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.

I believe “continuing revelation” to be one of the central tenets of Quaker faith, or rather, one of the more consequential experiences of the Quaker movement. But I fear that it’s come to mean something much narrower than it should, in both the liberal and evangelical branches. This is partly because of the divisive battle over same-sex marriage in the 1980s and ‘90s, in which “continuing revelation” was liberally invoked in the liberal branch and demonized by evangelicals.

In that struggle, continuing revelation came to mean a new “testimony”, in this case, regarding meeting practice. And I think that’s what most Friends think of when they hear the phrase, some new idea and practice that purports to take us forward in our moral lives, as individuals and as meetings. But I want to argue for a much broader understanding.

In this regard, I think of William Taber’s pamphlet The Prophetic Stream. If I remember correctly (I can’t find my copy), Taber sees God’s revelation as a continuing presence, a flowing forward into which we dip our ladles to serve up the truth that is always there.

I would expand this understanding further. I would go beyond truth, as important as that is. For the Holy Spirit is a spirit of love as well as of truth.

Continuing revelation is all of God’s new and present work within us and among us.

Continuing revelation thus includes forgiveness and healing; guidance and correction; openings, leadings, and the call to ministry, including especially, vocal ministry; renewal, strength, and courage in the face of adversity and trials of all kinds; inspiration and creativity in all its forms; acts of love and witness; and grace, the unexpected in-breaking of the Spirit to make us more fulfilled and whole, as individuals and as communities. 

And, of course, continuing revelation is creation itself, evolution, the forward direction of life’s advance on this planet, which is always bringing forth new life, and even new life forms. (I love the word for these “buds” in the tree of life—peduncle.)  My model for this aspect of continuing revelation is the way apple trees put forth, occasionally, a new variety of apple through a bud on a tree that is otherwise a honeycrisp or granny smith. One of these new varieties gets developed into a new offering in the market in roughly every human generation.

In subsequent posts, I want to explore the role of discernment in continuing revelation.