John Paul Stephens has asked if I could help compile a list of online tributes to our Tom Fox, the fallen Christian Peacemaker for FreetheCaptivesNow.org’sTom Fox Memorials page. I’ve started a list, now up on QuakerQuaker.org, that I’ll keep up for a few months. Any readers who know of something that should be included should either email me at martink-at-nonviolence-dot-org or tag it “for:martin_kelley” in Del.icio.us. Thanks. Here’s my list so far:
h3. See also:
* “FreetheCaptivesNow.org”:http://freethecaptivesnow.org/
* “Christian Peacemaker Watch”:http://www.quakerquaker.org/christian_peacemaker_teams/ over at Quakerquaker.org
* “My posts on the Christian Peacemaker witness”:/martink/cpt
* “A really nice page on Tom over at Electronic Iraq”:http://electroniciraq.net/news/2302.shtml
Quaker Ranter
A Weekly Newsletter and Blog from Martin Kelley
Tag Archives ⇒ witness
It’s witness time
December 2, 2005
Hi QuakerRanter friends: I’ve been busy today covering the Quaker response to the Christian Peacemakers Teams hostages. Two sites with a lot of overlapping content:
- Quaker Blog Watch page focused on the hostages
- “Nonviolence.org statement and list of responses
Both of these feature a mix of mainstream news and Quaker views on the situation. I’ll keep them updated. I’m not the only busy Friend: Chuck Fager and John Stephens have a site called Free the Captives — check it out.
It’s always interesting to see the moments that I explictly identify as a Friend on Nonviolence.org. As I saythere, it seems quite appropriate. We need to explain to the world why a Quaker and three other Christians would needlessly put themselves in such danger. This is witness time, Friends. The real deal. We’re all being tested. This is one of those times for which those endless committee meetings and boilerplate peace statements have prepared us.
It’s time to tell the world that we live in the power that “takes away the occasion for war and overcomes our fear of death” (well, or at least mutes it enough that four brave souls would travel to dangerous lands to witness our faith).
Bandaging our wounds, mourning our dead and loving our enemies
July 7, 2005
I’m away from my usual haunts on work-related duties but the news sites have plenty of articles about the horrible bombings in London; there is no need for yet another list.
It is always tragic to see the cycles of violence, terrorism and state-sponsored war feeding one another to new acts of violence. Our prayers that the new round of heartbreaks in London don’t lead into a kind of retaliation that will only harden hearts elsewhere. We need to envision a new world, one based on love and mutual respect. It’s impossible to negotiate with the kind of terrorists that would bomb a packed bus but we can be a witness that hate can be confronted with love. We must bandage our wounded, mourn our dead and continue to build a world where the occasions for all war have been transcended.
Strangers to the Covenant
July 1, 2005
A workshop led by Zachary Moon and Martin Kelley at the 2005 FGC Gathering of Friends.
This is for Young Friends who want to break into the power of Quakerism: it’s the stuff you didn’t get in First Day School. Connecting with historical Quakers whose powerful ministry came in their teens and twenties, we’ll look at how Friends wove God, covenants and gospel order together to build a movement that rocked the world. We’ll mine Quaker history to reclaim the power of our tradition, to explore the living testimonies and our witness in the world. (P/T)
Percentage of time: Worship 20 / Lecture 30 / Discussion 50
Extended Description
We hope to encourage Friends to imagine themselves as ministers and elders and to be bold enough to challenge the institutions of Quakerism as needed. We want to build a community, a cohort, of Friends who aren’t afraid to bust us out of our own limited expectations and give them space to grow into the awareness that their longing for deeper spiritual connection with shared widely among others their age. Our task as workshop conveners is to model as both bold and humble seekers after truth, who can stay real to the spirit without taking ourselves either too seriously or too lightly.
Martin and Zachary have discovered a Quaker tradition more defined, more coherent and far richer than the Quakerism we were offered in First Day School. In integrity to that discovery, we intend to create a space for fellowship that would further open these glimpses of what’s out there and what possibilities exist to step out boldly in this Light.
