I feel I need to complete this thought. Explaining an entire society of people in one blog post is certainly impossible, but maybe in two I can get a little closer. The post below explains some of the basics of Quakerism, but now I want to explicitly describe how my dad who is probably one of God's toughest mortal enemies, can't disagree with it. Below is a link to my dad's blog.
http://www.rationalresistance.blogspot.com
Jack McCullough, my dad, opposes religion because it is based on belief in a fictitious character or characters that have supernatural powers.
Most quakers do believe in God, but you don't really need to in order to be a quaker, like I said in the post below Quakers don't focus on the naming of God. I find it frustrating that when I read Quaker books I can't go very far without seeing the word God in there. I don't believe in God, so this is a barrier for me. But I do believe that existence, nature, the universe, creation, call it what you will, is so elegant and complex that a three letter place holder to refer to this vastly wonderful gift that we all share is not completely disagreeable. I feel more comfortable with calling it nature though, so when I read the word God I just replace it with Nature.
The limitation there however is that I don't believe that nature as a whole can want anything the way God is supposed to want things, He wants us all to behave and stuff. Nature isn't petty like that, it simply is, as far as I can tell. No matter what lens you use, Nature can never be seen in full. Like a telescope that can't see the far side of the moon, or a microscope under which tiny green blobs appear discrete, but when the lens is gone, we see a leaf indivisible.
As we cannot see nature, so we can't describe it. When Nature is described as a line from point A to point B, the model breaks upon realizing the line is a circle. When Nature is a circle, it describes the seasons, and it describes the tides, the populations of the animals and many things, but over time, this too breaks down because you see that this circle was only a coil of a longer line, marching through time.
For some the very existence of the universe somehow proves God. To me, existence only proves existence. Why separate the creator from the creation? "Create" is a transitive verb, which implies intention, or one party acting on another. Become is a better word.
God created the world?
The world became?
Nature Is.
I think my dad also disagrees with religion because of it's hierarchy and its brainwashing qualities. Well, Quakers are very forward thinking people. They have no hierarchy. There is no written creed. Quakers publish periodical books like Faith and Practice which constantly revise Quaker beliefs.
Quakers make decisions based on consensus. The testimonies of the Quaker belief are fluid, and new ones can be made if all Quakers agree. And how do they reach agreement? Its just like a regular silent meeting except everyone tries to focus on a certain topic. So it takes a long time. This consensus process is something like a Jedi council mixed with an Entmoot, except everyone's invited and you eat soup afterwards in the basement. This is democracy at its finest. Everyone's concerns are met, everyone's points are heard, everyone's feelings and inhibitions are out in the open with each good Quaker searching for truth within, in other words thinking critically. It isn't politics in other words. It's group collaboration and it takes many years to decide important or controversial things.
When consensus is reached in the weekly meeting, they send a message to other meetings in the area to consider the same topic. There is a monthly meeting and a yearly meeting as well, each one bigger than the last.
I heard the story from a local Friend who was at the Yearly meeting where gay marriage and homosexuality were decided by Consensus to be OK after years of "debate". People were crying and who knows what else.
There is no voting required, just talking out differences and listening to each other. I wish everyone was a quaker. We'd all live simply and pursue peace, justice, equity, sustainability and we'd have kickass soup every week. What do you think, Pop?
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This picture's out of date, though not inaccurate.
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This picture's out of date, though not inaccurate.
About Me
- Tommy Peppergrass
- Craftsbury Common, Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, United States
- I have studied the efforts of modern heroes working in vain to turn the world back to some era of perfection, in vain to move the world forward accelerating cultural change unnaturally to a future ideal, or vainly dealing some damage as we all go down in flames. I have tried all three of these routes in my environmental life, but now none of them ring true. They all contribute, however, to a single truth: above the animals, above the trees, above human kind, my chief moral obligation is to the land. As succinctly as I can muster, the vision I have for this world manifests thus (1) a working landscape, understood and nurtured by its people, (2) a wild landscape permitted to exist by staying humanity’s destructive hand, and (3) a joinery of the working and wild, made not of steel cables, but of sinew, just as strong, yet with an acknowledgement of impermanence.
2 comments:
Great couple of posts, Adam.
I need to think about it some more before I can give a full response, but I do have some initial thoughts.
First, any religion that dispenses with the concept of god is better than any religion that keeps it.
Second, as you can imagine, it's hard for me to find fault with an organization that involves a lot of space between words. More to the point, it does sound as though positions are arrived at and agreed to by the exercise of reason, which, in my view, is the only way to proceed. No appeal to authority, no resort to what some imaginary creature wants you to do. Again, this is all to the good.
As I commented to a friend back in college whose church was Ethical Culture, it's a bit hard to see why this is a religion, though.
One concern I have is that even using such concepts as "spirit" (and I don't know that they do) is already enough of a departure from rationality that I won't go along with it, even if you define spirit as the product of a number of people being together and trying to achieve right thought and right action.
There is also a practical issue. While you describe the process of consensus as a truly democratic process, there is another way of looking at it that shows it to be antidemocratic and inefficient.
I can talk about the inefficiency first. There are some decisions that need to be made quickly, and can't be allowed to wait until the time is ripe.
