tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737238.post8521164764653233252..comments2024-03-22T03:10:08.766-05:00Comments on The Good Raised Up: Other tidbits and reflections from Margery Post Abbott workshopUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737238.post-10619045436066309972011-02-12T16:43:16.213-06:002011-02-12T16:43:16.213-06:00I was wondering in what way the observation "...I was wondering in what way the observation "The fact that we try to love brings us closer to doing just that" would conflict with quietism. I find no contradiction between the two as I understand them.<br /><br />I was just discussing symbols the other day and the fact that the day I became Christian I began to wear a cross. I found myself led to that, or that my impetus to do so was accepted. I fully recognize that Friends don't as a group wear them or encourage them. I also realize though, that early Friends were implicitly Christian in an explicitly (if even only nominally) Christian environment. There was no need or usefulness to them in wearing a cross or using any Christian symbols.<br /><br />Today I find my experience is very different. I find myself a new Christian among Quakers who are frequently anti-Christian (at least in my area) and in a secular and often anti-Christian environment. For me to wear the cross publicly was in many ways to also "bear the cross". <br /><br />I cannot say that I will wear it forever or always. At some point I may no longer feel a need or be led to lay it aside. If it proves to be a hindrance or distraction it will go. Certainly I don't attribute to it any powers or that it somehow makes or proves me a Christian (or a better one). I know too many unrepentantly sinning cross-wearers to ever think that.<br /><br />Having visited an unprogrammed Meeting where there was constant scrutiny and worry "lest we fall into rituals" I can state that the avoidance of icons and ritual can itself become a distraction, an icon or even an idol.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737238.post-91684079486964357782011-02-11T09:05:34.862-06:002011-02-11T09:05:34.862-06:00Some nice reflections here. I personally apprecia...Some nice reflections here. I personally appreciated the observation that “The fact that we try to love brings us closer to doing just that.” This is at odds with the theology of quietism that dominated Quakerism so long — but I happen to believe it is true.<br /><br />On the other hand, one quarrel: “Quakers don’t do symbols”? What about the Lamb’s War, that image so beloved of early Friends? Is the person you quote saying that this was a literal lamb? A literal war?<br /><br />(See the cat? See the cradle?)Marshall Massey (Iowa YM [C])http://journal.earthwitness.org/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10737238.post-75523393270743534982011-02-11T07:41:44.721-06:002011-02-11T07:41:44.721-06:00Thank you for this post. One of your observations ...Thank you for this post. One of your observations reminds me of a concern I've had about our Society, particularly its unprogrammed branches. You mention that the first generation of Friends did not have a tradition to wrestle with; instead, they had a set of shared experiences of the Holy Spirit. Lately, I find myself envying them for this reason. I wonder if some Quaker habits and folkways have ossified over the centuries into a series of forms and rituals offering the merely the gratification of group identity. As I've been thinking about this I've been reading around in the writings of Joseph John Gurney (someone typically maligned by unprogrammed Friends), and I've found myself very sympathetic to what I think is his vision of Quakerism, which he held to be (and I'm working from memory here) "not the system so elaborately wrought by Barclay . . . but the religion of the New Testament, without compromise." He of course received a lot of criticism for saying things like this, but I wonder how much of it was unfair. Early Friends did not have our allergy to the New Testament and felt that all of their doctrine had its support. I thus find it odd that, in most theological conversations I've had with Friends, our instinct is sometimes to justify our conclusions from Fox rather than the text he would have regarded as supremely authoritative in matters of the Spirit even if it was not in any way a substitute for the inward work of the Spirit. Are we getting our priorities mixed up? (I know some would say that this happened years ago with the Hicksite movement, but there are plenty of people who attend Liberal meetings but consider themselves outwardly Christian, and for them this might very well be a pertinent question.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com