Sunday: Introductions
The most important task for today is modeling the grounded worship and spirit-led ministry that will be our true curriculum this week. In a worship sharing format we will consider these questions:
- What brought me to this workshop?
- What did they fail to teach me in First Day School that I still want to know?
Monday: What is this Quakerism?
Today will be about entering this grounded space together as Friends, beginning to ask some questions that reveal and open. How do I articulate what Quakerism is all about? What ideas, language, and words (e.g. “God”, “Jesus” “Light”) do use to describe this tradition? Today we start that dialogue. At the end of session we will ask participants to seek out an older Friend and ask them for their answers on these queries and bring back that experience to our next gathering.
- Worship. Reading of selected texts from journal and Bible
- Present question: When someone asks me “what is Quakerism?” how do I respond.
- Martin and Zachary will share some thoughts on this question from other Friends
- Journaling on Query
- Discussion of ideas and language.
Tuesday: The Mystical Tradition and Gospel Order
We enter into the language and fabric of our Tradition at its mystical roots. Asking the questions: What does God feel like? Introduce early Quaker’s talk about God. What does it feel like to be with God? What is Gospel Order?
- Worship. Reading of selected texts from journals and Bible
- Follow-up on previous day’s discussion/homework what new came into the Light overnight?
- Journaling on Query: When have I felt the presence of God? Describe it in five senses?
- Initial discussion and sharing of thoughts and ideas.
- Introduce some ideas from early Friends and others on this Query. How have others (Jesus, Isaiah, Merton, Fox, Day) spoken of this experience?
- Introduce themes of Spiritual Practice: If Quakerism is about asking the right questions, how do we get into the place to hear those questions and respond faithfully? We have already been incorporating devotional reading into our time together each morning but we will introduce into the Light of Discipline as such here. Naming of other practices, previously acknowledged and otherwise, within the group.
- Introduce ‘Spiritual Discernment’ themes for the following day’s session.
Wednesday: The Roots of Friends’ Discernment Tradition and the Testimonies
We delve into the archives, the dusty stuff, the stuff First Day School didn’t get to: the preaching from the trees, the prison time, the age George Fox was when he was first incarcerated for his beliefs, what the testimonies are really about and where they came from. Today is about taking the skeletons out of the closet and cleaning house.
- Worship. Reading of selected texts from journals and Bible
- ‘Let’s talk history’: Early Friends, the Making of The Society, and the Discernment Tradition. [Martin and Zachary may cover this, or we may arrange to have another Friend come and share some thoughts and infuse a new voice into our dialogue]
- There are lots of testimonies: what are ours? Name some. How to they facilitate our relationship with God?
- What’s up with “Obedience”, “Plainness”, and “Discipline”? How do we practice them?
Thursday: Friends in a Covenanted Relationship
We grow into our roles as leaders in this community by considering the opportunities and the hurdles in deepening our covenant relationship. We begin with considering spiritual gifts, and then consider questions around ministry, its origin and its discernment. We will take up the task of considering what our work, what piece of this responsibility is ours to carry.
- Worship. Reading of selected texts from journals and Bible
- Journaling on the Queries: What is alive inside of me? How are my spiritual gifts named and nurtured?
- What are the tasks of ministry?
- What are the tasks of eldering?
- What are the structures and practices in our monthly, quarterly and yearly meetings that we can use to test out and support leadings? How do these structures work and not work. Clearness committees? Traveling Friends? Spiritual nurture/affinity groups?
- What is holding us back from living this deepened relationship? What is our responsibility to this covenant and this covenant community?
Friday: The Future of Quakerism
We begin the work that will occupy the rest of our lives. The participants of this workshop will be around for the next fifty or more years, so let’s start talking about systematic, long-term change. We have something to contribute to this consideration right now.
- Worship. Reading of selected texts from journals and Bible
- Where do we go from here? Martin will present on emergent church. Zachary will present some thoughts on ‘Beloved Community’.
Many have talked about deep communion with God and about covenant community. Many have spoken our hearts and given voice to the passion we experience; now it’s on us what are we going to do about it? Where is it happening? - Discussion (maybe as a fishbowl) Where do we envision Quakerism 50 years from now? 100 years from now?
