From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Sun Feb 27 2005 - 08:03:53 GMT
Dear Sam,
You wrote 26 Feb 2005 19:35:39 -0000:
'Building on the old, open to the new. If you don't have the old, you're
condemned to starting from scratch (and you end up seeing a baby's
experience of the world as the template for religion); if you don't have the
new, then the tradition has died.'
That looks like putting sq and DQ at equal height in your hierarchy of
values and not (like me) putting DQ highest.
You also wrote:
'"Christian" definitionally requires some attention to Christ.'
I agree, and quite a few (European) Quakers don't pay enough attention to
Christ to call themselves Christians any more. Quite a few do however, but
most of them would not equate Jesus and Christ as you do. They would prefer
to talk about something like a 'cosmic Christ' who can incarnate in
everyone, as shown in Jesus.
What about the sacraments? Does Christian mysticism require them as focus
according to you?
Sure, from a Quaker point of view one can be a Quaker and an Anglican at the
same time and having or not having hireling ministers doesn't bar us from
recognizing each other as Quakers.
We were discussing whether Quakerism or Anglicanism is higher on the ladder
towards DQ, however, and you seemed to use ex-Quakers in your congregation
as argument that Anglicanism may not be lower on that ladder. Individuals
straddling several sports of that ladder at once are not valid arguments for
one sport being at a different height than another one in a evolutionary
ethics. Only individuals moving on from one position to the next are.
Sure, there are lots of hireling ministers among (the majority of American)
Quakers (and among Quaker churches in the South that originate in missionary
work by American Quakers and by British Quakers when they were -in the 19th
and early 20th century- more evangelical than they are now). They differ
from hireling ministers in the mainstream branches of Christianity (ranging
as wide as Protestantism, Orthodox Christianity, Anglicanism and Roman
Catholicism) in 'hireling minstry' not being considered a special sacrament.
A Quaker can consider it as not a sacrament at all (like serving coffee and
tea after meeting for worship) or as just as much a sacrament ('calling into
ministry') as other task in a religious community (yes, including serving
coffee and tea), but not as something set apart like baptism and eucharist.
In their westward movement in the history of the USA Quaker groups have
adapted thier static patterns of value to some extent to those of other
Christian communities, in the ordering of their services, in the task
division in their communities, as well in their increasingly evangelical
thinking. Some of these development (evangelicalism, missionary activity)
have temporarily inspired European Quakers (because Quakers have always been
a worldwide community). Not recognizing special sacraments (apart from the
whole of life being a sacrament) is the hardest difference between Quakers
and other Christians, however. Quaker groups who stray across that line
don't seem to be recognized as Quakers anymore. That seems to have happened
in Central America.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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