Through the Flaming Sword

There’s one more thing to say about testing new leadings. I think the most reliable touchstone for a new revelation may be the lives being lived by those Friends who are already living according to that leading.

I think of Woolman’s refusal to notarize a slaveowner’s slave sale, or Jesus’ refusal to pay the Roman tax or to curse his persecutors.

But the real source of my own championing of this touchstone for new leadings is the lives of the gay and lesbian Friends who were seeking to be married under the care of our meetings in New York Yearly Meeting. No one could deny their love for each other, or the exemplary lives they were living as couples (though I’m sure they had their troubles, as all couples do), and the grace with which they endured all the conflict surrounding their requests, in most cases. 

What more could we want to know about what would happen if we married them? Their lives bore good witness. And then meetings started marrying them, at last, and the sky did not fall, lightning bolts did not strike them down. The “institution of marriage” was expanded, not degraded. Instead, we were blessed by their lives and their loves, as we were being blessed by them before they got married.

New leadings come to us through real people, and these people are our prophets. As Jesus experienced (and Jeremiah and Amos, etc, before him), prophets often have no respect in their home communities. But, when we are lucky, their persistence and faithfulness can overcome our resistance, when we see that their words and deeds, their lives and their example, bear good fruit. For you shall know them by their fruits, said Jesus himself regarding true and false prophets (Matthew 7:15).

The fourth traditional touchstone for discernment is the gathered meeting, the testing of a new leading under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in a meeting for business with attention to the life of the meeting. This is the ultimate test; ultimately, all our new testimonies are confirmed by meetings for business as the culmination of a Spirit-led process of collective discernment. In theory.

In practice, however, even this touchstone has its problems. Two stand out in particular. The first is that we don’t actually submit some of our most important shifts in faith and practice to a process of collective discernment in the first place; we adopt them in an unself-reflective process that takes place in the meeting’s collective unconscious. The second is that we sometimes (often?) make decisions in meetings that are not gathered in the Holy Spirit, but rather in some other spirit, or even more than one spirit.

Failure to discern at all

Two of the most consequential changes in Quaker faith and practice have never been tested in any meaningful way—the decades-long shift away from Christ-centered and biblically grounded faith in the liberal branch, and a related adoption of the idea of that of God in everyone as a divine spark in the human.

The post-Christian shift

The post-Christian shift has taken place incrementally, meeting by meeting, as meetings brought into their membership folks who weren’t Christians, some of whom have been wounded by their Christian upbringing. Gradually, Christian Friends who really need Christian fellowship leave for someplace they can feel at home.

The meeting only faces the issue directly when it’s time to approve a new book of discipline. By then, divided sensibilities inevitably lead to conflict, and in the lead-up to final decision about the book, more Christian Friends have left. The final decision drives out the last of those for whom Christian fellowship is absolutely essential, but only after a discernment process in which these Friends either withdrew from meaningful participation or were ignored.

The take-away is that collective discernment is our ultimate venue for testing a new leading, but it’s not without its own problems.

That of God in everyone

Meanwhile, the process for adopting a divine spark meaning for the phrase that of God in everyone has not had any meaningful discernment at all. I have yet to hear of any meeting that has put the divine spark theory to a formal test in any kind of discernment process. Lewis Benson postulates that it was AFSC that led the adoption of a divine spark meaning for this phrase and that it spread gradually into meeting usage in the hands of witness-oriented Friends. Seems reasonable to me, especially given Rufus Jones’s role in founding AFSC and in giving us this divine spark interpretation, and the way that AFSC and social activism in the twentieth century attracted so many Friends from secular activist communities for whom Quakerism offers a spiritual grounding for their activism. But the very fact that we don’t really know how we got here with this phrase indicates how utterly lacking in discernment the process has been.

The (un)gathered meeting

While the process of confirming a new leading usually culminates in a meeting for business, it usually includes discernment in other venues in the lead-up: committee meetings, informal discussions, workshops, threshing sessions, and previous business meetings, which all culminates in a business meeting in which the community comes to unity. In theory.

I was present when New York Yearly Meeting approved a new edition of its Faith and Practice, which had been in the works for seventeen years, someone told me—the process started before I became a Friend. I had been actively involved myself for several years by then.

I remember two main issues being the stop for many of the Friends in the yearly meeting: same sex marriage, and as its broader context, a general and to some, a substantial shift away from a Christ-centered and biblical worldview, sensibility, and language.

I was present in the session in which the document was finally approved. I did not at the time feel that it was a meeting gathered in the Spirit, though many others did. Certainly, there was a tremendous release of energy upon approval. Real joy erupted. But we were not in unity of Spirit because I know some Friends disagreed.

Rather, I read the energy in that meeting at the time as spiritual exhaustion, and the release of energy as relief, but also of love for those gay and lesbian Friends whose lives were going to be changed forever by our decision. 

