A profile of William Penn by Andrew Murphy

January 4, 2019

Mur­phy is a polit­i­cal sci­ence prof in New Jer­sey and has writ­ten a new bio of William Penn. I sus­pect this Aeon post is a bit of spon­sored con­tent to pro­mote the book but it’s still worth a read:

Penn was a man of para­dox­i­cal qual­i­ties. He espoused a rad­i­cal­ly egal­i­tar­i­an Quak­er the­ol­o­gy, insist­ing that some­thing divine resided with­in each indi­vid­ual, yet he owned slaves on his Amer­i­can estate. He praised rep­re­sen­ta­tive insti­tu­tions such as par­lia­ment and the jury sys­tem, but spent years in hid­ing for his loy­al­ty to an abso­lutist king. ‘I am like to be an adopt­ed Amer­i­can,’ he wrote short­ly after arriv­ing in Penn­syl­va­nia in 1682, but spent only four of his remain­ing 36 years there. And he was chron­i­cal­ly inca­pable of man­ag­ing mon­ey, spend­ing eight months in an Eng­lish debtors’ prison in his 60s, even while his colony quick­ly became a com­mer­cial success. 

https://​aeon​.co/​i​d​e​a​s​/​h​e​s​-​n​o​t​-​t​h​e​-​g​u​y​-​o​n​-​q​u​a​k​e​r​-​o​a​t​s​-​h​e​s​-​m​u​c​h​-​m​o​r​e​-​i​n​t​e​r​e​s​t​ing

Making Sense of the Starbucks Incident

September 12, 2018

Here’s a piece we’ve pub­lished in the cur­rent Friends Jour­nal, writ­ten by a seventh-grader from the Friends School in New­town, Pa. We reg­u­lar­ly pub­lish middle- and high-schoolers in our annu­al Stu­dent Voic­es Project but this is a gen­er­al fea­ture we pub­lished because it’s inter­est­ing and fresh and intrigu­ing. Here’s what I wrote about it in my open­ing col­umn in the magazine:

In Mak­ing Sense of the Star­bucks Inci­dent, New­town Friends School seventh-grader Anki­ta Achan­ta shows how the Quak­er val­ues she’s been taught in class­es could have defused a nation­al­ly pub­li­cized racial inci­dent in a Philadel­phia Star­bucks. It’s some­times easy to be skep­ti­cal of the Quak­er iden­ti­ty of Friends schools, but Achan­ta reflects back the pow­er­ful impact of our col­lec­tive wit­ness in these institutions. 

In Anki­ta Achan­ta’s reck­on­ing, Quak­er val­ues like integri­ty are basic uni­ver­sal val­ues of decen­cy. By claim­ing them, Friends could (and often do) eas­i­ly fall into the trap of Quak­er excep­tion­al­ism, but in Achan­ta’s piece, I see them as some­thing we put spe­cial empha­sis into. Ear­ly Friends did­n’t expect to found a denom­i­na­tion; Fox went across the land assum­ing every­one could be a Friend of the Truth, of Christ, of the Light. The lead­ing influ­ence of the Inward Light is avail­able to all and we can expect to see inspir­ing inci­dents of it in action every­where — even in viral Twit­ter videos.

Achan­ta also gave a new-to-me neologism:

As a seventh-grade stu­dent attend­ing a Friends school, I have been taught Quak­er val­ues. Although I am a Hin­du and not for­mal­ly a Quak­er, Quak­er val­ues are well aligned with my own reli­gious prin­ci­ples. I am com­mit­ted to liv­ing by them and con­sid­er myself a “Quin­du.”

Seeking a People

August 2, 2018

If we are con­verg­ing on his­to­ry and prac­tice, we are miss­ing the point. If we are depend­ing on insti­tu­tions to cre­ate a new soci­ety or ush­er in the King­dom, then we are deceived. These will not bring the rad­i­cal­ly egal­i­tar­i­an and Spirit-filled com­mu­ni­ties that God fos­tered among ear­ly Friends.

Seek­ing a People

Could Quakerism be the radical faith?

April 23, 2018

Isaac Smith won­ders whether the title of Chris Ven­ables’s recent piece, “Could Quak­erism be the rad­i­cal faith that the mil­len­ni­al gen­er­a­tion is look­ing for?,” is fol­low­ing Betteridge’s Law of Headlines.