External Website: Quaker Ranter, Martin’s site.
Witness of Our Lost Twenty-Somethings
May 16, 2005
For those that might not have noticed, I have an article in the latest issue of the awkwardly-named FGConnections: “Witness of Our Lost Twenty-Somethings.” Astute Quaker Ranter readers will recognize it as a re-hashing of “The Lost Quaker Generation” and its related pieces. Reaction has been quite interesting, with a lot of older Friends saying they relate to what I’ve said. It’s funny how so many of us feel a sense of isolation from our own religious institutions!
The Witness of Our Lost Twenty-Somethings
By Martin Kelley
What is it like to be a thirty-something Friend these days? Lonely and frustrating. At least half of the committed, interesting and bold twenty-something Friends I knew ten years ago have left Quakerism. This isn’t normal youthful church-hopping and it’s not some character flaw of “Generation X.” They’ve left because they were simply tired of slamming their heads against the wall of an institutional Quakerism that neglected them and its own future.
I can certainly relate. For the last decade, I’ve done ground-breaking work publicizing nonviolence online. I’ve been profiled in the New York Times and invited on national talk radio shows, but the clerk of the peace committee in my achingly-small monthly meeting always forgets that I have “some website” and I’ve never been asked to speak to Friends about my work. I wouldn’t mind being overlooked if I saw others my age being recognized, but most of the amazing ministries I’ve known have been just as invisible.
It’s like this even at the small-scale level. I’ve gone to countless committee meetings with ideas, enthusiasm and faithfulness, only to realize (too late, usually) that these are just the qualities these committees don’t want. Through repeated heartbreak I’ve finally learned that if I feel like I’m crashing a party when I try to get involved with some Quaker cause, then it’s a sign that it’s time to get out of there! I’ve been in so many meetinghouses where I’ve been the only person within ten years of my age in either direction that I’m genuinely startled when I’m in a roomful of twenty- and thirty-somethings.
I recently had lunch with one of the thirtysomething Friends who have left. He had been drawn to Friends because of their mysticism and their passion for nonviolent social change; he was still very committed to both. But after organizing actions for years, he concluded that the Friends in his meeting didn’t think the peace testimony could actually inspire us to a witness that was so bold.
I wrote about this lunch conversation on my website and before long another old Friend surfaced. Eight years ago a witness and action conference inspired him to help launch a national Quaker youth volunteer network. He put years of his life into this; his statements on the problems and promises facing Quaker youth are still right on the mark. But after early excitement his support evaporated and the project eventually fell apart in what he’s described as “a bitter and unsuccessful experience.”
The loss of Quaker peers has hit close to home for me. When one close Friend learned my wife had left Quakerism for another church after eleven years, all he could say was how pleased he was that she had finally found her spiritual home; others gave similar empty- sounding platitudes. I felt like saying to them “No, you dimwits, we’ve driven away yet another Friend!” Each of these three lost Friends remain deeply committed to the Spirit and are now involved in other religious societies.
Young adults haven’t always been as invisible or uninvolved as they are now. A whole group of the Quaker leaders currently in their fifties and sixties were given important jobs at Quaker organizations at very tender ages (often right out of college). Also, there’s historical precedent for this: George Fox was 24 when he began his public ministry; Samuel Bownas was 20 when he was roused out of his meetinghouse slumber to begin his remarkable ministry; even Margaret Fell was still in her thirties when she was convinced. When the first generation of Friends drew together a group of their most important elders and ministers to address one of their many crises, the average age of the gathering was 35. Younger Friends haven’t always been ghettoized into Young
Audlt Friends only dorms, programs, workshops or committees.
There is hope. Some have started noticing that young Friends who go into leadership training programs often disappear soon afterwards. The powers that be at Friends General Conference have finally started talking about “youth ministry.” (Welcome!). A great people might possibly be gathered from the emergent church movement and the internet is full of amazing conversations from new Friends and seekers. There are pockets in our branch of Quakerism where older Friends have continued to mentor and encourage meaningful and integrated youth leadership, and some of my peers have hung on with me. Most hopefully, there’s a whole new generation of twenty- something Friends on the scene with strong gifts that could be nurtured and harnessed.
