While sorting through some of my father Sidney Hill’s books recently I came across the volume of Quaker faith & practice he received when he finally became a member of the Society of Friends in 1970. He was attending Glasgow Meeting at the time and I found a couple of nice letters tucked inside the cover from welcoming Friends.

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Comments

• Posted by geriatrikid on June 29, 2010

  I do understand this concern.

  Action to encourage inclusiveness will bring problems of its own. Those in membership may find it at least as difficult to come to terms with the presence in meetings for worship of the unbeliever/uncertain as the latter find the religious basis and ‘waiting’ are for them. This is not lowering of standards; rather it is opening the way to enquirers to learn more and - critically - sometimes to have revealed that of God within them.

  Believers need to give God the space and opportunity to work his way within newcomers. If that means taking risks and being adventurous, it is within the spirit of the way we are urged to follow.

  And who knows what valuable insights and contributions tehy will bring to the meeting and the Society?

• Posted by The Friend on June 30, 2010

  A letter published in the 2 July 2010 edition:

  I’d like to invite Ruth Milne (‘Christian Discipline?’, 25 June) to come to weekly Meetings for Worship and get involved in her local Quaker community. There she might find quiet reflection, not on theology, but on the things that Jesus found important: whether it’s possible to be both rich and good, how to forgive people who have hurt you, how to stay still for long enough to discern the way forward. She might also find people who are trying not to ‘be nice’ but to know each other at a deep level; to accept – and occasionally to challenge – what they find there, and are prepared to be accepted and challenged themselves.

  The Quaker way is not in the thinking – what George Fox called ‘notions’ – but in openness to the promptings of love and truth as they arise in our hearts. Ruth, if you despise this as ‘trying to be nice’, you may miss out on a great deal. Come and join us. Give it time, and if in the end you give it up, please let it be for deeper reasons than shock headlines about declining theological rigour.
  Alison Leonard

• Posted by The Friend on June 30, 2010

  A letter published in the 2 July 2010 edition:

  Ruth Milne suggests that the Society ‘is well on the way to sacrificing theological rigour and clarity on the altar of inclusiveness’. I hope so! (Would I be right in thinking two of my heroes – George Fox and Jesus of Nazareth – might agree?)
  Margaret Cook

• Posted by The Friend on June 30, 2010

  A letter published in the 2 July 2010 edition

  First we must define what it means to be Christian, before we answer whether or not Quakers are Christian. Some people suggest that to be Christian is to make an attempt to follow Christian ethics, meaning those ethics as revealed by Jesus, in our daily lives. My own view is that this definition is too wide to be meaningful. Rather, to call yourself Christian is at the very least to make the theological statement that you believe in the divinity of Jesus, in the sense that Jesus is the son of God. I am a Quaker and I do not hold this belief, and I suspect many Quakers do not hold this belief. So I do not think it is correct for Quakers generally to describe ourselves as Christian.
  I think that it is important that we focus instead on the humanity of Jesus. If Jesus is an incarnation of God then it means his life is unattainable for us as humans. If, however, we see Jesus as an example of what a human life can be like when it is lived as closely as possible to the influence of the spirit, then the message is more powerful. It means that we too may follow and even achieve the example of the spirit-led life of Jesus in our daily lives. As Quakers we attempt to do this through our testimonies on peace, equality, simplicity and truth. It is this distinction between focusing on the humanity of Jesus instead of the divinity of Jesus that I see as an important aspect of Quakerism that distinguishes Quakerism from Christianity.
  Andrew Ellis

• Posted by The Friend on June 30, 2010

  A letter published in the 2 July 2010 edition:

  Thank you for publishing Ruth Milne’s letter. I wholly agree with Ruth in her feeling that ‘Quakerism’ has lost its way and is becoming systematically de-Christianised.
  I joined Friends in the spring of 1948. I was at that time a lapsed Anglican and considered myself to be an agnostic. However, my wife, who had been brought up as a Methodist, had a firm Christian faith and I was happy enough to go along with her. On a whim we attended Ipswich Meeting and at once felt at home there. When we applied for membership I explained that I was an agnostic. I was asked if my face was set towards the Light (I took that to mean, ‘was I prepared to be enlightened?’) and ‘was I prepared to become a humble learner in the School of Christ?’
  We were accepted into membership and over the years, in our Quaker Meetings for Worship, I regained my Christian faith.
  If Ruth Milne’s father was presented with Faith and Practice when he joined the Society in 1970 it would have been Christian Faith and Practice in the experience of the Religious Society of Friends, a very different publication that makes it clear that the Society of Friends is part of the Universal Church of Christ. Quaker Faith and Practice was a product of the mid-1990s
  Sadly, it now seems to be forgotten that the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) was founded when a despairing George Fox heard an inner voice that told him ‘There is one, even Christ Jesus, who can speak to thy condition,’ and that early Friends proclaimed that: ‘Christ has come again to teach his people.’
  There is still one, even Christ Jesus, who can speak to the sad condition of our Religious Society. Christ will come again to teach his people if we invite him to do so.
  Ernest Hall