Can we go back to the Garden?

... a lakeside conversation on George Fox’s letters

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A guest post by Judy Maurer

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A lakeside conversation.

A week ago we sat with old friends on the shore of a lake in Maine, my husband and I. We were only a few feet from where my great-grandfather pitched a tent and built a lean-to cook-shack to fish for a month each year.

I’ve spent time here most every summer since I was a baby. In a profound way, this is home.

Our conversation with our friends, Ben and Jody Richmond, that day turned to Ben’s new book on George Fox’s epistles. Fox inspired Quakerism back in the seventeenth century, during the turmoil of the English Civil War and its aftermath.

Ben had read these epistles deeply and came to recognize a lyrical quality in them. He formatted selections like poetry, so we could hear the cadence, too.

I had brought the book out with me to the shore. My copy was bristling with bookmarks. I picked it up and told him which was my favorite epistle. Jody said, “Read it aloud. It was written to be read aloud.”

So I read to them, and to the chipmunks and ducks along the shoreline and the loons farther out, George Fox’s Epistle 163, with the line and paragraph breaks Ben had given it:

My dear friends,—

Live
in the life
in which is the unity and peace
one with another,

and lowliness and humbleness
of heart and mind....

And so,
this is the word of the Lord God
to you all:

live
in the power of the Lord God,
in which
is peace, love, unity,
and dominion

in the life
and power of God,
which was before enmity was;

and in the light,
which was before darkness was;

and in the life,
which was before death was:

and so, in that
feel unity and life
in the power of God.

And so, the seed of God
feel over all that set,
which makes to suffer;

which was before it was,
and will remain
when that is all gone.

And so,
feel the top-stone over all laid,
that his life ye may feel over all,

and in that live.

I asked Ben about the repetition of “was before”, as in “which was before darkness was.”

His answer was fascinating. I asked him to say it all over again, and this time I’d record it. Ben collected himself and began again. I’ve lightly edited his words.

If you go through Fox's journal, and you go through the letters, you find that this language of returning to Eden—life before death, light before darkness—is there throughout Fox's writings.

Fox is inviting us to experience life before the Fall. I think it’s a real through-line in all of Fox's writing.

Over the years, as I've looked at it, I've found out that the language of entering back into the Garden of Eden, of being in "the light before darkness was"—"which was before enmity was"—is picking up the same theme. It’s a way of understanding salvation that has content for our life today.

Ben's book, bristling with tabs.

Sitting listening to Ben, part of me was flipping through Genesis 2 and 3 in my mind. God tells Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; the Snake tempts her; she and Adam eat it; God gets angry, throws them out of the Garden and puts down a flaming sword.

Ben continued:

The whole business about coming back through the flaming sword into the paradise of God, and the possibility of living that life now, struck me as really just powerful and wonderful. And I went around being excited about that for quite a while, and then I realized that I had no idea what it meant!

It occurred to me that it'd make a great topic for some biblical workshops. So I did with different groups of Friends an exercise where we would read Genesis 2 and 3 and I would ask them to brainstorm what was characteristic before the Fall and what was characteristic after the Fall.

Wonderful conversations came out of that. But what was really fun for me was that from that, you could often derive what we call Quaker testimonies.

The first "not good" statement is in Genesis 2. It’s God saying that it was not good for Adam to be alone. He didn't have someone who could be a real helpmeet for him. After the fall, one of the curses is for Eve—"your desire will be for the man, and He will rule over you."

So here is the testimony of women’s equality, and also community, because we aren’t to live alone, but to live together with others.

People start talking about these things, and suddenly the picture emerges of a life that is countercultural and we recognize it as being good. Well, that is so amazing!

At this point Johan brought up his blog post on Ben’s book. He read aloud from Fox’s epistle 291 “To All Women’s Meetings,” as Ben presents it:

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….

Then Johan skipped down a few paragraphs.

So both men and women be helpsmeet in the image of God, in the righteousness and holiness, in the restoration.

What we’re set on this planet to do

“Adam and Eve do eat of the fruit of the tree—the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," Ben continued. 

It's really important that we remember that it's not just the tree of knowledge, as if being knowledgeable about things was a really bad idea. It's the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” 

It's talking about moral knowledge and moral decision-making. It’s about who gets to decide what is to be termed good and what's to be termed bad. In the creation story every day it was "God looked and saw that it was good."

Then God creates humankind, and that's very good. The Man-creature Adam is lonely and that's bad. But God gets to make that decision as to what's good and what's bad.

Knowledge itself, and creativity and all that, in this story is a good thing. It's what we're set on this planet to do, to till the garden and to name the animals and to do all the kind of stuff that makes life interesting.

But then there's this interesting phrase about "in the cool of the evening they heard the sound of the voice walking through the Garden."

That proximity to God, to hearing the voice of God, is central. It’s also central that the phrase "in the cool of the evening" can also be translated "at the time of the moving of the Spirit." It's talking about the ruach, a Hebrew word for the Spirit. Ruach also means the breeze. The "cool of the evening" is a poetic translation of "the breeze," which is Spirit.

It makes me really happy when I think about that, to say when we return to the Garden, we return to that time, which we experience now as the moving of the Spirit. We have the living voice of God coming into us. Sometimes in our quiet worship and other times in life, we recognize: that's the voice of God.

And that's the whole point, to get back in touch with that voice of God that makes Eden, Eden. 

So in Fox's Journal, the experience of going through the flaming sword into the paradise of God would be available to all who receive or obey Christ.