I felt that the clerk had his hands on the wheel, at certain moments in that session. But I suspect that this was not ideological favoritism, but rather perhaps compassion for the body and its years-long struggle, seeing the body’s desire to be released from our travail as the movement of the Spirit. And maybe he was right. 

But we did lose some valuable Friends that day, and many who have stayed still carry scars from the process, from how it went, from how long it took, from some of the things that were said.

The take-away for me is that all of these touchstones are fraught with limitations and are prone to corruption. Maybe corruption is too strong a word. Messiness—I’ll go with messiness. The Spirit moves in mysterious and often unpredictable ways, and humans are involved. So it gets messy.

A second take-away for me is to be wary of too strong an attachment to process. Sometimes you have to follow the love against the apparent requirements of Quaker process. People are more important than righteous, rigid adherence to traditional process.

I think of the mess we can see in the book of Acts and in Paul’s letters over whether to allow Paul’s mission to the Gentiles. Years of wrangling that was often bitter and then a final decision made in a meeting for business that nevertheless drove some of the original covenanters out. The book says that meeting was gathered in the Spirit; but it would say that, it had to say that. Was the meeting really gathered? I suspect that it was, but that it was still really messy and painful and not perfect, that for many it was joyful and for some, it was the last straw

When I first heard these touchstones from Josh Brown back in the late ‘80s, he called this one reason and common sense. Paul Anderson in his essay prefers “theological reflection.” Friend Anderson in his essay focuses on “problems of biblical ignorance and theological inadequacy,” for which “there is no substitute for acquiring the skills and knowledge required for religious leadership.” I would combine these two—(relative) theological sophistication and common sense/reason—into one touchstone for discernment.

The adoption in the liberal branch of the phrase “that of God in everyone” as an essential tenet of (liberal) Quaker faith, meaning by it some kind of divine spark, is a great example of failing to think clearly about “theology,” that is, about what we have to say to people. It’s extremely sloppy theology, as I have said repeatedly in my writing. It’s both historically inaccurate and a doctrinal empty shell; there’s nothing inside it; it’s become an outward form that we use in the most cavalier manner.

Not only that. The general ignorance of what Fox actually meant by this phrase and of the historical source of the “divine spark” interpretation now current among us in the writings of Rufus Jones is also an excellent example of failing to check in with historical tradition as a touchstone for new revelation. Furthermore, this historical obliviousness amounts to a violation of the testimony of integrity—claiming something is ancient tradition from the founding age of the movement when it isn’t.

But back to sloppy theology. I’m not saying that it’s not true that there is that of God in everyone; that discernment has never actually taken place. I’m saying that most of us don’t really know what we mean when we say it. Well, that’s probably not quite right; Friends generally know what they’re trying to say intuitively. But they would be hard pressed to unpack it if asked.

What do we mean by “that of”? What do we mean by “God” when we use this phrase, especially when so many in the liberal branch are either non-theists or have only vague and inarticulate or (as I do) very complicated ideas about “God”? And what does the whole phrase “that of God” mean? 

Most Friends using the phrase have in mind some kind of divine spark or aspect of divinity that inheres in the human. Why do we believe that? How do we know that humans are somehow inherently in some way divine? And how do we know that this divine spark inheres in everyone? On what do we base this principle of faith?

None of this is ever articulated; these questions are rarely asked, let alone answered. Many Friends in the liberal branch seem to have only contempt for “theological reflection” and think it unQuakerly.  They seem to think that because we have no creed we have no doctrine at all (except for the belief in that of God in everyone, of course, and the testimonies). But doctrine—theology—is simply what we have to say, as Quakers, to non-Friends, to our children, and to each other, about who we are and what it means to be a Friend. We do have a doctrine, at least in theory; we do have something to say.

I agree with Paul Anderson that there is no substitute for the skills and knowledge required for Quaker leadership. And because we in the liberal branch do not have trained religious professionals, it’s up to our meetings to impart these skills and this knowledge through religious education, and it’s up to each one of us as individuals to become theologically self-reflective enough to know what we’re talking about because nobody else is going to tell us what to say. We need to acquire this skill and knowledge to a certain measure, both as individuals and as communities, in order to function effectively as Quakers. Otherwise, we’re just making it up. As we have with the phrase “that of God”.

It’s not hard. There are books and pamphlets and videos galore; there’s our yearly meetings’ books of Faith and Practice, at the very least. Otherwise, we end up stammering and answering foolishly or only for ourselves when someone—our children, say—asks us about our faith.