In the truest reality, our chronological ages melt away in the ever-refreshing currents of the Living Spirit; we are all as children to a loving God. Will Friends come together to remember this before our religious society loses another generation?
Vision for an online magazine
April 1, 2005
In early 2005, I was nominated to apply for the Clarence and Lilly Pickett Endowment for Quaker Leadership. I decided to dream up the best project I could under the restraints of the limited Pickett grant sizes. While the endowement was approved their budget was limited that year (lots of Quaker youth travel to a World Gathering) and I got a small fraction of what I had hoped for. I made an online appeal and contributions from dozens of Friends doubled the Pickett Fund grant size!
Here then is an edited version of the proposal I presented to the Pickett Fund in Third Month 2005; it has subsequently been approved by the Overseers of my meeting, Atlantic City Area Monthly Meeting.
What involvement have you had in Quaker-related activities/service projects for the betterment of your community/world?
Ten years ago I founded Nonviolence.org, a cutting edge “New Media” website that now reaches over a million visitors a year. I have been involved with a number of Philadelphia peace groups (e.g.,Food Not Bombs, the Philadelphia Independent Media Center, Act for Peace in the Middle East). I have served my monthly meeting as co-clerk and as a representative to yearly meeting bodies. I recently led a well-received “Quakerism 101” course at Medford (NJ) Monthly Meeting and will co-lead a workshop called “Strangers to the Covenant” at this year’s FGC Gathering. I have organized Young Adult Friends at the yearly and national levels, serving formally and informally in various capacities. I am quite involved with Quakers Uniting in Publications, an international association of Quaker publishers, authors and booksellers. Eighteen months ago I started a small Quaker ministry website that has inspired a number of younger Friends interested in exploring ministry and witness. For the past six years I have worked for Friends General Conference; for two of those years I was concurrently also working for Friends Journal.
What is the nature of the internship, creative activity or service project for which you seek funding?
I’ve served with various Young Adult Friends groupings and committees for ten years. In that time I’ve been blessed to meet many of my peers with a clear call to inspired ministry. Most of these Friends have since left the Society, frustrated both by monthly meetings and Quaker bodies that didn’t know what to do with a bold ministry and by a lack of mentoring eldership that could help season and steady these young ministers and deepen their understanding of gospel order.
I would like to put together an independent online publication. This would address the isolation that most serious young Friends feel and would give a focus to our work together. The publication would also have a quarterly print edition.
It’s important to build face-to-face relationships too, to build an advisory board but also a base of contributors and to give extra encouragement to fledgling ministries. I would like to travel to different young adult communities to share stories and inspiration. This would explicit reach out across the different braches of Friends and even to various seeker movements like the so-called “Emergent Church Movement.”
What amount are you requesting and how will it be used in the project? What other financial resources for your project are you considering?
$7800. Web hosting: $900 for 18 months. Software: $300. Print publication: $3000 for 6 quarterly issues at $500 per issue. Travel: $1600 for four trips averaging $400 each. $2000 for mini-sabbatical time setting up site.
The Pickett Fund would be a validation of sorts for this vision. I would also turn to other youth fellowship and yearly meeting travel funds that support the work.
What is the time frame for your project? 18 months, to be reviewed/revisioned then.
When did/will it begin? This summer. When will it end? December 2006.
In what specific ways will the project further your leadership potential in Quaker service?
It’s time that I formalize some of the work I’ve been doing and make it more of a collective effort. It will be good to see formal monthly meeting recognition of this ministry and to have institutional Quaker support. I hope to learn much by being involved with so many wonderful Friends and hope to help pull together more of a sense of mission among a number of younger Friends.
