Religious Refugees
My Quakerism 101 class discussed Universalism this last week. There was a lot of talk about Universalists being open to any religion so long as it isn't Christianity. Many people seemed to have had bad experiences with Unitarian Universalist congregations that were not accepting of Christian leanings.
I grew up as a Christian-leaning Unitarian Universalist in a secular humanist congregation. I did run across some people who were anti-Christian or at least anti-specific-Christian-sect. But for the most part, there was a positive relationship with Christianity.
The congregation still celebrated the major Christian holidays and there were occasional sermons based on new testament sources. So as not to offend non-Christian members these sermons were peppered with, "Some people believe..." before each strong statement about Jesus or God.
There were also some people who wanted to bring traditions into the church that weren't a natural fit, in my book. They missed communion so they had something they called "apple ring commonion" where people could come up and get a piece of dried apple and pretend that this was a spiritual experience.
I attribute both the Anti-Christians and the Silly-Ritualists NOT to Universalism but to the problem of religious refugees.
I am not a religious refugee. I have chosen freely to immigrate from Unitarian Universalism to the Quakers. I did not flee my faith community in pain. Instead I sought out something that was missing in my life right now. I found a better fit for myself.
Refugees did not leave by choice. They fell out of their faith or were pushed out by intolerance or narrowness or any number of other things. They bring their damaged selves to more accepting churches.
The most potently anti-Christian people I have met are ex-Christians or people who were raised in a Christian home. Over time many of them relax their views once they have some distance and once they have found a new faith community.
Universalism should not be blamed for accepting these people into the mix. Refugees and Immigrants are both welcomed in religious liberal faith communities. But with this comes the burden of absorbing new biases and intolerances.
Most people in the Unitarian Church were not born to it. I am a rare "cradle Unitarian." There is a constant flow of people from other religions. The same is true of the Religious Society of Friends.
This may mean that both groups will need to actively combat Anti-Christian bias in their congregations, but I maintain that Christianity has an important role in both the Unitarian Church and the Society of Friends.
This was on the reading list for tonight, and I had some pretty strong reactions to parts of it.
He tries in this essay to tie together the Universalist and the Christian elements of Quakerism, claiming that they are both deeply embedded in the tradition of the Friends.
Here's what he lists as the important chacteristics of the light (same as one from class)
• divine or supernatural - not like your reason or conscience
• personal
• saving
• eternal
• resistable
• persistent
• pure
• ineffable
• universal
So what really ticked me off, was his insistence that the light being personal meant that it had to be a BEING, a god. No, a God. THE God. Okay, quote:
The Light is personal. It is no mindless, purposeless, undifferentiated force or power. It is the mind and will of God -- the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Sarah -- who indwells our souls. To claim, as we do, that we are led or taught by the Light is to accept by inference that the power by which we are led or taught is capable of actively leading or teaching us. This requires a personal or theistic conception of the Spirit, which Friends have traditionally held.
This blocks all agnostics and nontheists from the Religious Society of Friends!
I also have a problem with thinking that if we can be led by the Light, it must be the God of Abraham and Isaac. We can be led by any number of amorphous ineffeble things. Why does it necessarily follow that we must be taught by a theistic God?
He's very harsh on people he calls "pseudo-universalists" accusing them of "way-hopping" and never delving too deeply into any tradition. I agree that it is difficult to make much spiritual progress with a great deel of bredth and no depth. But he goes to far in stating that if you are not following a single religious tradition you are withoutu any benchmarks for what is right and good.
Because it is a view of religion and not a religion itself, and becasue it accepts no particular religious tradition as normative, pseudo-universalism has within it no principle whereby it can discriminate between what is true and what is false in any particular religious view. To what standard, for instance, would pseudo-universalism appeal reagarding a membership application from an avowed practitioner of the religion of satanism?
Clearly this is not someone who values secular humanism or understands that there are some normative values. In fact, though the terminology differs, the sentiments are much the same. Quakers see the Light in every human being. Humanists see the humanity in everyone. Both acknowledge that there is something essentially good at the core of people that they can choose to foster or to ignore.
That said, his description of a view of religion and not a religion itself is the primary reason that I left the Unitarian Universalist faith.
Concerts to attend
February 12, 8pm
Carrie Newcomer concert at Macalester College to benefit Open Arms of MN and 2nd Harvest food shelf. Concert free, goodwill donation of foodstuffs appreciated.
February 27, 4pm
Sounds of Blackness concert at U of MN Tedd Mann Concert Hall. Also free.
And someday I want to go hear
Dan Schwartz play again. Really like his stuff.
