Video: Quaker Myths Busted. A 2015 graduate of George School in Pennsylvania drew the artwork for this animated intro to Quakers.
Quaker Ranter
A Weekly Newsletter and Blog from Martin Kelley
Tag Archives ⇒ Quaker
Banishing the demons of war plank by rotten plank
June 23, 2015
In National Geographic, Jane Braxton Little writes about the restoration of one of the most storied protest boats of the twentieth century:
The Golden Rule project is an improbable accomplishment by unlikely volunteers. Members of Veterans For Peace, they are a motley bunch that might have appalled the original crew, all conscientious Quakers. They smoke, drink and swear like the sailors, though most of them are not. Aging and perpetually strapped for money, the mostly retired men sought to banish their war-related demons as they ripped out rotten wood and replaced it plank by purpleheart plank.
Friends Journal ran an article by Jane, Restoring the Golden Rule, back in 2011 when the VFP volunteers first contemplated restoration, and a longer followup by Arnold (Skip) Oliver in 2013, The Golden Rule Shall Sail Again. Of course, the cool thing about working at a established magazine is that it was easy for me to dip into the archives and find and compile our 1958 coverage of the ship’s famous first voyage.
You ca follow more about the restoration work on the VFP Golden Rule website or check out pictures from the re-launch on their Facebook page.
A reply to The Theology of Consensus
May 29, 2015
L.A. Kauffman’s critique of consensus decision making in The Theology of Consensus is a rather perennial argument in lefty circles and this article makes a number of logical leaps. Still, it does map out the half-forgotten Quaker roots of activist consensus and she does a good job mapping out some of the pitfalls to using it dogmatically:
Consensus decision-making’s little-known religious origins shed light on why this activist practice has persisted so long despite being unwieldy, off-putting, and ineffective.
All that said, it’s hard for me not to roll my eyes while reading this. Perhaps I just sat in on too many meetings in my twenties where the Trotskyists berated the pacifists for slow process (and tried to take over meetings) and the black bloc anarchists berated pacifists for not being brave enough to overturn dumpsters. As often as not these shenanigans torpedoed any chance of real coalition building but the most boring part were the interminable hours-long meetings about styles. A lot of it was fashion, really, when you come down to it.
This piece just feels so…. 1992 to me. Like: we’re still talking about this? Really? Like: really? Much of evidence Kauffmann cites dates back to the frigging Clamshell Alliance—I’ve put the Wikipedia link to the 99.9% of my readers who have never heard of this 1970s movement. More recently she talks about a Food Not Bombs manual from the 1980s. The language and continued critique over largely forgotten movements from 40 years ago doesn’t quite pass the Muhammad Ali test:
Consensus decision making is a tool, but there’s no magic to it. It can be useful but it can get bogged down. Sometimes we get so enamored of the process that we forget our urgent cause. Clever people can use it to manipulate others, and like any tool those who know how to use it have an advantage over those who don’t. It can be a tribal marker, which gives it a great to pull together people but also introduces a whole set of dynamics that dismisses people who don’t fit the tribal model. These are universal human problems that any system faces.
Consensus is just one model of organizing. When a committed group uses it for common effect, it can pull together and coordinate large groups of strangers more quickly and creatively than any other organizing method I’ve seen.
Just about every successful movement for social change works because it builds a diversity of supporters who will use all sorts of styles toward a common goal: the angry youth, the African American clergy, the pacifist vigilers, the shouting anarchists. But change doesn’t only happen in the streets. It’s also swirling through the newspaper rooms, attorneys general offices, investor boardrooms. We can and should squabble over tactics but the last thing we need is an enforcement of some kind of movement purity that “calls for the demise” of a particular brand of activist culture. Please let’s leave the lefty purity wars in the 20th century.
Listening in on our Quaker conversations
May 28, 2015
On Twitter earlier today, Jay T asked “Didn’t u or someone once write about how Q’s behave on blogs & other soc. media? Can’t find it on Qranter or via Google. Thx!” Jay subsequently found a great piece from Robin Mohr circa 2008 but I kept remembering an description of blogging I had written in the earliest days of the blogosphere. It didn’t show up on my blog or via a Google search and then I hit up the wonderful Internet Archive.org Wayback Machine. The original two paragraph description of QuakerQuaker is not easily accessible outside of Archive.org but it’s nice to uncover it again and give it a little sunlight:
Quakerism is an experiential religion: we believe we should “let our lives speak” and we stay away from creeds and doctrinal statements. The best way to learn what Quakers believe is through listening in on our conversations.
