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  <title>Not a notion but a way</title>
  <author>Henry S. Thompson</author>
  <date>11 Dec 2017</date>
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  <div>
   <title>Introduction</title>
   <p><emph>God, words and us</emph>[subtitle] is a good thing to have done,
thoughtful, worth reading but, for me, ultimately disappointing, an opportunity
missed.  Maybe focussing on the language that divides us was necessary, and the
light this book shines on the nature of that division, what is and isn't
important about it, is valuable.  But it feels to me that it got trapped by its
own success and never got past a fundamental assumption which guaranteed its
eventual limitations:  it gives good advice about what kind of language
<emph>not</emph> to use, but is much less useful about what kind of language we
<emph>should</emph> use.</p>
   <p>The key, mistaken, assumption is that what we need to talk about as
Quakers is what we <emph>believe</emph> (or don't believe).  There are a few
oblique mentions of alternatives in the book, but it's almost all about belief.
 That's not the right place to look for what unites us as Quakers.  After all,
we've all heard it said, indeed many of us have said ourselves, that the
<emph>single</emph> think we can confidently say unites the membership of
Britain Yearly meeting is that when we can we meet together in something called
Meeting for Worship.  Our identity is not fundamentally determined by what we
believe, but by what we <emph>do</emph>.</p>
   <p>If you only look at the language of belief, you miss a whole different
way of looking at religious identity.  Choices with respect to the language of
belief are what distinguish many, even most, Christian denominations from one
another, but that's actually a game we Quakers 'officially' declined to play a
long time ago: we don't do creeds.  And we're not the only religion that
isn't best understood in terms of belief.</p>
   <p>I was moved by my disappointment with where the theology think tank has
left us to try to write down what I see as a better way to
distinguish <emph>us</emph>, to try to shift the ground of looking for language
that we can unite with, that works for us, from belief to practice, from
ortho<emph>doxy</emph> to ortho<emph>praxy</emph>.</p>
   <p>I don't claim originality in suggesting this:  John Punshon, as quoted in
QF&amp;P 20.18, pretty much writes exactly this in 1967, and I think it's at the heart
of what Ben Pink Dandelion has been writing and saying for some time. I'd
be surprised if there weren't others who will read this and say "But that's
what I've been saying for <emph>years</emph>".  I can only apologise for not
having read more widely or, increasingly likely, that I have simply forgotten
what I <emph>have</emph> read.  My excuse for writing this none-the-less is to
try to encourage people to read <emph>God, words and us</emph>, but avoid the
not unreasonable conclusion from doing so that
belief-talk is what matters most.</p>
  </div>
  <div>
   <title>We already know this</title>
   <p>Quoting a few well-known phrases will help me make my point:</p>
   <list type="naked">
    <item>Let your life speak</item>
    <item>Be patterns, be examples</item>
    <item>A testimony to the grace of God as shown in the life of ...</item>
    <item>A humble learner in the school of Christ</item>
    <item>[For Quakers] Christianity is not a notion, but a way</item>
    <item>As Friends we commit ourselves to a way of worship</item>
    <item>Come regularly to meeting for worship</item>
    <item>... in the manner of Friends</item>
    <item>Swear not at all</item>
    <item>Live simply</item>
    <item>[need a quote for equality/justice testimony]</item>
    <item>[L]ive in the virtue of that life and power that takes away the occasion of all wars</item>
   </list>
   <p>And an old family story:</p>
   <list type="defn">
    <item term="visitor">Are you a Christian?</item>
    <item term="host">[pause] You'll have to ask my neighbour</item>
   </list>
   <p>This emphasis on what we <emph>do</emph> as Quakers puts us, according to
Karen Armstrong, right back at the heart of the origins of the great monotheist religions:</p>
   <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>
   <p><emph>The Case for God</emph>, 2000</p></display>
   <p>Armstrong suggests that contemporary Judaism and Islam have retained
their original self-definitions centred on orthopraxy ("uniformity of religious
practice"), whereas Christian denominations in the
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
orthodoxy is fundamental, as well as strident parodies of all religious people
as little better (indeed more dangerous) than flat-earthers, we should have
fallen into adopting their language for our own internal discourse.</p>
  </div>
  <div>
   <title>And this [we know] experimentally</title>
   <p>So, what's the problem?  </p>
  </div>
  <div>
   <title>There's nothing wrong with talking about belief</title>
   <p>It's natural to want to dig in to <emph>why</emph> we do what we do.  And
it's not surprising that we struggle to come up with agreed answers.  The key
point to hold on to is <emph>that doesn't undermine the validity of the
doings</emph>.  Or, rather, it only undermines our faith if we <emph>let</emph>
it.  If we restricted ourselves to only doing things if we understood why they
worked, we'd have very little left.  And, as the previous section tried to
explain, we know that what we do <emph>does</emph> work.  So sure, keep trying
to figure out why.  But meantime, keep cheerfully practicing.</p>
  </div>
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author	ht
date	Tue, 12 Dec 2017 11:44:07 -0500
parents	6ade7add794a
children	3658b1fa657e