Friends, my cause in writing today is brief. It is to ask you to respond to a few queries that have come to mind in the past few days as I read blogs by others. Some know that I am doing research on Quakers and community and reading journals of early Friends and the communities they established as they pushed out into the wilderness that was early America, including the area I now call my home in the Shenandoah Valley. This is not easy going, because early Friends did not have to think about living in community, it was simply who and what they were and how they functioned. So, keeping that in mind, please consider responding to a few simple queries:
What was the meaning of forming the "Religious Society" of Friends?
What is the meaning of belonging to a Religious Society of Friends for us today?
Is there a difference between living in community and being a part of a religious society of Friends?
Is there a difference between being a Quaker and being a part of the Religious Society of Friends, for you personally?
What is the significance of community to you in your experience of being a Friend? How much does it shape your experience of being a Friend?
Please respond to these queries in light of being a convinced or birthright Friend, or an attender or seeker, if you feel so moved, and from the perspective of the "branch" of Friends you are a part of if that feels part of your experience as well.
You may respond to me here on my blog, or privately at linda.j.wilk@gmail.com, whichever feels more right to you.
You will be helping me to address my own inner questions, and you will be helping me to direct the queries I am asking myself as I seek both back and history and forward in our future direction for who we are as a faith community.
Thank you for your assistance, Friends.
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Linda,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your queries. They are very powerful things to meditate on.
As an attender (7 years) of a liberal unprogrammed meeting, I don't feel qualified to answer some of them. Others I'm considering trying to answer. All of them require some effort, don't they?
The first meeting for worship I attended at my meeting included ministry from an elderly Friend, a deeply revered minister in our meeting, who told us that her sister had joined a fundamentalist Christian church that was very authoritarian and patriarchal. She said "she was glad to be a Quaker," and she said the word Quaker with great passion and stamped her foot as she said it, "able to speak when she was led to speak."
The Religious Society of Friends suggests freedom to me, too, among other things. It was founded in part to oppose a state church where people were required to profess a set of beliefs whether they actually held them or not, and required to attend whether they consented or not. Once they got there, they were not permitted to speak, even if God called them to speak. The RSOF asks people to be obedient to the Spirit of God rather than to human institutions, creeds, and rituals. It followed that Friends sought to free each other from oppressions of class, gender, slavery (eventually), and so on.
Community is the other piece, in my experience, the one that interferes with freedom both in fruitful and destructive ways. We have to work together, bear with each other, learn from each other, find the courage to stand up to each other (or reach out in love, risking rejection). We often fail in that, just as we often fail to realize our radical freedom in God, too. But we need both aspects of our religion--freedom and community--to remain in dynamic tension.
That's what I have as an answer just now.
Rosemary
I appreciate your questions and the opportunity to answer them.
ReplyDeleteQ-What was the meaning of forming the "Religious Society" of Friends?
A-As I understand what I’ve read, George Fox set out to establish a society of Friends because he had a vision for a visible church as a necessary part of proclaiming the Everlasting Gospel.
Q-What is the meaning of belonging to a Religious Society of Friends for us today?
A-I don’t know. As a convinced Friend in an unprogrammed FGC meeting I find value in being in fellowship with people who also believe in waiting in silence to hear Jesus (by whatever name that inner voice is known) speak immediately to us individually and corporately. Relating to other groups seeking to hear that same voice is also valuable to me. To name that a Religious Society of Friends gives it more structure and definition than I experience or want.
Q-Is there a difference between living in community and being a part of a religious society of Friends?
A-Yes
Q-Is there a difference between being a Quaker and being a part of the Religious Society of Friends, for you personally?
A-See answer to question 2.
Q-What is the significance of community to you in your experience of being a Friend? How much does it shape your experience of being a Friend?
A-The Kingdom of God is a community. Being a friend of Jesus necessarily puts me in that community with his other friends. Interaction with them significantly shapes me as a Friend.
Diane
Greetings,
ReplyDeleteI am a student of Quakerism and Seeker of Truth, and have experienced life in Religious Community.
To answer the first question simply, I believe calling the gathering together of like minded people a Society rather than a 'CHURCH' was simply a natural reaction against being what the established 'Church' already was.
I have yet to learn really what it means to belong to 'THE' Religious Society of Friends, though, I know that belonging to any church or other 'religious affiliation' must certainly be most different.
Thirdly, YES, there is most certainly a big difference between being registered a 'part' of any particular Meeting and actually 'living' in community!
In regards to being Quaker, I feel there is a natural association of 'oldness' 'purist' or 'originality' to that appellation, that is distanced from the designation of being part of the Religious Society of Friends. To me, being Quaker identifies you directly with certain practical historical realities and belief systems, whereas, contrariwise, the other name signifies, if not the opposite, at the vary least, less.
Community, as I have experienced amongst other professing Christians, has been very intricately involved in daily emotional, spiritual, mental and physical aspects of social and private family and personal life. At one time, I believe, Quakers would have lived thus, but now, I doubt there are any that do to that extent.
Community most probably represents connectedness one feels with an idea, principle or name today, rather than actual physical interdependence socially and totally(like mentioned above).
I wish you well in your searching and hope my comments have been helpful.