Mercurial > hg > rsof

comparison but_a_way.xml @ 117:6ade7add794a

Find changesets by keywords (author, files, the commit message), revision number or hash, or revset expression.
intro
author ht
date Mon, 11 Dec 2017 14:03:28 -0500
parents
children bbda1b9895b2
comparison
equal deleted inserted replaced
116:3b0a11c71380 117:6ade7add794a
1 <?xml version='1.0'?>
2 <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="../../lib/xml/doc.xsl" ?>
3 <!DOCTYPE doc SYSTEM "../../lib/xml/doc.dtd" >
4 <doc>
5 <head>
6 <title>Not a notion but a way</title>
7 <author>Henry S. Thompson</author>
8 <date>11 Dec 2017</date>
9 </head>
10 <body>
11 <div>
12 <title>Introduction</title>
13 <p><emph>God, words and us</emph>[subtitle] is a good thing to have done,
14 thoughtful, worth reading but, for me, ultimately disappointing, an opportunity
15 missed. Maybe focussing on the language that divides us was necessary, and the
16 light this book shines on the nature of that division, what is and isn't
17 important about it, is valuable. But it feels to me that it got trapped by its
18 own success and never got past a fundamental assumption which guaranteed its
19 eventual limitations: it gives good advice about what kind of language
20 <emph>not</emph> to use, but is much less useful about what kind of language we
21 <emph>should</emph> use.</p>
22 <p>The key, mistaken, assumption is that what we need to talk about as
23 Quakers is what we <emph>believe</emph> (or don't believe). There are a few
24 oblique mentions of alternatives in the book, but it's almost all about belief.
25 That's not the right place to look for what unites us as Quakers. After all,
26 we've all heard it said, indeed many of us have said ourselves, that the
27 <emph>single</emph> think we can confidently say unites the membership of
28 Britain Yearly meeting is that when we can we meet together in something called
29 Meeting for Worship. Our identity is not fundamentally determined by what we
30 believe, but by what we <emph>do</emph>.</p>
31 <p>If you only look at the language of belief, you miss a whole different
32 way of looking at religious identity. Choices with respect to the language of
33 belief are what distinguish many, even most, Christian denominations from one
34 another, but that's actually a game we Quakers 'officially' declined to play a
35 long time ago: we don't do creeds. And we're not the only religion that
36 isn't best understood in terms of belief.</p>
37 <p>I was moved by my disappointment with where the theology think tank has
38 left us to try to write down what I see as a better way to
39 distinguish <emph>us</emph>, to try to shift the ground of looking for language
40 that we can unite with, that works for us, from belief to practice, from
41 ortho<emph>doxy</emph> to ortho<emph>praxy</emph>.</p>
42 <p>I don't claim originality in suggesting this: I think it's at the heart
43 of what Ben Pink Dandelion has been writing and saying for some time, and I'd
44 be surprised if there weren't others who will read this and say "But that's
45 what I've been saying for <emph>years</emph>". I can only apologise for not
46 having read more widely or, increasingly likely, that I have simply forgotten
47 what I <emph>have</emph> read. My excuse for writing this none-the-less is to
48 try to encourage people to read <emph>God, words and us</emph>, but avoid the
49 not unreasonable conclusion from doing so that
50 belief-talk is what matters.</p>
51 </div>
52 <div>
53 <title>We already know this</title>
54 <p>Listing a few well-known phrases will help me make my point</p>
55 <list type="naked">
56 <item>Let your life speak</item>
57 <item>Be patterns, be examples</item>
58 <item>A testimony to the grace of God as shown in the life of ...</item>
59 <item>[For Quakers] Christianity is not a notion, but a way</item>
60 <item>As Friends we commit ourselves to a way of worship</item>
61 <item>Come regularly to meeting for worship</item>
62 </list>
63 <p>And an old family story:</p>
64 <list type="defn">
65 <item term="visitor">Are you a Christian?</item>
66 <item term="host">[pause] You'll have to ask my neighbour</item>
67 </list>
68 </div>
69 </body>
70 </doc>