FGC Gathering Workshop
January 29, 2005
This fall Zachary Moon and I put together a workshop proposal for the 2005 Gathering, which has been approved: “Strangers to the Covenant” is the title and here’s the short description:
This is for young Friends who want to break into the power of Quakerism: it’s the stuff you didn’t get in First Day School. We’ll connect with historical Quakers whose powerful ministry came in their teens and twenties and we’ll look at how Friends wove God, covenants and gospel order together to build a movement that rocked the world. We’ll mine Quaker history to reclaim the power of our tradition, to explore the living power of the testimonies and our witness in the world.
This was very much an “as way opens” process. At the 2004 Gathering I felt sad that there weren’t more workshops that I’d like to attend. And obviously I have a long-standing concern to support younger Friends. But I wasn’t sure if I had the skills to handle this. One piece of discernment was leading the Quakerism 101 class at Medford Meeting: I knew I would have most of the sessions under my belt by the time the workshop submission deadline came around and I hoped I’d have a feel whether I actually like leading workshops!
The Medford experience was surprisingly good, even on weeks where I could have been better prepared. I learned a lot and gained confidence in “teaching” Quakerism to Medford’s class of very weighty, experienced Friends.
Still, the Gathering workshop submission deadline was looming and I had no specific topic in mind. Julie, my wife, was getting a little suspicious whether the workshop would happen or not. I knew that the most important thing was attracting the right mix of eager, curious participants and that for me the topic was almost secondary. Still: a focus and topic is important, yes.
The week before the deadline, I attended the FGC Central Committee meeting in New Windsor, Maryland, as a staffperson. In a lunchtime discussion I learned that my friend Zachary Moon was also considering leading his first workshop. As soon as we sat down and started talking it seemed like the obvious thing to do. The discernment to co-lead this took two a half seconds or so, but of course this quick process was built on the thought, prayer and discernment both of us had already been giving the matter. I’ve found that when I’ve laid the groundwork for a decision, things can often move suprisingly quickly.
The workshop has developed differently than I suspected. The most signicant piece is its age limitation: it’s for high school and adult young Friends only, meaning it’s participation is limited to 15 to 35 years olds. I’ve always been a little worried about constructing youth ghettos but I think it will work in this case. I apologize in advance to those Quaker Ranter readers who might like to take it but can’t because of age (I’m too old myself, after all!). There will be many other chances to spend time at Gathering and Zachary and I are only a part of a shift that’s been happening at the FGC Gathering over the last few years.
The Quaker Peace Testimony: Living in the Power, Reclaiming the Source
January 1, 2005
The Quaker Peace Testimony is one of the popularly well-known outward expressions of Quaker faith. But have we forgotten its source?
In a meeting for worship I attended a few years ago a woman rose and spoke about her work for peace. She told us of letters written and meetings attended; she certainly kept busy. She confessed that it is tiring work and she certainly sounded tired and put-upon. But she said she’d keep at it and she quoted early Friends’ mandate to us: that we must work to take away the occasion of war.
Read contemporary Friends literature and you’ll see this imperative all over the place. From one brochure: “We are called as Friends to lead lives that ‘take away the occasion of all wars.’ ” Yet this statement, like many contemporary statements on Quaker testimonies, is taken out of context. The actor has been switched and the message has been lost. For the peace testimony doesn’t instruct us to take away occasions.
The Quaker Peace Testimony: Living in the Power
The classic statement of the Quaker peace testimony is the 1660 Declaration. England was embroiled in war and insurrection. A failed political coup was blamed on Quakers and it looked like Friends were going to be persecuted once more by the civil authorities. But Friends weren’t interested in the political process swirling around them. They weren’t taking sides in the coups. “I lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars,” George Fox had told civil authorities ten years before and the signers of the declaration elaborated why they could not fight: “we do earnestly desire and wait, that by the Word of God’s power and its effectual operation in the hearts of men, the kingdoms of this world may become the kingdoms of the Lord.”
For all of the over-intellectualism within Quakerism today, it’s a surprise that these statements are so rarely parsed down. Look at Fox’s statement: many modern activists could agree we should take away occassion for war, certainly, but it’s a subordinate clause. It is not referring to the “we,” but instead modifies “power.” Our instructions are to live in that power. It is that power that does the work of taking away war’s occasion.
