consider themselves convergent friends within at least some of these groups.
Plus, there’s hundreds of convergent friends, enough to say it’s a strong gathering of Quakers representing all the branches of Friends. I just did a workshop at woodbrooke for FAHE on the subject and there were professors and faculty there from Fox, Earlham, Haverford, Swarthmore and Guilford, all saying they have students who are interested in convergent friends and want to know more. That’s why they came to the workshop. Lots of pastoral Friends present, so I guess I’m making a bit of an apologetic and saying there’s more really exciting things happening than you may realize.
In my mind, from the very beginning of this entire conversation and the shape it now has, has always been about the emerging church and Quakerism. That is what convergent friends started as — a group of Friends (pastoral and unprogrammed) saying, “hey there’s something to this!” Yes, we also stress the importance of conservative friends (that part where they seek to be faithful too and conserve the lively parts of our tradition) but this stressing gets played out in the context of postmodernism. In my recent blog post I discussed the importance of holding “mission” and “tradition” together — here I would switch out the word “mission” for “emerging” or that sense of being contextual and organic and say this needs to be played out in the context of a faithful and living tradition. This tension is something that is essential in my view. If you have one without the other then we’re not doing something right. A lot (most in the US) of emerging churches are non-denominational, multi-traditional churches and this is a leftover of the individualism of modernity. I am truly interested in what it means to be an authentically Christian Quaker within our current cultural context.
It’s also the case that just because a group or meeting calls itself “emerging” doesn’t mean it is. Because the “is” is much more difficult to get at, and there’s no model or paradigm from which to import in, and if there were it’d hardly be emerging. My sense is that there’s a lot of meetings that don’t call themselves emerging who may be even more than those who do us the term. Just about every emerging church of the hundred surveyed in the Bolger and Gibbs text (2005) does not use that term within their name, or even as self-descriptors. So, I think the work needs to be done first on what it even means and looks like to have an “emerging quaker meeting” before we appeal to those who have a recognition of the term as our authority on the matter.
If anything I see the convergent friends and emerging meetings being two-sides of the same coin, and for some of us (who are convergent and in one of these meetings it may not even be separate sides!). Convergent Friends applaud these kinds of innovative meetings, we’re excited about them and hope to be a resource for them (It’s not the only thing we’re concerning ourselves with, but I think it’s fair to say we’re all excited it’s happening). The Lord knows we’ve covered a lot of literature on the subject! But further, what we’re doing is trying to open up the cracks in the institutional walls, the cobb-webby meetings, and the dispassionate Friends in our tradition to help people dream and have imagination about what our faith and practices can look like in the 21st century. So for me, it’s hard to imagine how there really could be one without the other.
I feel like we have seen, or at least I have (I don’t want to speak for others), a noticeable impact already. If convergent friends dropped off the face of the planet tomorrow I will feel like it would have been all worth it, and I feel like it will have left enough of an impression to hopefully keep the sparks flying. No reason to write it off from where I’m sitting.
On the other hand, and following Martin’s cue, let’s not take either of these terms “convergent” or “emergent” to seriously. They’ll both be out, and who really cares? The kingdom of God is what matters, that’s what remains, not terms or little groups, or what-have-you. These are helpful now, because we believe their a response to the stirrings of the kingdom, but if we think it will be the same in 10 – 15 years then we’re already reverting back to a Christendom model of church.
I have to agree with Bill about whether it is a lasting “movement”.
I think convergent is basically a term for revitalization of FGC-based meetings using added helpings of some things that those meetings put on the side of the road many years ago.
I also agree with Wess on two points, first that emergent may also not be a lasting “movement,” just also a philosophy that helps reguide communities. And second that there are a lot of people within existing communities that identify as conservative-leaning. Rather than being ostracized for those leanings (or should I say leadings?), which might have been the norm 15 – 20 years ago, I think we are seeing, in the last five years, some signs of catalysis around exactly these Friends and their leanings/leadings. This I personally know from NYYM and SAYMA.
It’s way too soon to start gauging the importance of newly seeded communities. If any convergent megachurches spring up, though, I will be happy to eat my words. The real value, so far, of “convergent” is in some reconnecting to God and Jesus within FGC-land which is going on.
Hi Martin,
I was thinking about the question at the end of your post and the conversation about convergence at Freedom Friends Church (or, really, lack of a conversation) and it turned into a post instead of a comment:
http://questforadequacy.blogspot.com/2008/07/in-gods-hands.html
Thank you for challenging us to do more with convergence than just talk about it!
