Fiercely inspirational

Source.

Source.

Two writers in two countries, published 64 years apart....

Lamorna Ash.

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Sometimes, as I sat in the outer ring of chairs during my silent Sundays at the Muswell Hill meeting [London; link added], I wished I could have seen Quakerism as it was in its beginning: an exuberant, fiercely heterodox expression of the Christian faith. [Don't Forget We're Here Forever: A New Generation's Search for Religion (2025), page 136.]

In line with the secularisation-theory sociologist Steve Bruce, Dandelion notes how liberal forms of British Christianity are contributing to their ‘own demise through diffuse belief systems, poor belief transmission and the lack of seriousness’, all of which discourages conversion. He includes Quakerism among this trend. And while Quakerism might function as a gateway drug to ‘religious seriousness’ for the 47 per cent who come from ‘no immediately prior religious affiliation’, it is often the features which first draw the non-religious to Quaker meetings—a laxity and neutrality in the place of dogma and formality—which then sends them off to other denominations, looking for services with a more robust structure, elders and leaders who might help teach them how to believe. [Page 128.]

The year reached its end, and I was still attending St Luke’s [West Holloway, London, link added] any Sunday my hangover did not intern me to bed. I learnt the order of ceremonies. Each time I felt something unlock within me as I admitted my guilt for whomever I had harmed that week alongside everyone else in the congregation, after which the associate priest, Rev. Martin Wroe, would say, ‘Whatever it is, whatever it was, whatever it will be, God forgives you. Forgive yourselves, forgive each other,’ and then offer us the sign of the Cross. Not every time, but most times, after taking communion I felt a further unlocking, even a coming together of the disparate parts of my life. [Page 280.]

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Albert Fowler.

Members of the Society of Friends are increasingly disturbed by the comment that Quaker Meeting is a fine place for seeking, but one must go elsewhere if one’s object is finding. [Two Trends in Modern Quaker Thought: A Statement of Belief (1961), page 12.]

Much has been made of the argument that the universal variety of Quaker belief is the growing edge of the Society of Friends. Large numbers of convinced Friends have come in through this door. That the universal may also be the dying edge of the Society is seldom mentioned, but many would-be Friends turn away when they find the Christian ties of a Meeting no longer binding and the drift toward what John McCandless calls practical atheism running strong. Paul Lacey tells of people he has talked with who have found the Society of Friends a kind of incubator where they can develop just enough to realize that the real conditions of life and worship lie outside it. Many of these people, having looked to the Quaker Meeting as a source of inspiration and deepened faith, pass beyond it to find fuller meaning elsewhere. [Page 19.]

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I first heard about Lamorna Ash in the pages of The Guardian. The opening teaser for Ash's edited excerpt in The Guardian, "Could I become a Christian in a year?", was irresistible:

After two friends unexpectedly converted, Lamorna Ash discovered a new generation of young people turning to faith. As she investigated the phenomenon, one of her first steps was to spend a week on a working retreat on Iona. And then something strange happened…

This intro is a bit misleading. In just about all of her fourteen chapters plus prologue, introduction, conclusion, and epilogue, strange things are happening every few pages, so the intriguing part of the teaser is not the "something strange" dot dot dot, but "a new generation of young people turning to faith." This is not your typical glib summary of contemporary church life in Britain. In any case, the excerpt sold me: I had to buy the book. And, most likely, so should you.

Ash makes me think about what a conversation between Francis Spufford and Flannery O'Connor might be like. Her survey of Christianity in the UK ranges from rigidity with a happy salesface, to bass-driven ecstasy, to personal histories of toxic power games, to encounters with mysticism ancient and modern, to utter serenity, and everything in between. Her 60 interviewees have variously been converted, disillusioned, reconverted, with all levels of investment in making—or not making—their personal experiences and confessions congruent with the institution they're in at the moment. She candidly reports how this research and writing project is affecting her own life, even as she awaits a diagnosis on her mother's symptoms that suggest dementia may be coming.

She is not simply reporting on what Christianity looks like to some of her Generation Z contemporaries. She's also wrestling with Christianity's own primitive and sometimes compelling strangeness, and its multifaceted persistence. She thinks about the difference between the Nicene theologians wrestling so deeply with the nature of Christ, and those Christian thinkers of our own era who can't get beyond sex. And she wonders out loud about her own path. Should she remain an outside observer, or should she be open to crossing the line into conversion territory; and is she being influenced by what we, the readers, might think?

Lamorna Ash's paternal grandmother "was the last true Christian in our family. She went to an Anglican church every Sunday of her life, except for the few years she attended a Quaker meeting in Muswell Hill." For part of time of Ash's writing project, when she wasn't on one of her many research visits elsewhere, she attended that same meeting, which led to some very interesting comments about British Friends. I couldn't help remembering some of Albert Fowler's words from his 1961 pamphlet on Two Trends in Modern Quaker Thought, quoted above.

