From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Mon Mar 07 2005 - 06:57:42 GMT
Dear Sam,
After 3,5 years we seem to be getting somewhere!
You wrote 5 Mar 2005 16:10:49 -0000:
'I think I'd be happy to say that Quakerism has more DQ than Anglicanism,
and that Anglicanism has more SQ than Quakerism.
... you would say ... that therefore Quakerism is "higher up the ladder",
but I would then say that this is because you are privileging DQ over SQ,
which I wouldn't agree with. ... If you see the aim of the ladder as
reaching DQ, then Quakerism is the best way. If you see Quality as the end
point (with DQ and SQ unable to be separated, and each needed), then
Anglicanism (or something else which had
more SQ than Quakerism) would be the better way.'
We agree that the Dynamic aspect in Quakerism is stronger than in
Anglicanism. You prefer Anglicanism, because you see DQ and sq as
equivalently valuable, whereas I prefer DQ in religion.
In your 24 Nov 2001 post you translated my
'religious traditions ... (taken as patterns of value) differ from each
other in the amount of freedom they leave for the Dynamic'
into 'Christian terms' as
'some churches strangle the spirit, others let it breathe freely'.
So this only leaves me to reconvince you that churches should strive to let
the spirit breathe more freely and thus that Anglicanism should strive to
become more like Quakerism.
In other words: It leaves me to reconvince (!) you that DQ and sq are NOT
equivalently valuable in religion.
I agree that DQ should not IN GENERAL be privileged over sq. I only argue
that DQ (the spirit) should be privileged over sq (the stranglehold) in
religion and nowadays more so than in history.
In life in general we need both DQ and sq. We need DQ, because only static
Quality fossilizes. We don't experience sq without DQ as 'good',
essentially -in my view- because it would take the Meaning out of our human
existence. Meaning requires change for the better, being part of a story
that goes on. We need sq, because it is the measure of DQ. We experience
change only as 'good' to the extent that it
creates new sq and we only experience it as change because we had old sq in
the first place.
Neither DQ nor Quality in which DQ and sq are unseparable can be an end
point. The ladder metaphor ultimately breaks down NOT (as you argued before)
because we should rather think about it as a spiral, BUT because a ladder
has an end, whereas evolution goes on.
Earlier in our discussion I have compared the static and Dynamic aspects of
religion with the roles of priest and prophet. The priest performs the
rituals, sets the standards for religious behaviour and disciplines those
who belong. He embodies religious tradition by setting its social and
intellectual patterns of value. The prophet dynamizes that tradition. He
frees the spirit that is strangled by those static patterns of value. Would
you agree that the importance of priest and prophet within a religion
depends on the role that religion plays in a culture? Would you agree that
when a culture has better (or at least more) alternatives for maintaining
its social and intellectual patterns of values the importance of the priest
diminishes? In a culture on the brink of survival, where religious rules and
rituals have an important role in maintaining harvests and hygienic
standards, priests (sq) might even have to be privileged over prophets (DQ)
in religion. Wouldn't you agree that nowadays, at least in Britain and the
Netherlands, it should be the other way round?
You continued with:
'But isn't [disagreement about Christianity having central tenets] more a
philosophical point about the nature of a creed, rather than a refusal to
accept the uniqueness of Christ?'
That's right to some extent, but ... philosophy does have practical
consequences. Some ideas about the nature of creeds strangle the spirit! I
have no problems whatsoever with the original meaning of 'creed': 'credo' or
'I believe'. No-one would make any objections against anyone quoting the
Nicene creed during a Quaker meeting for worship in this form:
www.reformed.org/documents/nicene.html. When quoted in this form
(www.mit.edu/~tb/anglican/intro/lr-nicene-creed.html) however, some eyebrows
might go up. We discourage discussion during meetings for worship, but there
would probably be one afterwards over coffee...
