"Dwell in that which is pure..."

Sources: Poetry and Passion, Barclay Press (2026); The Power of the Lord, Friends United Meeting (1989; cover is from the epub version, 2023).

---

In August 2022, our old friends Ben and Jody Richmond visited Judy and me in Maine. Ben brought with him several pages of an exciting project: a sampling of George Fox's epistles that he was in the process of laying out in verse form. Two years later, a full-length manuscript emerged, and last month it became available to you and me.

Canby (b/w) and Ben

Ben explains that it all started when he began using George Fox's epistles as devotional reading.

At first, I had no idea of publishing anything.  I used Canby Jones' Power of the Lord Is Over All and treated it like Hodgkin's A Day-Book of Counsel and Comfort, plowing through, one epistle per day. I started by copying out a sentence or two that was striking to me, then journal-style writing my response.

As I was doing this, I began to wonder what was behind Canby's ellipses. Using the Digital Quaker Archive for the base text, I began to try reconsidering repetitions as progressive parallels rather than redundancies. We see this in the Psalms all the time. This eventually led me to experiment with formatting selections from the epistles as poetry. Some of the first fruits of which I brought ... to see how Judy and you would react.

In Poetry and Passion, I have the entire text of Epistle 50, with the exception of a parenthetical expression, "as aforesaid" which Canby and I both delete. Here is my text, with Canby's deletions struck through:

All Friends,

[I]

Dwell in that which is pure,
and wait for the power of God
to preserve you in that which is pure,
up to God.

And know the seed of God in one another,
that the knowledge which is after the flesh may die;
and know the power of God in one another.

Let your faith stand in that
which throws out the earthly nature,
and the loftiness of man;

which overturns the worldly wisdom
and the carnal knowledge,
which is brutish and devilish.

[II]

Dwell in that which is pure,
that ye may be able to discern,
and savour, and comprehend
that which is not pure;

and wait in that which is pure,
to have your minds guided thereby,
which will let you see God,

and show you your evil thoughts,
and judge them; and is a cross
to your evil desires, wills, and lusts.

[III]

I say, dwell in that which is pure,
which will guide you to God;
but if ye lust, . . . then the pure is veiled,

and the light mind speaks at random,
with a drunken spirit,
and not from the mouth of the Lord.

And there lodgeth the dreamer,
and the lying spirit, and the false prophet,
and that which is like the truth but is not the truth;

but dwelling in the truth,
this will be discovered.

And wait upon God in that which is pure,
for the receiving of that which comes from God,
which is living, which nourisheth up
to everlasting life.

So God Almighty be with you!

[Again, Ben:] The poetic formatting allows progressions of thought to be made plain. For instance, see these early lines --

And know the seed of God in one another,
that the knowledge which is after the flesh may die;
and know the power of God in one another.

Knowing the seed of God in one another leads to the death of "the flesh" which leads to knowing the power of God in one another. The third line in that triplet is a development of the first. But what does it mean???? I'm guessing that it's related to overturning "carnal knowledge" which is "brutish and devilish." Fox's language is provocative, not to say provoking.

Note also the move from individual waiting for the power in the first stanza to knowing the power corporately in the second stanza. Is this community awareness of the power of God in one another part of our contemporary experience????

And, of course, the three-fold "dwell in that which is pure" leads to a progression of its own which I mention in the "Introductory Note."

Both Ben and I are great admirers of T. Canby Jones and his work on Fox's epistles. Canby put countless hours into making sure we had the most comprehensive collection to date of those epistles in book form, introduced with Canby's own scholarship and wit. Canby himself noted the lyrical quality of Fox's letters. From his introduction:

In the early 1970's, I spent more time meditating on Fox's letters. As mentioned in my preface, on a retreat with the Friends of Berkeley, California, Friends Church, I felt led to read aloud and share many of Fox's Letters. Their response was so joyously electric that I determined I must bring out a newly edited complete edition of Fox's Letters as my next major project. Another reason for my concern to do this arises from the fact that since 1831 no edition of Fox's complete Letters has appeared in print. There have been five editions of Selections from Fox's Epistles in the intervening years but no complete edition.

One of the most impressive things about George Fox's Letters is his use of striking and unusual words and phrases. His writing style is full of organic and down-to-earth images. Others are pure poetry. Some passages are inspiring litanies of praise. In some, his words of censure are as unique as they are severe.

Here is a poetic example. In Letter 56 (1653), Fox calls us to bring our "minds out of the earth ... towards God, where the pure babe is born in the virgin mind." Have you heard spiritual birth described in such terms?

Canby's gift to us was to provide Fox's words with a balanced approach of completeness and clarity, in a documentary format. He knew the pulsing power underneath those dense paragraphs. Ben's reformatting makes that pulse and cadence vividly available.

Other features of the book are also very helpful. Paul Anderson's preface provides additional historical and theological context. Ben includes a chronology of Fox's life. Each of Fox's letters has an introductory note and a related biblical passage. The epistles themselves are sorted by themes, but at the end of the book there is an index of epistles in numerical/chronological order. (You may be among those who love Fox's epistle "Sing and rejoice, ye children of the day and of the light," and it's right here, on page 171.)

---

Source.  

One more thing. Since I just mentioned Paul Anderson, another linkage comes to mind. Paul recently published Margaret Fell's 'Women's Speaking Justified' in Modern English with his thoughtful commentary. George Fox wrote an epistle on a related theme (page 131 in Poetry and Passion):

To All Women's Meetings (Epistle 291, 1672)

Introductory Note

The equality of women and men was among the first testimonies of Friends, and was demonstrated in the prominent and controversial leadership roles of women such as Elizabeth Hooton, Margaret Fell, Mary Fisher, Mary Dyer, and many others whose prophetic preaching some found scandalous, but had a major part in spreading the everlasting gospel. In this epistle, addressed To all the women's meetings, that are believers in the truth, Fox asserts the equality of women and men in leadership and encourages “your women's meetings.” (See also, Epistle 320.) The foundational theological idea is that Christ restores men and women to the state of Adam and Eve, who were equal “help-meets” before the fall.

Note: Five years prior to this, in 1667, Margaret Fell, then a prisoner in Lancaster Castle prison, wrote the seminal tract, “Women’s Speaking Justified.” Fox and Fell married each other in 1669.

---

Scripture: And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone;
I will make him an help meet for him.

Genesis 2:18 (KJV)

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he
him; male and female created he them.

Genesis 1:27 (KJV)

---

Epistle

Friends,—

Keep your women's meetings in the power of God... and keep the gospel order.