I’d put the dilem­ma of Quak­erism in the 21st cen­tu­ry this way: It’s not just that our trea­sures are in jars of clay, it’s that no one would even know the trea­sures were there, and it seems like they’re eas­i­er to find else­where. And how do we know that what we have are even treasures?

I gave my own skep­ti­cal take on Ven­ables’s arti­cle yes­ter­day. Smith hits on part of what wor­ries me when he says cur­rent reli­gious dis­en­gage­ment is of a kind to be immune to “bet­ter social media game or a more stream­lined church bureau­cra­cy.” These are the easy, value-free answers insti­tu­tions like to turn to.

I’m think­ing about these issues not only because of this arti­cle but also because Friends Jour­nal is seek­ing sub­mis­sions for thr August issue “Going Viral with Quak­erism.” A few weeks ago I wrote a post that referred back to Quak­er inter­net out­reach 25 years ago.

Could Quak­erism be the rad­i­cal faith that the mil­len­ni­al gen­er­a­tion is look­ing for?

Could Quakerism? Yes? Will Quakerism? Ehh…

April 21, 2018

Chris Ven­ables spent a year work­ing with Quak­ers in Britain (see update below) and now asks Could Quak­erism be the rad­i­cal faith that the mil­len­ni­al gen­er­a­tion is look­ing for?

The nature of reli­gion has changed, with­in Quak­ers we have seen the num­bers of young peo­ple engag­ing in our com­mu­ni­ty fall as the effects of eco­nom­ic inse­cu­ri­ty have tak­en hold. And per­haps more impor­tant­ly, because ‘young adults’ have no time for insti­tu­tions that often seem arcane and irrel­e­vant, and which have failed to engage with the real­i­ties of life for the vast major­i­ty of peo­ple in our society.

I wish I could share more of his enthu­si­asm. I’m not see­ing any­thing par­tic­u­lar­ly game-changing in his arti­cle. Half of it is gener­ic clich­es about mil­len­ni­al pref­er­ence with extrap­o­la­tion that they should align with decon­tex­tu­al­ized Quak­er val­ues. He cites a few hap­pen­ing young adult Quak­er scenes in the UK and a promis­ing Young Quak­ers pod­cast five episodes old; he’s fond of Amer­i­can Emi­ly Provance’s blog. Good stuff to be sure, but you could pick pret­ty much any year in recent mem­o­ry and point to sim­i­lar evi­dence and imag­ine an immi­nent surge. It’s 2018 and we’re still say­ing “hey this could hap­pen!” It could but it has­n’t so why has­n’t it and what can we do about it?

Also in these con­texts “rad­i­cal faith” some­times sounds like buzz­words for non-faith. Is the Quak­er meet­ing­house just a qui­et emp­ty room for par­tic­i­pants to BYOF (bring your own faith)?

Update: Chris chimed in via Twit­ter to add that his piece’s obser­va­tions aren’t just from the year of work­ing with BrYM Friends:

Ah, I’ll take a read of yours too — but those thoughts come from my expe­ri­ence of being around Quak­ers over the last 8 years, inc set­ting up a new young adult group (West­min­ster!), vis­it­ing Qs across Britain, and inter­view­ing many of our com­mu­ni­ty over the last year!

Hitler jokes and Quaker schools

March 26, 2018

The case of a beloved Quak­er Jew­ish teacher being fired from a NYC Friends School for mak­ing a Nazi salute as a joke is bring­ing us some inter­est­ing com­men­tary. Mark Oppen­heimer writes in Tablet:

One might call this whole episode the tri­umph of Waspy good inten­tions over Jew­ish com­mon sense… But of course Quak­er schools — and Quak­er camps, like the one I once attend­ed, and Quak­er meet­ing­hous­es — are, these days, pret­ty Jew­ish places. The Times arti­cle has a bur­lesque feel, with a bunch of Jew­ish stu­dents and alum­ni per­form­ing in Quaker-face.