Meanwhile, many in the evangelical branches of Quakerism seem to have abandoned even “continuing illumination” as an element of Quaker faith. They reject any sophisticated theological reflection that deviates from the world’s version of evangelical faith that they have adopted. They do have a creed, which means that they are willing to use a conventional theology adopted from the world to cast the “heretical” and “sacrilegious” from their midst (heresy and sacrilege are Friend Anderson’s words). And they leave to trained religious professionals and to ecclesiastical institutions the power and authority to enforce the creed.

This fear of heresy and sacrilege, when combined with a resistance against new leadings, makes you pick and choose your Bible passages in order to rationalize the exercise of your governing power to police thought and action. With respect to same-sex marriage, for instance, this means heavy reliance on Hebrew scripture, which otherwise, they believe has been superseded by the gospel. We’ll take an unsophisticated reading of  Leviticus on same sex sex as an abomination (Leviticus 20:13), but ignore the injunction to execute someone who curses his or her mother or father (Leviticus 20:9), or to expel a man who sleeps with his wife while she’s having her period (Leviticus 20:18). Is the God who condemns same sex sex in Leviticus the same God who cut a deal with Jephthah for victory over Israel’s enemies and then required that Jephthah ritually sacrifice his own daughter in Judges 11?

In its resistance to some new revelations, the evangelical branch sometimes practices, not sloppy theology, but theology corrupted by social ideology under cover of biblical authority and they often employ reasoning—theological reflection—disingenuously. 

As with the Bible and tradition, theology and reason are important touchstones for testing new revelation, but like the other two, their practice requires greater integrity than we often give it.

In theory, the Bible is an obvious choice for a discernment touchstone. It’s held up for thousands of years as a vehicle for revelation. (And as a weapon by those who wield religious authority against their dissenters.)

But in practice, the Bible’s useful but not decisive, especially in areas that it does not directly address. And even then, problems always arise.

Continuing illumination. The conservative evangelical Quaker understanding of “continuing revelation” prefers to call it continuing illumination. They insist that innovations that cannot claim scriptural authority are illegitimate—heresy or sacrilege, in the language of Paul Anderson. Legitimate new testimonies rest on new illuminations of scripture. Think of Margaret Fell’s defense of women speaking in meeting in “Women’s Speaking Justified”, countering the clear prohibition of women speaking in First Corinthians. Along similar lines, several pamphlets and books have been published countering the apparent prohibition of same sex sex in the Bible.

Weaponizing the Bible. The problem with scripture as a touchstone is that it forces proponents and opponents to weaponize the Bible, and often, to pick and choose, and sometimes to torture its testimony, thus further undermining its authority. For liberal proponents of a new testimony, it just demonstrates how useless, or at least compromised, scripture is as a test. For conservative opponents, it takes the Holy out of the Bible by wielding it as a weapon. 

Picking and choosing. The reality is that everyone picks and chooses the passages that serve their interests and ignores the rest, Quakers included. We don’t practice the outward forms of the sacraments that Jesus explicitly commands, for instance. And almost nobody washes feet. So then it comes down to who gets to pick and choose; it comes down to power dynamics in the community. To stick with the signature example of same sex marriage, yearly meetings that oppose the practice have exerted their authority, and monthly meetings that embrace the practice and/or resent the exercise of ecclesiastical power leave.

Interpretation. After choosing your passages (and ignoring the rest), you then have to interpret the passages you’ve chosen, and the Bible is notoriously open to variant interpretations. To keep with our test case, whole books and pamphlets have been written to counter the interpretations of scripture that seem, at least on the surface, to condemn same sex sex. So, once again, it comes down to ecclesiastical authority, not scriptural authority. Meetings that exercise ecclesiastical authority against heresy or sacrilege under the aegis of scriptural authority are placing their ecclesiastical authority first, before the Bible—in other words, their interpretation—no matter what they say, given the reality of exegetical ambiguity and multivalence.

The book is not holy. Meanwhile, for Quakers, the Holy Bible isn’t “holy”, no matter that the word debossed on the front cover says. God is holy; the book is not. God is the ultimate authority; the book is not. 

The spirit in which it was given forth. Accordingly, we claim to try to read the Bible in the spirit in which it was given forth, which spirit early Friends understood to be the Holy Spirit, which inspired the book’s authors. I embrace this approach myself; as a spiritual exercise, seeking the spirit of inspiration behind the text is a truly powerful tool for personal and corporate spiritual openings. And I include the spirit of the times—the zeitgeist—in this exercise: what did the passage mean to those who wrote it and those who read or heard it first, in their cultural context, to the degree that we can understand that? But now we’re discerning spirits rather than interpreting texts, and that means we must turn to the community for confirmation. We’re back to where we started, in the field of ecclesiastical process and authority.

The Bible is an unreliable touchstone for discerning new leadings, though it is not, therefore, useless. You have to start somewhere with the conversation, and scriptural testimony is as good a place to start as any, in my opinion.