Quaker Exceptionalism. We touched on this phenomenon several times in Mark Russ's excellent Woodbrooke course on "Quaker theology and whiteness," just concluded. (If you're intrigued by the course title, ask Woodbrooke and Mark whether it might be presented again!)
I'm glad to see some new attention to this exceptionalism and its spiritual hazards. I do have one mild caution: please let's not use this problem as just another way to shame and one-up each other for being insufficiently spiritual or progressive or anti-racist compared to ourselves in our own eyes! Yes, there is arrogance and ignorance and elitism in this exceptionalism, but it's also fueled by genuine idealism (a beautiful quality I see in Quakers everywhere across our divisions), a desire to do better than the religion industry whose oppressive structures and conceits we originally rose up to oppose.
As an old London Yearly Meeting poster once proclaimed, as nearly as I can remember, "Tired of organized religion? Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater." Let's just watch out for that exceptionalist temptation, whatever our corner of the Quaker world—to replace the Baby with our own bathwater, whether that be the subtle rose-scented water of liberal Quakerism or the soggy cliches of imported evangelicalism.
Related posts: Here's one from back in 2006—but especially see the excellent comments from readers: Are Quakers marginal? Part two. Also, take a look at these rarely asked questions.
One more word on the course on Quaker theology and whiteness that Mark Russ presented: within a couple of years it should be emerging in book form. I can't wait! In the meantime, I'm looking forward to Mark's The Spirit of Freedom: Quaker-Shaped Christian Theology, coming this autumn.
This past spring, via Zoom, Mark gave a sermon on the good news of sin (!!) at our Camas Friends Church.
My late cousin Johan Fredrik Heyerdahl and I used to discuss some of the complexities and contradictions of Norwegian identity. My visit to Norway later this year will be my first since his death, and I'll intensely miss his wonderful company. I'm sure I'll have some good conversations with relatives and friends, but in the meantime I've started my preparations by reading Michael Booth's The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia.
Some of this territory was well covered by Robert Ferguson's excellent Scandinavians: In Search of the Soul of the North, which I briefly described in this post: "Shame is what turns societies around." What I like about Michael Booth's book is his undisguised irritation at the exaggerated admiration that the Scandinavian countries sometimes bask in. It's the sort of admiration of these "almost nearly perfect" countries that doesn't take into account national patterns of conformism (see Janteloven), troubling attitudes toward immigrants, and unresolved dilemmas about national wealth and productivity, among many other shadow factors.
Despite the utopian "myth" of his book's title, Booth isn't relentlessly snarky or negative, not at all. He gives credit wherever he thinks it is due, and cheerfully owns up to his prejudices. His discussion of Norway's gigantic "oil fund" is a good example: his interviews and reflections touch on the blessings of all that money for Norway's quality of life and governance, and he acknowledges the amazingly careful stewardship of that money. At the same time, he points out the contradictions of Norway's internal culture of ecological sensitivity vs the source of all that fabulous national wealth (sales of carbon-based fuels), as well as the apparent impact of that wealth on Norwegians' work ethic.
In any case, I'm eager to gather some fresh impressions of my own, in the land of my birth.
Tim Alberta, author of The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, writes in The Atlantic: "Trump Is Planning for a Landslide Win. (And his campaign is all but praying Joe Biden doesn’t drop out.)" (14-day gift link.)
Biden quitting the race would necessitate a dramatic reset—not just for the Democratic Party, but for Trump’s campaign. Wiles and LaCivita told me that any Democratic replacement would inherit the president’s deficiencies; that whether it’s Vice President Kamala Harris or California Governor Gavin Newsom or anyone else, Trump’s blueprint for victory would remain essentially unchanged. But they know that’s not true. They know their campaign has been engineered in every way—from the voters they target to the viral memes they create—to defeat Biden. And privately, they are all but praying that he remains their opponent.
I was struck by the irony. The two people who had done so much to eliminate the havoc and guesswork that defined Trump’s previous two campaigns for the presidency could now do little but hope that their opponent got his act together.
Furthermore, Kristin Kobes Du Mez warns us not to be taken by surprise:
There is apparently no need for hoods anymore.
That’s what’s changed. These ideas aren’t new, but the tone and tenor of rhetoric has shifted perceptably in the past few months, even weeks. Growing numbers of Christians are not even trying to hide their nativism, misogyny, anti-semitism, and authoritarianism.
And where are the moderate voices? Where are the principled conservative leaders, organizations, and institutions? Where are individual conservative Christians digging in their heels, defending our Constitutional government, religious liberty for all, and democratic pluralism?
They are few and far between.
All of this should be cause for alarm, even if you aren’t looking at the poll numbers.
Diana Butler Bass on talking about politics in church, and the intellectual grounding her childhood church gave her to do just that.... (And, fast-forwarding to now: "Who's Reinhold Niebuhr?")
It isn’t that Reinhold Niebuhr had all the answers. He didn’t. I now disagree with much of what he wrote. I draw from a much wider range of theo-political options.
But Niebuhr represented a tradition — part of that long Christian argument that shaped the imagination of an elementary school girl in a Methodist church in Baltimore. From him, and from those others, I learned that it was good to argue about faith and politics in church. Indeed, it was our birthright.
Paul Anderson: John as the universalist gospel and as the "only way to the Father."
Olha Lychko-Parubocha (Friends Peace Teams partner in Ukraine) focuses on the things she can change.
Registration link for Zoom discussion on August 1, 4 p.m. Pacific time.
Chris O'Leary and his band appeared at this year's Waterfront Blues Festival. Here they're performing "19 Cents a Day":
"For a year before your firing, you were thinking about retiring, but your pension plan's been looted ... I hear that Walmart is hiring...."
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