For man and woman were helps-meet in the image of God, and in righteousness and holiness, in the dominion, before they fell; but after the fall in the transgression, the man was to rule over his wife; but in the restoration by Christ, into the image of God, and his righteousness and holiness again, in that they are helps-meet, man and woman, as they were before the fall....

And women are to take up the cross daily,
and follow Christ daily,
as well as the men;

and so to be taught of him their prophet,
and fed of him their shepherd,
and counselled of him their counsellor,
and sanctified by him

who offered up himself once for all....

Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, were the first preachers of Christ's resurrection to the disciples, and the disciples could not believe their message and testimony that they had from Jesus, as some now-a-days cannot; but they received the command, and being sent preached it.

So is every woman and man to do, that sees him risen, and has the command and message; daughters shall prophesy as well as sons.

So they are to be obedient, that have the spirit poured upon them. Women are to prophesy; and prophecy is not to be quenched. They that have the testimony of Jesus, are commanded to keep it, whether men or women....

So women are to keep in the government of Christ, and to be obeyers of Christ; and women are to keep the comely order of the gospel, as well as men, and to see that all that have received Christ Jesus, that they walk in Christ Jesus... of the increase of whose government there is no end.

So the foundation of our women's meetings is Christ, to all them that be heirs of him, and of his government... and therefore, I say, take your possessions of it, and walk as becomes the gospel; and keep the comely order of it, and in it keep your meetings....

So ... both men and women, be helps-meet in the image of God, in the righteousness and holiness in the restoration.... And so see that nothing be lacking amongst you, then all will be well.

Postscript.—

And the elder women in the truth
were not only called elders, but mothers.

Now a mother in the church of Christ,
and a mother in Israel,
   is one that gives suck,
   and nourishes, and feeds,
   and washes, and rules,

and is a teacher, in the church, and in the Israel of God,
   and an admonisher,
   an instructer, an exhorter.

So, all that are come to that office,
   growth, and stature,

   be diligent;

for a mother in Israel, or in the church of Christ,
is beyond all the mothers in Egypt, and in Sodom,
   and the mother of harlots, mystery Babylon,
   who had power over tongues, nations, and people,
   with the cup of her fornication.

But the mothers in spiritual Israel, and church of Christ,
   has the cup of salvation,
   and the breasts of consolation,
   which are full of the milk of the word,
   to suckle all the young ones,
   and to nourish, and instruct,
   admonish, and exhort,
   and rebuke all the contrary;

   and to refresh and cherish
   every tender one....

---

More about T. Canby Jones. Canby in Wikipedia.

climate.us "launches independent website for trusted climate information" preserving and extending the earlier government Web site canceled by the current U.S. administration.

Tricia Gates Brown on what a rescued bird taught her.

Jack Jenkins on how Matthew 25 lands in Washington, DC, and how it becomes a political litmus test.

The European Bureau for Conscientious Objection calls upon Ukraine to uphold the right to conscientious objection—including the case of Friend Yuri Sheliazhenko—and to stop the detention and torture of objectors.

---

Junior Wells and Buddy Guy, "Ten Years Ago."

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?

---

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.

---

Sue Foley is a force of nature....

Praise and prophecy

Screenshot from source.  

Last Sunday, Daniel Smith-Christopher gave a sermon, "Disciples of the Sacred Story Tellers," at Reedwood Friends Church, that touched on, among other things, one of the recurring contrasts in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible:

We're all familiar with many of the difficult and troubling and sometimes violent attitudes in some of the passages of the Old Testament. It's why so many people have asked me over the years, "Old Testament! What's a Quaker doing studying and teaching the Old Testament? Aren't you a bit out of place?"

I enjoy sharing my thoughts as to why I don't think I am out of place at all. So, here's the strangely compelling part: sacred storytellers whose names we will never know in each case,  sacred storytellers in the Old Testament seemed to keep offering gentle, loving, sometimes compassionate stories in the face of terribly violent texts.

Daniel gave several examples of the way the Bible's storytellers provided this kind of contrasting content alongside some of the warnings of divine violence coming from various biblical prophets. See the video; he gives three interesting examples of prophets and storytellers.

It seems to me that this fits in with the divine dialogue that the Bible invites us into. That dialogue is what I try to enter into when I am particularly challenged by something in the Bible, something that seems contradictory or strange, something that I just don’t understand. Sometimes the participants in the dialogue are the biblical record and me, and sometimes I’m imagining a dialogue between different voices in the Bible itself.

In this post, my example of contrasting messages compares the psalms of praise and the warnings of the prophet Amos. Fifteen psalms include the imperative verb Hallelu (that is, "praise") followed by a short version of God’s name, Yah: so, Hallelujah. The last five psalms in the Bible are all part of this group of Psalms, but they vary in their descriptions of whom they’re asking to praise God, including the monsters of the deep sea. Psalm 150 keeps it simple … where, why, and how to praise:

Psalm 150

1 Praise the Lord.
     Praise God in God’s sanctuary;
     praise God in God’s mighty heavens.
2 Praise God for God’s acts of power;
     praise God for God’s surpassing greatness.
3 Praise God with the sounding of the trumpet,
     praise God with the harp and lyre,
4 praise God with timbrel and dancing,
     praise God with the strings and pipe,
5 praise God with the clash of cymbals,
     praise God with resounding cymbals.
6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord.

On a Sunday last spring, one of our Camas Friends Church attenders gave a brief opening message, what we call the "First Word," and his text for that message was one of these last five praise psalms. As he read that psalm with dignity and reverence, I felt like a thirsty cactus getting a needed rainshower. If there’s one temptation some of us Quakers sometimes give in to, it’s the temptation to overthink things. Sometimes maybe we just need to let go and praise.

(By the way, that First Word speaker also talked about the reason we praise. It's not because God has an inferiority complex and needs our reassurance that the Creator of the Universe really is the Supreme Being. Now God might demand that we must not look for other gods, idols, and cultish substitutes, but goodness knows we can praise with our lips while drifting away with our souls. At our best, we praise because that is the soul’s natural response to the gift of life. If we’re responding to our being loved into existence by God, and, as Spokane Friends' John Kinney says, we realize that the stones will be rolled away from our own tombs as well as Jesus’s, our gratitude as expressed in praise seems like a natural and unforced expression.)