And I reply, "That's terrific. That's even better the second time. Maybe we should go through this a third time!"

Ben’s book, Poetry and Passion of the Lamb’s War: From the Epistles of George Fox, is available on Barclay Press and Amazon. Reedwood’s own Paul Anderson wrote a preface to the book. Paul’s usual clear and enlightening style of writing serves us well here.

Paul wrote,

From poetry to prophecy, as we hear and read some of the most salient missives of George Fox, their meanings then and now produce a ‘homecoming festival’ within us and among us.

Ben has included for each epistle a short introductory note as well as scriptures that find an echo in the epistle.

Judy's article was originally written for Reedwood Friends Church's monthly periodical The Glance. Crossposted with permission.

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Friends Incubator for Public Ministry: "Supporting Ministry through Scripture and Imagination," an online series of seven guided meditations and worship-sharing sessions, begins this coming Sunday.

Tributes to Dolly Parton from the Literary Hub and Diana Butler Bass.

Happy 21st birthday to Mike Farley's The Mercy Blog. While you're there, enjoy his reflections (with Cynthia Bourgeault's help) on grace, contemplative practice, and wordlessness.

Jemar Tisby: Why the church needs a theology of history.

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Speaking of grace, here's McKinley James's version of "Let Me In."

More on Quakers and Japan

Crown Prince Akihito and Elizabeth Gray Vining, 1949. Source.

Crown Prince Akihito and Elizabeth Gray Vining, 1949.

Source.

The chief reason why I wanted to come [to Japan] is that in her new constitution Japan has renounced war as an instrument of national policy. Other nations must follow. I believe that out of her great suffering and defeat Japan will draw a new strength and a new vision that will enable her to lead the world in ways of peace.

You are the generation that will have to do it.... I come to you in friendship and in the hope that I can take a small share in helping your many distinguished teachers to prepare you for your great task.

— Elizabeth Gray Vining, speaking to Crown Prince Akihito's school class at the beginning of her service. (Windows for the Crown Prince, 1952.)

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In a couple of recent posts, I've touched on the relationships among diverse Quakers and the country of Japan (the country where my mom was born and raised). Back in July, Sergei Grushko's article mentioned Japanese students at Quaker colleges during World War II, and then my Hiroshima-Nagasaki post went on to summarize a few more connections.

Those few instances of U.S. Quakers serving in Japan or serving Japanese people made me wonder whether there has ever been a full-length study of that history. The relationship between the Quaker movement in Japan and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting seems to be well-covered in the recent book Friendly Connections: Philadelphia Quakers and Japan Since the Late Nineteenth Century. I've not read this book (it's on my wishlist!... price $156) but the review in Friends Journal gives an idea of its scope. It includes accounts of Elizabeth Gray Vining's and Esther Rhoads's roles in the education of Crown Prince (now Emperor Emeritus) Akihito.

(I highly recommend Vining's own account of her years as his tutor, and how that engagement came about.)

What might understandably be less emphasized in a Philadelphia-centered account is the major role of Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, in building and maintaining Quaker relationships with Japan over the last 140 years. During our years in Richmond, when I was a student at Earlham School of Religion and and Judy worked with Earlham's East Asian studies program, we got to know three of the people who contributed to those relationships—professors Jackson Bailey and Len Holvik, and Earlham's president Landrum Bolling. Jackson Bailey (nephew of biblical scholar Moses Bailey) had been a conscientious objector who served as a cook in the U.S. occupation forces in Japan. As Chuck Yates says in the Earlham brochure, "The History of Japan at Earlham,"

Deeply impacted by his time in Japan, Bailey dedicated his life to improving relations between Japanese and Americans. In his over thirty years of labor, he did not quite succeed in creating a world where war and its sorrows are impossible, but there are certainly thousands of people on both sides of the Pacific for whom those things are now unthinkable, thanks to Jack’s efforts.

(Forgive another personal aside: One of my most vivid memories of Earlham was from 1983. A graduation reception brought together Jackson Bailey, his uncle Moses Bailey, and British Quaker writer Elfrida Vipont Foulds. Foulds gave the commencement address at the graduation itself, and received an honorary doctorate. Her speech was an amazing blend of pastoral advice and storytelling which managed to captivate an audience of students and families whose highest priority had not been to sit and listen to a speech!)

The relationships of Friends and Japan on the Philadelphia track and on the Earlham track may seem to run separately and parallel, but there's considerable overlap. For just a couple of examples:

Thomas Jones of Fairmount, Indiana, married Esther Balderston of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1917, and both served as Quaker missionaries in Japan under that yearly meeting until 1924. Thomas Jones later served as president of Fisk University and then Earlham College. Son T. Canby Jones, whom we knew as a professor at Wilmington College, was born in Japan. Canby's education was in the Philadelphia orbit, at Westtown School and Haverford College, before going off to Yale.

Esther Rhoads, Crown Prince Akihito's second Quaker tutor, is another bridge person between Philadelphia Friends and Earlham. Since Friends from both of these tracks of Japan-Quaker history were involved with Tokyo Friends School, there are probably many similar overlap stories waiting to be chronicled in a more comprehensive history. Maybe such a history has already been written, and I simply haven't found it. If you know of such a resource, please share....

And if the book Friendly Connections itself has more about Earlham than the review suggests, let me know that, too.

