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Portland, Oregon high school ditching controversial ‘Quakers’ mascot

May 9, 2018
· Martin Kelley

On the list of reli­gious prob­lems, the use of “Quak­er” by non-Friends is more mys­tery than prob­lem. There’s the multi­na­tion­al giant Quak­er Oats Com­pa­ny of course, peri­od­i­cal­ly mak­ing tone deaf state­ment with its name. Friends of a cer­tain age might remem­ber 1989’s rebrand­ed Pop­eye the Quak­er Man and every eigh­teen months the laugh-out-loud Quak­er Oats threat­ens to sue us sto­ry goes re-viral on Face­book (the page is undat­ed and so always feels new; the inci­dent is at least 15 years old).

There are also var­i­ous schools who brand their sports teams with the Quak­er name. But a Port­land, Ore­gon, news sta­tion says that list is get­ting a bit small­er: Franklin High School ditch­ing con­tro­ver­sial ‘Quak­ers’ mascot

An assis­tant prin­ci­pal and anoth­er teacher told FOX 12 they shift­ed away from brand­ing the school as “Quak­ers” sev­er­al years ago. Sev­er­al stu­dents also said they don’t know much about who Quak­ers are or the reli­gion. Sev­er­al seemed to think Ben­jamin Franklin, who the school is named after, was a Quak­er. Franklin was not a Quak­er. FOX 12 also spoke to Kel­ly McCur­dy, who put three chil­dren through Franklin High. He said he believes the dis­trict is mak­ing a mis­take and eras­ing tra­di­tion. “I think it’s sil­ly, per­son­al­ly,” McCur­dy said. “It’s not racial­ly insensitive.”

It seems that the Fox affil­i­ate went out of its way to find a cranky per­son to deplore a point no one was mak­ing. Of course it’s not racial­ly insen­si­tive. But these appro­pri­at­ed names are always… well, weird. No pub­lic school would call them­selves The Jews or The Mus­lims or The Catholics or any­thing else smelling of reli­gion. It’s a sign of how dis­missed Friends are as a actu­al liv­ing reli­gious move­ment and denom­i­na­tion that our nick­name is con­sid­ered fair game. We must turn to the local news­pa­per to get the real back­ground:

Lisa Zuni­ga told the board that in 2014 she met Mia Pisano, a fel­low Franklin High par­ent who is a mem­ber of the Quak­er faith, and the pair start­ed an effort to change the name. The name, they argued, vio­lat­ed the sep­a­ra­tion of church and state. The dis­trict, they said, should nev­er com­man­deer a reli­gious sym­bol or con­no­ta­tion for a mas­cot. Despite inter­est in the name change, Zuni­ga said, par­ents met stiff resis­tance from the dis­trict. It was hard to even get any­one to explain what the process would be to bring about a name change, she said.

https://​www​.ore​gonlive​.com/​e​d​u​c​a​t​i​o​n​/​i​n​d​e​x​.​s​s​f​/​2​0​1​8​/​0​5​/​p​o​r​t​l​a​n​d​_​s​c​h​o​o​l​_​b​o​a​r​d​_​f​i​n​d​s​_​q​u​.​h​tml

http://​www​.kptv​.com/​s​t​o​r​y​/​3​8​1​4​5​8​3​3​/​f​r​a​n​k​l​i​n​-​h​i​g​h​-​s​c​h​o​o​l​-​d​i​t​c​h​i​n​g​-​c​o​n​t​r​o​v​e​r​s​i​a​l​-​q​u​a​k​e​r​s​-​m​a​s​cot

British Quakers take long hard look at faith

May 7, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Britain Year­ly Meet­ing has decid­ed to under­take a once-in-a-generation rewrite of its Faith and Practice

Reg­u­lar revi­sion and being open to new truths is part of who Quak­ers are as a reli­gious soci­ety. Quak­ers com­piled the first of these books of dis­ci­pline in 1738. Since then, each new gen­er­a­tion of Quak­ers has revised the book. A new revi­sion may help it speak to younger Quak­ers and the wider world.

This pos­si­bil­i­ty of this revi­sion was the basis for the inac­cu­rate and overblown click­baity rhetoric last week that Quak­ers were giv­ing up God. Rewrit­ing these books of Faith and Prac­tice is not uncom­mon. But it can be a big fraught. Who decides what is archa­ic? Who decides which parts of our Quak­er expe­ri­ence are core and which are expend­able? Add to this the long­stand­ing Quak­er dis­trust of creedal state­ments and there’s a strong incen­tive to include every­body’s expe­ri­ence. Inclu­sion can be an admirable goal in life and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty of course, but for a reli­gious body defin­ing itself it leads to lowest-common-denominationalism.