Quakers do have collective statements too, though. The most famous one
among Quakers is the peace testimony as formulated in 1660:
www.qhpress.org/quakerpages/qwhp/dec1660.htm. But, as explained in
www.pym.org/publish/pamphlets/peace.htm:
'Friends' peace testimony is not a creed, in the sense of a statement of
belief true for all time. Nor is it a code of behavior, a set of rules to
which all Quakers individually and corporately must adhere. On the simplest
level, "testimony" means "bearing witness" and Friends' long heritage of
witnessing to peace can be found in public statements and personal
reflections, in their refusal to bear arms in times of civil and
international conflict, in acts of prophetic confrontation and of quiet,
reconciling diplomacy. But these are merely outward and visible signs of
inward conviction. This conviction springs from a living Spirit, mediated
through the human experience of those trying to understand and follow its
leadings. It grows afresh in every life, in every worshipping group, in
every generation.'
In other words: 'creeds' strangle the spirit when understood as 'we
definitionally (as Christians/Anglicans/...) believe for all times that ...'
or as 'you (if you want to belong) should believe that ...'.
In case you read historic Quaker texts and tend to come up with a different
interpretation: Yes, some of them DO easily lend themselves for
interpretation as statements for all time and/or as sets of rules to which
all Quakers should adhere. At times they WERE interpreted as such. Quakers
even risked 'disownment' (i.e. being expelled from their worshipping
community) if they didn't conform. The present state of affairs, that we
don't have creeds and sets of behavioural rules is a 20th century
reinterpretation of ouir history. DQ has been at work among Quakers...
You won't see me denying the uniqueness of the historical Jesus as expressed
in calling him Christ, but I refuse to be bound by specific formulations of
that idea. I reserve the right to find my own fresh formulation in every
situation. Right now I would say that of course Jesus was/is unique, like
every person is unique, and that his uniqueness consisted of a lot of people
up to this day recognizing the divine in him and valuing his teachings. In
other words: he showed us the divine and taught us how to show it to others.
Be like God!
The value of a 'credo' is not in its 'truth', in its intellectual quality,
but in its Meaning, in its pointing beyond any sq, in its Dynamic aspect. I
don't care if Christianity is evacuated of intellectual content. I need
religion for its pointing beyond intellectual content. I call myself
Christian
because I am at home in and often choose to use Christian language,
Christian metaphors. The content I express in that language and with those
metaphors is what the spirit breathes into it NOW.
My interpretation of the history of Christianity is NOT that it asserted the
uniqueness of Jesus by calling him 'Christ' (and 'only begotten son of God'
in addition to that when 'Christ' wasn't enough to carry that message for
those unaccustomed to Jewish Messiah jargon). It primarily gave people
something to live for (for instance -if the times demanded so- by asserting
the uniqueness of Jesus). The Meaning it gave them, the 'something' to life
for, was/is the same as in every religion: reconnecting with Self/God/each
other/nature, experiencing unity, wholeness, purpose, drive. Mystical
experience, essentially. The way in which it gave/gives people a Meaningful
life is 'Christian', because it uses the story of Jesus and presents him as
special. The truth of the story and the assertions is beside the point. As
soon as the
true/false question comes up, its Meaning decreases. It starts to divide
rather than reconnect.
Creeds should not be fixed or used as requirements for belonging or not
belonging to a specific religious brand. In order to prevent the
misunderstandings connected to 'creeds' and even to 'beliefs', Quakers
prefer to stress 'experience' (again as explained in
www.pym.org/publish/pamphlets/peace.htm). We distrust the words that
describe religious experience. 'The letter kills, but the spirit gives life'
as in the postscript of the Epistle from the Quaker Elders at Balby from
1656
(see www.qhpress.org/texts/balby.html). Maybe once 'the Word was God', but
nowadays -intellectual evolution having continued and having fossilized
too many wordings- the Word too often strangles the spirit.
And so do sacraments in any other sense than the whole of life being
sacramental.
You wrote 5 Mar:
'if you can't see the sacraments as a focus for Christian mysticism then you
won't be able to practice it anywhere else'.
Isn't that very illogical? Isn't it much more probable that connecting the
word 'sacred' to specific rituals (by calling them 'sacraments') will impede
your ability to experience it in the rest of life?
Don't you think that association of the word 'love' with sex makes it
more difficult to experience it in other ways? Don't you think that the
association of piety with keeping religious rules (like the Pharisees did in
Jesus' time) makes it more difficult to hear the calling of the spirit when
your neighbour is in need (so only the Samaritan heard it)? Didn't Jesus
teach us to worship God in spirit and in truth (in 'truth', because the
intellectual level was less static yet then than now) and not in specific
religious rituals?
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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