Quakerism and Christianity

A responder to yesterday's blog remembered encountering Quakers who seemed ashamed of Quakerism's Christian roots. I've seen this reaction to Christianity too and a related desire to remake early Quakers into universalists, even though they were unequivocally Christ-centered people.

Elite scorn for Christianity goes back to the time of Paul. When he said he was a fool for Christ, he signaled, in part, that he knew he looked like an idiot for his beliefs. A well-educated Roman citizen, he realized how naive and country-bumpkinish his faith appeared to his sophisticated peers. He was the white plastic shoe televangelist with the really bad tie and embarrassing pronouncements. But he clung heart and soul to his belief not only in a Christ who came back from the dead, but in the power of love to conquer violence and fear. To those ruling at the height of the Roman empire Paul must have seemed simpleminded. Physical domination and terror were seemingly working beautifully. Love, mercy, peace and kindness would have looked like sheer weakness and sentimentality. For Paul to insist as well that the founder of his movement rose from the dead would be equally laughable.

Most modern-day Quakers believe in love, mercy, peace and kindness, all of which are foundational to Christianity and all of which have subsequently been demonstrated to be powerful in changing the course of world events.


Often, those modern-day Quakers who reject Christianity seem to equate all of it with its worst stereotypes. It's similar to people who are convinced that all blacks or Jews or Muslims fit the worst stereotypes of those groups. In any of these cases, if you do believe members of a certain group are all defined by the worst of the worst, such as that all Muslims are terrorists, of course you will want to distance your group from them.

I believe, however, it would have been the wrong reaction after 9/11 for all non-fundamentalist Muslims to flee the faith, insist they were not Muslims and declare that their mosques had nothing to do with Islam. Moderate Muslims have instead opted to model the peace and reason inherent in their faith to provide a counterweight to the extremist image.

Christianity will always be in the Quaker DNA, permeating every aspect of it. It's important to note that early Quakers' embrace of love, peace and mercy came out of a study of the Bible, not from rationalism, the yet-to-come Enlightenment or Buddhist philosophy. Can more liberal Quakers embrace that this is their heritage (even if it might make them look foolish or feel odd) and see the good in it? I understand this is difficult for people from other faith backgrounds, especially if their faith has been persecuted by so-called Christians. But could it be possible to see that Quakers got Christianity right and proceed from there?


What do you think?

Identity?

In Tim Keller's book, The Reason for God, Keller defines "sin" as anything we put ahead of God. Keller's definition is interesting, I think, especially as many Quakers equate sin with "being bad" and reject the whole idea of it. While I think none of us like the idea of being "bad," we can't help but notice that many things in our world are quite awry.

The following about Keller's book is from the Jesus Creed site:

Identity apart from God is inherently unstable. Self worth and self identity can disappear in an instant if founded on freedom, success, parenthood, work, achievement, church leadership, the esteem of others…

Worse yet – identity apart from God is socially destructive. If our highest ultimate goal is centered in the good of our family we will tend to care less for other families. If our highest goal is the good of our nation we will tend to care less for other nations, and may “defend” ours at all costs. If our highest goal is our individual happiness we will put our economic and power interests ahead of others. If our highest goal is our religion we will despise and demonize those from other religious traditions. If our highest goal is the good of our church, if our identity is centered in our church or denomination, we will defend it by denigrating other churches and denominations.

And - think about it — if our identity is centered our class, our race, our gender — classism, racism, and sexism are the unavoidable consequences.

So racism, classism, and sexism are not matters of ignorance or lack of education. Foucault and others in our time have shown that it is far harder than we think to have a self-identity that doesn’t lead to exclusion. The real culture war is taking place inside our own disordered hearts, wracked by inordinate desires for things that control us, that lead us to feel superior and exclude those without them, and that fail to satisfy us even when we get them. (p. 169)

The problem is not “human evil” - power, domination, and violence – these are merely unavoidable consequences of the problem.

What do you think of this?

Rod Parsley: A Christian?

I read in the Washington Post that presidential candidate John McCain rebuked the Rev. Rod Parsley, a minister that he had initially courted.

Parsley, according to the Post, is part of a nondenominational group of prosperity-gospel churches called "Word of Faith." Parsley endorses the prosperity gospel and owns a million dollar gated home. He preaches violence: "We were built for battle! ... We get off on warfare!" He thinks that the Holy Spirit brought him to Columbus, Ohio, because Ohio is a swing state in national elections. He believes "in the geographic locating abilities of the Holy Spirit," according to the Post.

Parsley may call himself a Christian, but the beliefs named above are not consistent with Jesus' teaching as I understand it. I do believe Jesus preached a prosperity gospel: but NOT prosperity as the world knows it. I don't think Jesus found that it prospered a person to own a 7,000-square foot gated mansion. In fact, I think Jesus found such ownership damaging to a person's happiness and was directing people to find a different kind of treasure, a treasure in heaven, a pearl of greater price, that would lead them to joyfully abandon the opiate (or poison) of excessive materialism. I believe that if Jesus had truly believed our treasure lies in material goods, he would have acquired them. But he didn't.

Second, while as carnal humans we may (or may not) get "off" on warfare, Christianity preaches a transformed self, a new birth, a new spirit. This new self is explicitly a spirit of peace and love. It is not a spirit of war. It is a spirit that a creates a new heart of charity within individuals. It is a spirit that does good to one's enemy.

Parsley has, in my opinion, twisted the gospel to accord with his desires, not submitted himself to the transforming power of the gospel.

As for the "geographic locating abilities of the Holy Spirit," all I can say is that my family is moving to Ohio too.

How we as Quakers and Christians challenge (and love) people like Parsley? Do they do more damage to themselves and their followers or to the rest of us?