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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">14 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> 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 is valuable. But it feels to me that it got trapped by its
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78 own success and never got past a fundamental assumption which guaranteed its
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79 eventual limitations.</p><p>The key, mistaken, assumption is that what we need to talk about as
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80 Quakers is what we <i>believe</i>.
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81 That's not the right way to look for what unites us as Quakers. After all,
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82 the
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83 <i>single</i> thing we can confidently say unites
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84 Britain Yearly Meeting is that we go to
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85 Meeting for Worship. Our identity is not determined by what we
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86 <i>believe</i>, 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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87 way of looking at religious identity. Choices with respect to the language of
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88 belief are what distinguish many, even most, Christian denominations, but
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124
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89 that's something Quakers have stood aside from: we don't do creeds. And we're not the only religion that
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123
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90 isn't best understood in terms of belief, and recognising that points us towards a better way to
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91 distinguish ourselves, by shifting the focus from belief to practice, from
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92 ortho<i>doxy</i> to ortho<i>praxy</i>.</p><p>I don't claim originality in suggesting this: John Punshon pretty much
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93 writes exactly this in
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94 QF&P 20.18, and it's at the heart
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95 of what Ben Pink Dandelion has been saying for some time.</p></div><div><h2>2. We already know this</h2><p>Some well-known phrases 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>As Friends we commit ourselves to a way of 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>It's not surprising that, surrounded as we are by churches for whom
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96 orthodoxy is fundamental we should have
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97 fallen into adopting their language for our own internal discourse. But we
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98 need to shake that off, and embrace our distinctive nature.</p><p>Emphasising what we <i>do</i> puts us, according to
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99 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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100 <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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101 their original self-definitions centred on orthopraxy ("uniformity of religious
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102 practice"), whereas Christian denominations have shifted much more towards defining themselves in terms of orthodoxy ("correct belief").</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? That old
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103 language may give us a warm feeling of in-group-ness when
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104 we hear it, but what does it mean to us now? It may be
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105 of intellectual interest to hear that historical Christianity and
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106 contemporary Judaism were/are founded on practice, but we're not about water
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107 baptism or keeping kosher. What's so special
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108 about Meeting for Worship that it can sustain us in unity, preserve the
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109 effectiveness of our business method and allow our disagreements about belief
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110 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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111 experience two things: a presence and a possibility. That's why we keep
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112 coming back, because at some level we know we need 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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113 "gathered" meeting. We say "Meeting for Worship is not just meditation". We
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114 know it when it happens. It's
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115 elusive, and if we try to pin it down we lose it, that feeling that we are
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116 joined with one another into something more than just our physical co-location.
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117 Accepting that it is "not just me" isn't easy in the resolutely individualistic
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118 culture we live in today, but if there is one item of faith we
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119 <i>must</i> confess, at least to one another, it is the truth of that
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120 experience, embracing 350 years of history and hundreds of
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121 Meetings around the world today.</p><p>What possibility? The technical term for it is 'immanence'. We see and
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122 hear it in the witness of those around
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123 us: the possibility of living an inspired life. We <i>recognise</i> it
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124 most vividly when we hear authentic ministry, coming from someone
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125 we know is speaking as they live. It cannot be be faked, it is unmistakable,
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126 terrifying and uplifting in equal measure. It
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127 calls us to what we aspire to, here and now: These are neither historical
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128 figures, contemporary celebrities nor
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129 distant missionaries, they are each <i>one of us</i>.</p><p><i>This</i> is what we need most to
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130 be talking about, and we don't need to agree about the <i>words</i> in
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131 order to get started. There's nothing <i>wrong</i> with talking about
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132 belief—it's natural to want to dig in to <i>why</i> we do what we
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133 do, and belief language creeps in to this, precisely <i>because</i> we're
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134 not sure of ourselves.</p><p>So, guard against being <i>consumed</i> in such
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135 talk, and remember that it's the
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136 <i>experience</i> that matters, and matters deeply. Its reality and
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137 its significance are <i>not</i> compromised by our unsatisfactory
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138 attempts to talk about it. We know that what we <i>do</i> works for us. So sure, keep trying
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139 to figure out why. But meantime, keep cheerfully practicing.</p></div></div></body></html> |
