Mercurial > hg > rsof
changeset 123:c033b5636958
to The Friend
| author | ht |
|---|---|
| date | Thu, 14 Dec 2017 10:13:39 -0500 |
| parents | 61fde973aa27 |
| children | 18122a319829 |
| files | but_a_way_short.html but_a_way_short.pdf but_a_way_short.xml |
| diffstat | 3 files changed, 140 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-) [+] |
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--- /dev/null Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000 +++ b/but_a_way_short.html Thu Dec 14 10:13:39 2017 -0500 @@ -0,0 +1,139 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="US-ASCII"?> +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//HST//DTD XHTML5 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/xhtml5.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta name="copyright" content="Copyright © 2017 <a href="http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/">Henry S. Thompson</a>&#160;<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en">CC-BY-SA</a>"/><meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/><style type="text/css"> + ul.nolabel { margin: 0; margin-left: -2.5em} + ul.naked.nolabel {margin: 0; margin-left: 0; padding-left: 0} + ul.cdefn {clear: both} + div.ndli { margin-bottom: 1ex } + div.hidden {display: none} + + ul.naked > li { list-style-type: none; background: none; margin-left: 2em; +margin-bottom: 0 } + li ul.naked > li, dd ul.naked > li { list-style-type: none; background: none; margin-left: 0; +margin-bottom: 0 } + li.cdefni {} + li.cdefni span.cl {display: inline-block; vertical-align: bottom} + li.cdefni span.cr {display: inline-block; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: bottom} + pre.code {display: inline-block} + blockquote.vanilla {display: inline-block; margin-left: 1em; + border: solid 1px; background: rgb(238,234,230); + padding: .5ex .5em} + blockquote.vanilla ul.naked li {margin-left: 0 ! important;font-size: 100%} + ol ol ol, ol ol ol li {list-style-type: lower-roman} + ol ol, ol ol li {list-style-type: lower-alpha} + i i {font-style: normal} + li li {font-style: normal} + li ul li {font-style: normal} + li { line-height: 100%; margin-top: 0.3em} + .math {font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', serif} + .sub {font-size: 80%; vertical-align: sub} + .termref {text-decoration: none; color: #606000} + .licence {margin-left: 1em; font-size: 70%} + .credits {margin-left: 1.5em; font-size: 70%} + .right {position: absolute} + .stackdown {vertical-align: text-top; margin-top: 0} + body {font-size: 12pt} + @page { size: A4 portrait; margin: 2cm; + orphans: 2; widows: 2;} + @media screen { + body {width: 20cm; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto} + } + @media print { + body {font-size: 10pt} + h1, h2, h3, h4 {page-break-after: avoid} + } + pre.code {font-family: monospace; + font-weight: bold; + line-height: 120%; + padding-top: 0.2em; + padding-bottom: 0.2em; + padding-left: 1em; + padding-right: 1em; + border-style: solid; + border-left-width: 1em; + border-top-width: thin; + border-right-width: thin; + border-bottom-width: thin; + border-color: #95ABD0; + color: #00428C; + background-color: #E4E5E7; +} + pre {margin-left: 0em} + div.toc h2 {font-size: 120%; margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0em} + div.toc h4 {font-size: 100%; margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: 1em} + div.toc h1 {font-size: 140%; margin-bottom: 0em} + div.toc ul {margin-top: 1ex} + .byline {font-size: 120%} + div.figure {margin-left: 2em} + div.caption {font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; margin-top: 1em} + i i {font-style: normal} + img {border: 0} + .copyright {font-size: 70%} + </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, +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.</p><p>The key, mistaken, assumption is that what we need to talk about as +Quakers is what we <i>believe</i>. + That's not the right way to look for what unites us as Quakers. After all, +the +<i>single</i> thing we can confidently say unites +Britain Yearly Meeting is that we go to +Meeting for Worship. Our identity is not determined by what we +<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 +way of looking at religious identity. Choices with respect to the language of +belief are what distinguish many, even most, Christian denominations, but +that's something Quakers have declined to play: 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 ourselves, by shifting the focus from belief to practice, from +ortho<i>doxy</i> to ortho<i>praxy</i>.</p><p>I don't claim originality in suggesting this: John Punshon pretty much +writes exactly this in +QF&P 20.18, and it's at the heart +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 +orthodoxy is fundamental 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.</p><p>Emphasising what we <i>do</i> puts us, according to +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> + <p><i>The Case for God</i>, 2000</p></div></blockquote><p>Armstrong suggests that contemporary Judaism and Islam have retained +their original self-definitions centred on orthopraxy ("uniformity of religious +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 +language may give us a warm feeling of in-group-ness when +we hear it, but what does it mean 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?</p><p>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 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 +"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 +<i>must</i> confess, at least to one another, it is the truth of that +experience, embracing 350 years of history and hundreds of +Meetings around the world today.</p><p>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 <i>recognise</i> it +most vividly when we hear authentic ministry, coming 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, here and now: These are neither historical +figures, contemporary celebrities nor +distant missionaries, they are each <i>one of us</i>.</p><p><i>This</i> is what we need most to +be talking about, and we don't need to agree about the <i>words</i> in +order to get started. There's nothing <i>wrong</i> with talking about +belief—it's natural to want to dig in to <i>why</i> we do what we +do, and belief language creeps in to this, precisely <i>because</i> we're +not sure of ourselves.</p><p>So, guard against being <i>consumed</i> in such +talk, and remember that it's the +<i>experience</i> that matters, and matters deeply. Its reality and +its significance are <i>not</i> compromised by our unsatisfactory +attempts to talk about it. We know that what we <i>do</i> works for us. So sure, keep trying +to figure out why. But meantime, keep cheerfully practicing.</p></div></div></body></html> \ No newline at end of file