Contrast this imperative of praise in the psalms with what Amos is saying in the mid 700’s BC. Maybe you remember the context here: Amos has been reading the riot act to the people of Israel, particularly to the Northern Kingdom, accusing them of the same crimes of idolatry and oppression that he has seen in the surrounding Gentile nations, and saying that God demands the same purity and the same ethical standards of all of them, Israelites and Gentiles alike. He warns Israel that the woes that will fall on those Gentiles will also fall on his own audience. You can’t mock God. Judge for yourself:

Amos 5:12-24

12 For I know how many are your offenses
     and how great your sins.
There are those who oppress the innocent and take bribes
     and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
13 Therefore the prudent keep quiet in such times,
     for the times are evil.
14 Seek good, not evil,
     that you may live.
Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you,
     just as you say God is.
15 Hate evil, love good;
     maintain justice in the courts.
Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy
     on the remnant of Joseph.

16 Therefore this is what the Lord, the Lord God Almighty, says:
“There will be wailing in all the streets
     and cries of anguish in every public square.
The farmers will be summoned to weep
     and the mourners to wail.
17 There will be wailing in all the vineyards,
     for I will pass through your midst,”
says the Lord.

18 Woe to you who long
     for the day of the Lord!
Why do you long for the day of the Lord?
     That day will be darkness, not light.
19 It will be as though a man fled from a lion
     only to meet a bear,
as though he entered his house
     and rested his hand on the wall
     only to have a snake bite him.
20 Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light—
     pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?

21 “I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
     your assemblies are a stench to me.
22 Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
     I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
     I will have no regard for them.
23 Away with the noise of your songs!
     I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24 But let justice roll on like a river,
     righteousness like a never-failing stream!”

I wonder if you were as struck as I was by the apparent condemnation of the praises commanded in David’s time and now banished from Amos’s gloomy vision. The God of Amos doesn’t appreciate their festivals and assemblies. “Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.” This seems to me to be clearly a different voice.

By the way, it does not scandalize me that the Bible has voices that don't always agree with each other. The Bible is much more credible to me with these awkward juxtapositions than it would be if some ancient public relations copy-editors had made sure that nothing odd stuck out at us from these sixty-six-plus books. The Bible was compiled by a mixed process of prayer and church politics, and the end product did not conceal the different sources and different points of view of the authors. I believe that the Scriptures are God-inspired, as Paul said to Timothy, but God’s inspiration acts in the assembly process as well as in the writing process, and takes full advantage of the varieties of human temperament.

Along with Amos’s impatience with pious sacrifices and praises, he has some interesting things to say about “the Day of the Lord.” Quakers have traditionally had two related interpretations of this phrase. One concerns the end of history, when the Lamb of God has the victory, when redemption rules, and the New Jerusalem is revealed. The other is our individual Day of the Lord, our Day of Visitation, our invitation to accept or reject God’s free offer of grace and redemption. Most early Quaker theologians assumed that this offer would be made to everyone, whether or not they had had outward access to the Christian gospel. In other words, culture and geography were not barriers to salvation. (See the quotation from Robert Barclay here.)

Amos paints the Day of the Lord with his usual gloomy colors. “Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord. Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light—pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?” This is Israel’s destiny if they do not give up the sin and injustice he spends nine chapters condemning. There is an alternative in these same verses: “Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say God is. Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph.” This is the boundary line between Amos’s stern gloom and the promise of the New Jerusalem and its life of praise: We won’t just say God is with us, and assume that nothing needs to change, but we will wake up to the reality that following God has content and consequences, so that, if we have anything to do with it, justice will roll on like a river and righteousness like an everlasting stream.

What does that justice and righteousness look like? Here's a glimpse from George Fox’s experience of what he called the "restoration." (Page 27 of his Journal, Nickalls edition.)

Now was I come up in spirit through the flaming sword into the paradise of God. All things were new, the creation gave another smell unto me than before, beyond what words can utter. I knew nothing but pureness, and innocency, and righteousness, being renewed up into the image of God by Christ Jesus, so that I say I was come up to the state of Adam which he was in before he fell.

In case you think that Fox was referring to himself as a special case, he has some specific instances of what this will look like for everyone in the restoration—for example, specifically for men and women:

[Speaking to the men, now… same Journal, p. 667] 

And thy ruling over thy wife and eldership [over her] is in the Fall [that is, the capital-F Fall of Adam and Eve], for thou art in the transgression and not an elder in the image of God and righteousness and holiness, before transgression and the Fall was, nor in the restoration where they are helps-meet in the righteousness and image of God, and in the dominion over all that God made. …

And on p. 668,

I was moved of the Lord to recommend to Friends, for the benefit and advantage of the Church of Christ, that the faithful women who were called to the belief of the Truth, being made partakers of the same precious faith, and heirs of the same everlasting Gospel of life and salvation as the men are, might in like manner come into the possession and practice of the Gospel order, and therein be meet-helps unto the men in the restoration, in the service of Truth, in the affairs of the Church, as they are outwardly. That so all the family of God, in civil, or temporal things, women as well as men, might know, possess, perform, and discharge their offices and services in the house of God, whereby … all the members of the spiritual body, the Church, might watch over and be helpful to each other in love.

Fox has a fascinating understanding of what the Day of the Lord means here. At some time, the whole of creation will be like this, but we are not to wait! We ourselves are to go back through the flaming sword. When we ourselves experience all things being made new, and the creation giving forth a new smell, beyond what our words can utter, we will have a sense of what right praise is, and I predict that we will give way to it with great freedom and joy. The world is a long way from this New Jerusalem, and it may certainly be that our beloved, suffering planet will undergo a time of darkness as Amos predicted for Israel. (See "The long defeat, part one.") Darkness seems to be descending in various places even now. But at this very time, maybe it is given to us, and to faithful communities everywhere, to live out a discipleship of justice and righteousness, just as Amos said we might and must.

What does that discipleship look like in the community? What steps do we take so that, in George Fox’s words, “all the members of the spiritual body, the Church, might watch over and be helpful to each other in love”?

Eighteen years ago I taught a course in American studies at the New Humanities Institute in Elektrostal. The photo shows me in front of the class, with a diagram of the life cycle of a movement.

On the first day of the class, I gave my very oversimplified theory of history to the students: History is something like a constant debate between idealists and skeptics, or to put it another way, between optimists and cynics.