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My own Quaker journey began in 1974. I joined Friends in Ottawa Meeting (unprogrammed, generally liberal), but within a year or so I found out about programmed Friends and a Quaker culture that was relatively more Bible-oriented than most Canadian Friends were. I found it easy to move between these different Quaker cultures, but found many Friends in each barely knew (or actually did not know) that the others existed.

Having read the accounts of U.S. Quakers and Japan, I wonder whether, several generations earlier, relations between "orthodox" Quakers in (say) Indiana and Quakers in the eastern yearly meetings were far more routine and relaxed than they've seemed during my time ... despite the lack of today's mobility and Internet channels. What might have reduced that earlier overlap? Among the totally unsubstantiated theories I've come up with was the consequences of the end of the series of organizations known most recently as the Young Friends of North America, a movement that at its height brought together young adult Quakers from all over the continent. 

Another theory: when the yearly meetings that had divided in the 19th century began reuniting, this may have had the unintended and perverse effect of accentuating the theological differences in the larger U.S. Quaker landscape. For a possible case study, see Ruth Pitman's "The 1955 Union and the Future of Friends."

Or, on the third hand, maybe we're simply talking about changes in patterns among what was always a small subset of Friends—those who are fascinated or inspired by the Quaker movement as a whole rather than prioritizing their faithfulness to the nearby communities they know best. God knows we need both priorities, and perhaps we move back and forth from one to the other as we go through life. Again, your thoughts are most welcome.

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Visiting my mother's school in Kobe.

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Jack Kirk. Source.

Max Carter remembers the late Jack Kirk. Max writes that Jack was the "consummate encourager..." which was exactly my experience. Jack encouraged me through some concrete terrors, including my first sermon in public, when my Quaker Hill Bookstore boss Fred Boots asked me to substitute for him at Paoli Friends. Jack also shepherded me through my first writings for Quaker Life during his editorship there. His obituary reveals that he, too, found it congenial to move between Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and pastoral Friends. Despite the sad occasion, I find it impossible to look at his photo without smiling. I can just hear him saying, "Let's key in on the central issues...."

Brian Drayton pays tribute to writer and documentary filmmaker John Crowley.

Turns out that Julia Curlee, CIA analyst and provider of presidential briefings, was the wrong kind of American. "The White House needed me—until the fact that I am trans became public."

Daily Quaker Message, from Thomas R. Kelly: "It takes no time, but it occupies all our time."

Philip Gulley knows what faith is and isn't. "While I don’t always have faith, I do know faith when I see it."

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Whitehorse and a mighty fine editor, "Come On In My Kitchen."

Hiroshima-Nagasaki shorts

(left) Urakami Cathedral cross, Nagasaki, on display at Wilmington College's Hiroshima-Nagasaki Memorial Collection until 2019 (my photo); (right) graphic from Wilmington College's Peace Resource Center (source).

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Last week's post considered some of the political and spiritual difficulties World War II posed for Quaker colleges in the USA. Among the specifics of that story was the welcome that those colleges extended to a group of Japanese American students whose families had been forced into relocation camps by the notorious Executive Order 9066.

Thanks to an article posted today on the Web site of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, "The political implications of Hiroshima’s scarred 'maidens'," by Alex Wellerstein, I've been thinking about other Quaker involvements with Japanese and Japanese Americans—and the nuclear bombings—originating in that war.

First in chronological order were American Quakers who had special ties to Japan before the war, and who became advocates for the incarcerated Japanese and Japanese American families in wartime. The case I knew best was Herbert Nicholson, whose nephew Ed Nicholson used to tell us stories about his uncle. 

(Ed died in 2018, and his wife of 63 years, Chris Nicholson, just died this past July 29. Aside from many other ties between the Nicholsons and Judy and me, they were great encouragers of our service in Russia.)

Another Quaker advocate for incarcerated Japanese people and their families was Floyd Schmoe of University Friends Meeting in Seattle. After the war ended, he expressed his concern for war-torn Japan and the consequences of the atomic weapons by beginning a project called Houses for Hiroshima. Of all the people mentioned in these stories, Floyd was the only one I met personally, thanks to my work with Friends World Committee in the 1980's.

The "Hiroshima 'maidens'" story mentioned above, published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, also had a Quaker connection. During the young women's stay in the USA for plastic surgery, they were accommodated by Quaker families, and spent time at Pendle Hill in Wallingford, Pennsylvania. More details in this Wikipedia article. 

Those years—the 1950's—were a peak time for hydrogen bomb testing in the Pacific Ocean, which led to a series of protests against those tests, the weapons being tested, and the radioactive pollution resulting from the tests. Barbara Reynolds and her husband Earle were among those who sailed into the test zones in protest. She later established the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Memorial Collection at Wilmington College in Ohio, USA, part of the college's Peace Resource Center. Judy and I got to know and appreciate the work of this center during the years we lived in Wilmington.

One of the remarkable exhibits in the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Memorial Collection was a charred cross from the ruins of the Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki. In 2019, as described in this Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists post, the director of the Peace Resource Center, Tanya Maus, accompanied the cross on its journey home to Nagasaki.

There is a gap in this very brief summary: the experiences of Japanese Quakers themselves during the war. The only Japanese Quaker meeting I've personally attended, the one in Osaka, was founded after the war. I have family ties to Japan—my mother was born and raised in Kobe—but, sadly, those ties don't connect with Quakers. My mother, having survived the war and eventually moving to Germany and then the USA, never spoke to me about her war years. Her primary political concern in my childhood years was the threat of Communism.