I don't want to press the parallels between Ash and Fowler too hard, because I know that many British Friends are already aware of contemporary liberal Quakerism's weaknesses as well as its strengths (and the same goes for Friends in the USA), and I personally know that some of them would certainly not fit into the "laxity and neutrality" description. Also, I'm not sure those early Friends were "fiercely heterodox" exactly, since Fox and others were arguing for a more faithfully biblical Christianity. "Fiercely nonconformist," maybe. Even so, I am grateful for the frank assessment from this clear-eyed young commentator who has seen Christian alternatives many Quakers would either not know about or perhaps shrink from with horror.

Lamorna Ash has a lot of credibility with me simply based on the homework she's done. (I'm sure she'd have a more fun way of putting it.) You already know she references Ben Pink Dandelion, who has, she suggests, "the best name in academia." She also knows one of my favorite contemporary British books on Christianity, Francis Spufford's Unapologetic. (My comments on his book are here.) Her other sources include Harold Bloom, Julian of Norwich, Gillian Rose, George Fox, Rosemary Moore, Thomas R. Kelly, Karl Rahner, William James, David Bebbington, Tanya Luhrmann, Krista Tippett and Eugene Peterson in conversation, Pope Francis, and two Augustines.

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Yesterday's MAGA scandal of the day (or at least in the top five): According to the Washington Post, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security wants to be sure that no federal disaster relief money would go to agencies or nonprofit organizations that help undocumented immigrants.

Also among the top five: Chaos at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Mark Russ and Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre team up for a six-session online course: Whose Friends are we? Mark explains on his blog: "Emerging from my PhD research on Quaker theology and Whiteness, I’ve developed an online course for Woodbrooke reflecting on what it might mean for Quakers to be friends of God, Christ and each other in the 21st century." Mondays, October 13 to November 17. More details here.

Discipline and Punish: Kristin Du Mez assesses James Dobson's legacy.

Cherice Bock explains the background of the chapter she wrote with Catalina Morales Bahena for the new book Hungry for Hope: Letters to the Church from Young Adults, due to be published today. Their chapter is entitled, “Reclaiming ‘Enough’: Away from Scarcity Toward True Abundance.” For more on the book, visit hungryforhopebook.com.

Abolitionism and compromise, a Jay family/Indiana Yearly Meeting case study. (Thanks to Martin Kelley for the link.)

John Kinney at Spokane Friends, speaking on contemplative prayer: "If we don't get this right..."

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Flaco Jiménez and Raul Malo, "Seguro Que Hell Yes," a video we sometimes used in class in Russia for its specific glimpses of USA culture. (And it's a song I can always recall to kill earworms.)

A clip from Flaco's memorial service. From puroconjunto210's caption on YouTube: "Flaco Jiménez, conjunto legend passed away July 31, 2025. A memorial service was held in San Antonio at the Carver Community center. Artists included Santiago Garza, David Lee Garza, Dwayne Verheyden, Max Baca, and Josh Baca all played their hearts out celebrating his Life!"

More occupation shorts

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement-branded GMC SUV, left, and an ICE-branded Ford pickup are parked at the Capitol on Aug. 13. [Note the "DEFEND THE HOMELAND" tagline.] (Andrew Leyden/Getty Images via Washington Post; trimmed.)

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I'm sure you have more and better sources than this blog to keep up with the chronicle of malice, corruption, and ineptitude that is the USA's current presidential administration. But every once in a while, I want to note, for the record, how utterly bizarre it all is. And it's not just bizarre exhibitionism—you already know that real people are in constant danger, whether they are immigrants and children of immigrants, or targets of Russian guided bombs and drones, or in need of food, health care, shelter, and a safe environment. I'm not even counting those who had once experienced American care through USAID before being cut off by MAGA fiat.

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For me, today's trigger (not the most serious piece of news, but maybe the most ... spiritually symptomatic?) ... was this article in the Washington Post, concerning an urgent government purchase:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is seeking to spend millions of dollars on SUVs and custom, gold-detailed vehicle wraps emblazoned with the words “DEFEND THE HOMELAND,” according to a contractor’s social media post and records that describe the decked-out fleet as urgently needed in President Donald Trump’s stated mission to improve safety on the streets of the District.

Screenshot from a Homeland Security video on X.