In the last few years, dozens of Quakers have begun sharing stories, frustrations, hopes and dreams for our religious society through blogs. The conversations have been amazing. There’s a palpable sense of renewal and excitement. QuakerQuaker is a daily index to that conversation.
I still like it as a distinctly Quaker philosophy of outreach.
What Do You Teach the Kids, Nones?
March 18, 2015
From Religion in the News, an interesting study on what “spiritual but not religious” parents (the “nones”) are looking for:
Many of [the nones] are nonetheless reluctant to impose their skepticism on their children, and will often outsource religious education by sending their children to a Protestant Sunday school or Catholic CCD or Jewish Hebrew School. But while, like other Americans, Nones “agree that everybody should be able to choose,” Manning said, “Nones won’t allow children to choose just anything.”
What I find interesting is parents’ willingness to outsource religious education to local institutions that have stronger beliefs that they themselves do — as long as the school program is relatively non-judgemental.
This actually rings true for me personally. Although I’m Quaker and my wife Catholic, the most regular outside-the-home religious ed my kids get is from the Presbyterian Sunday School in our town. We’ve picked it because it’s hyper-local, the teachers are nice and down to earth, and — well, they only focus on cross-denominational Bible stories and crafts.
In the Philadelphia area, Quaker schools are known as the go-to place for parents that want (and can afford) a progressive, ethical education that has a spiritual component but isn’t religious. If “nones” are looking for safe religious education on Sunday morning, it seems like it would be theoretically possible to extend that known “Quaker school” brand and reputation over to our First-day schools. It would be a tremenous outreach tool.
Alas, this is just idle speculation. I don’t see many local meetings that are able (willing?) to take on a big project like this. Some meetings would get consumed over internal disagreements on what to even teach. And then, well, I wonder if we have a deep enough bench of experience. A few years ago Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s sessions overlapped with the Vacation Bible School at my local Presbyterian church. This is one small church in one small town and yet their VBS attendance was not that much less than the elementary/middle-school youth program at PhYM sessions. It was sobering to realize just how small we Friends sometimes are.
What does it mean to be a Quaker?
September 2, 2014
Craig Barnett tries to define Friends:
“I want to suggest that there is a living tradition of spiritual teaching and practice that makes up the Quaker Way, which is not defined by a particular social group, behavioural norms, or even values and beliefs.”
As usual Craig clearly articulates his premise: that Friends have become something of a content-less, lowest-common-denominator group that fears making belief statements that some of our membership would object to.
I agree with most of his analysis, though I would add some pieces. I don’t think one can understand what it means to be a Quaker today without looking at different types of definitions. Belief and practices is one part but so is self-identification (which is not necessarily membership). We are who we are but we also aren’t. There’s a deeper reality in not being able to separate Quaker philosophy from the people who are Quaker.
In this light, I do wish that Craig hadn’t resorted to using the jargony “Quaker Way” ten times in a short piece. For those who haven’t gotten the memo, liberal Friends are no longer supposed to say “Quakerism” (which implies a tradition and practice that is not necessarily the denominator of our member’s individual theologies) but instead use the vaguer “Quaker Way.” In my observation, it’s mostly a bureaucratic preference: we want to imply there is substance but don’t want to actually name it for fear of starting a fight. Contentless language has become its own art form, one that can suck the air out of robust discussions. A truly-vital living tradition should be able to speak in different accents.
Carolina Friends School in Durham confronts reports of decades-old sexual abuse
August 28, 2014
A Friends School talks openly about past school abuse via Raleigh News & Observer)
The alumnus said he’s upset the principal [Harold Jernigan] has not acknowledged the accusations. But he said he doesn’t regret sending his original message. ‘If you read Quaker literature, they spell ‘Truth’ in the uppercase – the implication of divinity,’ he said, ‘that it is a holy thing to continue that search for truth.’
I’m glad this is getting out now, but I did a double-take as the accused principle is still alive and living a few dozen miles from me. He was a lightning-rod figure as principal of at least two other schools after Carolina. I imagine the behavior continued. Updates below:
- An period article on his tenure at a Friends Seminary, a Manhattan Friends school, talked about the unrest of his two-year tenure there. It sounds like he came in and summarily fired the heads of the lower, middle, and upper schools. This is the kind of thing one would do if they wanted to curtail accountability.
- A memoir by Quaker educator Leonard Kenworthy talks about this period at Friends Seminary: “He moved much too rapidly in bringing about changes, asking for the resignations of the heads of the elementary and middle school, plus several other shifts, within a very short period, even before he took over as principal. Over and over I urged him not to move too fast but he said there were two ways of handling such a situation. One was to move slowly over a period of years. The other was to bring about quick changes and then to begin rapidly to initiate new programs and new personnel. He was determined to use the latter approach.”