He also makes inter­est­ing points about the cul­tures of Jew­ish humor (“We Jews sur­vive because of Hitler jokes”) and that of Friends:

The Quak­er prac­tice of silent wor­ship can dis­pos­es its prac­ti­tion­ers against the loud, bawdy, con­tentious dis­course that infus­es Jew­ish cul­ture. I’m not mak­ing claims about indi­vid­ual Quak­ers — I can intro­duce you to per­fect­ly hilar­i­ous Quak­ers, some of whom inter­rupt even more than I do — but at their insti­tu­tions, the val­ues that come to the fore are Gene Sharp not Gene Wilder. In their earnest­ness, Quak­er schools are David Brooks not Mel Brooks. You get the idea.

I’m always a bit unsure how seri­ous­ly to take cul­tur­al Quak­er stereo­types as moti­vat­ing forces in pieces like these. I won­der how many Friends actu­al­ly work or study at a Man­hat­tan Quak­er school. A more gener­ic head­mas­ter fear-of-conflict seems as like­ly a cause as any­thing to do with silent wor­ship. Then too, we don’t know what oth­er issues might be at play below the sur­face of pri­va­cy and con­fi­den­tial­i­ty. But the Friends Sem­i­nary inci­dent seems as good a mark­er as any­thing else of the com­pli­cat­ed dynam­ics with­in Friends schools today.

http://​www​.tablet​mag​.com/​s​c​r​o​l​l​/​2​5​8​3​9​4​/​j​e​w​i​s​h​-​t​e​a​c​h​e​r​-​f​i​r​e​d​-​f​r​o​m​-​q​u​a​k​e​r​-​s​c​h​o​o​l​-​f​o​r​-​m​a​k​i​n​g​-​n​a​z​i​-​j​oke

The not-so-ancient Quaker clearness committee

February 28, 2018

I could prob­a­bly start a col­umn of Quak­er pet peeve of the day. I espe­cial­ly get bent out of shape with mis­re­mem­bered his­to­ry. One peeve is the myth that Quak­er clear­ness com­mit­tees are ancient. These com­mit­tees are typ­i­cal­ly con­vened for Friends who are fac­ing a major life deci­sion, like mar­riage or a career. Park­er Palmer is one of the most well-known prac­ti­tion­ers of this and gives the best description:

For peo­ple who have expe­ri­enced this dilem­ma, I want to describe a method invent­ed by the Quak­ers, a method that pro­tects indi­vid­ual iden­ti­ty and integri­ty while draw­ing on the wis­dom of oth­er peo­ple. It is called a “Clear­ness Com­mit­tee.” If that name sounds like it is from the six­ties, it is — the 1660’s!

While it’s true that you can see ref­er­ences to “being clear” in writ­ings by George Fox and William Penn around issues of ear­ly Quak­er mar­riages, what they’re describ­ing is not a spir­i­tu­al process but a check­list item. By law you could only get mar­ried in Eng­land under the aus­pi­cious of the Church of Eng­land. Quak­ers were one of the groups rebelling against that. This meant they had to per­form some of the func­tions typ­i­cal­ly han­dled by cler­gy – and nowa­days by the state. One check­list item: make sure nei­ther per­son in the cou­ple is already mar­ried or has chil­dren. That’s pri­mar­i­ly what they meant they asked whether a cou­ple was cleared for mar­riage (Mark Wut­ka has found a great ref­er­ence in Samuel Bow­nas that implies that the prac­tice also includ­ed check­ing with the bride and groom’s parents).

One rea­son I can be so obnox­ious­ly defin­i­tive about my opin­ions is because I have the Friends Jour­nal archives on my lap­top. I can do an instant key­word search for “clear­ness com­mit­tee” on every issue from 1955 to 2018. The phrase does­n’t appear in any issue until 1969. That arti­cle is by Jen­nifer Haines and Deb­o­rah Haines. Here it is, the debut of the con­cept of the Quak­er clear­ness committee:

We were chal­lenged repeat­ed­ly to test our lives against our beliefs. We labored long over con­cerns raised by our belief in the way of peace. We agreed to urge that each Month­ly Meet­ing, through a clear­ness com­mit­tee or oth­er com­mit­tees, take the respon­si­bil­i­ty for work­ing through with Friends the ten­sions raised in their lives by the Quak­er peace tes­ti­mo­ny. To this com­mit­tee could be brought prob­lems cre­at­ed by draft or employ­ment in insti­tu­tions impli­cat­ed with the mil­i­tary and the ques­tion of whether appli­cants for mem­ber­ship who find them­selves in oppo­si­tion to the peace tes­ti­mo­ny should be accepted.