I'd love to have more examples of connections among these themes—Quakers, Japan and Japanese people, and World War II. Please share additions and corrections.

God bless the memory of those who risked everything for peace and justice in those brutal years.

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I mentioned our own short visit to Hiroshima here.

Nagasaki shorts.

Why I got sour on Hiroshima-Nagasaki commemorative events. (I'm not necessarily proud of it....)

David Harrington Watt and Marian Ronan in Friends Journal: "The work continues: Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the struggle against nuclear weapons."

A Wikipedia summary of the debate for and against the use of atomic bombs in World War II.

Nuclear History: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the stories we must never forget—an online presentation by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Tuesday, August 18, 10:15 a.m. U.S. Central Time via YouTube.

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Ezra Klein talks with Jasmin Sun about the peculiar challenges of campaigning for and against AI-related data centers.

Kathryn James: "Why is Anthropic Destroying Books?" (And why is it considered legal?)

From Friends Peace Teams: "Peace and War in Lviv, Ukraine." "...The nervous system adapts...."

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More blues from Denmark: Delta Blues Band, "Yonders Wall."

Quaker colleges in the USA during World War II

This article by Friends House Moscow staff member Sergei Grushko originally appeared on the Web site quakers.ru. Translated and reposted here by permission.

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"I feel bound to recommend that policy which will enable us to do positive good rather than merely to refrain from evil."

— John Nason, wartime president of Swarthmore College.

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Soldiers and students sit on the steps
of Swarthmore's Parrish Hall. Source.

World War II presented a severe challenge for American colleges. But perhaps no group faced a more difficult dilemma than the institutions of higher education founded by Quakers. How could they reconcile a centuries-old witness to peace with the need to survive? Different colleges came up with different answers. And this experience gives rise to reflections on how the Quaker commitment to peace was maintained in the face of total militarization and war hysteria.

With the United States' entry into the war in December 1941, male students began leaving campuses en masse—some students enrolled in military service voluntarily, while others were conscripted. Private colleges, already struggling with funding—Quaker colleges among them—found themselves facing threats of closure.

The numbers speak for themselves. By the spring of 1943, only 296 students remained at Earlham College (the Quaker college in Indiana)—97 boys and 199 girls. The college had lost nearly 48% of its male students. By October of that year, the total enrollment had dropped to 267, of whom only 64 were men. At Swarthmore College (Pennsylvania), during the same period, only 527 students were enrolled (down from 700 in 1940), 143 of whom were boys. The decline in male enrollment was catastrophic.

The school administrations were faced with the question of how to preserve their educational institutions. The U.S. government offered higher education a solution: participation in the V-12 program for training junior officers for the Navy, which would provide the colleges with a steady supply of military students as well as government funding. For Quaker colleges, this response was dangerously tempting.

The Quaker witness to peace was one of the cornerstones of the identity of these educational institutions. Swarthmore's founders believed that "the disposition to introduce military drill into the course of instruction in our public schools … is especially objectionable to Friends." The college's co-founder, Benjamin Hallowell, had himself been a conscientious objector.

However, by the 1940s, the Quaker identity of some colleges had weakened significantly. Swarthmore had officially given up its affiliation with the Society of Friends as early as 1909*, and by the start of the war, Quakers constituted a small minority among the student body. The number of actual conscientious objectors in the 1940s was minimal.

* For retired faculty to receive payments from the pension fund organized by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, colleges had to comply with its rules. The fund in its early years did not provide pensions to faculty from institutions "controlled or owned by religious organizations." This was primarily why Swarthmore had to end its formal Quaker affiliation.

Swarthmore President John Nason, himself a Quaker, chose a path that could be called ministry through presence. He reasoned that if the college didn't embrace the military, it might not survive as an institution. And if it disappeared, who would train the future peacekeepers, scientists, and doctors who would restore peace after the war? "I feel bound to recommend that policy which will enable us to do positive good rather than merely to refrain from evil," Nason declared.

Nason didn't see this as a contradiction to Quaker values. He sought to find new expression for these values in the changed circumstances. He ensured that the military presence on campus didn't turn the college into a barracks. And he succeeded. By the end of 1943, Swarthmore had 297 naval officers, 234 female students, and 155 civilian men enrolled. In addition, 49 Chinese naval officers arrived to study English. Each of them, in addition to military disciplines, took a full academic course. It was during these years that Swarthmore took two important steps toward social justice. It admitted its first African-American students, Dorothea Kopczynski and Gloria Clement. And it accepted Japanese-American students, who had been interned in camps by the government. Nason personally chaired the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council. The college used the military presence to protect its existence while remaining a place that valued human dignity.

Earlham College took a different path. In 1942, its president, William Dennis, declared to Indiana Yearly Meeting, "A Quaker college as such should not participate directly in the war effort…." And he remained true to his word. Military personnel were not allowed on campus. But the search for ways to collaborate with the government continued. Dennis proposed establishing a military police training unit on campus. He envisioned the military police not as an offensive force, but as a structure for maintaining order. However, the board of trustees rejected this proposal, deeming it incompatible with Quaker principles. This episode illustrates how even within a single Quaker community, there can be different understandings of the line between unacceptable compromise and acceptable service.

