He's recently retired from a long career in public mental health. Hmm…Speaking of the spiritual and the ethical, the reality of transcendence and ought, instead of matter and fact and is seems to lead all of us into semantic confusion. And, contrarily some nontheists claim that I am really a nontheist! This sounds a bit like what a few famous scientists have articulated. This very seeming contradiction is what led me to leave my last Friends meeting because I had discussions with various Friends who came to worship but who said they thought that the only reality in existence is matter and energy.
If so, I wonder if we need some new terms to express new understandings such as yours to differentiate from what nontheism and Christian usually mean? Also, what troubles me about the nontheism identification besides the semantic ambiguity is that it is a negative term. This I have never understood about nontheistic Friends, despite much dialogue with them. Thank you for this.
No god as entity. But in my understanding no god is necessary for there to be eternal, conscious life. Wonderful words Jim!
We in Britain only have unprogrammed meetings and I would say that, while many of us would say we are Christians, many more, like you, would say that they, like me, are simply inspired by what we know of Jesus of Nazareth —perhaps more particularly by the faith of Jesus in his relationship with God. The beating heart of Quakerism is in that mystical relationship with the divine, the light, spirit, whatever it is in the silence and stillness of meetings for worship.
The energy of that mystical experience has the power to infiltrate us, if we let it —an astonishing, often utterly overwhelming experience at times. It changes us. It is the power of grace in our lives, inspiring us to work for the betterment of creation and all there is in it.
However it poses that wretched epistemological problem —just what exactly is it that I know? I consider being a Christian to mean:following the teachings and example of Jesus. Give to the poor, care for the children, visit the sick and imprisoned, love thy neighbor and thine enemy, — try to live in the spirit of love and kindness towards others — people and animate life. I consider myself a Christian and a Quaker, not because I succeed at all the above, but because I try.
I have similar beliefs to the author of the article. Like him, I do not personify the Divine, rather I see the Divine as a spirit which is a true part of the natural world, and which exists among living things.
In more every-day actions, it is the spirit that encourages every blade of grass to grow, even to shove up through concrete pavement to reach the sunlight. Some of us need ritual, but Quakers can be Quakers without an imposed creed.
I do not want to allow the marvelous title of Christianity to be wholly owned by persons with supernatural beliefs. We can agree in trying to follow the teachings of Jesus. All Quakers do not have to be Christians, some come from different traditions, but as I come from the Christian tradition, I identify as a Christian Quaker.
He has influenced millions for the good, even though some who called themselves Christians acted exactly opposite his teachings. Through these statements, we seek to emphasize the following values to lead us into the future: Jesus Christ is present. Christ is immediately accessible to all who believe in Him. Those who take time to listen to Christ can hear His voice and follow Him, individually and collectively.
The Bible, as interpreted by the Holy Spirit, shows us what God requires of us and provides authoritative and unfailing spiritual guidance for our lives today. God is the source of life, and all human life is sacred.
All life has its origin in the creative work of God, and human life is to be regarded as a sacred gift from God. Because all persons have equal value and are created in the image of God, we must treat others with respect, dignity, regardless of human measures of merit or value. The Holy Spirit transforms and empowers us. They do this by stopping everyday thoughts and anxieties. Quakers believe that if they wait silently for God in this way there will be times when God will speak directly to them.
A Quaker service is not a time of individual meditation, although the description above may make it sound like that. It is important that the waiting in silence and the listening are done as a group. The people taking part are trying to become something more than just a collection of individuals; they want to become aware of being part of a 'we', rather than just a solitary 'I'.
Some Quakers have adopted many of the practices of mainstream churches, and have pastors and use hymns in their worship. Their services are usually like Methodist or Baptist services. Like many Christian groups, Quakers never intended to form a new denomination. Their founder, George Fox, was trying to take belief and believers back to the original and pure form of Christianity. Fox was born in July in Leicestershire, England, and died in , by which time his movement had 50, followers.
As Fox grew up he was puzzled by the inconsistency between what Christians said they believed and the way they behaved. He became a religious activist at the age of 19, and was imprisoned eight times for preaching views that annoyed the religious and political establishment of his time. Fox got into political trouble because of his idea that there was something "of God in every person".
This was a revolutionary attack on all discrimination by social class, wealth, race and gender and it had worrying implications for the social structure of his time.
The political establishment did not take this lying down. Quaker refusal to take oaths and to take off their hats before a magistrate, and their insistence on holding banned religious meetings in public, led to 6, Quakers being imprisoned between and Fox's aim was to inspire people to hear and obey the voice of God and become a community "renewed up again in God's image" by living the principles of their faith.