Whether it’s in the councils of state or in your typical church fights, they’re usually guaranteed to get on each other’s nerves. I think in the short run, skeptics usually win, but in the longer run, idealists have a fighting chance to prevail, if you’ll excuse the expression. In any case, when the idealists and the skeptics actually meet and converse, they have a real opportunity to bless each other. Each one, no matter how crazy or sensible, centrist or extreme, an ecstatic praise-giver or a gloomy prophet, is a child of God, and if they can, even for a moment, glimpse that of God in each other, they can move closer, together, to that river of justice and righteousness that, deep inside, both of them want.

---

This blog post is partly based on a message I gave at Spokane Friends Meeting last spring.

---

Two items from Facebook... Colin South, former director of the Ramallah Friends School, writes to the Israeli embassy in London and to the Israeli prime minister. And David Goode passed along this interesting item from Brian Drinkwine: little Charlies or little Christs?

Timothy Snyder on the virtues of a certain movie superhero. (I may have to see the film after all.)

Kristin Du Mez on life on the eve of finishing a book-length manuscript. (Includes some good links.)

"Walk in Beauty": Remarks by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew at Fordham University last Tuesday.

In the courtyard of the high priest's house, Peter denies knowing Jesus but is unmasked by his own Galilean accent. In a classic post by our late friend Stan Thornburg, he wonders whether we Christians have lost our accent.

---

Ever get this feeling? "No Rest." Chris O'Leary Band.

Valiant for the Truth (guest post) and first principles

Near Firbank Fell, Cumbria, England. Photo by Judy Maurer.

Valient for the Truth

by Judy Maurer

The day after the presidential election was called, I had lunch with a good friend. In pain from a recent injury, she had misjudged the distance and was very late. I was good with that because I needed time to simply calm myself and sit for a long while. A Thai restaurant in Milwaukie, Oregon, served that purpose well.

Over pad Thai, my friend pointed out that the Quakers who were conscientious objectors in World War II knew what to do when the system was against them: they networked. They knew each other well.

Quakers were also active in Germany in the rise of Nazism, in helping Jews escape and caring for those who were left. As the war progressed and France was occupied, Quakers remained to help. By then, Quakers had to tread carefully on both sides, Allies and Nazis, if they wanted to feed the hungry rather than join the military. Both systems were against them.

My point now is that we have been here before. In the coming years, our commitment to welcome and uphold the rights and safety of LGBTQIA+ people inside and outside of our community will mean the system will be against us.

In 2022 we as a yearly meeting approved the following statement: “We recognize the unequal burden Black, Indigenous, and People of Color have suffered historically and presently. We will make restitution to Indigenous and African American people. We will renounce white supremacy and learn to live in peaceful ways with our environment.”

Living into that commitment will mean that the system will be against us.

Daniel Hunter, in his excellent article on the Waging Nonviolence website, stated that one of the keys to resisting an autocrat’s goals of “fear, isolation, exhaustion, and disorientation” is nurturing community. We know how to do this. We, as the Society of Friends, have been in times like these before.

Indeed, Quakerism was forged in times like these.

The Fells' Swarthmoor Hall. Photo by Judy Maurer.

In the middle of the violence and chaos of the English Civil War, new religious ideas around egalitarianism were floated, and some took root. In 1650, an itinerant trader who had emerged from a period of profound depression heard a voice telling him there was a “great people to be gathered.” Several years later, George Fox met up with Margaret Fell, a spiritually restless woman of the landed gentry at her estate in northwest England (see photo)

The collaboration from that relationship, and the protection given by her husband, a judge, meant that the great people to be gathered were organized into the Society of Friends.

We had strange ways. Women were prominent leaders in the movement. We would not swear in court, because stating the Truth should be enough. Men refused to take off their hats to honor the nobility. In those days, one was supposed to use “you” to address those with high status. We insisted on saying “thee” and “thou” to all, “without any respect to rich or poor, great nor small,” as Fox said. Pronouns were important then, too.

In 1649, Charles I, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, was beheaded and the monarchy ended. Oliver Cromwell was pronounced Lord Protector; he ruled more or less like a king, although with a parliament. Cromwell was a Puritan, but he gave some measure of protection to Quakers.

Then the political winds shifted. In 1660, Charles I’s son, Charles II, returned from exile and was crowned. By then, the people were longing for stability. Charles II wanted loyalty. Puritans and the Church of England wanted control over the religious lives of the English. The nobility wanted to keep their top spot in a “well-ordered society” that happened to have them as the chosen-by-God elite. Quakers’ strange egalitarian ways were seen as a threat to all of that.

Public humiliation, family splits, loss of property, imprisonment, and deaths resulted. Meetings for worship were declared “unlawful assemblies.” The jails were so bad that a sentence of a month or so often became a death sentence from dysentery and other diseases. In 1660 alone, about 300 Quakers died from the persecution.

To endure, Quakers knew to stick together. Individual Quakers volunteered to substitute themselves for other Quakers in prison, to give them respite to regain their health. They actually went to prison for each other. Now that’s community! There are reports that in some meetings, all the adults were imprisoned, so the children carried on the work of their homes and meetings.

We endured, we persevered, then we did good things for the wider society with what we learned while enduring.

In a book forthcoming from Barclay Press, Ben Richmond has versified many of Fox’s epistles. Here’s one written in 1663:

Sing and rejoice,
ye children of the day and of the light;
for the Lord is at work
in this thick night of darkness
that may be felt.

And truth doth flourish as the rose,
and the lilies do grow among the thorns,
and the plants atop of the hills,
and upon them the lambs do skip
and play.

And never heed the tempests
nor the storms, floods nor rains,
for the seed Christ is over all,
and doth reign.

And so be of good faith and valiant for the truth:
for the truth can live in the jails.
And fear not the loss of the fleece,
for it will grow again;

and follow the lamb,
if it be under the beast's horns,
or under the beast's heels;
for the lamb shall have the victory
over them all.

---

Now in our own thick night of darkness, we remember that we are children of the day and of the light.

---

Judy at Firbank Fell.

"Valiant for the Truth" is crossposted from the Newsletter of Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends. Links to the Sierra-Cascades newsletter archive (and a subscription link!) are here.

Judy van Wyck Maurer lives in Portland, Oregon, USA, with her husband Johan. She is clerk of Communications for Sierra-Cascades and editor of the yearly meeting's newsletter. Other guest posts by Judy on this blog are here. 

---

First principles 2.0

I was glad that Judy wrote the essay above for our yearly meeting's newsletter, and allowed me to repost it here, because in my search for a new set of first principles for Donald Trump's second term as U.S. president, I found a core principle right at the heart of George Fox's psalm.

T. Canby Jones. Source.

And so be of good faith and valiant for the truth:
for the truth can live in the jails.