The failure to establish a military police unit strengthened the resolve of Earlham’s president to pursue an alternative direction. The college joined the Civilian Public Service (CPS) program, an alternative for conscientious objectors. It was a conscious choice: to help the country not with weapons, but with knowledge that would be useful after the war. But even here, difficulties arose. The program was underfunded, Congress reduced support, and by 1943, it effectively ceased to exist. Dennis turned to alumni, to Quakers, to those who believed in the college's mission. He asked for help. The response was overwhelming. A Free Will Fund campaign raised over $10,000—three times more than any similar campaign before it. Alumni wrote: "I was so grateful that Earlham College had remained true to Quaker principles in not taking a military unit onto the campus, that it was my intention as soon as possible to respond with a contribution to the Free Will Fund." "I am so proud of Earlham for the stand she has taken." The college also admitted 12 students of Japanese descent.

Representatives of seven Quaker educational institutions—including Haverford, Guilford, Friends University, William Penn, and Wilmington—met in September 1942 and decided to organize an alternative Civilian Public Service Reserve Force program to train conscientious objectors rather than soldiers. This initiative, proposed by historic peace churches (Quakers, Mennonites, and the Church of the Brethren ), would allow pacifist students to continue their education instead of being sent to Civilian Social Service camps. However, the government limited the program's total quota to 260 places for all participating colleges, of which Quaker colleges received only 100–120.

In the postwar years, the schools that had made their varying decisions continued to reflect on their choices. At Swarthmore, the debate continued. In 1950, prominent alumnus Thomas McCabe declared, "I was never more proud of Swarthmore than in the early days of the war when this Quaker institution, in spite of its traditional stand against war, offered all of its facilities voluntarily to our Government in time of need." William Richards (Class of 1948), who was imprisoned from 1942 to 1946 for resisting the draft, strongly disagreed: "A Quaker college has no place in aiding a war. Swarthmore should have taken a stand for peace and not sold its birthright for a mess of pottage." This debate reflects the deep tension between different understandings of the Quaker peace witness: from strict abstention from any participation in military action to active service to peace, even if it requires compromise.

Today, Swarthmore, Earlham, Haverford, and other Quaker colleges are proud of their Quaker heritage and are considered Quaker in spirit, although Quakers constitute a small minority of their student bodies. Their experience during World War II demonstrates that Quaker identity is not monolithic—it can be expressed differently in different institutional and historical contexts. The ability to remain faithful to the witness of peace, regardless of how it is practiced, is a characteristic feature of the Quaker tradition, allowing it to remain vibrant in diverse contexts. Fidelity to principle does not require uniformity.

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Sergei Grushko lists these resources he consulted in writing his article:

• LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES IN THE TUMULTUOUS 1940S: INSTITUTIONAL IDENTITY AND THE CHALLENGES OF WAR AND PEACE. A Dissertation in Higher Education by Jordan R. Humphrey etda.libraries.psu.edu/files/final_submissions/2963 (the most significant resource);
• Swarthmore at War (part 1 - swarthmorephoenix.com/2010/02/19/swarthmore-at-war-part-1/ . part 2 - swarthmorephoenix.com/2010/03/01/swarthmore-at-war-part-2/ );
• Founded by Friends: The Quaker Heritage of Fifteen American Colleges and Universities - historyb332.blogs.brynmawr.edu/files/2015/01/founded-by-friends_20150212132902.pdf :
• ... and Wikipedia.

For some additional interesting information concerning the internment of Japanese Americans and Quaker advocacy and hospitality for Japanese Americans during the displacement camp era, see

• The testimony of Gordon Hirabayashi; 
• Japanese-American Internment (AFSC);
• Earlham College and Japanese Americans.

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A more recent case of U.S. Quaker colleges vs conscription: the Solomon Amendment (1982) prohibiting federal financial aid to nonregistering students.

Looking for summer reading? Kristin Du Mez has some suggestions.

Jemar Tisby on The Pastor No One Can Correct. "Douglas Wilson can hold paedocommunion, dominionism, household voting, and his long apologetic for the Confederacy, because he answers to almost no one."

Jeremy Morris on a certain leader's "magical thinking." (By the way, I wrote a post about Russia, Ukraine, and avos' three and a half years ago.)

Ursula K. Le Guin's house here in Portland, Oregon, is added to the National Register of Historic Places. (Should also be on some intergalactic registry....)

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Three Danish bluesmen cover "Dust My Broom": H.P. Lange, Troels Jensen, Hugo Rasmussen.

"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).

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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.)

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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.

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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)

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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....

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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.

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

More on Quaker culture and "density envy"

Thirteen years ago I wrote a post on "Quaker culture." I had just read a novel whose Jewish and Catholic characters were described with lavish details from their Jewish and Catholic religious cultures—rituals, architecture, thought patterns, built up, elaborated, and passed on from generation to generation over many centuries. I wondered if our Quaker religious cultures aren't a bit thin by comparison.

I've recently read two more novels with dense religious settings and the same thought occurred to me. Given the temptation toward Quaker exceptionalism among some of us, maybe a bit of modesty would do us some good!

Of course it's not that simple. A beautiful and rich culture can honor God, and can do so through so many emotional and sensory channels that go far beyond the doctrines and propositions that were hallmarks of that highly contentious period of English history when we got our start. (Come to think of it, doctrines and propositions, and our conflicting feelings about them, continue to exercise us Friends to this day!) But those rich, dense, beautiful cultures can, at their worst, also exclude, entrap, and alienate.