As the article notes, these purchases and decoration orders are not being made through competitive bids. But what really triggered my "occupation" nerves was the following detail. In addition to the vehicles for use in D.C., some specific purchases were made to enhance the image of ICE for recruitment purposes. Here's a quote from the end of the article:

The vehicles the agency proposed purchasing include two Ford Raptors, two GMC Yukon AT4s and two Ford Mustang GTs. ICE wrote in the documents that the Mustangs were “an immediate request by the White House, on Thursday August 7, 2025.” The Mustangs — which are set to cost $121,450 — will aid in recruitment “by serving as a bold, high-performance symbol of innovation, strength and modern federal service,” the documents say.

It all reminded me of the connections Kristin Du Mez has been making for years. For example:

My own research on masculinity focuses on just one facet of the evangelical worldview—but a foundational one. In many ways, gender provides the glue that holds together their larger ideological framework. For years I’ve been tracing evangelicals’ embrace of increasingly militaristic constructions of masculinity, which go hand in hand with visions of the nation as vulnerable and in need of defense.

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Earlier this year, I wrote a couple of posts about the Christian movement that is animating much of MAGA leadership: Are we agents of Lucifer? and Enthusiasm and politics.

Given the depth of religious enthusiasm displayed by these apostles and prophets, I can't help wondering whether they pray for the people they're arresting, deporting, and rendering with wild abandon. I tried putting variously worded questions to Google, along the lines of "Do dominionists pray for the people they arrest?" " Do MAGA Christians pray for immigrants?" Google's AI provides the vaguest of answers, mostly "it depends," with no examples.

I used the specific name of Sean Feucht with one of these questions, and found his prayer for Los Angeles on Facebook, with a fascinating string of comments. One specific prayer struck me right away, but it wasn't Sean's:

We pray God that your mercy comes upon those suffering from massive deportation and family separation, even though they have done nothing deserving of deportation. May your grace touch the hearts of those encouraging hate against immigrants, and turn them into a loving and caring heart....

Google also told me that Feucht has worked on behalf of refugees in the past, so this evident militancy may be part of his more recent MAGA profile.

Signe Wilkinson.

In any case, "What does the Bible say about refugees and immigrants?" The Bible makes no distinction based on what documents the immigrant is holding, but just in case that is the issue, the awkward truth is that Congress has been resisting immigration reform and providing adequate judicial resources for immigrants and asylum seekers for years—not just under Trump.

(One specific border-crossing incident in the Bible fascinates me: the visit of the three wise men to the baby Jesus. See Matthew 2:1-12. They came from abroad to follow the star to Bethlehem, and then defied King Herod by returning home without reporting to him.)

Finally, our Christian MAGA politicians should take note that many (most?) of those being arrested, deported, or rendered may be their Christian brothers and sisters. N.B. When Christians abuse power and mistreat non-Christians, it is just as awful as mistreatment of Christians! Maybe worse, since its gleeful and gratuitous cruelty compromises the reputation of the Gospel. Be warned!

See John Woolman's Journal, page 128. (Click link to chapter XII in table of contents.)

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Under occupation

Occupation shorts

Occupation: Myrtle Wright's experience

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Christian refugees caught in the crosshairs of U.S. immigration policy.

Litigation Tracker. When I mentioned this resource back in February, it was tracking 37 cases against Trump administration actions. Now it's tracking 381.

Judge Fred Biery rules against the Texas Ten Commandments law. (A side note: why aren't these Christian activists campaigning for the Beatitudes? Is it their deep interfaith sensitivity?)

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Is there a religious resurgence among members of Gen Z? Data may actually show a growing divergence between men and women.

George Orwell's son writes about his parents' collaboration on Animal Farm, and on why they had a hard time finding a publisher. (Anna Funder's fascinating book Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life may add some less flattering details to the picture of Orwell as husband and collaborator.)

What a small church in North Carolina did with its real estate, to the possible benefit of affordable housing in its area.

Nancy Thomas remembers an extraordinary, even life-shaping, vision.

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Kid Ramos with two late greats, Henry Gray and Lynwood Slim.

"The moral case for harming civilians is always dubious..."

... even when such violence serves a strategic purpose. When that strategic purpose does not exist, however, the moral case evaporates altogether. Israel now finds itself in a morally untenable situation. Rather than incur the world’s growing wrath, increased economic pressure, and the greater likelihood of future violence, Israel must reverse course and pursue alternatives to its campaign of mass death in Gaza.

 —Robert A. Pape, "The Unparalleled Devastation of Gaza: Why Punishing Civilians Has Not Yielded Strategic Success." Foreign Affairs, August 7, 2025.

Robert Pape's article is behind a paywall, unfortunately. (It might almost be worth subscribing to Foreign Affairs for just this article, but I've seen consistently good argumentation in this periodical, even when I disagree.) Briefly, the author draws on his studies of previous wars that included mass destruction of civilian populations to conclude that, even setting morality aside (which he doesn't), such destruction rarely serves the claimed strategic goals.