(Maybe some of you who have memories of our late Friend T. Canby Jones, can picture him smiling in the background, saying "... and the nonviolent Lamb shall have the victory.")

I think, by and large, my first principles 1.0, from the eve of Trump's first inauguration in 2017, remain useful—especially if you help improve them. Briefly summarized, and with a few edits, here they are:

1. Don't hide from the truth. We mustn't let either denial or cynicism do our thinking for us. Remain sober, clear-eyed, and vigilant, drawing intelligent conclusions from the evidence. Recognize the differences between the chaos of 2017-2021 and the planning that has already gone into 2025-2029, even though the potential for utter chaos is still there, too.
2. Do not divide the USA into pro- and anti-Trump populations. To me, this is part of what "good faith" means. Listen with grace and curiosity, respond from your center to the actual human you're with, not a caricature. (And the political scientist in me has an intriguing reminder: only 64% of eligible voters cast ballots in November 2024. The non-voters far outnumber the tiny plurality of Trump's victory.)
3. Resist the degradation of civil discourse. Do not use condescending mockery of anyone, or of their diets, appearance, or class origins. Don't mock their faith communities, although it's perfectly fair to propose contradictions between their publicly-proclaimed faith and their behaviors or policies.
4. Finally, count the cost of protracted resistance, and organize accordingly. Some of us are Quakers in part precisely because we dislike any kind of combativeness. We will probably need to help each other learn some new skills and disciplines in the area of a dignified ferocity and persistence in engaging in needful conflict for the sake of the Cross. In the division of labor that's inherent in the New Testament concept of spiritual gifts, I hope some of our pastorally-gifted Friends will stay mindful of the psychic cost of being in nearly constant conflict. How will it affect those of us who are naturally inclined to rage, or are even addicted to rage? How will it affect those of us who are totally conflict-avoidant?

What additions, improvements, and implementations can you contribute? Robert P. Jones, sociologist of religion and a member of The Convocation Unscripted podcasters, provided a possible example of the first and last points above. In a recent podcast, he advocated "... deciding ahead of time what [our] bright lines are.... If they come to round up immigrants in our community, we show up. ... If they are targeting Muslims in our community, we are showing up." It is hard to believe that a mass deportation plan could ever work, but even a partial attempt would involve much conflict and cruelty. I want to establish ahead of time what, in the name of Jesus, my response would be if the attempt were made. For the truth, we are told, can live in the jails.

---

Steve Rabey on the death of a remarkable evangelist: Sunday came for Tony Campolo. In Christianity Today: Champion of 'Red Letter' Christianity. Tony Campolo in Quaker Life.

Rebecca Solnit in The Guardian: Do not give authoritarians what they want.

Beloved Spear asks: Who might be the largest group caught up in a deportation net? Answer: Conservative Christians.

Craig Mokhiber in Mondoweiss: Arrest warrants are issued for Netanyahu and Gallant, but the fight is far from over.

In doing so [issuing the warrants], the judges have given the world a glimmer of hope that the international legal system is not dead yet, that Israel is not above the law, that the abusive power of U.S. empire is not without challenge, and that justice may indeed be on the horizon. But if that justice is to prevail, all who believe in justice must remain vigilant.

The ICC warrants were issued after the longest delay in the Court’s history, during which Israeli and U.S. persecution of the court, slander of the Court by pro-Israel media and lobby proxies, and personnel shake-ups, were also unprecedented.

But the glare of global public attention, its demands for justice, and the principled convictions of the ICC judges prevailed, at least for now.

Victoria Barnett: There's no such thing as a Bonhoeffer moment.

---

Ending on a warm note... Steve Guyger in Vienna, "So Glad You're Mine."

 

Pure intention, part three: Fox, Penn, and deconstruction

(The ecstasy of worship is connected to pure intention.  Pure intention, part two).

---

Source.  

Do not satisfie yourselves with out-sides, with a Name, a Profession, a Church-membership, &c. For 'tis not what you say, but what you do. But Turn In, and examine your own Hearts, see how they stand affected towards God and his Law and Truth in your inward Parts. Be Strict and True in the Search, as you would save your Souls. If your Minds be set on Heavenly Things, and that Holiness and Charity be the zealous Bent thereof, well will it be with you for ever.... 

Isa. 51. 6. Jer. 31. 33. Heb. 8. 10, 11, 12. Phil. 1. 12. Psal. 144. 15. 

—William Penn A Key... (1693)

Last year, when the "word of the year" for Camas Friends Church was curiosity, I was curious about how many friends (Friends) I knew whose faith journeys were in a time of deconstruction.

(For the year 2024, our church's word of the year is repair, a word I link more or less closely with all sorts of other re- verbs: restore, renew, renovate, resurrect, resuscitate, rejuvenate, regenerate, revitalize, reanimate ... reboot. They all have corresponding nouns, too, and let's not forget renaissance, rebirth, and so on. A fertile word!)

Last year, in part two, I thought about why, as an adult convert, I hadn't felt a similar desire to deconstruct my understandings of faith. I'm sure part of the reason was that I was an adult convert. At times, when I heard people's positive stories of growing up in the church, I regretted not having the supportive family that church had been in those people's experience. But when I heard stories about the church's shadow side—from fear of damnation for petty misdeeds, all the way to outright abuse—I could see that my late entry had its pluses. As I became more involved in Quaker institutions, I began to realize that I had some responsibility for church systems that wounded others, even if they hadn't directly wounded me.

This was part of why I began to think about what it meant for a church to be trustworthy. One step in that journey was my participation in a group of Friends who had gathered around a former student of a residential Friends school who had been molested by the headmaster. That case became a centerpiece of a special issue of Quaker Life. (A Mennonite periodical's article on a similar theme had encouraged us to take this step, despite Quaker Life's ancient avoidance patterns for anything controversial.) Another step was the experience of reading Gordon Aeschliman's book Cages of Pain, which I wrote about here.

Lately I've been reading some writings of early Friends, in connection with my last three blog posts on why Quakers might prefer the term Quaker or Friend to refer to themselves and their churches/meetings. Today I've been re-reading William Penn's brief tract with a long title, A KEY, Opening the Way to every Capacity; How to distinguish the RELIGION professed by the People called QUAKERS, from the Perversions and Misrepresentations of their Adversaries, With a brief Exhortation to all Sorts of People to examine their Ways, and their Hearts, and turn speedily to the Lord.

