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74 </style><title>Not a notion but a way</title></head><body style="font-family: DejaVu Sans, Arial; background: rgb(254,250,246)"><div style="text-align: center" class="head"><hr/><h1>Not a notion but a way</h1><div class="byline">Henry S. Thompson</div><div class="byline">13 Dec 2017</div><div class="copyright">Copyright © 2017 <a href="http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/">Henry S. Thompson</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en">CC-BY-SA</a></div></div><div class="body"><div><h2>1. Introduction</h2><p><i>God, words and us</i>[subtitle] is a good thing to have done,
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75 thoughtful, worth reading but, for me, ultimately disappointing, an opportunity
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76 missed. Maybe focussing on the language that divides us was necessary, and the
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77 light this book shines on the nature of that division, what is and isn't
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78 important about it, is valuable. But it feels to me that it got trapped by its
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79 own success and never got past a fundamental assumption which guaranteed its
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80 eventual limitations: it gives good advice about what kind of language
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81 <i>not</i> to use, but is much less useful about what kind of language we
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82 <i>should</i> use.</p><p>The key, mistaken, assumption is that what we need to talk about as
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83 Quakers is what we <i>believe</i> (or don't believe). There are a few
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84 oblique mentions of alternatives in the book, but it's almost all about belief.
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85 That's not the right place to look for what unites us as Quakers. After all,
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86 we've all heard it said, indeed many of us have said ourselves, that the
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87 <i>single</i> thing we can confidently say unites the membership of
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88 Britain Yearly Meeting is that when we can we meet together in something called
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89 Meeting for Worship. Our identity is not fundamentally determined by what we
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90 believe, but by what we <i>do</i>.</p><p>If you only look at the language of belief, you miss a whole different
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91 way of looking at religious identity. Choices with respect to the language of
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92 belief are what distinguish many, even most, Christian denominations from one
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93 another, but that's actually a game we Quakers 'officially' declined to play a
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94 long time ago: we don't do creeds. And we're not the only religion that
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95 isn't best understood in terms of belief.</p><p>I was moved by my disappointment with where the theology think tank has
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96 left us to try to write down what I see as a better way to
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97 distinguish <i>us</i>, to try to shift the ground of looking for language
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98 that we can unite with, that works for us, from belief to practice, from
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99 ortho<i>doxy</i> to ortho<i>praxy</i>.</p><p>I don't claim originality in suggesting this: John Punshon, as quoted in
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100 QF&P 20.18, pretty much writes exactly this in 1967, and I think it's at the heart
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101 of what Ben Pink Dandelion has been writing and saying for some time. I'd
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102 be surprised if there weren't others who will read this and say "But that's
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103 what I've been saying for <i>years</i>". I can only apologise for not
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104 having read more widely or, increasingly likely, that I have simply forgotten
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105 what I <i>have</i> read. My excuse for writing this none-the-less is to
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106 try to encourage people to read <i>God, words and us</i>, but avoid the
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107 not unreasonable conclusion from doing so that
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108 belief-talk is what matters most.</p></div><div><h2>2. We already know this</h2><p>Quoting a few well-known phrases will help me make my point:</p><ul class="naked nolabel "><li>Let your life speak</li><li>Be patterns, be examples</li><li>A testimony to the grace of God as shown in the life of ...</li><li>A humble learner in the school of Christ</li><li>[For Quakers] Christianity is not a notion, but a way</li><li>As Friends we commit ourselves to a way of worship</li><li>Come regularly to meeting for worship</li><li>... in the manner of Friends</li><li>Swear not at all</li><li>Live simply</li><li>[need a quote for equality/justice testimony]</li><li>[L]ive in the virtue of that life and power that takes away the occasion of all wars</li></ul><p>And an old family story:</p><dl class=" "><dt><b><a name="visitor">visitor</a></b></dt><dd>Are you a Christian?</dd><dt><b><a name="host">host</a></b></dt><dd>[pause] You'll have to ask my neighbour</dd></dl><p>This emphasis on what we <i>do</i> as Quakers puts us, according to
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109 Karen Armstrong, right back at the heart of the origins of the great monotheist religions:</p><blockquote class="vanilla"><div><p>"Religion as defined by the great sages of India, China, and the Middle East was not a notional activity but a practical one; it did not require belief in a set of doctrines but rather hard, disciplined work..."</p>