Second, a true consensus model means that no decision is made until there is consensus, i.e. 100% agreement. This means that one person can block agreement, or, to put it another way, the most intransigent person in the group can control the outcome by refusing to agree to what the overwhelming majority wants. I've been in groups that work by consensus and I've definitely seen that happen.
Finally, there is the question of what does it mean to be a Quaker. Or, to put it another way, if a war criminal and mass murderer like Richard Nixon could be one, how could it mean much?
I love these Quaker posts. Not only can I read your enthusiasm for having found a group of kindred spirits, but I also see your genuine desire to reconcile this with your father whose good opinion you value. I hope when my children grow up and explore their options in the world that they too will be open to sharing their journey with me.
I appreciate your struggle with the "God" thang, because I went through this myself. I studied at a college founded by Quakers (Swarthmore), and then spent a couple of years attending the Quaker meeting in Madison, Wisconsin. I still consider them quality people. I admire their goals and philosophy and the high percentage of Quakers who live up to their ideals. For many of them, their ideals are a way of life, not just philosophic party talk. As a pacifist, I find them as staunch and vocal allies. And they are not stuffy at all - they sing and dance and hold potlucks and are very welcoming. And of course, kick-ass soup. But I parted ways with them.
What drove me away was the persistence of Christian language and imagery and philosophy in their literature. Because historically and philosophically, it is a Christian religion, and the foundation laid down in the 17th century was unapologetically Christian. Many modern Quakers are embarassed by this, or avoid this, or act as though this is some vestigial relic of their religion. These Quakers are almost Unitarian in their approach and say that Christ is only one voice among many. Christianity was the religious idiom of the founders of Quakerism, they say, but there is nothing wrong with rewording or revising or finding some other idiom to reference. They refer to the Light and the Spirit because they are more comfortable with this imagery and it fits their modern sensibilities. When I attended meeting regularly, I tried to do this too, because I loved the people and wanted to belong. But I was raised a Jew.
I have presumed you are not Jewish, so forgive me if I'm wrong, and so I assume this last sentence won't mean much to you. It is very difficult to be a Jew and participate in any organization where Christian imagery plays a role, however subdued or reinterpreted. Judiasm and Christianity have much in common, but a belief in Christ as Savior is not one of them. It is the big red flag. My step-mother-in-law is Baptist and has a piece of folk art on her refrigerator that says (I am paraphrasing), "Don't ask the Lord for favors. Just show up for duty." Believe it or not, this is something fundamental Judaism and Christianity have in common. On the other hand, she says, "The difference between your religion and mine is this: we believe the Messiah has already come and you don't." If it isn't clear, this was said very respectifully and received that way. She is a great woman, and I love her dearly, especially her commitment to her religion. her statement is, of course, a gross simplification of the difference between our religions, but it does illustrate nicely the importance of the issue, and why it is a big deal to Jews. "Jesus" was a fine young rabbi, but "Christ" is a great fat wedge, an enormous hyphen, separating Judeo from Christian.
Anyway, the references to Christianity in Quakerism might be imperceptible or minor to some, but to me they were loud and invasive. It is like living in a house with mice and trying to pretend that, since you can't see them, the mice aren't there. Their effect is palpable, if you are willing to see it, and every once in a while, you can't help notice that tiny bites are taken out of the pears, or there are tiny foot prints in the butter dish, or a faint scratching noise in the walls of your soul. And then one day, when you haven't seen or heard a sign of it for weeks, you wake up and walk into the kitchen, and there are three of them on the counter gnawing at the pizza you left out overnight on the counter.
I would go to Meeting for weeks and not hear a word or a peep about God or Christ. People would be moved to stand up and speak about Ghandi or Martin Luther King, Jr. or Jimmy Carter. I would read the literature, the historical pamphlets, and notice that over time, God and Christ tend to drop out of the picture. I would tell myself Quakerism was evolving and changing. That it wasn't a Christian religion anymore. And I would almost believe it. And then someone, usually an elder or old timer who I'd never heard of before, would stand up and repeat some founding Quaker elder's words about Christ's message to us and obedience to God. And I would look around the room at the silent heads, eyes focused on the distance, concentrating, nodding, and appreciating. And I knew I didn't belong. But I also could see that God and Christianity, while perhaps not as major a focus for Quakers as it is for say my step-mom-in-law, was still an important and vital part of the religion. It's all part of the package, and you have to embrace the whole thing.
I see it like this. Quakerism's relationship to Christianity is like the young man's relationship to his mother. There is this yearning to break free, to seek his own fortune, to not lose his own identity in the confining embrace of family, but the tie is always there. You never break free of your family, and as hard as it tries, Quakerism never breaks free of Christianity. Nor should it, in my humble opinion, anymore than a young man should divest himself of his mother and kin. Some of the best things in Quakerism comes from its liberal Christian roots, and the strongest Quakers I know are the ones who embrace this relationship rather than struggle against it. I think many Quakers (many FGC Quakers) do not understand this and do not want to understand this.
That's my $0.02. Sorry it took so long to spell it out. Making up for my time away on vacation.
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