Back in 1974, as an enthusiastic new Quaker, I was eagerly immersing myself in the journals of George Fox and John Woolman, the book of discipline of London Yearly Meeting, Barclay's Apology, and William Penn's Key, along with the other writings and tracts that I mentioned here. Something in this material struck me in a new way today. Maybe it occurred to you a long time ago! But here's what I realized: the early Quakers might strike us now as staunch defenders of Christian faith, but they themselves did an enormous amount of deconstructing. And they did so at great cost and risk.

Consider these famous lines from George Fox:

Now after I had received that opening from the Lord that to be bred at Oxford or Cambridge was not sufficient to fit a man to be a minister of Christ, I regarded the priests less and looked more after the dissenting people…. As I had forsaken all the priests, so I left the separate preachers also, and those called the most experienced people; for I saw there was none among them all that could speak to my condition. And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then, oh then, I heard a voice which said, ‘There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition’, and when I heard it my heart did leap for joy. [1647]

I've always been impressed by his vivid recollection of that "voice"—but look at what preceded it. After bitter experience, he had to leave the religion industry and all its management structure behind. It's not surprising that his first imprisonment—for blasphemy—was just a few years away.

And then here is his future wife Margaret Fell reporting on the sermon that he gave at Ulverston steeplehouse in 1652:

And then he went on, and opened the Scriptures, and said, ‘The Scriptures were the prophets’ words and Christ’s and the apostles’ words, and what as they spoke they enjoyed and possessed and had it from the Lord’. And said, ‘Then what had any to do with the Scriptures, but as they came to the Spirit that gave them forth. You will say, Christ saith this, and the apostles say this; but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of Light and hast walked in the Light, and what thou speakest is it inwardly from God?’

Talk about deconstruction! He neither dismisses the Bible nor gives it a magical superiority that the Bible itself never claims. He honors the Bible but also challenges his audience by linking the Bible's rootedness in the Spirit with the people's innate capacity to hear the same Spirit, if they will do so.

Barclay's full-length Apology and Penn's short Key both purport to defend Quakers from charges of heresy by showing how our every apparent peculiarity is directly tied to the Bible, or plain logic, or both. Even so, in their own ways, they are textbooks of deconstruction. A typical argument from Penn: 

(a) the Quakers' opponent's "perversion" says that Quakers don't believe in X, 

(b) but (says Penn) nothing could be further from the truth. The opponents hedge that X with human inventions, but we Quakers take a simple and direct approach. Look at a few of the "perversions" he cites in A Key, and see what I mean.

None of this is to suggest that the Quaker movement turned out to be immune from corrupting influences. At times we've tolerated pride, self-mythologizing, social prejudices of all kinds, cultural blind spots leading to colonialism, doctrinal rigidities among liberals and evangelicals alike, the twin addictions of affluence and individualism, and the struggles of technocrats and spiritualizers who fight over "what" and "how" and forget to ask "WHY?" 

Friends who once admired William Penn now must deal directly with his ownership of slaves, and even Fox himself now seems unclear—perhaps ignorant, perhaps resigned—about the slavery he encountered in the colonies. More recently, I know that scandals equal to those reported by Gordon Aeschliman have happened in Friends organizations.

However, at their best, our founding parents were able to model the deconstructing power of returning to the Center. It's important to recognize what they did; it's more important to do likewise ourselves.

---

Ron Worden on George Fox's use of the Bible.

Friends World Committee for Consultation, Section of the Americas, seeks a new executive secretary. Robin Mohr's very productive service for FWCC ends in July 2024.

Judy Maurer interviews Windy Cooler for our Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends newsletter.

We [Quakers] have a need to belong to each other—and to belong to that identity. For us, to allow shame into our lives and into our communities is incredibly threatening. It’s things like interpersonal violence or substance abuse or having too much money or too little money. These are all taboo in the broader society but I think inside of our little emotional pressure cooker, which is this tiny little Quaker world that we share with each other, being open about the shame of these things would be completely off limits.

Living Histories: A Past Studies Journal. Looks very interesting. Unfortunately, the next deadline for submissions (February 2) is almost upon us.

Woodbrooke hosts Paul Anderson, March 13, for an evangelical Quaker perspective on George Fox.

---

Angela Strehli with the Aki Kumar Band with a Muddy Waters classic, "I Love the Life I Live."

Threshing

Source.  

A couple of Sundays ago, Matt Boswell's sermon at Camas Friends Church looked at the story of the wheat and weeds in Matthew's gospel, chapter 13 (New Revised Standard Version): 

24 [Jesus] put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. 27 And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ 28 He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. 30 Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

The audio recording of Matt's sermon is only about eighteen minutes, so I'd love it if you went to the Camas Friends Web site and listened to it before (or instead of!) reading my reflections. My thoughts here are not direct comments on his sermon, but they arose as I responded to the queries he gave us at the end:

• What arises for me as I chew on this parable?
• What important truth is this parable helping me see?

George Fox and some other early Friends talked about separating the wheat from the weeds as one of their metaphors for evangelism. In their book The Quakers, Hugh Barbour and J. William Frost described the process:

Early Quaker prophetic messages of judgment and confrontation were often given in a marketplace or during a puritan church service. For longer presentations, crowds of noisy but interested hearers were gathered on a moor or daily in a rented hall in an "appointed" or "threshing" meeting. Hearers who were "convinced" by these forms of mission were taken into smaller gatherings in private homes, where they shared their struggles of self-judgment under the Light with other seekers in daily or weekly "gathered meetings" with prayer and messages of guidance as well as silence and tears....

In an epistle from 1652, here's how George Fox distinguished threshing meetings from gatherings of the "convinced": (from Canby Jones, ed., The Power of the Lord Is Over All: The Pastoral Letters of George Fox, number 14)

All Friends, that are grown up in the life and power of the Truth, see that when you appoint your meetings in any open place, in the fields, on the moors, or on the mountains, that none appoint meetings in your own wills. That lets in the wills of the world upon the life of Friends and so you come to suffer by the world. But at such meetings let the wisdom of God guide you, that some may be there to preserve the Truth from suffering by the world, that all burdens may be kept off and taken away. So you will grow pure and strong.

When there are any meetings in unbroken places, you that go to minister to the world, take not the whole Meeting of Friends with you thither, to suffer with and by the world's spirit. But let Friends keep together and wait in their own meeting place. So will the Life ... be preserved and grow. Let three, four or six that are grown up and are strong in the Truth go to such unbroken places and thresh the heathenish nature.

Fox's Pulpit, near Sedbergh. Source.

