On the Web: Where’s that Power of the Lord?

The new Quak­er Life has an arti­cle by Charles W. Heav­ilin ask­ing “Where’s the Pow­er of the Lord Now?”:http://www.fum.org/QL/issues/0506/heaviland.htm
bq. In our post­mod­ern, frag­ment­ed world, where now is the pow­er of the Lord among Quak­ers? There is a vast divide between the accounts of ear­ly Friends and that of con­tem­po­rary Friends. Most mod­ern Quak­er report­ing is per­func­to­ry — accounts with the spir­i­tu­al qual­i­ty of recipes in a cook­book. Con­ver­sa­tions at Quak­er gath­er­ings now revolve around declin­ing atten­dance or bleak assess­ments of the spir­i­tu­al shal­low­ness of soci­ety. Sel­dom, if ever, is there any men­tion of the pow­er of the Lord.
Great stuff. He gets into the way our cul­ture has neg­a­tive­ly influ­enced Friends. After you read it check out “C Wess Daniel’s”:http://gatheringinlight.blogspot.com/2005/06/i‑appreciate-article-charles-has.html com­men­tary on the article:
bq. Sim­ply put, I think we need to learn the sto­ries of the Quak­er church once again, and begin to tell them, live them, and move for­ward in this tra­di­tion that has been past down to us as one that has been formed by the Spir­it of Christ through such won­der­ful lead­ers as Fox, Fell, Bar­clay, Wool­man, etc.

5 thoughts on “On the Web: Where’s that Power of the Lord?

  1. I think your first link is broken.
    Also, I want­ed to intro­duce myself, since I’ve been read­ing through your online col­lec­tion. My name is Julie, and I’m going to be attend­ing Earl­ham School of Reli­gion in the fall. I don’t have any expe­ri­ence with Quak­ers, hav­ing grown up in a solid­ly Holi­ness home and attend­ed a Wes­leyan col­lege, but I felt the Spir­it lead­ing me to ESR anyway.
    I’ve real­ly enjoyed your site- there’s a lot here to learn, so it’s a bit intim­i­dat­ing, but I’m start­ing to feel like I can answer my friends’ ques­tions about who the Quak­ers are.
    grace.

  2. Thanks for the link report, I’ve fixed it (see what hap­pens when one tries to crank out a post between work and errands?) Please don’t be intim­i­dat­ed, as the secret truth is that I only have three top­ics I ever talk about. Read it for a week and you’ll have a pret­ty good idea about what I have to say.
    There’s a lot of Quaker-Holiness crossover: Thomas Kel­ly (via his fam­i­ly) and Han­nah Whitall Smith come most imme­di­ate­ly to mind. Welcome!
    Your Friend,
    Martin

  3. Mar­tin, thanks for lift­ing this arti­cle up. Some­times I am awed with just who you are con­nect­ed to and what arti­cles and books and resources you get your hands onto…
    In your post, you quote this sentence:
    Most mod­ern Quak­er report­ing is per­func­to­ry — accounts with the spir­i­tu­al qual­i­ty of recipes in a cookbook.
    Y’know, I take issue with this remark! I would say that the “mod­ern Quak­er report­ing” that goes on among cer­tain Quak­er blogs is any­thing but “recipes in a cookbook”!
    Smile.
    On a more seri­ous note, when I read the arti­cle online, I came across this part:
    Ear­ly Quak­er descrip­tions of the pow­er of God are usu­al­ly brief, with­out details. What they meant by the pow­er of the Lord is a chal­lenge today.
    When I con­sid­er pieces I have writ­ten in my jour­nal, and epis­tles I have been led to help write, I have used the phrase “The Pow­er was over all” or “I felt God over all.” I would say that the “descrip­tions of the pow­er of God are usu­al­ly brief” because it is such an awe­some expe­ri­ence of the pow­er of God, to be felt over all. I have known that pow­er of the Lord in more ways than I can count on my two hands, but to offer details…? It’s not some­thing I am able to do. You either Know the pow­er of the Lord over all or you don’t. Such has been my expe­ri­ence, at least.
    I would also ven­ture to add that just because there is no sin­gu­lar­ly promi­nent Friend among us who is using the phrase “I have felt the pow­er of the Lord,” does­n’t mean that I or Mar­tin or oth­ers aren’t expe­ri­enc­ing that pow­er. Grrrrr.
    To be fair, there are oth­er parts of the arti­cle that over­lap with cer­tain con­cerns I have, like this excerpt:
    When Friends dis­cuss con­tro­ver­sial top­ics, an all-too-familiar cor­rup­tion of the dis­cern­ing process fre­quent­ly occurs. After lengthy and heat­ed con­sid­er­a­tion, even over sev­er­al meet­ings, the dis­cus­sion con­tin­ues in an atmos­phere of uncer­tain­ty and strain until some­one sug­gests an option for approval. Sub­se­quent meet­ings then reveal that the mat­ter was not set­tled — the approved minute result­ed from des­per­a­tion, exhaus­tion and frus­tra­tion, not from any lead­ing from the Lord.
    Still: Maybe in our life­time, some con­tem­po­rary Friend’s jour­nal will turn up, be pub­lished, and be wide­ly quot­ed. And maybe that Friend’s jour­nal will include the quote “The pow­er of the Lord was over all.” And maybe it will include anoth­er quote that speaks pow­er­ful­ly to mod­ern Friends that also res­onates with the Truth which George Fox had touched, expe­ri­enced, and preached.
    We nev­er know. Maybe that’s ulti­mate­ly what keeps me search­ing — and find­ing — among Friends.
    Blessings,
    Liz, The Good Raised Up

  4. Oooh, thanky­ou Friend Mar­tin. Yes! I feel this is the key ques­tion. It’s kind of what I was try­ing to ask with this rather wordy and ram­bling post in the third month this year, but I like how they say it better.
    And great to meet you, julie — I just checked out your blog Paci­fi­cus and I like it already.

  5. By the way, Julie, your attend­ing Earl­ham might offer you a lot of expo­sure to all sorts of Quak­ers, espe­cial­ly at the grad­u­ate lev­el. Earl­ham tries to rea­chout to all branch­es of Friends. It’s his­to­ry is with pas­toral Friends on the east coast of the States.
    I’m less famil­iar with the Holi­ness move­ment. Time to do some googling and check­ing around. 🙂

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