A fair comparison?

Source.  

The last book I finished reading in 2025 was Sister, Sinner: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson, by Claire Hoffman. I'm sure I am not the first person to compare McPherson, the founder of the Foursquare Church, with our Quaker pioneer, George Fox.

I already knew the broad outlines of McPherson's three decades in the public eye as an evangelist, healer, pastor, and founder of the USA's first megachurch. Hoffman's book gives a fascinating and balanced account of her life. She begins the book with one of the most dramatic events of McPherson's life—her disappearance from a Los Angeles beach in 1926—but provides historical, biographical, and theological context for her precedent-breaking career as a whole. The author gives us plenty of material from which to draw some connections with Fox.

One important factor that isn't a parallel is, of course, gender. However we feel about McPherson's claim to be empowered directly by the Holy Spirit, she had plenty of talent, giftedness, persistence, and amazing audacity behind her ascendancy as a woman to a status of, arguably, the most famous Christian celebrity in the USA of her time, far beyond her Pentecostal community. There were occasions when she could draw spontaneous crowds of tens of thousands of people, of whom thousands simply wanted to experience her healing power.

Here are some of the points that caused me to compare McPherson and Fox.

They both emphasized the possibility and importance of the immediate experience of the Holy Spirit. Theologically, McPherson was rather a centrist in the spectrum of evangelical Christianity of her time. She didn't deviate much from the fundamentalism of her early Christian experience, but her presentation of Christian faith emphasized grace and intimacy with God rather than legalism and fear of punishment. I think that many of Fox's evangelistic presentations in his itinerant ministry, and his epistles, could have (with updated English) come from McPherson as well.

They both used the communication channels of their time effectively. For Fox and his companions, it was the printing press, which is where McPherson also started, but she became a radio pioneer as well. (Toward the end of her life, McPherson was researching the possibilities of television.) Both of them published constantly, not only to present their own message, but also to argue with detractors. Fox and his movement were, at times, under attack from the Christian establishment and under persecution by their government. They responded nonviolently but certainly not passively as they flooded the market with books, tracts, and petitions. McPherson's disappearance and subsequent very controversial reappearance led to massive campaigns both for her and against her in the mass media of her times, and in the courtrooms of Los Angeles.

Both Fox and McPherson relied on women gifted in administration, fundraising, and oversight. Aimee Semple McPherson's support and accountability person for much of her career was her mother, Mildred Kennedy. For George Fox, Margaret Fell took on this role, alongside her evident gifts as theologian and communicator, and eventually she and Fox married. 

In both cases, they developed leadership structures, with boards and committees, and those structures (with major changes over the years) exist to this day. The Foursquare Church continues as a worldwide fellowship, and so do we Friends. We have dispersed accountability and leadership arrangements compared with the more unified and centralized Foursquare structure, and we don't have one official statement of faith as Foursquare does, but we've both managed to take a fellowship that began with a single powerful personality and make it durable.

This leads to another similarity. Both movements have succeeded in honoring their founders without exaggerating their status as heroes. At the end of Claire Hoffman's book, she emphasizes this point about McPherson; there's little evidence of a personality cult around her in the present-day Foursquare Church. Neither is she hidden; she gets full credit for her role in starting the church, but is not an object of adoration. Fox's status among us Quakers is rather ambiguous; we quote him when it suits us, but often leaving out the full context of his intended meaning. In both cases, some of these leaders' more extravagant behaviors and claims have been downplayed since then. Speaking in tongues and healing continue to be expected in Foursquare fellowships, but Fox's accounts of miraculous healings (such as those included in Fox's Book of Miracles) have not led to similar expectations among us.

Contents of George Fox's 'Book of Miracles',
compiled and introduced by Henry Cadbury.

The expansion of the Quaker movement in Fox's lifetime was remarkable, although in the succeeding centuries we have lost momentum numerically, to say the least. It may be too soon to draw comparisons with Foursquare's growth. Nor did we ever have megachurches or anything resembling McPherson's Angelus Temple. The differences between our two movements may be just as fruitful to explore as the similarities; I just wanted to point out those similarities as I closed the covers of Hoffman's fascinating book. What instructive differences and similarities occur to you?

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Related: Happy Birthday, charismatics. (2010.)

Something even older: here's an interesting article by Carey Mcwilliams on "cults" in California, from the March 1946 issue of The Atlantic. It was cited in the notes of Claire Hoffman's book.

Another year's worth of "useful theology from a Quaker-shaped Christian," Mark Russ.

From archive.org: Public Domain Day 2026.

Martin Kelley (Quaker Ranter) traces the origin of the Quaker SPICES testimonies.

A favorite-books list I always look forward to: Nancy Thomas. PS: We agreed about Sister, Sinner.

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Sue Foley is a force of nature....

The Quaker high-wire act (and the Atlantic Ocean again)

Wonder of the Seas: our position this morning.