Those two newer novels illustrate this beauty and this hazard in very different ways. I highly recommend both of them. The one I read first was Niall Williams's Time of the Child, set in a rain-soaked village in the west of Ireland in the year 1962, the year that, among other things, the first television arrives in the town. At the center of the story is an agnostic general practitioner who attends Mass faithfully, and whose relationship with the parish priests is fascinating. Also in the center of the story is his eldest daughter, who serves as his receptionist; his other two daughters have moved away. Almost every important action in the story is somehow linked, whether by intention or habit, to the region's Catholic culture and faith. I loved this story so much that I hope you'll read it without further commentary from me, so I can avoid revealing its compelling and gradually unfolding plot. Williams, in all the novels of his that I've read, somehow manages to convey love with extraordinary depth but without sentimentality.

If you still need a bit more detail to be persuaded, here's a review.

The other novel is Kate Riley's Ruth. I think it is a small miracle that this book even came to be published. It is by turns deadpan and laconic, reverent, snarky, sad, and wicked funny. Ruth's story is a near-lifetime compressed into a chain of telling incidents from a life lived in an Anabaptist commune, with similarities to Hutterite and Bruderhof communities. Ruth understands the rules, until she doesn't. Her son doesn't. She loves her husband, and despises his annoying habits. In the community she's loyal and skeptical, a total insider who is somehow not trapped. 

For a time, the community seems oddly totalitarian, but the leaders confess their inadequacies. Misdeeds can lead to temporary shunning, usually on a voluntary basis! Travel to the outside world is permitted when necessary—for example, to meet and pray "with a Quaker colloquium at the Wyndham Sault Ste. Marie." "In the van Ruth had erred in wondering aloud whether Quakers might love peace more than they loved Christ, which she'd read somewhere and liked the sound of. No one responded."

(Talking about people behind their backs is not permitted in the community, but, just between you and me, it's worth listening to Ruth!)

Here are two reviews: Englewood Review of Books and Anabaptist World.

If you've read either of these books, or this post reminds you of other books you'd recommend, I'd love to know!

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If I were to live in a high-context religious community, I think I would want these two needlepoint mottoes on my wall:

"Christ is the 'yes' to all of God's promises." — St. Paul.

"All knowledge is local, all truth is partial." — Ursula K. Le Guin.

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Related: Ohio Byways; Core sample of a Quaker culture; Games, sports, comedies....

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Rachel Muers does an amazing job of describing Friends faith, practice, worship, and diversities in a compact, even-handed, and well-organized article for the St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, with lots of useful links. Thanks to Jim Fussell for the reference.

Kristin Du Mez, Live Laugh Love, and the librarians.

Ashley Wilcox on "Alaska in my bones," and the example Anchorage provides us.

Adrienne LaFrance wishes happy 100th birthday to Mel Brooks, "the funniest man who ever lived."

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Kelly Zirbes and her band Kelly's Lot perform "Ship." Kelly's tour dates include Klamath Falls (July 25), Burns OR (August 5), Spokane (August 10), and Portland OR (August 12, with Carolyn Wonderland).

Henri Nouwen: "You do not have to be a great prophet..."

Screenshot from source.

Clowning in Rome: Reflections on Solitude, Celibacy, Prayer, and Contemplation (1979).

You do not have to be a great prophet to say that coming decades will most likely see not only more wars, more hunger, and more oppression, but also desperate attempts to escape them all. We have to be prepared for a period in which suicide will be as widespread as drugs are now, in which new types of flagellants will roam the country frightening the people with the announcement of the end of all things, and in which many new exotic cults with intricate rituals will try to ward off a final catastrophe. We have to be prepared for an outburst of new religious movements using Christ's name for the most un-Christian practices. In short, we have to be prepared to live in a world in which fear, suspicion, mutual distrust, hatred, physical and mental torture, and an increasing confusion will darken the hearts of millions of people.

It is in the midst of this dark world that the Christian community is being tested. Can we be light, salt, and leaven to our brothers and sisters in the human family? Can we offer hope, courage, and confidence to the people of this era? Can we break through the paralyzing fear by making those who watch us exclaim, "See how they love each other, how they serve their neighbor, and how they pray to their Lord"? Or do we have to confess that at this juncture of history we just do not have the needed strength or the generosity and that our Christian communities are little more than sodalities of well-intentioned people supporting each other in their individual interests?

I was at the book sorting table at Mustard Seed, the excellent charity shop run by the Episcopal church down Woodstock Blvd., when I noticed that someone had brought in a wonderful selection of books by Henri Nouwen. I picked up Clowning in Rome because that book was new to me. Opening it to a random page, I found myself in the "Introduction," where the words above came from.

Nouwen's closing queries haven't lost their urgency, thirty years after his death and nearly half a century after he wrote them. But here's my new query, and I'd love your comments: don't we see some evidence that the church might be actually growing in the strength needed to provide light, salt, and leaven? And here's another question, maybe secondary but fascinating to me as a political scientist: what aspects of this recent growth is being provoked by overreach among those "new religious movements using Christ's name for the most un-Christian practices," and those movements' attempts to enmesh themselves with the structures of political power? (I have more than just the USA in mind.)

One of the ways I try to stay aware of some of today's positive ferment in the church, as well as the ways we're constantly being tested, is the podcast The Convocation Unscripted, which I've linked to several times. I'm tempted to build an index of links to show more evidence, but you can think up keywords and search for them online as well as I can. What I'd love to know is what you're finding out directly through your own experiences and decisions. Still echoing in my mind are the words from John Perkins that I quoted two weeks ago: "I want worship and justice to be done in the same building."