–Ashley
David — Thanks for you comments. I want to respond to your point about the stability of the “movement,” and I think (hope) you will see I am in agreement with you. First, we have tried very hard to not call convergent Friends a movement, we really don’t see it as that. We have stressed that it’s a sensibility, a conversation, and/or a characterizing friendship. So, secondly, yes it is unstable and we really, I think I can speak for others, don’t want it to be stable. At least, if by stable we mean institutionalized, drawing an income for all people involved, appointing this or that official and seeking to replace other structures already in place. This is a vision I personally reject. But we are trying to get grassroots change to take place. If in 1, 2, 3, or 10 years from now no one knows of CF I will not be sad, it’s just one name, among many, to signify what we believe God is attempting to do among our tradition.
Ryan Bolger and Eddie Gibbs, in an article I recently read called, “Postmodern Forms of Church,” argued that all these emerging churches are unstable, a bad thing from a modern perspective, but a strength from a postmodern one (or at least not all bad).
Finally, I think that the underlying theological and practical assumptions of the CF preclude even the possiblity of a megachurch model. I am very skeptical such an idea is even tenable, so I wouldn’t worry about eating words too soon! Thanks again for your comments.
To me the attraction and the truth of the idea of “convergent Friends” is this: that the “conservative” branch of Friends has got it more right than either the evangelical branch or the FGC branch, particularly in its “conserving” of unprogrammed worship on the one hand and the primacy of scripture and Jesus Christ on the other, and that therefore both the evangelical branch and the FGC branch should learn from and “converge” towards the conservative branch, and on this basis seek greater unity. On the other hand, there are things about the conservative branch that seem non-essential and peculiar, such as their peculiar style of “plain dress” and “plain speech. Not that I don’t see the value in such pecularities/hedges/distinctions, but there are good reasons on the other side for not adopting them, and therefore such things should not be a focus point in our convergence, and individual Friends and Friends meetings can follow their own leadings in such matters.
This whole idea of “conserving” has a much longer and more venerable history of wider and more fundamental applications than this peculiar idea of “convergence,” and so perhaps our emphasis should be — more simply — on re-affirming the essential role of “conservatism” in religious faith and practice. While Christianity and Quakerism is a living faith, it is a faith that is necessarily passed on from generation to generation, and so it depends for its continued vitality upon the basic “conservative” principle that (in the formulation of the conservative anarchist Albert Jay Nock) when it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change. Of course, discernment will still be needed to see when in fact it really is necessary to change, and disagreements on such points will still inevitably occur, but it seems to me that Quakerism as a living faith would be much more vital and its identity clearer if we shared this basic “conservative” presumption against unnecessary change (and if changes that have already been made unnecessarily were rolled back to seek our center.) Unfortunately, the word “conservative” understandably carries negative connotations for many Friends. This is something we’ll have to work to get over in order to regain among Friends a truer understanding of what it means to “conserve,” and to forge more unity with the branch of Friends who already describe themselves as “conservative.”
On the other hand, I am also attracted to the other idea conveyed by the label “convergent” — namely, the idea that the so-called “Emergent Church“ ‘s embracing of postmodernism and evangelism has a lot to offer Quakers. I especially find congenial the postmodern idea that truth is found in experience rather than propositions. But I wonder — isn’t this an insight that has already been emphasized by Quakers from the very beginning? It appears to me that the Emergent Church movement, while offering valuable insights for our times, has much more of the flavor of a “fad” than does the perennial idea of “conservatism,” and so I am much more skeptical of the wisdom of emphasizing it. As a fad, it has a lot of potential to turn people off and create artificial divisions. As for the Emergent Church’s emphasis on evangelism — this likewise has been something that Quakers did from the beginning, and is something that is clearly enjoined in the gospels. A renewed emphasis on conservatism therefore should be enough to help Friends rediscover its importance. Indeed, the “official” conservative branches of Quakerism in Ohio and North Carolina already appear to be rediscovering its importance with their efforts at outreach.
The perennial Quaker insight (rediscovered by postmodernism and the Emergent Church) that truth is found in experience rather than propositions creates a tension that has existed from the beginning. I myself have to admit that, while I can say that I know from experience that God exists and that He loves us, I am merely persuaded (by a preponderance of the evidence), and therefore “believe” in only a contingent fashion, that Jesus rose from the dead and is the incarnation of God himself. I can’t say that I know these propositions about Jesus to be true, and can’t say that I believe our salvation hinges on those propositions being true or on our believing those propositions to be true. Thinking of those self-described “non-Christian” Quakers who worry that they would be excluded from a more conservative Quakerism, I wonder why the “official” declarations of belief of a more conservative Quakerism couldn’t be along the lines I’ve just described, acknowledging the contingent nature of belief in propositional statements while affirming that as a corporate body we nevertheless are “persuaded” and “believe” that Jesus rose from the dead and is God incarnate, and that we strive to live according to his message. Even the more dogmatic churches do not shut their doors to doubters. On the other hand, for the sake of the integrity and vitality of our Society, I would like to see a Quakerism in which a “Friend” who was actually convinced that the Christian gospel is hogwash would be a walking contradiction.
John K.