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2 <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="../../lib/xml/doc.xsl" ?>
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3 <!DOCTYPE doc SYSTEM "../../lib/xml/doc.dtd" >
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4 <doc>
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5 <head>
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6 <title>Not a notion but a way</title>
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7 <author>Henry S. Thompson</author>
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8 <date>11 Dec 2017</date>
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9 </head>
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10 <body>
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11 <div>
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12 <title>Introduction</title>
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13 <p><emph>God, words and us</emph>[subtitle] is a good thing to have done,
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14 thoughtful, worth reading but, for me, ultimately disappointing, an opportunity
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15 missed. Maybe focussing on the language that divides us was necessary, and the
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16 light this book shines on the nature of that division, what is and isn't
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17 important about it, is valuable. But it feels to me that it got trapped by its
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18 own success and never got past a fundamental assumption which guaranteed its
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19 eventual limitations: it gives good advice about what kind of language
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20 <emph>not</emph> to use, but is much less useful about what kind of language we
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21 <emph>should</emph> use.</p>
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22 <p>The key, mistaken, assumption is that what we need to talk about as
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23 Quakers is what we <emph>believe</emph> (or don't believe). There are a few
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24 oblique mentions of alternatives in the book, but it's almost all about belief.
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25 That's not the right place to look for what unites us as Quakers. After all,
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26 we've all heard it said, indeed many of us have said ourselves, that the
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27 <emph>single</emph> think we can confidently say unites the membership of
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28 Britain Yearly meeting is that when we can we meet together in something called
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29 Meeting for Worship. Our identity is not fundamentally determined by what we
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30 believe, but by what we <emph>do</emph>.</p>
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31 <p>If you only look at the language of belief, you miss a whole different
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32 way of looking at religious identity. Choices with respect to the language of
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33 belief are what distinguish many, even most, Christian denominations from one
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34 another, but that's actually a game we Quakers 'officially' declined to play a
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35 long time ago: we don't do creeds. And we're not the only religion that
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36 isn't best understood in terms of belief.</p>
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37 <p>I was moved by my disappointment with where the theology think tank has
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38 left us to try to write down what I see as a better way to
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39 distinguish <emph>us</emph>, to try to shift the ground of looking for language
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40 that we can unite with, that works for us, from belief to practice, from
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41 ortho<emph>doxy</emph> to ortho<emph>praxy</emph>.</p>
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42 <p>I don't claim originality in suggesting this: I think it's at the heart
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43 of what Ben Pink Dandelion has been writing and saying for some time, and I'd
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44 be surprised if there weren't others who will read this and say "But that's
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45 what I've been saying for <emph>years</emph>". I can only apologise for not
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46 having read more widely or, increasingly likely, that I have simply forgotten
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47 what I <emph>have</emph> read. My excuse for writing this none-the-less is to
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48 try to encourage people to read <emph>God, words and us</emph>, but avoid the
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49 not unreasonable conclusion from doing so that
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50 belief-talk is what matters.</p>
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51 </div>
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52 <div>
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53 <title>We already know this</title>
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54 <p>Listing a few well-known phrases will help me make my point</p>
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55 <list type="naked">
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56 <item>Let your life speak</item>
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57 <item>Be patterns, be examples</item>
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58 <item>A testimony to the grace of God as shown in the life of ...</item>
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59 <item>[For Quakers] Christianity is not a notion, but a way</item>
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60 <item>As Friends we commit ourselves to a way of worship</item>
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61 <item>Come regularly to meeting for worship</item>
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62 </list>
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63 <p>And an old family story:</p>
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64 <list type="defn">
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65 <item term="visitor">Are you a Christian?</item>
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66 <item term="host">[pause] You'll have to ask my neighbour</item>
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67 </list>
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68 </div>
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69 </body>
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70 </doc>
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