1. Do you see evidence of growth in the church's capacity to challenge oppression, scare tactics, division, climate denial, and Christian nationalist heresy? (Yes, that's my particular selection!)
2. For those yearning to get involved, what are some points of engagement?
3. What new challenges are, in turn, resulting from this fresh energy?
4. How can we encourage each other, give each other times of respite, and make room for joy and lament among us? How do we welcome all sorts of temperaments, including those who usually get on our nerves?

Within myself, I'm finding new love for this messy church that gave me a spiritual home a half century ago, and continues to frustrate and delight me on a daily basis.

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Speaking (very respectfully) of clowns, as Henri Nouwen does in his book, I see that Paulist Father Joachim Lally has recently celebrated the 60th anniversary of his ordination. I vividly remember Joachim Lally from our years in Boston, when I was on the staff of Beacon Hill Friends House and Father Lally was at the Paulist Center, just a short walk away. In those years, his diverse ministry gifts included clowning, but I knew him best from our work together with the organization Social Action Ministries of Greater Boston, where I represented our residence and program center.

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One of the participants in The Convocation Unscripted, Jemar Tisby, is ringing an alarm bell: "Pastors, You Cannot Stay Silent on Civil Rights."

Speaking of respite, here's an extraordinary (but also ordinary in an essential way) post by Beth Allison Barr, "Writing at a time like this."

Something in Nouwen's words about "exotic cults" and "new religious movements" reminded me of this article, "Is It the Voice of God, or Just Craziness?" by Joe Kelly in Quaker Life back in 2000. Now, as then, Joe ministers among Friends of the Light Meeting in Traverse City, Michigan, USA.

You already know that "the far right doesn't have a monopoly on Christianity" but it's nice to see an acknowledgment in secular media. Bill McKibben writes in The Guardian....

...A generation of Americans has grown up convinced that Christianity is a freak show, and another generation – those inside the evangelical tent – have grown old unchallenged in their thinking that scripture somehow demands the various cruelties we’ve seen play out in the “culture wars”.

Micah Bales (Berkeley Friends Church) on "Becoming Servants of the Unknown God."

I’ve never debated any Athenian philosophers. I’ve never even visited Greece. But my situation – and yours – is in some ways very similar to the one that Paul faced two thousand years ago.

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From "The Bible and the Blues" at Reedwood Friends Church, here are LaRhonda Steele and Ed Snyder with "Up Above My Head." (This is the last of the six songs LaRhonda Steele performs in the course of the full meeting for worship; I encourage you to play the whole video.)

(Let me know if you can spot Judy and me....)

Whose faith? Whose practice? (part two)

Vatican logo (source); Quaker star (source, adapted)

When Pope Leo XIV speaks as supreme pastor of the universal Church, he is not merely offering opinions on theology, he is preaching the Gospel and exercising his ministry as the vicar of Christ.

With these words, Bishop James Massa, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine, responded on behalf of that conference to U.S. vice president Vance's criticism of the Pope.

(The full statement is here.)

You probably won't be surprised that my eyes immediately went to the words "universal Church." There's a certain confidence in that formulation, as there is in Massa's words "vicar of Christ." Leo XIV's words, and James Massa's explanation, are rooted in the Roman Catholic identity as an uninterrupted witness to the apostle Peter and to Jesus himself. The Catechism of the Catholic Church carefully explains the Catholic peace testimony, as we might call it, in its commentary on the biblical Fifth Commandment and specifically in its notes on "Safeguarding Peace." 

Last week I advocated seeing our Quaker books of "Christian faith and practice" as not just being for internal use, but as our advocacy for a way of Christian discipleship that we recommend to the whole world. In offering these recommendations in good faith, we're also ready to receive, also in good faith, the recommendations of others committed to following Jesus in ways that may differ from ours. It's in that spirit that I took a look at the Catechism, the Catholic book of Christian faith and practice, and its teachings on war and peace as Leo XIV and James Massa explained them to the world.

Pope Leo doesn't have formal authority over Quakers beyond that of a brother in Christ, but in the wider economy of the followers of Christ, he's in a peculiar position. Beyond his formal authority among the over one billion Catholics in his communion, he has worldwide visibility and influence. Not only is he in the center of worldwide webs of ecumenical relationships (not counting his linguistic, tennis, and auto-mechanic credentials), but his persistence in advocating peace has won him many admirers among people who never thought they'd be saying kind words about a pope.

Many of our books of Quaker faith and practice support our teachings on spirituality and discipleship with quotations from the full range of Quaker experience since our earliest days. We're saying, in effect, that there is historical and scriptural substance to our teachings. The Catholic Catechism does the same, drawing on a history that is (speaking institutionally) five times longer than ours.

That seniority doesn't require exaggerated deference; they may have been wrong about some things five times as long as we've existed! We've come to some very different conclusions concerning such central issues as the functions and qualifications of priesthood. I would personally not affiliate with a communion that has a list of gifts and offices for heterosexual men and a shorter list for everyone else. However, "good faith" requires me to study what's behind those differences as well as our places of unity.

I don't share the Catholic doctrine of "just war," because we Quakers, at least those who identify with the Richmond Declaration of Faith (1887), cannot see a Christian license for any war whatever. Earlier, during a period of persecution, Quakers declared that ...

The Spirit of Christ, by which we are guided, is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil and again to move unto it; and we do certainly know, and so testify to the world, that the Spirit of Christ, which leads us into all Truth, will never move us to fight and war against any man with outward weapons neither for the kingdom of Christ, nor for the kingdoms of this world.