- A 1986 New York Times profile of Friends Seminary had this to say of its former head: “After a shake-up of the staff that led to the resignation or dismissal of several teachers, a teacher’s union was formed, and students went on strike. Eventually, the principal, Harold Jernigan, resigned and the school ”rejected muscular Quakerism and returned to its mystical faith,” in the words of the official history.”
- A commenter on one news article writes: “Please also know that Harold Jernigan’s behavior continued on at Atlantic City Friends School, where he was Headmaster. As an Alum of ACFS, I thought that should be made clear.”
- Carolina Friends School wrote an open letter to the community in June.
Update December 2014. I have received emails from a former student who wished to remain anonymous at this time. I have no way to fact check this but it is consistent with the history and I have no reason to think it’s inaccurate. With that caveat, here are some excerpts:
As an Alumni of Atlantic City Friends School I am not surprised at all to hear about Harold Jernigan sexual abuse in the least . Please note this abuse along with more forms of abuse went on at ACFS into the early 80’s
Sexual abuse was not the only abuse. Abuse of the school system in general including drugs , abuse of power , money , teaching so badly that curves were used to grade so curved that the highest grade in a math class Harold Jernigan taught was a 42 yet all were passed . Harold Jernigan also would listen to classrooms and locker rooms with a speaker system in his office even after he promised Teachers he would not . Please note if Harold Jernigan did not want a student to pass he would call a meeting with all Teachers to make sure certain students would not pass no matter what .
I was a victim of his non sexual abuse but still abuse all the same .
I am only telling you this so someone puts a stop to this abuse. Back in the late 70’s early 80’s who would believe a teenager . To see this Finally come out makes me know there is Karma .
As teenagers in school we would talk amongst ourselves . No one would come forward because we knew Harold would hold back our Diplomas or not forward a letter to a college .
You must remember ACFS was attended by either high IQ students , rich kids that were kick out of their other schools or students that wanted to attend a private school . This made the student body Easy Prey .
During my time at ACFS I made friends with some of the Teachers . These Teachers are some of my sources ! They knew but needed their job
Self-promotion and ministry temptations
June 4, 2014
Jon Watts looks at the ironies of fame-seeking and avoidance:
But this striving for perfect humbleness can easily become dogmatic. We can come to reject anything that looks remotely like attention-seeking, and we miss God’s message in it.
Jon weighs in with some good, juicy questions. Where is self-promotion a way to promote something bigger? And when is it ego-driven? t’s not just a internet question, of course. This is also at the heart of our Quaker vocal ministry: someone just stands up in worship with an implicit claim they’re speaking for God.
Samuel Bownas is a good go-to person for these sort of dilemmas. He was a second-generation Friend who shared a lot of the inside dirt about Quakers in ministry. He wrote down the trials and temptations he faced and that he saw in others in their “infant minstry” as a conscious mentorship of future Friends.
One of Bownas’s themes is the danger of apeing others. It’s tempting to get so enamored of someone’s beautiful words that we start consciously trying to mimic them. We stop saying what we’ve been given to say so as to sound like the (seemingly) more-articulate person whose style we envy. Most creative artists walk this tension between copying and creating and as Wess will tell you, the idea of remix has become of more importance in the era of digital arts. But with ministry there’s another element: God. Many Quakers have been pretty insistent that the message has to be given “in the Spirit” and come from direct prompts. Unprogrammed Friends (those of us without pastors or pre-written sermons) are exceptionally allergic to vocal ministry that sounds too practiced. It’s not enough that the teaching is correct or well-crafted: we insist that it be given it at the right time.
When thinking the pitfalls about ministry I find it useful to think about “The Tempter.” I don’t personify this; I don’t insist that it’s central to Quaker theology. But it is a thread of our theology, one that has explained my situation, so I share it. For me, it’s the idea that there’s a force that knows our weaknesses and will use them to confuse us. If we’re not careful, impulses that are seemingly positive will provoke actions that are seemingly good but out of right order – given at the wrong time.
So, if like Jon, I start worrying I’m too self-promotional, the Tempter might tell me “that’s true, it’s all in your head, you should shut up already.” If I work myself through that temptation and start promoting myself, the Tempter can switch gears: “yes you’re brilliant, and while you’re at it while don’t you settle some scores with your next post and take some of those fakers down a notch.” There’s never an objective “correct” course of action, because right action is about stripping yourself of self-delusion and navigating the shoals of contradictory impulses. The right action now may be the wrong action later. We all need to grow and stay vigilant and honest with ourselves.