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77 .bib div {clear: both}</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"><h1>Not a notion but a way</h1><hr/><div class="byline">Henry S. Thompson</div><div class="byline">9 January 2018</div><div class="copyright">Copyright © 2018 <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> <a href="#hr">[Rowlands 2017]</a> is a good thing to have done,
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78 thoughtful, worth reading but, for me, ultimately disappointing, an opportunity
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79 missed. Maybe focussing on the language that divides us was necessary, and the
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80 light this book shines on the nature of that division, what is and isn't
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81 important about it, is valuable. But it feels to me that it got trapped by its
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82 own success and never got past a fundamental assumption which guaranteed its
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83 eventual limitations.</p><p>The key, mistaken, assumption is that what we need to talk about as
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84 Quakers is what we <i>believe</i> (or don't believe). There are a few
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85 oblique mentions of alternatives in the book, but it's almost all about belief.
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86 That's not the right way to look for what unites us as Quakers. After all,
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87 we've all heard it said, indeed many of us have said ourselves, that the
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88 <i>single</i> thing we can confidently say unites the membership of
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89 Britain Yearly Meeting is that when we can we go to
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90 Meeting for Worship. Our identity is not determined by what we
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91 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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92 way of looking at religious identity. Choices with respect to the language of
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93 belief are what distinguish many, even most, Christian denominations, but
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94 that's something Quakers have stood aside from: we don't do creeds. And,
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95 importantly, we're not the only religion that isn't best understood in terms of
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96 belief. Acknowledging this points us towards a better way to distinguish
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97 ourselves, by shifting the focus from belief to practice, from
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98 ortho<i>doxy</i> to ortho<i>praxy</i>.</p><p>I don't claim originality in suggesting this: John Punshon <a href="#jp">[Punshon 1987]</a> pretty much writes exactly this, and I think it's at the heart
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99 of what Ben Pink Dandelion has been writing and saying for some time.</p></div><div><h2>2. We already know this</h2><p>Some well-known phrases illustrate the 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>[A]lleviate suffering and seek positive social change</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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100 Karen Armstrong, in line with 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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101 <p><a href="#ka">[Armstrong 2000]</a></p></div></blockquote><p>Armstrong suggests that contemporary Judaism and Islam have retained
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102 their original self-definitions centred on orthopraxy ("uniformity of religious
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103 practice"), whereas Christian denominations in the
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104 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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105 orthodoxy is fundamental, as well as strident parodies of all religious people
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106 as little better (indeed more dangerous) than flat-earthers, we should have
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107 fallen into adopting their language for our own internal discourse. But once
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108 we're <i>aware</i> of that, we can choose to step away.</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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109 language may be all very well, and give us a warm feeling of in-group-ness when
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110 we hear it, but what does it actually amount to here and now? It may be
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111 interesting in an intellectual sense to hear that historical Christianity and
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112 contemporary Judaism were/are founded on practice, but we're not about water
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113 baptism or attending Mass or circumcision or keeping kosher. What's so special
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114 about Meeting for Worship that it can sustain us in unity, preserve the
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115 effectiveness of our business method and allow our disagreements about belief
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116 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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117 experience two things: a presence and a possibility. That's why we keep
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118 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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119 "gathered" meeting. We say "Meeting for Worship is not just meditation". We
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120 know it when it happens. It's
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121 elusive, and if we try to pin it down we lose it, that feeling that we are
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122 joined with one another into something more than just our physical co-location.
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123 Accepting that it is "not just me" isn't easy in the resolutely individualistic
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124 culture we live in today, but if there is one item of faith we
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125 <i>must</i> confess, at least to one another, it is the truth of that
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126 experience, joining with and encouraged by 350 years of history and hundreds of
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127 Meetings around the world today.</p><p>What possibility? The technical term for it is 'immanence'. We see and
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128 hear it in the witness of those around
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129 us: the possibility of living an inspired life. We <i>recognise</i> it
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130 most vividly in Meeting for Worship, when we hear authentic ministry, 'authentic' because it comes from someone
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131 we know is speaking as they live. It cannot be be faked, it is unmistakable,
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132 terrifying and uplifting in equal measure. It
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133 calls us to what we aspire to. It is at once daunting (how can I possibly do
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134 what they do) and reassuring (it is possible). These are not historical
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135 figures, not contemporary celebrities, not
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136 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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137 the surface. The point is simply that <i>this</i> is what we need most to
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138 be talking about, and we don't need to agree about the <i>words</i> in
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139 order to get started, we just have to acknowledge that there is a shared
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140 <i>experience</i> that matters, deeply, to us, and that its reality and
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141 its significance are <i>not</i> compromised by our unsatisfactory
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142 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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143 belief language inevitably creeps in to this, precisely <i>because</i> we're not sure of ourselves. And
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144 it's not surprising that we struggle to come up with agreed answers. The key
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145 point to hold on to is <i>that doesn't undermine the validity of the
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146 doings</i>. Or, rather, it only undermines our faith if we <i>let</i>
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147 it. If we restricted ourselves to only doing things if we understood why they
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148 worked, we'd have very little left. And, as the previous section tried to
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149 explain, we know that what we do <i>does</i> work for us. So sure, keep trying
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150 to figure out why. But meantime, keep cheerfully practicing.</p></div><div class="bib"><h2>5. References</h2><div><b>[Armstrong 2000]</b><p id="ka"> Armstrong, Karen, <i>The Case for
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151 God</i>. Knopf, New York, 2000.</p></div><div><b>[Punshon 1987]</b><p id="jp"> Punshon, John, <i>Encounters with silence: reflections
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152 from the Quaker tradition</i>, pp. 44–45. Quaker Home Service,
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153 London, 1987. Also Friends United Press,
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154 Richmond Indiana, 2006. As quoted in <i>Quaker
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155 Faith and Practice</i>, The Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of
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156 Friends (Quakers) in Britain, 1995. Available online at <a href="https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/passage/20-18/">QF&P 20.18</a></p></div><div><b>[Rowlands 2017]</b><p id="hr"> Rowlands, Helen ed. <i>God, words and
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157 us</i>. Quaker Books, London, 2017.</p></div></div></div></body></html> |