I’m not quibbling but getting to the very heart of the classic understanding of peace. It is a “testimony,” in that we are “testifying” to a larger truth. We are acknowledging something: that there is a Power (let’s start capitalizing it) that takes away the need for war. It is that Power that has made peace possible and that Power that has already acted and continues to act in our world. The job has actually been done. The occasion for war has been ended. Our relationship to this Power is simply to live in it. Around the time of the Declaration, George Fox wrote a letter to Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell :
The next morning I was moved of the Lord to write a paper to the Protector, Oliver Cromwell; wherein I did, in the presence of the Lord God, declare that I denied the wearing or drawing of a carnal sword, or any other outward weapon, against him or any man; and that I was sent of God to stand a witness against all violence, and against the works of darkness; and to turn people from darkness to light; and to bring them from the causes of war and fighting, to the peaceable gospel.
The peace testimony is actually a statement of faith. Not surprising really, or it shouldn’t be. Early Friends were all about shouting out the truth. “Christ has come to teach the people himself” was a early tagline. It’s no wonder that they stretched it out to say that Christ has taken away occasion for war. Hallelujiah!, I can hear them shout. Let the celebration begin. I always hear John Lennon echoing these celebrants when he sings “War is over” and follows with “if we want it.”
Obviously war isn’t over. People must still want it. And they do. War is rooted in lusts, James 4:1 – 3 tells us. Modern American greed for material things with ever more rapacity and blindness. We drive our S.U.V.s and then fight for oil supplies in the Persian Gulf. We worry that we won’t be popular or loved if we don’t use teeth-whitening strips or don’t obsess over the latest T.V. fad. We aren’t living in the Power and the Deceiver convinces us that war is peace.
But the Power is there. We can live in that Power and it will take away more than occasions for war, for it will take away the lusts and insecurities that lead to war.
Speaking Faith to Power
When you’ve acknowledge the Power, what does faith become? It becomes a testimony to the world. I can testify to you personally that there is a Power and that this Power will comfort you, teach you, guide you. Early Friends were proselytising when they wrote their statement. After writing his letter to Cromwell, Fox went to visit the man himself. Cromwell was undoubtedly the most powerful man in England and anything but a pacifist. He had raised and led armies against the king and it was he who ordered the beheading of King Charles I. And what did Fox talk about? Truth. And Jesus.
George Fox stood as a witness just as he promised, and tried to turn Cromwell from darkness to light, to bring him from the cause of war to the peaceable gospel. By Fox’s account, it almost worked:
As I was turning, he caught me by the hand, and with tears in his eyes said, “Come again to my house; for if thou and I were but an hour of a day together, we should be nearer one to the other”; adding that he wished me no more ill than he did to his own soul. I told him if he did he wronged his own soul; and admonished him to hearken to God’s voice, that he might stand in his counsel, and obey it; and if he did so, that would keep him from hardness of heart; but if he did not hear God’s voice, his heart would be hardened. He said it was true.
This then is the Quaker Peace Testimony. I don’t think it can be divorced from its spiritual basis. In the twentieth century, many leading Friends tried to dilute the Quaker message to make it more understandable and palatable for non-Friends. A line of George Fox was taken out of context and used so much that most Friends have adopted “that of God in everyone” as a unified creed, forgetting that it’s a modern phrase whose ambiguity Fox wouldn’t have appreciated. When we talk about peace, we often do so in very secularized language. We’re still trying to proselytize, but our message is a rationalist one that war can be solved by technocratic means and a more democratic apportionment of resources. Most contemporary statements have all the umph of a floor speech at the Democratic National Convention, with only throw-away references to “communities of faith,” and bland statements of “that of God” hinting that there might be something more to our message.
The freedom of living the Power
We actually share much of the peace testimony with a number of Christians. There are many Evangelical Christians who readily agree that there’s a Power but conclude that their job is just to wait for its return. They define the power strictly as Jesus Christ and the return as the Second Coming. They foresee a worldly Armageddon when peace will fail and thousands will die.