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Still on the open ocean. What a difference a week makes, at average speed of about 20 knots. The zigzag in our course was the result of responding to a medical emergency yesteerday, during which a Portuguese helicopter airlifted a passenger to a hospital on land. We will be approaching Gibraltar in about 32 hours.

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Years ago, at the All-Kentucky Gathering of Friends, I remember being asked how I, an apparently intelligent person, could call myself a Christian. (I mentioned this incident in a post entitled Risk and resurrection.) I was a staff member of Friends World Committee for Consultation at the time, and my service included two contrasting expectations: courteous and empathetic outreach to the full spectrum of Quakers I met in the course of my travels, and honest expression of my own testimony. In those days, most corners of my Quaker world either strongly identified as Christian, or were places in which Christians were a (sometimes defensive) minority.

My current spiritual home is Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends, though I also continue to be a member of Moscow Meeting in Russia. SCYMF and my home meeting, Camas Friends Church, describe their values as Christ-centered, Quaker, and welcoming all sexual identities on an equal basis. There are probably many in the Christian world that would see tensions within that set of values, but many of us say that they are mutually reinforcing.

One of our challenges as a young yearly meeting is, as I see it (and I have no official voice!), to balance two qualities: solidity without false certainty.

By "solidity" I mean a continuity of vision and purpose, a trustworthy teaching voice, and the stability needed for a Christian community to go beyond existence today as congenial affinity group, but instead also to be a place where people are born and die, come to faith, become leaders by a transparent process according to their gifts (without irrelevant criteria getting in the way), and wish the best for each other even in conflict. "Solidity" as a Quaker group means to me to be grounded in the essential Quaker agenda: "What does God want to say and do through us?"

Here's the high-wire act: doing all this without resorting to false certainty. I have my own sense of security in my experience as a disciple of Jesus -- 48 years of counting on the trustworthiness of Jesus, and recognizing that the Quaker testimonies match my experience of the signs and wonders empowered by the Holy Spirit. However, my understanding is not, and cannot be, any organization's official template. My influence on others is completely dependent on my own trustworthiness and the integrity of my relationships with others, and even that does not guarantee any particular outcome of our conversations. Change is possible in either direction, but not because we are trying to fit into an external mold.

To tell the truth, there is no corner of Christianity where "certainty" truly guarantees anything other than a motivation to conform and be accepted. In more authoritarian circles, people who are feeling a need to "deconstruct" their faith either have to hide or leave. (Tell me if I'm wrong about any particular group; I'd be glad to hear their story.) I hope that Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting and Camas Friends Church are places where people who can no longer accept their earlier certainties know that they will be given just as much love and support during this process as they were and will be in seasons of greater confidence.

I find much value in doctrines as important attempts to express urgent spiritual insights and make them public and communicable. To the extent that we Quakers have doctrines, such as those expressed by Robert Barclay and other gifted Quaker theologians, I think that these expressions should be considered and meditated upon by anyone wanting to know about our community and its history. But let's be honest -- there is probably no Friends meeting or church that exactly conforms to those doctrines, and that is not surprising. Practically nobody comes to faith along the same paths as those early Friends. Their faithfulness -- evidenced in the staying power of the movement they began -- earns them the right to be taken seriously, but not to be followed uncritically.

Some Christians see the Bible as a guarantor of right doctrine. The Bible is a unique testimony to God's relationship to Creation and to all of God's creatures, but the Bible itself neither has nor claims to have any magical ability to provide its own interpretive keys. As soon as someone insists on providing and imposing such a key, we have another example of false certainty.

People of faith are always on a high wire. There's no aspect of faith that doesn't involve the risk that our prayerful discernment, necessary as it is, might be in error. What I love about Camas Friends, our yearly meeting, and similar trustworthy Christian communities is that, if I fall, my friends will catch me in our net. And at another time and place, I will return the favor.

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Somewhat to my surprise, I've not written anything about Ukraine today. The war is still what I'm thinking and praying about more than anything else. I was glad that the rather thin Internet service on this ship made it possible to join the Tuesday meetings for worship with a concern for Ukraine, under the care of Friends World Committee's European and Middle East Section.

Thinking about Jesus in the shadow of the Russian Easter offensive: Is death the point?

Russia's fascist "background noise" (a look back eight years ago).

David Hadley Fink: the Quaker peace testimony has never been rescinded....

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I need some blues dessert. Nothing less than high-voltage Albert Collins will do.

"Why are you afraid?"

Christ in the Storm on the Lake of Galilee, Rembrandt. Detail. Source.

Rembrandt's painting.

The New Testament story of Jesus calming the storm, to his fellow passengers' astonishment, is told by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The waves threaten to swamp the boat and drown the terrified disciples (apparently including young Rembrandt in the detail above), but Jesus responds to their cries for help, calms the water, and rebukes the wind.