Nagasaki before and after; source.

Gaza, July 17, 2025; source.

I thought to myself, "Robert Pape...why does that name sound familiar?" Here's why: I'd just come across a reference to his book, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War, in an article that was very timely in a completely different way, because it referred to the bombing of Hiroshima 80 years ago this past week.

(A personal aside: I've written before on this blog about how the Grinch stole Hiroshima, so I don't intend to repeat those points here. But Judy and I just celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary, and, not by coincidence, our wedding took place on August 9, the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki. Several of the guests at our wedding had been taking part in the annual Hiroshima-Nagasaki peace vigil in Boston. I now reflect that we were married on the 35th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, and our latest wedding anniversary last week coincided with the 80th anniversary of that bombing. At the actual time of those bombings, my mother was a resident of Kobe, Japan.)

Pape's book was cited in an article by Graham Parsons on the Lawfare site, "The World Learned the Wrong Lesson from Hiroshima." Parsons takes on the arguments for the strategic usefulness of bombing civilian populations, in the face of the popularity of such arguments.

Teaching ethics at West Point for 13 years, I faced this view on a daily basis. Many of my students assumed that ethics is a kind of luxury. It helps service members defend their actions to themselves and to others. But it doesn’t help them win. I remember one student concluding, “Just war theory is a great way to lose a war.”

Parsons refers to the USA's current secretary of defense Pete Hegseth as an extreme proponent of the utter irrelevance of ethics in warfare. So, in the context of the atomic bombings, "Hegseth has chosen his side in the conflict between strategy and morality that Hiroshima supposedly reveals."

Parsons continues,

But Hiroshima reveals no such conflict. Contrary to the conventional discourse, many historians have concluded that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not cause Japan to surrender.

...

What was most consequential in the eyes of Japanese authorities was not the vulnerability of the civilian population to U.S. bombs, but the entrance of the Soviet Union into the war against them. The Soviets surprised the Japanese by declaring war and invading Manchuria on the same day as the bombing of Nagasaki. The Japanese leadership, who knew that their war was unwinnable for some time, was hoping the Soviets would act as a neutral arbiter of negotiations between Japan and the U.S. so that Japan could end the war while avoiding unconditional surrender. When the Soviets declared war, that possibility was off the table and Japanese leaders saw no better option than unconditional surrender.

Honestly, I've never thought about the similarities between the atomic bombings of Japan and the rubbishing of the Gaza Strip. Whether we can draw a parallel between Japanese motives and those of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, I'm struck by a very telling similarity: the apparent assumption that the greatest possible amount of death and destruction serves any kind of defensible goal, even within the logic of warfare. Graham Parsons is right, we've not learned the lessons of Hiroshima, and we're certainly not applying them to today's daily slaughter of Palestinians.

Reality check: drawing from research published in The Lancet, Robert Pape writes,

In sum, the authors of the study suggested that Israel’s campaign has caused at least an additional 26,000 Palestinian deaths and perhaps over 120,000 additional deaths, with the true death toll possibly exceeding 186,000. Taking that into account, as of late July 2025, Israel’s war in Gaza has led to the deaths of between five to ten percent of the prewar population of about 2.2 million. This represents an unprecedented slaughter. Israel’s campaign in Gaza is the most lethal case of a Western democracy using the punishment of civilians as a tactic of war.

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Present tense: yesterday's compiled "impact snapshot" from the Gaza Strip.

Omer Bartov: Genocide is the only term that fits.

Another case study of refusals to learn: Timothy Snyder on "Ultima Thule" in Anchorage, Alaska.

The 80th anniversary and Nagasaki's twin bells. (Also see my Nagasaki shorts post.)

While on the trail of my mother's life in Japan, we made a brief visit to Hiroshima.

The Friends Incubator for Public Ministry and Tom Hamm on John Woolman and the "ministry of making uncomfortable connections...."

Elderchaplain Greg Morgan and the unmet needs of caregivers.

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The Bullet Blues Band, Dnipro, Ukraine. "Telephone Blues."

"Protecting Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace"

William F. Buckley (Firing Line) interviews prominent atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair, 1971. Screenshot from source. Also see "Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That We Need Not Fear the Religious Right," 1993.

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The U.S. president, on February 6 of this year, ordered the creation of a Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias. The first two paragraphs of Section 1 of his order gave the legal underpinnings for this task force's mission, then went on to say, "Yet the previous Administration engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses." The first impression left on me by this order is not the voice or reflection of Jesus; it is venom toward the previous administration, laced with false witness.

Aside from the merits, or lack of merits, of these cases of "targeting peaceful Christians," the most glaring problem with the president's decree is that anti-Christian bias is the only sort of bias to be "eradicated." There are no mentions of other faiths (except possibly in Section 3iii and 3iv, but even there, nothing explicit).