The con­text sug­gests it was an out­growth of the new prac­tice of wor­ship shar­ing. I did do a deep dive on that a few years ago in a piece that was also based on Friends Jour­nal archives. Deb­o­rah Haines con­tin­ued to be very involved in Friends Gen­er­al Con­fer­ence and I worked with her when I was FGC’s Advance­ment and Out­reach coor­di­na­tor and she the com­mit­tee clerk.

In the ear­ly 1970s the ref­er­ences to clear­ness com­mit­tees con­tin­ued to focus on dis­cern­ment of anti­war activ­i­ties. With­in a few years it was extend­ed to prepa­ra­tion for mar­riages. A notice from 1982 gives a good sum­ma­ry of its uses then:

Meet­ings for clear­ness, for friends unfa­mil­iar with the term, are com­posed of peo­ple who meet by request with per­sons seek­ing clar­i­ty in an impor­tant life deci­sion — mar­riage, sep­a­ra­tion, divorce, adop­tion, res­o­lu­tion of fam­i­ly dif­fer­ences, a job change, etc.

Notably absent in this list is the process for new mem­ber appli­ca­tions. The first use of the term for this process in the FJ archives came in 1989! Why did it take twen­ty years for the con­cept to be applied here?

Why does it mat­ter that this isn’t an ancient prac­tice? A few things: one is that is nice to acknowl­edge that our tra­di­tion is a liv­ing, breath­ing one and that it can and does evolve. The clear­ness com­mit­tee is a great inno­va­tion. Decou­pling it from ancient Quak­erism also makes it more eas­i­ly adapt­able for non-Quaker contexts.

Wor­ship shar­ing came out of the long­time work of Rachel Davis DuBois. I would argue that she is one of the most impor­tant Quak­ers of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry. What, you haven’t heard of her? Exact­ly: most of the most influ­en­tial Friends that came out of the Hick­site tra­di­tion in the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry did­n’t devel­op the cult of per­son­al­i­ties you see with Ortho­dox Friends like Rufus Jones and Howard Brin­ton. It’s a shame, because DuBois prob­a­bly has more influ­ence in our day-to-day Quak­er prac­tice than either of them.

Oth­er links: This has turned into an awe­some thread on Face­book (it’s pub­lic so jump in!). There was also a good dis­cus­sion on wor­ship shar­ing on Quak­erQuak­er a few years ago: When did Quak­ers start wor­ship shar­ing? Back in 2003, Deb­o­rah Haines wrote about Rachel Davis DuBois for FGCon­nec­tions, the awe­some mag­a­zine that Bar­bara Hir­shkowitz used to pro­duce for FGC. I post­ed it online then, which is why I remem­ber it; Archive​.org saved it, which is why I can link to it.

Caveats: Yes there were Quak­er process­es before this. On Face­book Bill Samuel quotes the 1806 Faith and Prac­tice on the mem­ber­ship process and argues it’s describ­ing a clear­ness com­mit­tee. I’d be very sur­prised if the 1812 process had any­where near the same tone as the modern-day clear­ness or even shared much in the way of the philo­soph­i­cal under­pin­ning. I decid­ed to pop over to Thomas Clark­son’s 1806 A Por­trait of Quak­erism (dis­cussed here) to see how he described the mem­ber­ship appli­ca­tion process. I often find him use­ful, as he avoids Quak­er ter­mi­nol­o­gy and our some­what unhelp­ful way of under­stat­ing things back then to give a use­ful snap­shot of con­di­tions on the ground. In three vol­umes I can’t find him talk­ing about new mem­bers at all. I’m won­der­ing if entry into the Soci­ety of Friends was more the­o­ret­i­cal than actu­al back then, so unusu­al that Clark­son did­n’t even think about.

Living by the Sword

February 25, 2018

Blog­ger Mark Wut­ka looks at guns and mass shoot­ings in light of the gospels’ warn­ings about “liv­ing by the sword.”

What are oth­er things that we might hold in a fear­ful death grip that are spir­i­tu­al­ly killing us? Are there peo­ple, insti­tu­tions, ideas, phys­i­cal objects that we must have? Are there things that inter­rupt our love of God or of our neighbors?