Quaker Light Within and Universalism
Last week I foundered at the topic of the "Light Within." This is a new concept for me. It isn't one that I have used to describe my experiences. It becomes more complicated when you realize that people who talk about the light within aren't necessarily talking about light. It could be a voice, or music or a feeling. Light is only the metaphor. It seemed a less problematic metaphor than god.
Here's some stuff about the light:
• It illumines us, casts light on our faults
• It also makes it possible for us to overcome our faults
• It is personal. The messages you receive are meant for YOU.
• It is difficult to explain
• It is something within you, not something that shines down on you
• It is within EVERYONE
• It is resistable; people can choose to ignore the light within them
Universalism
"No amount of rational philosophy, nor of political debate, will ever convince us which faith is the true one, which conception of what it means to be a human being is valid. Our vision of our human destiny is one to which we can only be drawn by love, by enthusiasm. The great communities of faith, with their various scriptures and traditions, hold up for us our good possibilities, showing us their nobility and attractiveness, drawing us to them." -- Dan Seeger
The Golden Rule
Let not any man do unto another any act that he wishes not done to himself by others, knowing it to be painful to himself. (The Hindu
Mahabharata, Shanti parva, cclx.21);
Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you. (Confucius,
Analects, Book XlI, no. 2);
Hurt not others with that which pains yourself. (The Buddhist
Udanavarga, verse 18);
As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. (Jesus,
Luke 6:31);
No man is a true believer unless he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself. (The Muslim
Hadtih,
Muslim,
imam, 71-2).
Goal Setting
My friend Leo and I (a fellow teacher from Open School) both have aspirations to be physically fit, published authors.
Since moving to my new house in October I have done yoga three times. And no walking. But I have managed to do an impressive amount of writing.
Leo works out at least four times a week and is getting set for yet another
Birkie (51-kilometer ski race in Wisconsin). But he hasn't written anything new since... well for a long time.
In the past we have very successfully collaborated on both things: when I was pregnant with Owen I was on a triathalon team with Leo. He did the bike leg and I did the swim. Our runner was injured at the last minute so we grabbed a student from school to run for us.
We also met once a week one summer and did creative writing stuff. We each got a new and fairly polished short stories out of the deal.
So we're trying to renegotiate some sort of collaboration to our mutual benefit.
Knowing that people are more likely to achieve their goals if they write them down, here are the goals we set for ourselves (to be accomplished by our first meeting on February 10).
Kiara's goals:
Place in the top 10 in the women's finishers of an Ironman-length triathalon.
Have a second kid.
Leo's goals
Get married and have first kid.
Publish a novel.
We figured these were good goals because they were attainable (I'm not finishing first, his novel isn't a best-seller) and they are objective and measurable.
Yeah.
Tami was one of my closest friends when I was a kid. We still stay in touch and have both gone on to become teachers in the public schools. We met in 5th grade and within a week our teacher had marked us for lifelong friends.
I find this interesting looking back, because in the land of suburban Protestantism, I was a vocal atheist and she was from a very conservative
Christian sect that had no name. But we both stuck out, weren't the norm, and were stubbornly insistent in our beliefs.
I found it even more fascinating that her parents allowed her to be friends with me. I was very frank with them about my lack of faith, but I was also adamant about never pressuring Tami to do anything that was frowned upon in her tradition.
I was very curious about her beliefs. Why did she have to wear her hair long? Why couldn't she wear jewelry? Why wasn't she supposed to own a T.V, go to the movies or dance? Her answer to everything was "because it's in the bible." I didn't waste my time on T.V. and the movies, but I did go home and find every reference to Dancing unto the Lord that I could find in my King James version of the bible. Her King James Version had substituted other words for dance-- sing, shout, whatever...
She had no explanation for this, since according to her faith the Bible was the one true word of God and he would not allow it to be corrupted. I tried talking to her about errors in translation, mistakes of copyists, different interpretations of archaic language. Her reaction was to tell me that I was sent by the devil to test people's faith.
Amazingly we continued to be friends. But then again, many of the people I went to school with assumed that I was going to burn in hell. Also that I had no morals and could do whatever I wanted without repercussion. I can't believe that some people believe their conscience comes entirely from their religion and that without religion one is without conscience!
But I digress.
I didn't find much out about Tami's Religion (as I called it, since it had no name) until after I graduated from college and attended one of the Meetings with her family. The ministers are unpaid and own nothing. They rely on the charity of the congregation. There are no churches. They meet in people's homes. Everyone is encouraged to read the Bible and come to an understanding of how the words fit their own lives here and now.