That’s not our way. Friends pulled Christianity out of the first century and refused to wait for any last century to declare that Jesus is here now, “to teach his people himself.” We keep constant vigil and rejoice to find the returned Christ already here, deep in our hearts, at work in the world. Our way of working for peace is to praise the Power, wait for its guidance and then follow it’s commands through whatever hardship await us. When we’re doing it right, we become instruments of God in the service of the Spirit. Christ does use us to take away the occasions for war!
But the waiting is necessary, the guidance is key. It gives us the strength to overcome overwork and burn-out and it gives us the direction for our work. The slickest, most expensive peace campaigns and the most dramatic self-inflating actions often achieve much less than the simple, humble, behind-the-scenes, year-in, year-out service. I suspect that the ways we’re most used by the Spirit are ways we barely perceive.
Quaker ministry is not a passive waiting. We pray, we test, we work hard and we use all the gifts our Creator has given us (intelligence, technologies, etc.). There are problems in the world, huge ones that need addressing and we will address them. But we do so out of a joy. And through our work, we ask others to join us in our joy, to lift up the cross with us, joining Jesus metaphorically in witnessing to the world.
The modern-day President ordering a war suffers from the same lack of faith that George Fox’s Cromwell did. They are ignorant or impatient of Christ’s message and so take peace-making into their own hands. But how much do faithless politicians differ from many contemporary peace activists? When I blockade a federal building or stand in front of a tank, am I trying to stop war myself? When I say it’s my job to “end the occasion for war,” am I taking on the work of God? I feel sad for the woman who rose in Meeting for Worship and told us how hard her peace work is. Each of us alone is incapable of bringing on world peace, and we turn in our own tracks with a quiet dispair. I’ve seen so many Quaker peace activists do really poor jobs with such a overwhelmed sense of sadness that they don’t get much support. Detached from the Spirit, we look to gain our self-worth from others and we start doing things simply to impress our worldly peers. If we’re lucky we get money but not love, respect but not a new voice lifted up in the choir of praise for the Creator. We’ve given up hope in God’s promise and despair is our ever-present companion.
Our testimony to the world
It doesn’t need to be this way. And I think for many Friends it hasn’t been. When you work for the Power, you don’t get attached to your work’s outcome in the same way. We’re just footsoldiers for the Lord. Often we’ll do things and have no idea how they’ve affected others. It’s not our job to know, for it’s not our job to be sucessful as defined by the world. Maybe all the work I’ve ever done for peace is for some exchange of ideas that I won’t recognize at the time. We need to strive to be gracious and grounded even in the midst of all the undramatic moments (as well as those most dramatic moments). We will be known to the world by how we witness our trust in God and by how faithfully we live our lives in obedience to the Spirit’s instructions.
Related Reading
Again, the link to the 1660 Declaration is the first stop for those wanting to understand Friends’ understanding on peacemaking.
Quaker Historian Jerry Frost talked about the peace testimony as part of his history of twentieth century Quakerism (“Non-violence seemed almost a panacea for liberal Friends seeking politically and socially relevant peace work”). Bill Samuel has written a history of the peace testimony with a good list of links. Lloyd Lee Wilson wrote about being a “Christian Pacifist” in the April 2003 edition of Quaker Life.
If wars are indeed rooted in lust, then nonviolent activism should be involved in examinating those lusts. In The Roots of Nonviolence (written for Nonviolence.org), I talk a little about how activists might relate to the deeper causes of the war to transcend the “anti-war” movement. One way I’ve been exploring anti-consumerism in with my re-examination of the Quaker tradition of plain dress.
For reasons I can’t understand, people sometimes read “Living in the Power: the Quaker Peace Testimony Reclaimed” and think I’m “advocating a retreat from directly engaging the problems of the world” (as one Friend put it). I ask those who think I’m positing some sort of either/or duality betwen faith vs. works, or ministry vs. activism, to please reread the essay. I have been a peace activist for over fifteen years and run nonviolence.org [update: ran, I laid it down in 2008), a prominent website on nonviolence. I think some of the misunderstandings are generational.