Not a notion but a way

+ + Not a notion but a way + Henry S. Thompson + 13 Dec 2017 + + +

+ Introduction +

God, words and us 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 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.

The key, mistaken, assumption is that what we need to talk about as +Quakers is what we 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 that the +single thing we can confidently say unites the membership of +Britain Yearly Meeting is that when we can we meet together in +Meeting for Worship. Our identity is not fundamentally determined by what we +believe, but by what we do.

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, and recognising that points us towards a better way to +distinguish us, by shifting the focus from belief to practice, from +orthodoxy to orthopraxy.

I don't claim originality in suggesting this: John Punshon, as quoted in +QF&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. What +follows is very much in line with what I understand them (and others, no doubt) +to be saying.

+ We already know this +

Quoting a few well-known phrases will help me make my point:

+ + Let your life speak + Be patterns, be examples + A testimony to the grace of God as shown in the life of ... + As Friends we commit ourselves to a way of worship + ... in the manner of Friends + Swear not at all + Live simply + [need a quote for equality/justice testimony] + [L]ive in the virtue of that life and power that takes away the occasion of all wars + +

This emphasis on what we do as Quakers puts us, according to +Karen Armstrong, right back at the heart of the origins of the great monotheist religions:

"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..."

The Case for God, 2000

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").

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 than flat-earthers, we should have +fallen into adopting their language for our own internal discourse. But we +need to shake that off, and embrace our distinctive nature.

+ And this [we know] experimentally +

But, what does that have to do with us, you may well ask? That old +language may give us a warm feeling of in-group-ness when +we hear it, but what does it actually amount to us now? It may be +of intellectual interest to hear that historical Christianity and +contemporary Judaism were/are founded on practice, but we're not about water +baptism or keeping kosher. What's so special +about Meeting for Worship that it can sustain us in unity, preserve the +effectiveness of our business method and allow our disagreements about belief +language to be recognised without fear?

It's simple, really. In Meeting for Worship, on a good day, we +experience two things: a presence and a possibility. That's why we keep +coming back, because at some level we know we need to keep having that experience.

What presence? The technical term for it is 'transcendence'. We're not very good at talking about it. We refer to a +"gathered" meeting. We say "Meeting for Worship is not just meditation". We +know it when it happens. It's +elusive, and if we try to pin it down we lose it, that feeling that we are +joined with one another into something more than just our physical co-location. +Accepting that it is "not just me" isn't easy in the resolutely individualistic +culture we live in today, but if there is one item of faith we +must confess, at least to one another, it is the truth of that +experience, joining with and encouraged by 350 years of history and hundreds of +Meetings around the world today.

What possibility? The technical term for it is 'immanence'. We see and +hear it in the witness of those around +us: the possibility of living an inspired life. We recognise it +most vividly in Meeting for Worship, when we hear authentic ministry, 'authentic' because it comes from someone +we know is speaking as they live. It cannot be be faked, it is unmistakable, +terrifying and uplifting in equal measure. It +calls us to what we aspire to. It is at once daunting (how can I possibly do +what they do) and reassuring (it is possible). These are not celebrities or +distant missionaries, they are each one of us.

Whole books have been written about both of these, I have barely scratched +the surface. My point is simply that this is what we need most to +be talking about, and we don't need to agree about the words in +order to get started. We just have to acknowledge that there is a shared +experience that matters, deeply, to us. Its reality and +its significance are not compromised by our unsatisfactory +attempts to talk about it.

+ There's nothing wrong with talking about belief +

It's natural to want to dig in to why 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 that doesn't undermine the validity of the +doings. Or, rather, it only undermines our faith if we let +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 does work. So sure, keep trying +to figure out why. But meantime, keep cheerfully practicing.

+ +