A first report from the Task Force was due no later than 120 days after the order, but I've seen nothing that purports to be this initial report on its work. Instead, the Justice Department organized a Task Force hearing on April 22, with three witnesses complaining about their treatment during the Biden administration. The Baptist News Web site summed it up: "‘Anti-Christian bias’ task force focuses solely on grievances of evangelicals." (More commentary on The Convocation Unscripted.)

With this background, you might forgive me for some initial skepticism about the more recent "Protecting Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace" memorandum issued by Scott Kupor, director of the U.S. federal government's Office of Personnel Management. Indeed, the first paragraph includes what seems nowadays to be an obligatory tribute to the president's leadership on the issue.

News coverage of the memorandum reflected this crediting of Donald Trump as the inspiration for the policy. (CNN headline: "Trump administration allows federal workers to promote religious beliefs.") However, beyond that nod, the memorandum seems moderate and defensible, and the examples of items that federal workers are allowed to wear or display go beyond specifically Christian symbolism. The guidance seems to protect faith expressions in general. It also places limits on those expressions: reserve work hours for actual work, and don't try to persuade anyone of your beliefs when they've asked you to stop. Also, "Title VII does not cover all beliefs. For example, social, political, or economic philosophies, and mere personal preferences, are not 'religious' beliefs within the meaning of the statute."

Wearing religious jewelry, having a Bible or rosary on your desk, or a religious poster on your wall, may seem a bit aggressive in a U.S. culture that privatizes religion and frequently treats it as some kind of inadequacy. However, whenever two human beings have business with each other and no prior ties, there are always risks involved, as well as (we hope) mutually beneficial rewards. It would seem like a sad—and impractical—accommodation to those risks if we end up expecting all public servants to adopt a bland exterior that reveals nothing of their individuality, personality, and values. What we can expect is that they treat us with the same fairness as the director of the Office of Personnel Management expects their co-workers and us to treat them.

Other familiar conflicts can arise when someone decides to take offense at a religious expression. I remember a U.S. Supreme Court case I wrote about here, Town of Greece v Galloway, where I agreed with the majority that the town was within its rights to allow religion-specific prayers at its legislative functions. But I had another priority as well. (Quoting myself!)...

But in any case, I think it is time to challenge the idea that being offended is, without evidence of actual coercion, a trump card in political discourse. If you are offended by someone else's religious speech, maybe managing your feelings rather than suing for relief is part of the price you pay for being in a country where there is religious freedom for the local majority as well as the local minority.

Maybe you're thinking, "OK, Johan, that's easy for you to say; you're too often in the majority; you don't know what it's like to be in the minority." And you're probably right. But you might be surprised by how easy it is to offend me. Just say "Waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists." Call me an anti-Semite for criticizing Israeli apartheid. Put a Hitler moustache on a picture of Obama. Tell me I shouldn't say "Merry Christmas." Label Quakers as "heretics" or evangelical Christians as "theologically bankrupt" as people have done to my face. I keep having to remind myself what a therapist once told me: "People have a right to be wrong."

Back to the case at hand, Scott Kupor's memorandum. It has two major gaps, to my mind. 

First: what about people who don't identify with any religious faith? Could atheist federal workers have on their desk, for example, a clearly visible copy of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian? 

Are atheists and agnostics covered by this policy in the memorandum's second section? ... 

Employees may engage in conversations regarding religious topics with fellow employees, including attempting to persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views, provided that such efforts are not harassing in nature.

Consistency would require attempts to persuade others of, say, Bertrand Russell's viewpoint as equally protected, but I'm not sure that was contemplated in preparing this policy.

The second gap: the policy is naive regarding the power differentials involved, both between supervisor and employee, and between the employee and citizens requiring a service. It is not hard to come up with a hypothetical.... In a federal employee's office, would a picture of Trump at his desk with Jesus standing behind him, hand on Trump's shoulder, be just this side of coercive? Would a plaque quoting "Those who curse their mother or their father shall be put to death, Exodus 21:17" in majestic calligraphy be a bit over the line? Would that one be okay in the Department of Transportation but not in the Department of Justice? The subordinate or client who would be tempted to argue in more equitable circumstances could well decide, "I'll stuff my feelings rather than argue and lose my access to the services I need." Is that acceptable? But on the other hand, would the cost of preventing outliers smother the more general freedom Kupor's policy is designed to protect?

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I'm always puzzled by some Christians insisting on what can come across as in-your-face religiosity, which seems far more likely to repel than attract. Just because your favorite Christian celebrity, or Scott Kupor, or Pam Bondi says you can make your affiliation obvious in your workplace doesn't mean that it actually serves the cause of evangelism. Here's a passage from a former atheist who became an advocate for "permission evangelism." ...