A sample of his own "threshing" message from that same year: (from his Journal, Nickalls edition)

... There was a great fair at Sedburgh for hiring servants and many young people came to be hired. I went to the fair and declared through the fair day the day of the Lord, and after I had done I went into the steeplehouse yard and got up by a tree, and most of the people of the fair came to me, and abundance of priests and professors [those who profess faith in Christ]. There I declared the everlasting Truth of the Lord and the word of life for several hours, and that the Lord Christ Jesus was come to teach his people himself and bring them off all the world's ways and teachers to Christ, their way to God; and I laid open all their teachers and set up the true teacher, Christ Jesus; and how they were judged by the prophets, Christ, and the apostles; and to bring them off the temples made with hands, that they themselves might know they were the temples of God.

The separation of wheat and weeds in Matthew 13 is not a perfect metaphor for this "threshing" process of Quaker evangelism. For one thing, as Matt said in his sermon,

... We have to be careful about categorizing folks. I think the weed metaphor is a good one, especially if we can be less individualistic about it, more nuanced, more willing to admit that life is messy, that weeds are often subtle, that it's not that I'm a tare and you are wheat, but that in each of us are wheat and tares. And in each system, each community, are wheat and tares.

Along with tales of being beaten and imprisoned, Fox has countless examples of priests, officials, and whole audiences who start out hostile (weeds?) and end up receptive to his message. This threshing work does not not necessarily consist of separating people from each other, but challenging and inviting each person, household, or community into an experience of their own reflection and discernment. For this work, Fox insists that they don't need to be in a special place, or depend on a special person, because Christ has come to teach his people himself.

Eventually, there is a harvest, of course, as Fox and his successors (perhaps you and I) gather the "tender," receptive people together for "prayer and messages of guidance" and mutual encouragement. Quaker ecclesiology in its essence is no fancier than this: people who gather around Jesus, learning how to live with him at the center (including the ethics of that life) and helping each other learn. But there is no tying up the "weeds" to be burned, because nobody is ever judged to be permanently outside. The promise of grace is for everyone.

Are we Quakers still providing access to this experience of being gathered, encouraged, and invited to trust our inward Teacher? How do we offer this access in our own times, 370 years after the first threshing meetings?

---

Among contemporary Quakers, the term "threshing meeting" has a new definition. From the Historical Dictionary of the Friends (Quakers):

THRESHING SESSION. Originally used to refer to general meetings for evangelizing. Today, threshing sessions are a form of business meeting where only one issue is considered, and, usually, recommendations are brought to the regular business meeting for decision.

Britain Yearly Meeting has published this guide to threshing meetings 2.0.

---

Micah Bales asks why we're afraid to make disciples.

Alfons López Tena: Authoritarians, populists, nations in decline -- common characteristics, and the case study of Catalonia. Long but fascinating. Is the case study fair?

The journalists who have quit the Russian newspaper Vedomosti have begun a new online publication, VTimes (Rus), dedicated to honest, independent, and responsible journalism.

Next month: the Collaborators Conference for the Flourishing of Nonviolent Christianity.

---

In place of my normal blues dessert, here's a healthy dose of inspiration: Barack Obama's eulogy at John Lewis's funeral service at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

What does "that of God" mean?

George Fox's Works, vol. 1, source.

There are three quotations from Quaker co-founder George Fox that are often used (in and out of context) to sum up Friends' message:

• "You will say, Christ saith this, and the apostles say this; but what canst thou say?" (quoted by Margaret Fell)
• "Christ has come to teach his people himself." (quoted by Lewis Benson)
• "...That of God in every one..." (Fox's Journal entries for 1656)

That last fragment is probably trimmed of crucial context more than any other, but in its full form, it's an important sample of Fox's foundational thinking. I remember how inspiring it was to me when I first encountered Friends.

As part of Phoenix (Arizona) Friends pastor Steve Kozimor's Masters course work at Barclay College, he surveyed Friends leaders, both self-identified liberals and self-identified evangelicals, about how they would answer these two questions:

1. What do you think is meant by George Fox’s statement, “that of God, in everyone”?
2. How does your meaning inform your spiritual formation?

Somehow my name landed on his survey list. Since at that very time I was also running a survey, it seemed only fair that I respond to his. Here, with some light editing for this blog format, are my answers.

Now: how would you respond to Steve's questions?

---

Starting with the first question: "What do you think is meant by George Fox’s statement, 'that of God, in everyone'?" ...

I've always appreciated Lewis Benson's essay, "'That of God in Every Man': What did George Fox Mean by It?" Among the important points Benson makes, persuasively, are these:

• Fox's understanding of "that of God" is based on the first chapter of Romans. Therefore, "that of God" in us cannot be understood apart from the "knowledge of God" that Paul says is available to everyone who turns to it rather than to the long list of counterfeits listed by Paul in Romans 1. (Benson is in part reacting to the relatively recent error that "that of God" is an embedded piece of divinity in humans that is somehow independent of the "counsel of God" and the Christian Gospel.)
• Fox uses the concept of "that of God" pastorally rather than doctrinally. It's a feature of his "applied theology,"

It's this second point that has been important to me as an evangelist. In my blog post about John Chau, who died trying to reach the North Sentinelese people, I quoted one of the most famous "that of God in everyone" passages:

This is the word of the Lord God to you all, a charge to you all in the presence of the living God; be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come; that your life and conduct may preach among all sorts of people, and to them. Then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one; whereby in them ye may be a blessing, and make the witness of God in them to bless you: then to the Lord God you shall be a sweet savour, and a blessing.

I interpret this as an exhortation for us to call people to that knowledge or counsel that God has already made available to each member of our audiences, to every human. God has granted us this knowledge, but in our own capacities we ignore or disobey it, whether by our own weakness or the action of the Enemy. Without our turning to this knowledge and receiving it and the Savior who provides it, there is no other path of reconciliation with God.

Quakers (in my opinion) are completely orthodox Christians in insisting on this connection. Where we depart from the Christian establishment of the 17th century is in our insisting that there is no outward licensing or priestly activity that is necessary to accomplish the task of directing those deemed "unreached" to this inward witness of God. Every one of us can walk cheerfully over the world, calling forth God's inward witness that God has made universally available. We are not carrying a cargo of new knowledge (or even less of new culture) to bless this new audience; instead our faithfulness promises a mutual blessing.