Fox believed that everyone should try to encounter God directly and to experience the Kingdom of Heaven as a present, living reality.
He objected to the hierarchical structure and the rituals of the churches of his time, and rejected the idea that the Bible was always right. But Fox went even further.
He argued that God himself did not want churches. Churches were either unnecessary to get to God, or an obstruction Fox often referred to churches unkindly as "steeple-houses". Since believers should have a direct relationship with God, no one priests, for example and nothing like sacraments should come in between. Not surprisingly, these views infuriated the mainstream churches, and Quakers were persecuted in Britain on a large scale until Quaker missionaries arrived in the USA in They were persecuted at first, and four were executed.
However the movement appealed to many Americans, and it grew in strength, most famously in Pennsylvania which was founded in by William Penn as a community based on the principles of pacifism and religious tolerance.
The origins of Christian abolitionism can be traced to the late 17th Century and the Quakers. Several of their founders, including George Fox and Benjamin Lay, encouraged fellow congregants to stop owning slaves. By , Quakers in Pennsylvania officially declared their opposition to the importation of enslaved Africans into North America.
Along with the Anglican Granville Sharp, Quakers established the first recognised anti-slavery movement in Britain in In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed.
Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. Quakers do not celebrate Christian festivals such as Easter and Christmas although Quaker families may mark Christmas as the secular festival it has largely become.
They believe the events celebrated at such festivals e. Although Quaker meetings for worship generally take place on a Sunday, this is purely for convenience and not because Sunday is the Sabbath or a particularly holy day.
Take heed, dear Friends, to the promptings of love and truth in your hearts. Trust them as the leadings of God whose Light shows us our darkness and brings us to new life.
Are you honest and truthful in all you say and do? Do you maintain strict integrity in business transactions and in your dealings with individuals and organisations? Do you use money and information entrusted to you with discretion and responsibility?
Quakers avoid working for companies that manufacture weapons or other harmful products nor will they invest in such companies. They prefer to choose work that has positive benefits for the community. They maintain strict integrity in business transactions and in workplace dealings with individuals. Quakers have always treated men and women as equals, and were pioneers in the movement for female equality. Quakers oppose blood sports, and do not approve of businesses that exploit animals , such as circuses or zoos, or the fur trade.
They object to experiments on animals for trivial purposes such as cosmetics, and are divided as to whether animal experimentation should be allowed for medical research. Quakers are not forbidden from using alcohol or tobacco although these substances are banned from Quaker Meeting Houses , but most Quakers avoid them, or consume them moderately. Quakers are non-judgemental about sex, which they see as a gift of God. Their attention is focused on the way in which it is used in human relationships.
Sexual activity is essentially neither good nor evil; it is a normal biological activity which, like most other human activities, can be indulged in destructively or creatively. An act which for example expresses true affection between two individuals and gives pleasure to them both, does not seem to us to be sinful by reason alone of the fact that it is homosexual.
Quakers were one of the first churches to talk openly about sexuality. Since we try to live our lives respecting 'that of God' in everyone we would want to treat all people equally. We feel that the quality and depth of feeling between two people is the most important part of a loving relationship, not their gender or sexual orientation. Quakers don't have a united view on abortion but regard it as a matter of individual conscience.
Philosophically there is no Quaker doctrine of when a person becomes a person. The movement has difficulty reconciling the principle of non-violence, which could argue against abortion, and the wish that women should be able to play a full part in society, which might sometimes justify abortion.
Quakers don't have a collective view on the rightness or wrongness of contraception. Many Quakers do use artificial methods of birth control. Quakers don't have a united view on euthanasia. Some Quakers make 'living wills', requesting that if they become ill to the point of being incapable of living without artificial life support systems or inappropriate medical intervention, they be allowed to die naturally and with dignity.
This comes partly from their belief that there is something of God in every human being, and that they should respect the worth and dignity of each person, and partly from following Christ's own example of social activism. At the centre of Friends' religious experience is the repeatedly and consistently expressed belief in the fundamental equality of all members of the human race. Our common humanity transcends our differences. The duty of the Society of Friends is to be the voice of the oppressed but [also] to be conscious that we ourselves are part of that oppression.
Quakers believe that war and conflict are against God's wishes and so they are dedicated to pacifism and non-violence.
And from a practical point of view they think that force nearly always creates more problems than it solves. We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretence whatsoever, and this is our testimony to the whole world. War, in our view, involves the surrender of the Christian ideal and the denial of human brotherhood. Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world. Previous Post. January 11, What Is Progressive Christianity?
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