Many times in my life, actually most of my life, when people tried to evangelize me, it caused more harm than good. Many of the scars I carried through my life that kept me away from seeking truth in God were delivered at the hands of well-meaning Christians. They had no idea who I was or what I was seeking, but they interrupted me and tried to force their beliefs down my throat. I've never bought a product that way, and sure wasn't apt to buy God that way. If going to church subjected me to hundreds of those kind of people, I definitely wasn't headed there. Like much of today's society, I chose not to be come assumptive and insensitive, so I incorrectly chose not to be a Christian.

The very next day after I accepted Christ, I prayed that God would never allow me to forget what it was like to live a life without knowing Him. I asked for the emotions and experiences to remain present with me so that I could always relate to non-Christians, forever remaining empathetic. I have prayed that prayer numerous times in my life, and God has always honored that request. Now I was given the insight to use the heart God had provided to be as effective as possible. It is exciting to use the methods of the world to reach the world, yet see eternal results.

The purpose of permission in evangelism is to create trust, get around the legal and social barriers to discussing your faith, and most importantly, to discern the leading of the Holy Spirit in someone's life. ... Evangelism, when asked to tell someone about Jesus, is easy and resembles giving an answer for the hope that you have, rather than forcing an answer on a person yet to ask a question.

— Michael L. Simpson, Permission Evangelism: When to Talk, When to Walk.

Note to Quakers: If your reading tastes were formed by the likes of Thomas Kelly and Caroline Stephen, Michael Simpson's book might come across as cliche-ridden and glib. (Who wouldn't?!) Give him a chance! I believe his insights, suggestions, and his reframing of marketing in the service of ethical evangelism, are valid, or at least worth putting into the mix. If we actually care to help our communities be more accessible, and spread the message of grace to heal the wounds left by white Christian nationalism, and the resulting cynicism we have to contend with, his book might be very helpful.

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Elizabeth Bruenig in The Atlantic: Who counts as Christian?

Adria Gulizia: Spirit-led evangelism.

Jade Rockwell in Friends Journal: Risking Faithfulness: Quietism and experimentation in unquiet times.

Early Friends were led to start our movement as a way to recover a wayward Christianity that they felt had taken too many wrong turns for it to be reformed from within the existing churches. But despite the inspiration of early Friends, it is the Quietist period that I think in many ways has most shaped the beliefs and practices that we cling to in our meetings and churches.

Windy Cooler: Angela Hopkins tells the truth about the hidden costs of ministry.

Israeli author David Grossman now "can't help" using the term genocide.

Racism: an informal five-question survey.

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McKinley James with his own song, "This Is the Last Time."

The whole Jericho Road

Source.  

A couple of evenings ago I was at a Friends World Committee event with staff and donors. Someone asked about fundraising in a time of crisis. As a donor, how do I choose between FWCC and the children in the Gaza Strip?

In the ensuing discussion, another participant brought up the River Story. (If we see babies drowning in a river, we rush to rescue them, but at some point we must also go upriver to find out how the babies got tossed into the waves, and address that cause.) We support FWCC and our Quaker congregations, along with the rescue work we all want to accomplish, because with these contributions we're helping both goals: we're nurturing our communities' capacity to make our care more systemic and confront the sources of the problem. At the same time we're continuing to support relief and rescue, but not putting all our energy there. In any case, the more we share with each other about our choices and reasons, the more complete our answer will be to the central query before every Quaker congregation: In this time and place, what does God want to say and do through us?

Martin Luther King, Jr., had his own version of the River Story. He used Luke's story of the Good Samaritan (whose setting is not far from Gaza) and applied it to us:

On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see than an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. 

Following the Web's rabbit trails in pursuing the history of this River Story, I found many references, almost all of which agreed that upstream investigations and interventions should claim a greater share of our resources. But I also appreciated Libby Willcomm's honesty about her own inclination:

Just as it's important to address immediate needs (babies in the river), it's equally important to seek policy reform for long-term, sustainable change. This is where I see the role of MLK's "inescapable network of mutuality". In order for everyone to thrive, everyone must work towards a just and equitable future, yet everyone can have a unique role in this "network of mutuality." And that's where High Road principles come in. By valuing and centering grassroots efforts and community voices while calling for collective, transformational change we're rescuing babies and keeping them out of the water.

Personally, I am much more of a "rescue babies" kind of person. I prefer to work on the ground, in communities, but I applaud those working at a higher level to make changes on a much larger scale. My passion lies in youth development. ... I truly believe that the reallocation of funds (starting with police budgets) to youth-based initiatives could radically change our world. Youth are our future, and based on the young people I've met, especially my High Road peers, it's a hopeful and optimistic one. Whether you prefer to pull babies out of the river or address where they come from, remember that we all hold critical roles in this "inescapable network of mutuality."