Now, to the second question, how does this interpretation inform my spiritual formation? Since I grew up in an atheist family, part of the appeal of the Quaker family of Christians was that I could receive Jesus with joy and enthusiasm without having to deal with all the stagecraft, hierarchies, and apparatus of the religion industry. Christ has come to teach his people himself [there it is, fragment no. 2!], and I found this was true -- through the Bible, through mentors at my Friends meeting, through Barclay's Apology (which I devoured during lunch hours at work), and through inward confirmations.

My joy at finding this fellowship drove me to enroll in the Ottawa Lay School of Theology, and I found similar resources in the places we moved after I left Canada -- the Christian Study Center at Park Street Church in Boston; InterVarsity classes in Charlottesville, Virginia; Earlham School of Religion in Indiana; the Mendenhall Bible Church at Mendenhall, Mississippi; and other more informal opportunities over the years. I tend to be an unapologetic idealist and optimist despite all sorts of distressing trends to the contrary (and my own family's history of violence and alcoholism); whether that shaped my Christian formation or my Christian formation made me that way is hard for me to say!

I became a Christian in 1974 and began attending Ottawa Meeting in Canada. However, between 1974 and 1982, I never spent more than two or three years in one place. My first long-term church home was First Friends Meeting in Richmond, Indiana. Not long after we arrived there, our Sunday school class took a spiritual gifts inventory test, based on Peter Wagner's book Your Spiritual Gifts Can Help Your Church Grow. My gifts were apparently "apostle," "evangelist," and "teacher." I've tried to choose jobs and vocations that involved those gifts, including the ten years I served in Russia.

More recently, I've been reading Primal Fire: Reigniting the Church with the Five Gifts of Jesus and discussing the book with others in the Friends of Jesus Fellowship. I'm still trying to learn more about what it means to stay faithful to "that of God" in me and to honor "that of God" in others, and to use that knowledge in exercising my gifts. I'm currently involved in the Committee for the Nurture of Ministry for our yearly meeting, Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends, which gives me a new channel for thinking about formation after the manner of Friends.

---

Friday PS: In my answer to Steve, I didn't mention another deviation of Friends from the orthodoxy of their time and place: their denial of original sin and total depravity. I've covered some of this territory in my posts on evil and hell.

---

The "that of God" quotation from Fox that I used in my answer to Steve is sweet and positive, and explains how evangelism by pattern and example, by life and conduct, need not require arguing over doctrinal propositions. However, if we zoom out to a longer extract, and see what came before and after that beloved paragraph, we're not left in any doubt about Fox's sense of urgency, and its warning that this kind of "walking cheerfully" may not be to the exact liking of the powers and principalities. Fasten your seatbelts; here's that fuller extract. (Note: I've not edited for inclusive language, for which I beg forgiveness; but I've added a few paragraph breaks.)

Bring all into the worship of God. Plough up the fallow ground. Thresh and get out the corn; that the seed, the wheat, may be gathered into the barn: that to the beginning all people may come; to Christ, who was before the world was made. For the chaff is come upon the wheat by transgression. He that treads it out is out of transgression, fathoms transgression, puts a difference between the precious and the vile, can pick out the wheat from the tares, and gather into the garner; so brings to the lively hope the immortal soul, into God out of which it came.

None worship God but who come to the principle of God, which they have transgressed. None are ploughed up but he who comes to the principle of God in him, that he hath transgressed. Then he doth service to God; then is the planting, watering, and increase from God. So the ministers of the spirit must minister to the spirit that is in prison, which hath been in captivity in every one; that with the spirit of Christ people may be led out of captivity up to God, the Father of spirits, to serve him, and have unity with him, with the scriptures, and one with another.

This is the word of the Lord God to you all, a charge to you all in the presence of the living God; be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come; that your life and conduct may preach among all sorts of people, and to them. Then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one; whereby in them ye may be a blessing, and make the witness of God in them to bless you: then to the Lord God you shall be a sweet savour, and a blessing.

Spare no deceit. Lay the sword upon it; go over it. Keep yourselves clear of the blood of all men, either by word or writing, and keep yourselves clean, that you may stand in your throne, and every one have his lot and stand in the lot in the ancient of days. The blessing of the Lord be with you, and keep you over all the idolatrous worships and worshippers. Let them know the living God; for teachings, churches, worships must be thrown down with the power of the Lord God, set up by man's earthly understanding, knowledge, and will. All this must be thrown down with that which gave forth the scripture; and who are in that, reign over it all.

That is the word of the Lord God to you all. In that is God worshipped, that brings to declare his will, and brings to the church in God, the ground and pillar of truth: for now is the mighty day of the Lord appeared, and the arrows of the Almighty gone forth; which shall stick in the hearts of the wicked. Now will I arise, saith the Lord God Almighty, to trample and thunder down deceit, which hath long reigned and stained the earth. Now will I have my glory out of every one. The Lord God Almighty over all in his strength and power keep you to his glory, that you may come to answer that of God in every one in the world. Proclaim the mighty day of the Lord of fire and sword, who will be worshipped in spirit and in truth; and keep in the life and power of the Lord God, that the inhabitants of the earth may tremble before you: that God's power and majesty may be admired among hypocrites and heathen, and ye in the wisdom, dread, life, terror, and dominion preserved to his glory; that nothing may rule or reign but power and life itself, and in the wisdom of Ged ye may be preserved in it.

This is the word of the Lord God to you all. The call is now out of transgression, the spirit bids, come. The call is now from all false worships and gods, from all inventions and dead works, to serve the living God. The call is to repentance, to amendment of life, whereby righteousness may be brought forth, which shall go throughout the earth. Therefore ye that be chosen and faithful, who are with the Lamb, go through your work faithfully in the strength and power of the Lord, and be obedient to the power; for that will save you out of the hands of unreasonable men, and preserve you over the world to himself. Hereby you may live in the kingdom that stands in power, which hath no end; where glory and life is.

After reading all that, if you're still ready to walk cheerfully, let's walk together!

---

I'm enjoying a moment of self-congratulation ... this week I didn't mention politics! Of course, George Fox's revolutionary theology is bursting with political implications.

---

Marilyn McEntyre admits there are lots of reasons to avoid church, but ....

David Williams on the theological risks and rewards of reading and writing science fiction.

Terry Mattingly: Can we really understand demographic trends without taking religion into account?

Source: NSF.  

A black hole 55 million light years away, and how its image was generated.

While we're in space: can NASA really return crews to the moon by 2024? Casey Dreier considers the challenge. (Related Planetary Radio podcast.)

---

A warning? "...The forces are awakening." J.S. Ondara, "Revolution Blues."