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110 <p><i>The Case for God</i>, 2000</p></div></blockquote><p>Armstrong suggests that contemporary Judaism and Islam have retained
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111 their original self-definitions centred on orthopraxy ("uniformity of religious
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112 practice"), whereas Christian denominations in the
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113 main have shifted much more towards defining themselves in terms of orthodoxy ("correct belief").</p><p>It's not surprising that, surrounded as we are by churches for whom
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114 orthodoxy is fundamental, as well as strident parodies of all religious people
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115 as little better (indeed more dangerous) than flat-earthers, we should have
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116 fallen into adopting their language for our own internal discourse.</p></div><div><h2>3. And this [we know] experimentally</h2><p>But, what does that have to do with us, you may well ask? All that old
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117 language may be all very well, and give us a warm feeling of in-group-ness when
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118 we hear it, but what does it actually amount to here and now? It may be
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119 interesting in an intellectual sense to hear that historical Christianity and
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120 contemporary Judaism were/are founded on practice, but we're not about water
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121 baptism or attending Mass or circumcision keeping kosher. What's so special
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122 about Meeting for Worship that it can sustain us in unity, preserve the
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123 effectiveness of our business method and allow our disagreements about belief
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124 language to be recognised without fear?</p><p>It's simple, really. In Meeting for Worship, on a good day, we
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125 experience two things: a presence and a possibility. That's why we keep
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126 coming back, because at some level we know we need to keep having that experience.</p><p>What presence? The technical term for it is 'transcendence'. We're not very good at talking about it. We refer to a
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127 "gathered" meeting. We say "Meeting for Worship is not just meditation". We
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128 know it when it happens. It's
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129 elusive, and if we try to pin it down we lose it, that feeling that we are
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130 joined with one another into something more than just our physical co-location.
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131 Accepting that it is "not just me" isn't easy in the resolutely individualistic
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132 culture we live in today, but if there is one item of faith we
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133 <i>must</i> confess, at least to one another, it is the truth of that
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134 experience, joining with and encouraged by 350 years of history and hundreds of
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135 Meetings around the world today.</p><p>What possibility? The technical term for it is 'immanence'. We see and
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136 hear it in the witness of those around
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137 us: the possibility of living an inspired life. We <i>recognise</i> it
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138 most vividly in Meeting for Worship, when we hear authentic ministry, 'authentic' because it comes from someone
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139 we know is speaking as they live. It cannot be be faked, it is unmistakable,
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140 terrifying and uplifting in equal measure. It
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141 calls us to what we aspire to. It is at once daunting (how can I possibly do
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142 what they do) and reassuring (it is possible). These are not celebrities or
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143 distant missionaries, they are each <i>one of us</i>.</p><p>Whole books have been written about both of these, I have barely scratched
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144 the surface. My point is simply that <i>this</i> is what we need most to
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145 be talking about, and we don't need to agree about the <i>words</i> in
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146 order to get started, we just have to acknowledge that there is a shared
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147 <i>experience</i> that matters, deeply, to us, and that its reality and
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148 its significance are <i>not</i> compromised by our unsatisfactory
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149 attempts to talk about it.</p></div><div><h2>4. There's nothing wrong with talking about belief</h2><p>It's natural to want to dig in to <i>why</i> we do what we do. And
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150 it's not surprising that we struggle to come up with agreed answers. The key
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151 point to hold on to is <i>that doesn't undermine the validity of the
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152 doings</i>. Or, rather, it only undermines our faith if we <i>let</i>
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153 it. If we restricted ourselves to only doing things if we understood why they
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154 worked, we'd have very little left. And, as the previous section tried to
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155 explain, we know that what we do <i>does</i> work. So sure, keep trying
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156 to figure out why. But meantime, keep cheerfully practicing.</p></div></div></body></html> |
