Through the Flaming Sword

As I said in my previous post, in the struggle over same sex marriage in our meetings, continuing revelation came to mean a new “testimony”, in this case, regarding meeting practice, but with very important implications for the authority of the Bible in corporate discernment (and of the authority of yearly meetings over monthly meetings) and the understanding of the role of testimony itself in the Quaker identity. Approving same-sex marriage meant abandoning the (apparent) testimony of the Bible, which seemed to condemn same sex relationships, or at least, same sex sex, and therefore, rejecting the Bible’s authority more broadly. Even more broadly, it meant reinforcing the post-Christian shift in liberal Quakerism away from the Christo-centrism that arises from scripture’s testimony and which had defined Quakerism for centuries.

The struggle over same-sex marriage forced us to pay attention to discernment—what does it mean, and how is it to be done? I’ve encountered four touchstones as tests for discernment in my experience and reading. I heard them first from Joshua Brown in a workshop held at Powell House, New York Yearly Meeting’s conference center, but I have recently found them articulated again in an essay by Paul Anderson published in George Fox University’s Digital Commons, from 2007: “Continuing Revelation—Gospel or Heresy?”

These four tests for discerning a new tenet of faith and/or practice are:

• scripture,
• historical tradition,
• reason and common sense (Anderson calls this theological reflection), and
• corporate accountability; that is, the sense of the meeting when truly led by the Holy Spirit.

All four tests have their flaws and the whole system has its flaws. Moreover, I believe the list is incomplete. I would add two more:

• the testimony of the lives of those Friends who are already living according to the new testimony; and
• the commandment of love.

Lives lived. A new testimony naturally arises in the prophetic voice of some Friend or Friends who feel led in some new direction and, inevitably, some who hear this call do not wait for the meeting to approve, for corporate discernment usually takes a long time. Think of the 75 years it took some yearly meetings to condemn human slavery after the first prophets arose.

Love. And where is love in the new revelation? Was love its first motion? Does it foster love? Does its opposition foster hate, or at least hinder love? And on the flip side, where is the fear? What do we fear when we contemplate a new revelation?

In subsequent posts, I want to look at each test.