"... We all hold critical roles...." Exactly. And here's what I would love to see: that "mutuality" would also become mutual accountability and mutual trust. The next time the question of how to prioritize our resources comes up, I hope I'll remember (or better yet, someone else will remember!) to invite us to go around the group and ask how we arrive at our priorities, and how we make our contributions accordingly.

Maybe you have ways I've never heard of, to address the systemic causes or the most effective methods of direct relief. Unless we talk, I might never know. Even if I don't sign on to your priority, I can pray for you, and support you in the direction you've chosen, knowing that our whole community will then be more effective in keeping God's promises ... rather than one-upping each other on which of us have chosen the better path. I think it's also good to let each other know how we arrive at the amounts or forms of giving that we choose.

At Camas Friends Church, the elders and stewards are collaborating on ways to help us overcome our traditional reluctance to talk about money. Maybe these questions could be part of the conversation:

1. Which approaches to relief, rescue, and reparation align with our gifts and temperaments: direct aid to those who are suffering, or prophetic challenges to structures? (Not that these two are the only choices!)
2. Having reflected on what we are best equipped for, how have we chosen to direct our resources of money and property and time, as well as our spiritual focus?
3. Do our churches and meetings have space for us to exchange our ideas, proposals, and questions?

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A blessing and curse of getting older is realizing that many conversations that seem vital for today have been going on for generations. Talking about money, faith, and priorities reminds me of such ancient books as Elizabeth O'Connor's Letters to Scattered Pilgrims (1979, with a foreword by Douglas Steere), and John Alexander's Your Money or Your Life: A New Look at Jesus' View of Wealth and Power (1986).

Among the most powerful books of that era on these general themes is, in my mind, Charles Elliott's Comfortable Compassion?: Poverty, Power and the Church (1987). Among Elliott's observations that made an impact on me were the consequences of the separation of mission and service paths in the church. When service (relief and development, for example) lost its immediate connection to theology and spirituality, it took on the trappings of Western secular agencies and their modernizing agendas and  conceits.

Friends World Committee for Consultation once held Mission and Service Conferences. Maybe we need to find sustainable ways to renew those consultations.

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Related posts:

• On giving and receiving
• Evangelism or proselytism—a PS
• A Right Sharing reunion

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Speaking of things I'd not heard of, this Washington Post article, dated today, was the first I'd heard of Ms. Rachel and her videos, continuing the humane legacy of Fred Rogers. Idealists of the world, unite!

Kristin Du Mez on DEI or CEI? The dangers of Conformity, Exclusion, & Inequality.

The Israel-based human rights groups that are charging their country with genocide.

Friends Journal covers the story of Robert Jacob Hoopes, his arrest in Portland, Oregon, last Friday, and his preliminary hearing. He is charged with violent acts at a June 14 demonstration at an ICE facility here in Portland.

Wilmington College receives a carefully crafted $23 million gift from the late Jerry Scheve.

The Bremerton (Washington) Friends worship group will gather this coming Sunday. There's information on the Web site of North Seattle Friends Church.

Racism: an informal five-question survey.

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Rest in peace, versatile mathematician Tom Lehrer. We used some of Tom's songs in our classes in Russia. Students particularly liked the Lobachevsky song (or at least they said they did!), for which I couldn't find a video.) The song in the video below, "Send the Marines," also led to some interesting conversations.

Roland Penrose: Among other things, he was a Quaker...

Lee Miller's military ID. Source.

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Last week I described how we Quakers peeked out of an obscure corner of the Atheist's Companion in the form of a sort of earnest verbal caricature. Here's another place where you might not expect a Quaker to show up: the world of European surrealism between the wars.

Today's example comes from a film I watched on the plane trip coming home from the Nordic Yearly Meeting. The film was Lee, a biopic depicting important episodes from the life of American model, photographer, and war correspondent Lee Miller, starring Kate Winslet in the title role. Winslet was also one of the producers and financiers of the film. 

Many critics were not kind to the film, some charging that it was a standard-issue biopic with a confusing timeline, lifted only by the gifted performance of Winslet. I disagree; a flashier treatment would not have done the material justice. I was very impressed by the emotional range of the film, starting with scenes of Miller's merry bohemian social life in the years before World War II, and going on to portray her convincing transformation into a determined wartime photojournalist, eventually talking her way into post-Normandy France, and then into a fierce documentarian of Nazi atrocities, driven by "icy fury" to record for posterity what she saw in the death camps.

In the film, these vivid experiences and the resulting photos from those episodes are being prompted now and then by questions from an unidentified interviewer. Only at the end of the film do we learn who that interviewer was and the exact nature of the interview. The framing worked perfectly for me.