I liked a lot of things about this. I started having a rosy picture of how fantastic this faith community was. They were so supportive of one another. They were very welcoming of me. I started to think that if only I believed in God I could be her religion. I forgot all of the perceptions I'd had earlier about the controlling, conservative, overbearing nature of the religion
I did some poking around lately that reminded me of some of those things that rubbed me the wrong way. The principal problem I have is with something called the Living Witness Doctrine that states nobody gets into heaven unless they profess their faith to on of the Workers and hears the gospel from a Worker and lives according to the rules set forth by the Workers.
It's hardly the only denomination to say that it's the only way. It just makes me sad to think of people being shackled to a faith not because it feels right or brings them spiritual fulfillment but because they fear damnation. Which again is probably not unusual. I just have a very limited understanding of salvation and damnation and they are not what drive my spiritual quest.
Sam and Owen at the Zoo
I am trying out posting pictures from Flickr.
Here are my boys Sam and Owen watching the dolphins at the zoo.
So now we are both famous
First I'll tell you about my famous husband. I just stayed up until past my bedtime listening to a podcast of
Sam being interviewed by Garrick Van Buren (whose name I most likely just misspelled).
It was fun.
I'm famous too since I got interviewed by Weekend America on NPR (or was it MPR?) but there is no permanent record of me because I think I was just local color. They asked if I had any book to recommend what would it be. I said Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje.
This is true.
If you have not read this book, you really should.
It may be of particular interest to people given current events because it is set in Sri Lanka and follows the footsteps of a Sri Lankan-born woman who lives in Canada and has been hired by the UN to investigate possible human rights abuses by one or both sides in the long civil war.
It is not a mystery.
It is not historical fiction.
It is fascinating.
At the beginning of the book I couldn't wait to find out the answer to the puzzles she was examining. By the end of the book I didn't even care about the investigation. It took a back seat to the politics and the personal struggles going on with the characters.
Ondaatje is the master of weaving fact and fiction.
Read him.
Now.
Conservation of Soul
From a fine discussion with a friend over coffee
Is there an afterlife? Does the soul continue? Or do we live on metaphorically in our children, the memories of those whose live's we've touched, the work we've done while on this earth?
Lately I've been thinking of afterlife in this way. We do not cease to exist. Parts of us live on in the hearts and minds of others. Words on a page we leave behind. And our bodies are made of matter which can neither be created nor destroyed. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
As I sat in meeting, breathing deeply, "centering down" I thought of the fact that the air we are breathing is the same air that people have been breathing for thousands of years. Some of the molecules I'm taking into my lungs may once have been in the lungs of the living Jesus. I breathed deeply, taking in as much as I could, hoping to hold some of his peace, his wisdom, his compassion and his active faith.
It was an odd combination of philosophy, theology and science. But then so am I. An agnostic Christian raised as a Unitarian (by a family of scientists) but now pursuing membership in the Religious Society of Friends. Go figure.
Quakerism 101 - session 1
So I'm taking this class to learn about Quaker History.
Here are some interesting things that came up:
In contrast to the Puritans, Catholics and the Church of England, Quakers went for:
• Free will over predestination
• Church governed by the laity rather than pope or King
• Ministry free and open to all rather than restricted and hereditary
• Religious authority directly from God, rather than from priest or scripture alone
• God is Unity, not Trinity
• Sin comes from our own actions, not Adam's fall
• The state should not be involved in the business of the church
George Fox describes the torment he experienced as a young man searching for theological answers and spiritual meaning in his life. He was disappointed by the answers he received from priests of all denominations and eventually discovered that the answers were revealed to him directly through "openings" in which God spoke to him.
Was the term openings one that was in common use at the time or was it coined by Fox?
Selected early Openings of George Fox - Chapter One of his Journal
• God does not dwell in temples made with hands but within the hearts of people.
"God, who made the world, did not dwell in temples made with hands... the Lord showed me, so that I did see clearly, that he did not dwell in these temples which men had commanded and set up, but in people's hearts."
• To be born into the priesthood is not sufficient to make one a minister of Christ.
"...as I was walking in a field on a First-day morning, the Lord opened unto me that being bred at Oxford or Cambridge was not enough and fit to qualify men to be ministers of Christ."
• The priests and other holy people could not speak to Fox's condition, but Christ himself held the answers and would reveal them.
"And when all my hopes in [preachers and priests] and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then, Oh then, I heard a voice which said, 'There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition.'"
• Everyone is enlightened by the divine light of Christ.
"and I saw it shine through all, and that they believed in it came out of condemnation and came to the light of life and became the children of it, but they that hated it, and did not believe in it, were condemned by it, though they made a profession of Christ."
• Through the example and the inner spirit of Christ Fox could overcome temptation
"Christ opened to me how he was tempted by the same Devil and had overcome him and bruised his head, and through him and his power, light, grace and spirit, I should overcome also, I had confidence in him. So he it was who opened to me when I was shut up and had not hope nor faith."