Each of the evangelists frames this story a bit differently. In Matthew's telling, Jesus is responding to the setting -- they've been surrounded by crowds. Maybe he wants a change of scene, or wants to resume the private instruction of his disciples rather than teaching everyone present. In Luke, the trip is apparently a separate decision. With Mark's typical flair for the dramatic detail, he begins by specifying, "On that day" (apparently the day he'd been teaching with parables) -- that's the day he proposes the evening trip across the lake. Mark also specifies that the boat carrying Jesus was one of several boats making the trip. All of the accounts have Jesus sleeping when the storm comes upon them; Mark says he was sleeping on a cushion.

All of the evangelists report the passengers' perilous situation, but Mark adds the poignant question: "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" (NIV translation.) For me, this question makes the whole exchange between the frightened passengers and their teacher more complex. In each gospel, before the trip across the lake, Jesus has been teaching his audiences about his relationship to them and about God's realm:

• Matthew: Jesus says, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."
• Mark: "With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything."
• Luke: Jesus says, "My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice."

This prior teaching gives context to the question Jesus asks when they plead for rescue: "Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?" ... perhaps adding by implication, "... despite everything you've all seen and heard?" I interpret Mark as saying that they do have faith, but they aren't yet sure how to apply it in a dire crisis. To put words into his mouth, "Teacher, we know you could save our skins if you wanted to, so why are you acting so calm?"

When our pastor, Matt Boswell, proposed this passage as our focus for last Sunday's unprogrammed worship, he drew our attention to the command that Jesus gave the wind and waves: "Peace! Be still!" (NRSV translation.) As Matt proposes, maybe these words are intended for the disciples as well -- and, by extension, for us.

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Right now, it seems very reasonable to compare our situation to the wind and waves that pounded those Galilean boats.

• New waves and variants of COVID-19 sweep over many countries and regions, just as many people are behaving as if the precautions of the past fourteen months can be set aside.
• Grieving families in the so-called Holy Land are trying to put their lives back together, as Naftali Bennett (who has "no problem" with killing Arabs) prepares to replace Netanyahu in Israel.
• In Russia and Belarus, independent voices are being repressed or extinguished on a daily basis. Across the globe, glib authoritarians are exalting the path of deceit and cruelty.
• One of the USA's grand old parties seems bent on becoming the only party that can win elections.
• The war in Yemen has claimed more than 100,000 lives. Most of the munitions that shattered those lives came from outside Yemen.
• Global warming continues its apparently implacable advance.
• Everyone reading these words has experienced, is experiencing, or probably will experience a Galilean boat-ride of their own, on some scale large or small.

Given all that, I hear the words of Jesus not as a rhetorical question, but as a very real query that I (we) should answer: 

"Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?"

Here's the most important point I can make: This question is not just directed to me, personally, although I'm surely supposed to engage with it myself. It is directed to us, together. It's directed to everyone in the boat.

• It is directed to those of us who are directly and obviously in the storm, hanging on to the ropes for dear life.
• It is directed to those of us who don't yet understand that your crisis is my crisis, their crisis is our crisis, no matter how far away or how little it seems to be costing me today.
• It is directed to those of us who haven't yet asked Jesus for rescue (not just individual rescue, but for all of us in the boat together).
• It is directed to those of us who haven't yet told the other passengers that Jesus is in the boat.
• It is directed to those in the boat who are feeling strong today -- so that they are ready to help those whose faith is weak or gone or not yet even born.
• It is directed to those who are feeling weak today -- reminding us that, though we're all in the same boat, we aren't simultaneously all at the same place spiritually, and when we ourselves can't see Jesus at all, we can ask each other for help.
• It is directed to those who are especially able to spot the wind and the waves, to those whose special gift may to ask Jesus for help, and to those who, with unsung faithfulness, tend to the oars and the rigging.

Source.  

One of the historic symbols of the unity of Christians, and our concern for the whole world, is the boat with the crosslike mast. As the waves of violence and bondage threaten to overwhelm our battered boat, maybe it is the special vocation of some of us to warn the passengers that for too long we have been one-upping each other, slandering each other, scandalizing non-believers, and just assuming that Jesus and the Bible are our badges of privilege.

Why are you and I afraid? Or is the better question today, Why are you and I NOT afraid? 

And, if we still have faith, which waves and which blast of wind are we going to rebuke today in the name of Jesus?

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An exchange of e-mails between a Palestinian writer and an Israeli writer. 

Meanwhile, Facebook faces a loss of reputation in the Middle East.

Israel may be losing favor among the heretofore most faithful Christian supporters.

Damien Carrington: Climate-related tipping points could topple like dominoes. 

Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia are definitely in that battered boat.

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Albert Collins, with Derek O'Brien and a superb band, play a slow, exquisitely embroidered version of "The Things That I Used To Do."