I’ve found it extreme­ly reward­ing to read old­er copies of Faith and Prac­tice pre­cise­ly because the sometimes-unfamiliar lan­guage opens up a spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tion that I’ve missed in the rou­tine of con­tem­po­rary life. The 1806 Philadel­phia Book of Dis­ci­pline has chal­lenged me to rec­on­cile its very dif­fer­ent take on Quak­er faith (where are the SPICES?) with my own. My under­stand­ing is that the first copies of Faith and Prac­tice were essen­tial­ly binders of the impor­tant min­utes that had been passed by Friends over the first cen­tu­ry of our exis­tence; these min­utes rep­re­sent­ed bound­aries – on our par­tic­i­pa­tion on war, on our lan­guage of days and times, on our advices against gam­bling and tav­erns. This was a very dif­fer­ent kind of doc­u­ment than our Faith and Prac­tice’s today.

It would be a per­son­al hell for me to sit on one of the rewrit­ing com­mit­tees. I like the mar­gins and fringes of Quak­er spir­i­tu­al­i­ty too much. I like peo­ple who have tak­en the time to think through their expe­ri­ences and give words to it – phras­es and ideas which might not fit the stan­dard nomen­cla­ture. I like pub­lish­ing and shar­ing the ideas of peo­ple who don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly agree.

These days more new­com­ers first find Friends through Wikipedia and YouTube and (often phe­nom­e­nal­ly inac­cu­rate) online dis­cus­sions. A few years ago I sat in a ses­sion of Philadel­phia Year­ly Meet­ing in which we were dis­cus­sion revis­ing the sec­tion of Faith and Prac­tice that had to do with month­ly meet­ing report­ing. I was a bit sur­prised that the Friends who rose to speak on the pro­posed new pro­ce­dure all admit­ted being unaware of the process in the cur­rent edi­tion. It seems as if Faith and Prac­tice is often a impre­cise snap­shot of Quak­er insti­tu­tion­al life even to those of us who are deeply embedded.


Quakers take long hard look at faith

Quak­ers take long hard look at faith 

Quak­ers in Britain are to rewrite their book of dis­ci­pline that has guid­ed their work and wit­ness across…

Quakers Quakers 

What are Quaker Values? Here are some answers.

May 2, 2018
· Martin Kelley

A new issue of Friends Jour­nal is up online: “What Are Quak­er Val­ues Any­way?” The phrase “Quak­er val­ues” has become a com­mon way to explain our con­nec­tion to one anoth­er but I won­der if we’re using it too casu­al­ly (I talked more of “Quak­er brand­ing” in an Editor’s Desk post try­ing to drum up sub­mis­sions). This issue also has writ­ing from our fifth annu­al (fifth?!?) Stu­dent Voic­es Project. I’m real­ly hap­py how the issue came out. You can read much of it online with­out a subscription:


Speaking the Language of Quaker Values - Friends Journal

Speak­ing the Lan­guage of Quak­er Val­ues — Friends Journal 

A Friend’s per­spec­tive on mon­ey and philanthropy.

Friends Journal Friends Journal 

Have we abandoned all hope for a viral Quakerism?

April 25, 2018
· Martin Kelley

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.


Writing Opp: Going Viral with Quakerism (due 5/14) - Friends Journal

Writ­ing Opp: Going Viral with Quak­erism (due 5/14) — Friends Journal 

What’s the Quak­er mes­sage for today? How do we com­mu­ni­cate it and how do we share it? What…

Friends Journal Friends Journal 

Eternities

April 24, 2018
· Martin Kelley

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://​quakeropen​ings​.blogspot​.co​.uk/​2​0​1​8​/​0​4​/​w​h​a​t​-​a​r​e​-​t​h​i​n​g​s​-​w​h​i​c​h​-​a​r​e​-​e​t​e​r​n​a​l​.​h​tml

The open (Quaker) web

April 23, 2018
· Martin Kelley

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/​2​0​1​8​/​0​4​/​r​e​b​u​i​l​d​i​n​g​-​o​p​e​n​-​w​e​b​/​a​m​p​/​?​_​_​t​w​i​t​t​e​r​_​i​m​p​r​e​s​s​i​o​n​=​t​rue

Developing a healing ministry

April 23, 2018
· Martin Kelley

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.


The Cost of a Healing Gift - Friends Journal

The Cost of a Heal­ing Gift — Friends Journal 

The dis­cov­ery of a gift for heal­ing is only the first step in a process of learn­ing and…

Friends Journal Friends Journal 

Could Quakerism be the radical faith?

April 23, 2018
· Martin Kelley

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?