• The temptations and torments Fox experienced helped to strengthen his faith
"I was taken up in the love of God so that I could not but admire the greatness of his love And while I was in that condition it was opened unto me by the eternal Light and power, and I therein saw clearly that all was done and to be done in and by Christ, and how he conquers and destroys this tempter, the Devil and all his works, and is atop of him, and that all these troubles were good for me, and temptations for the trial of my faith which Christ had given me."
• Many people who spoke the words of Jesus and quoted scripture ignored the example of Christ's life and the things he taught.
"As the Lord spoke he opened it to me how that the people and professors did trample upon the life, even the life of Christ was trampled upon; and they fed upon words, and fed one another with words, but trampled upon the life, and trampled underfoot the blood of the Son of God, which blood was my life, and they lived in their airy notions, talking of him."
I have been reading and rereading Jesus Before Christianity by Albert Nolan, a Dominican from South Africa. He has some very interesting ideas about Jesus and his life within a historical context.
Nolan states that the purpose of the gospels was not to give a biography of Jesus, but instead to show how Jesus could be relevant to people outside Palestine after Jesus' death.
The book is an attempt to tease out Jesus' intentions through examining his choices and decisions as outlined in scripture and other historical documents.
The first such choice highlighted is Jesus' decision to be baptized by John the Baptist. This instantly set him apart from the other religious movements in Palestine at the time:
Zealots: fought Rome with violence for 60 years in an underground movement. Overthrew Roman government in 66 CE; 4 years later Romasns sent an army to destroy them. The last held out in Masada until 73 CE when 1000 committed suicide rather than submit to Rome.
Pharisees: concerned with reforming Israel. Believed that the Roman yoke was punnishment for the unfaithfulness to law and tradition. Name means "the separate ones" and they set themselves apart from everyone not faithful to the law to form closed communities. They believed in an afterlife, ressurection of the dead and a future Messiah who would liberate them from the Romans.
Essenes: spearatists. Outsiders were hated as "sons of darkness" Considered themselves the faithful remnant of Israel. Allied themseleves with Zealots in 66 CE and were destroyed.
Sadducees: religious conservatives out to preserve status quo. They were the priesthood, upholding ancient Hebrew tradition. Rejected afterlife and resurrection of the dead as novelties. Reward and punishment in this lifetime
Apocalyptic writers: believed god's plan for the end of the world had been revealed to them.
John differed from these groups because
• he was a prohpet of doom and destruction
• he appealed to ALL of Israel - including sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes and Herod himself
• he expected each individual in Israel to repent and experience a change of heart.
• he appealed for social morality
"the fact of his baptism by John is conclusive proof of his acceptance of John's basic prophecy: Israel is heading for an unprecedented catastrophe."
Disadvantaged Families
I did take a bit of a break from writing after my class ended in December, but I have an excuse. Apparently I am a Disadvantaged Urban Family.
So says the
Campus Crusade for Christ, which sent four young evangelists to my door bearing gifts of canned new potatoes, dried kidney beans, sushi rice and a four pound bag of dried milk.
In my confusion over how they had found their way to MY doorstep, I caved and agreed to do a survey in which they asked me what I liked about my neighborhood, what I wanted to change about my neighborhood and if I regularly attended church. Unfortunately I went on to explain that I attended the Quaker Meetings here.
I say unfortunately because as part of this explanation I covered the
Quaker testimonies including the testimony on peace.
Had I not just finished telling them how peaceful Quakers are, I might have been tempted to kick their asses when they told my two-year-old that
1. God loved him more than his mommy and daddy did
2. When he didn't listen to his mommy when she said to go to bed that was a sin and it made god mad.
3. That Jesus died for him and the blood of Jesus washed him clean of sin until his sould was white. And wasn't it great that Jesus died for him.
They said some other stuff too, but I was sufficiently angry that I didn't pay much attention.
I didn't care much for their theology, and I have a philosophical problem with missionaries in general, but now that I've had a bit of time to cool off I've realized my main bone to pick with them has to do with what is appropriate information to give to two-year-olds.
I doubt that Owen was scarred much by this encounter. Hopefully there won't be too many future encounters where I don't have the foresight to halt the conversation. It hadn't occurred to me that there was a different consequence to being polite to missionaries now that I have a child.
At Meeting the other day I shared with the group that I was struggling with religious tolerance. I value religious tolerance and I like to say that people can believe whatever they want. However, I have found that it is much easier for me to be tolerant of other religious liberals.
Someone suggested that I could be tolerant of beliefs, but not so open about specific practices. I have trouble disentangling faith from practice. How can I say it's okay for you to believe that it is your duty to spread the gospel as long as you don't actually go around spreading the gospel? It makes no sense.
