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+ <head>
+  <title>Not a notion but a way</title>
+  <author>Henry S. Thompson</author>
+  <date>13 Dec 2017</date>
+ </head>
+ <body>
+  <div>
+   <title>Introduction</title>
+   <p><emph>God, words and us</emph> 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 <emph>believe</emph>.  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
+<emph>single</emph> 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
+<emph>believe</emph>, 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, and recognising that points us towards a better way to
+distinguish <emph>us</emph>, by shifting the focus 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.  What
+follows is very much in line with what I understand them (and others, no doubt)
+to be saying.</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>As Friends we commit ourselves to a way of 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>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 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.</p>
+  </div>
+  <div>
+   <title>And this [we know] experimentally</title>
+   <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 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?</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 to keep having 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
+<emph>must</emph> 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.</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 <emph>recognise</emph> 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 <emph>one of us</emph>.</p>
+   <p>Whole books have been written about both of these, I have barely scratched
+the surface.  My point is simply that <emph>this</emph> is what we need most to
+be talking about, and we don't need to agree about the <emph>words</emph> in
+order to get started. We just have to acknowledge that there is a shared
+<emph>experience</emph> that matters, deeply, to us. Its reality and
+its significance are <emph>not</emph> compromised by our unsatisfactory
+attempts to talk about it.</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>
+ </body>
+</doc>