QuakerInfo.com Forum

[Stuart Hartley]

[wsamuel]

[servant]

[Stuart Hartley]

[Stuart Hartley]

[Stuart Hartley]

[Frank]

Stuart,

I doubt you've alienated many Christ-centered Quakers. Holyspeak is a peculiar thing, in some instances shorthand used by people of deep conviction that comes in handy when talking to others of like mind but virtually useless when talking with those outside that circle. In other instances, its a language learned by rote used by those whose hearts and minds rattle if shaken spiritually because they're fairly empty.

Even the terms "Friend" and "Quaker" work that way. If confronted by "Quaker" many Americans think either of oatmeal or Amish, and a friend's a buddy. As this forum proves daily, even within the circle there is divergence when it comes to defining and applying either term.

I'm in favor of Plainspeak (not, by the way, "thee" and "thou" although I certainly have no objection if someone chooses or feels called to use those terms) - saying what you mean using the plainest of words. Go for it!

[Stuart Hartley]

Thank you Frank, a good and balanced reply

Stuart

[McGuffey]

As a liberal Quaker, I seem to gravitate towards the liberality of accepting in people whatever they envison their God experience to be, and with whatever words they choose. The experience of God is an individual thing, and it is within the deepest recesses of the singular soul that love is born, and grown to be shared. The Quaker community of my origin was "born out of Christianity", but has since transcended any labels. So in a convoluted way, I sense the liberal Quakers as being the more embracing and accepting of religious tolerance, as oppossed to the Consrvative and Evangelical Quakers, who subscribe to more stringent scriptural mandates. Persecution has always began with claims of scriptural deviancy and heresy, and I am always mindfull of that fact.

[Harold]

[Jenny]

[james]

[McGuffey]

This is a very nice discussion. I openly admit that I am not of the "scripturalist" school of revealed religion, but I smile when the opening words to the Judeo-Christian texts are "In the beginning was the word...". I always imagined a primal, universal untterance spontaneous in all languages and in all peoples when the mystery of the world was first contemplated. Choose your language freely.

[punkrainbow]

I find this discussion about religious language really fascinating. I suppose you'd call me a Liberal Quaker because I accept Christ but think he can be expressed in other theological languages. If the sun is reflected in a mirror and then in a lake, we don't say that there are two suns; we say that it is the same sun, but that the light is being reflected off different surfaces. One way of thinking about this is to imagine for a moment that George Fox was born in a different part of the world. What if he had been born in a Buddhist family in Japan? Would he have found the Light? Well, why wouldn't he? Doubtless he would have addressed the Light in the words he knew. Instead of Christ he might have felt the presence of the compassionate Buddha Amida (whose name means Infinite Light) and out of this experience called the people away from dependence upon outward ritual as the Buddhist sage Shinran did. He could have rallied against the religious specialists and called the people back to a purer faith in the Buddha. Could he have taught simplicity, equality, truthfulness and peace? Again, why not? Same Light, different surfaces.
_________________
I saw the infinite love of God. I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death; but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness.

[McGuffey]

Defining the term Liberal Quaker itself may entail not so much defining what one believes, but in many ways what one does not. Fault lines of disbelief may center on the concept of original sin; the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth; the Ressurection; the virgin birth; the concept of predetermination vs. free will; Second Coming and Armageddon theologies, etc. Christ Centered Friends, Friends United Meeting and Orthodox Friends for example, have adopted the Baltimore Delcaration, which may seem to many Liberal Quakers as establishing a creed that goes against their desire for a dircet experience with the devine which is unauthored, directed or promegated by the writings of prophets, priests or Papal missives. I think of the Baltimore Declaration as one on my fault lines, and have to readliy admit that the religious literature of other faith traditons seem an equal bearing of witness to what is both mysterious and unknown, and that is only the province God to know.