(A declaration from the Harmless and Innocent People of God, called Quakers, 1661; the full text is very worthwhile reading.)

However, a close study of the Catholic just war doctrine reveals how much effort Catholic theologians put into finding clear ways to limit war—to the point where, functionally, they arrive at almost the same point we do. There is no place in Catholic doctrine for aggressive war or for targeting the innocent. Therefore we have a basis for powerful collaboration, and a reason to take heart when our influential brother the Pope speaks for peace.

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Pope Leo also loves movies.

In our Irony Department, given the MAGA criticism of Pope Leo, Church-state separation is a ‘lie,’ says Trump's Religious Liberty Commission chair.

Juhyun Nam, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: AI policy is built for oversight, not crisis. That needs to change. (AI policy is another major interest of the pope.)

How a small Quaker meeting has helped shape Kalamazoo (Michigan, USA) for nearly 80 years.

What's happening at the Friends Incubator for Public Ministry: A lot! From the many programs and activities, I particularly enjoyed seeing Pam and Ron Ferguson on "being released" as ministers, and Paul Anderson on Margaret Fell's ever-relevant Women's Speaking Justified. And there's a reminder about the Kickstarter campaign that needs just $3000 more to make its important goal.

Nancy Thomas on Library Week, Poetry Month, and a special place that has no Internet....

Friends United Meeting's Pentecost Devotional booklet is available here for download. (I contributed an essay.)

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Mavis Staples will take us there, with Rick Holmstrom on guitar.

Whose faith? Whose practice? (part one)

Editions: London Yearly Meeting, 1959 (my copy);
Britain Yearly Meeting, 2013.

I received my first book of Quaker faith and practice in 1975, when Ottawa Friends Meeting accepted me as a new member. Canadian Friends of that era had adopted London Yearly Meeting's Christian Faith and Practice for that purpose, alongside their own loose leaf supplement entitled Organization and Procedure.

British Friends, in the renamed Britain Yearly Meeting, published a new faith and practice book in 1995, now entitled Quaker Faith and Practice.

The word "Christian" was not exactly being deprecated—the full title of the book is Quaker Faith and Practice: The book of Christian discipline of the Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain. It may be tempting to interpret the title change in terms of the post-Christian trends among some British Quakers, but that's not what interests me today.

I suppose that in either case, Christian or Quaker, the prevailing assumption was that these books are for internal use among Friends. This is who we are, more or less. But what I like about the title Christian Faith and Practice is another interpretation entirely, one I have no permission or evidence to propose: this way of faith and life is not just for us; it's recommended for all Christians.

This way of thinking rubs against the ecumenical/interfaith spirit of our times. It paradoxically conflicts with both the modesty and diffidence of contemporary Quakers on the one hand, and our sectarian exceptionalism on the other. But it makes sense to me to interpret these books as our contribution to an ecumenical conversation: this is how we are trying to live with Jesus at the center of our communities; how about you? Can we learn from each other? Are we ready (with kindness) to point to each other's strong places, and each other's defects, blind spots, and worldly accommodations? Ideally, we Quakers are not forming yet another community of self-contained "enthusiasts" (in Ronald Knox's sense) but are eager participants and ecumenical allies in turning the world upside down in the Lamb's war against all forms of oppression.

I don't know how George Fox and his companions would feel about my interpretation of the true audiences of our "faith and practice," but one of his late interpreters, Lewis Benson, once told me, "I don't have an ecumenical bone in my body." He firmly believed that Fox didn't intend to organize a new sect, but to revive or reconstitute the entire Church. However, as Knox points out, the reality is that most reform movements, inside and outside the established confessions, have similar ambitions, so it's up to us to keep the lines of conversation open with all of them rather than tending to our own exclusive conceits.

The work of our late Friend Eden Grace at the World Council of Churches is a wonderful example of these kinds of conversations. Given the range of concerns among Friends worldwide at this grave moment in human history (speaking of ecological as well as political and economic challenges), there probably won't be many of us who will be called to make ecumenical conversation a priority. But if you are one who happens to understand "Christian Faith and Practice" as a contribution to a potentially unlimited audience, I hope these words are encouraging.

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Related: Meditations on sectarianism; Functional ecumenism; Core sample of a Quaker culture, Are Quakers part of the Church? Your thoughts and links are very welcome.

To be continued next week in Part Two: Pope Leo XIV and "just peace."

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Bill Samuel's list of online books of faith and practice.

Grace Spencer (Prospect): Disagreement among Friends. ("Keep or dilute God?")

Eden Grace: Quaker and ecumenical essays. Her Swarthmore Lecture (2019) with video and transcript.

George Demacopoulos (Orthodox Christian Studies Center): Is Donald Trump the Arius of American Democracy?

Gerrit De Vynck and Nitasha Tiku (Washington Post, gift article): Can AI be a ‘child of God’? Inside Anthropic’s meeting with Christian leaders.

Nancy Thomas, Poems of the Beatitudes, part one, part two, part three.

Kristin Du Mez comments on Keri Ladner's newly published book American Dominion, and provides us an excerpt. (Also see link to today's live episode of The Convocation Unscripted.)

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"...When I heard that song, I said, 'Man, it's just what my soul needed.'" Eric Bibb remembering Lightnin' Hopkins performing "Needed Time" in the film Sounder. (Here's Lightnin' Hopkins' version.)