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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>13 Dec 2017</date>
9 </head>
10 <body>
11 <div>
12 <title>Introduction</title>
13 <p><emph>God, words and us</emph> 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 is valuable. But it feels to me that it got trapped by its
17 own success and never got past a fundamental assumption which guaranteed its
18 eventual limitations.</p>
19 <p>The key, mistaken, assumption is that what we need to talk about as
20 Quakers is what we <emph>believe</emph>. There are a few
21 oblique mentions of alternatives in the book, but it's almost all about belief.
22 That's not the right place to look for what unites us as Quakers. After all,
23 we've all heard it said that the
24 <emph>single</emph> thing we can confidently say unites the membership of
25 Britain Yearly Meeting is that when we can we meet together in
26 Meeting for Worship. Our identity is not fundamentally determined by what we
27 <emph>believe</emph>, but by what we <emph>do</emph>.</p>
28 <p>If you only look at the language of belief, you miss a whole different
29 way of looking at religious identity. Choices with respect to the language of
30 belief are what distinguish many, even most, Christian denominations from one
31 another, but that's actually a game we Quakers 'officially' declined to play a
32 long time ago: we don't do creeds. And we're not the only religion that
33 isn't best understood in terms of belief, and recognising that points us towards a better way to
34 distinguish <emph>us</emph>, by shifting the focus from belief to practice, from
35 ortho<emph>doxy</emph> to ortho<emph>praxy</emph>.</p>
36 <p>I don't claim originality in suggesting this: John Punshon, as quoted in
37 QF&amp;P 20.18, pretty much writes exactly this in 1967, and I think it's at the heart
38 of what Ben Pink Dandelion has been writing and saying for some time. What
39 follows is very much in line with what I understand them (and others, no doubt)
40 to be saying.</p>
41 </div>
42 <div>
43 <title>We already know this</title>
44 <p>Quoting a few well-known phrases will help me make my point:</p>
45 <list type="naked">
46 <item>Let your life speak</item>
47 <item>Be patterns, be examples</item>
48 <item>A testimony to the grace of God as shown in the life of ...</item>
49 <item>As Friends we commit ourselves to a way of worship</item>
50 <item>... in the manner of Friends</item>
51 <item>Swear not at all</item>
52 <item>Live simply</item>
53 <item>[need a quote for equality/justice testimony]</item>
54 <item>[L]ive in the virtue of that life and power that takes away the occasion of all wars</item>
55 </list>
56 <p>This emphasis on what we <emph>do</emph> as Quakers puts us, according to
57 Karen Armstrong, right back at the heart of the origins of the great monotheist religions:</p>
58 <display><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>
59 <p><emph>The Case for God</emph>, 2000</p></display>
60 <p>Armstrong suggests that contemporary Judaism and Islam have retained
61 their original self-definitions centred on orthopraxy ("uniformity of religious
62 practice"), whereas Christian denominations in the
63 main have shifted much more towards defining themselves in terms of orthodoxy ("correct belief").</p>
64 <p>It's not surprising that, surrounded as we are by churches for whom
65 orthodoxy is fundamental, as well as strident parodies of all religious people
66 as little better than flat-earthers, we should have
67 fallen into adopting their language for our own internal discourse. But we
68 need to shake that off, and embrace our distinctive nature.</p>
69 </div>
70 <div>
71 <title>And this [we know] experimentally</title>
72 <p>But, what does that have to do with us, you may well ask? That old
73 language may give us a warm feeling of in-group-ness when
74 we hear it, but what does it actually amount to us now? It may be
75 of intellectual interest to hear that historical Christianity and
76 contemporary Judaism were/are founded on practice, but we're not about water
77 baptism or keeping kosher. What's so special
78 about Meeting for Worship that it can sustain us in unity, preserve the
79 effectiveness of our business method and allow our disagreements about belief
80 language to be recognised without fear?</p>
81 <p>It's simple, really. In Meeting for Worship, on a good day, we
82 experience two things: a presence and a possibility. That's why we keep
83 coming back, because at some level we know we need to keep having that experience.</p>
84 <p>What presence? The technical term for it is 'transcendence'. We're not very good at talking about it. We refer to a
85 "gathered" meeting. We say "Meeting for Worship is not just meditation". We
86 know it when it happens. It's
87 elusive, and if we try to pin it down we lose it, that feeling that we are
88 joined with one another into something more than just our physical co-location.
89 Accepting that it is "not just me" isn't easy in the resolutely individualistic
90 culture we live in today, but if there is one item of faith we
91 <emph>must</emph> confess, at least to one another, it is the truth of that
92 experience, joining with and encouraged by 350 years of history and hundreds of
93 Meetings around the world today.</p>
94 <p>What possibility? The technical term for it is 'immanence'. We see and
95 hear it in the witness of those around
96 us: the possibility of living an inspired life. We <emph>recognise</emph> it
97 most vividly in Meeting for Worship, when we hear authentic ministry, 'authentic' because it comes from someone
98 we know is speaking as they live. It cannot be be faked, it is unmistakable,
99 terrifying and uplifting in equal measure. It
100 calls us to what we aspire to. It is at once daunting (how can I possibly do
101 what they do) and reassuring (it is possible). These are not celebrities or
102 distant missionaries, they are each <emph>one of us</emph>.</p>
103 <p>Whole books have been written about both of these, I have barely scratched
104 the surface. My point is simply that <emph>this</emph> is what we need most to
105 be talking about, and we don't need to agree about the <emph>words</emph> in
106 order to get started. We just have to acknowledge that there is a shared
107 <emph>experience</emph> that matters, deeply, to us. Its reality and
108 its significance are <emph>not</emph> compromised by our unsatisfactory
109 attempts to talk about it.</p>
110 </div>
111 <div>
112 <title>There's nothing wrong with talking about belief</title>
113 <p>It's natural to want to dig in to <emph>why</emph> we do what we do. And
114 it's not surprising that we struggle to come up with agreed answers. The key
115 point to hold on to is <emph>that doesn't undermine the validity of the
116 doings</emph>. Or, rather, it only undermines our faith if we <emph>let</emph>
117 it. If we restricted ourselves to only doing things if we understood why they
118 worked, we'd have very little left. And, as the previous section tried to
119 explain, we know that what we do <emph>does</emph> work. So sure, keep trying
120 to figure out why. But meantime, keep cheerfully practicing.</p>
121 </div>
122 </body>
123 </doc>