(If you insist, here's Wikipedia's summary of the film, but I recommend not reading it until you see the film first.)

Roland Penrose. Source.

One of her lovers, and eventually her husband, was British surrealist artist Roland Penrose, played in the film by Alexander Skarsgård. Roland is the Quaker character. His pacifism does not allow him to join up for a combat role in wartime; instead he becomes an air raid warden, and eventually makes his skills in camouflage available to the British military.

I immediately thought of a somewhat parallel Quaker character: Arthur Stanley Eddington, who conceived of his wartime (World War I) scientific research as a contribution to the scientific search for truth, a search which had no national boundaries. Therefore it was ethical in his mind to communicate across enemy lines with Albert Einstein to try to figure out why Mercury's orbit did not quite conform to Newtonian expectations.

Roland Penrose was an incredibly active artist, creative organizer, and socialite. How much energy he put into his life as a Quaker, after his early service with the Friends' Ambulance Unit, isn't as clear to me. Eddington, on the other hand, was an active Friend. His Swarthmore Lecture of 1929 argued for the compatibility of faith and scientific inquiry. Rather than becoming a full-time Quaker activist, that faith drove him to devote himself to a productive life of scientific discoveries and related worthwhile controversies.

The Presence in the Midst, 1916. Source.

Both Penrose and Eddington came from well-known Quaker families. Roland's most famous ancestor (at least among Quakers) might be his father James Doyle Penrose, whose painting "The Presence in the Midst" is in many Quaker homes. 

Among Roland's contemporary relatives is his nephew Roger Penrose, a well-known mathematical physicist, and also a very effective explainer of particle physics, consciousness and physics, and related topics, to the general public. In terms of faith, he describes himself as an agnostic, but see this Wikipedia summary for his own interesting twist.

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I've been reflecting on the contrast between these lives, and these families, and my own background. I did not come from a Quaker background. Quite the opposite. My parents came from opposite sides of World War II and were not above fighting the war all over again in their worst arguments. My father's background was the military resistance to Nazi occupation of his country; my mother was born and raised as a German in Japan, and insisted to me that our family comes from "officer class."

My Quaker faith was a direct outcome of a personal conversion, a joyful experience of meeting Jesus and then looking for the best home to honor and continue that elemental experience—despite the weight of my parents' disapproval. You Friends gave me that home, and ever since I've wanted others to have that same generous welcome. I've worked directly among Friends in service of that goal, with mixed results, but with no regret. That may be a different trajectory from that of the Penroses and Eddingtons and their lives of creativity and research, but if they and others like them hadn't been there—with all their variety, faithfulness, eccentricities, tangents, piety (James Doyle Penrose) and merriment (Roland Penrose)—where would I be now?

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Liz Theoharis and Noam Sandweiss-Back on the Struggle to Thrive and Not Just Barely Survive.

Certainly, today’s ongoing political crisis should remind concerned Christians that they can’t sit out the battle for the Bible and should remind the rest of us that we can’t concede religion to extremists. Christian nationalists weaponize the Good Book because they believe they have a monopoly on morality and can distort the word of God with impunity.

Gary Shteyngart's poignant question: his parents got him out of Soviet Russia at the right time; should his family now leave the U.S.?

I imagined, in my least cynical moments, that Russia would become more like America over the years, or at the least more habituated to pluralism and the rule of law. Of course, the very opposite happened. America is becoming Russia with every day. The tractors I would watch on Soviet television leading to ever more heroic harvests are now tariffs that will bring manufacturing back to our land. The dissidents who were the Soviet enemy within are now the vastly fictionalised Tren de Aragua gang members who supposedly terrorise our land, and indeed all migrants deemed insufficiently Afrikaner.

Diana Butler Bass on Magdalene and the new creation.

I think it's beautiful that the resurrection account isn't an account of simply words that Mary Magdalene is going to preach, that she's going to go off and tell information to the other disciples. But, instead there is, in this garden, a sort of a remaking of Mary Magdalene and her whole relationship with Jesus. I think that's part of the do not embrace me yet moment. There is this reunion that is happening between them – but not as what we typically think of a male and female joining – in word and in spirit that will result in a new creation being birthed.

Writer's Cabin.

What Nancy Thomas learned at "The Writer's Cabin."

C. Wess Daniels: Attention and empire's algorhythms.

Empire's algorithm wants us to see each other as enemies, as commodities, and as less than human.

But fortunately, we are not powerless against these forces.

Racism: an informal five-question survey.

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Austin City Limits celebrates its 50th anniversary. Here are Gary Clark, Jr., and Eve Monsees, two of my favorites! "Pride and Joy."