Letters - 27 May 2011
From testimonies to nontheists
Testimonies
The list of ‘testimonies’ may be less specific than the laws of Leviticus or Deuteronomy. However, both list ways some people believe God wants humans to act.
In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes, ‘He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant – not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.’ (II Corinthians 3:6). The latter phrase is echoed in the postscript to the first of the Advices, stressing Friends’ emphasis on acting as we are led by the Spirit, rather than as led by the written word or tradition.
Whether carved on stone tablets, or carved into benches, I do not believe we need lists of ways to act. As competent ministers of the Spirit, I believe God can guide us without them.
Matthew Gee
Regarding the correspondence about the seats at the National Arboretum, the four words: Peace, Equality, Simplicity and Truth are not belief or credal. They are, in a spiritual discernment, to be ‘Fruits of the Spirit’.
In the same theme, they are to be compared with Paul’s reference to the ‘Fruits of the Spirit’ in his Epistle to the Galatians 5:22-23.
This Quaker area will have an atmosphere of tranquillity and quietude in the Arboretum, which is a sanctuary of remembrance. The seats are a place of rest where people can ponder and reflect.
These four words will give a significance, inspiration, strength and guidance to people who perhaps have just experienced some emotional ache and stress of remembrance.
George Wilkinson
Jesus: who was he?
About forty-four years ago a young, devoutly evangelical mother was dying in hospital, riddled with incurable and painful cancer. I increased her opiate treatment to four-hourly heroin injections. As is common in such circumstances, her condition improved markedly. I continued to see her daily. Around midday a few days later I was called by the nurses as she had become excited, confused and difficult. I arrived shortly to find her husband and two anxious nurses trying to restrain her. As I parted the curtains and appeared at the end of the bed she leaned forward, her eyes shining: looking straight at me she cried, ‘Jesus, you’ve come!’
I immediately asked the nurses when she had had her last heroin injection; they replied that since she was feeling so much better that morning it had been decided to miss out the 6am and 10am doses. I suggested they resume the injections with some urgency and beat a hasty retreat. Within minutes calm had been restored, patient pacified and nurses and husband much relieved; but the effects of her cancer returned some days later and she passed away within a fortnight.
I am glad that she saw Jesus before she died, but – needless to say – it was not me: I was just a young doctor.
Frank Boulton
Horace Alexander
Seeing Horace Alexander’s photo in a recent issue (13 May) reminds me that I never received a copy of the audiotape made at Woodbrooke after the Memorial Meeting for Horace. That must have been about twenty-five years ago.
If any reader has a copy of the tape they could lend me, I would be pleased to hear. I am one of Horace’s many cousins.
Beth Rowlands
Royal wedding
I have no television but I listened intently to the service and the words were wonderful. I was struck by Romans 12, read so beautifully by Kate’s brother. I think that verse 18 could be our new peace testimony: ‘If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all’. If you read it in the Authorised Version, it sounds even more like George Fox.
It is a challenge for today and especially a challenge for Quakers. It recognises the difficulty, even of living at peace with your fellow Quakers.
Jill Allum
Simplicity and solar panels
Indigo Redfern (13 May) refers, understandably, to the effective commitment ‘to stay in this house for twenty-five years, which is the rest of my life’.
That may indeed be a spiritual commitment, but it should be made clear that one can move house – the Feed-in Tariff scheme allows for transfer of the rights to a new owner, just as selling a house with a garage that is let long-term to someone else will earn the new owner the rent from the garage.
Mike Brayshaw
Quaker Tapestry as a resource
Ralph Hill’s letter (6 May) resonated strongly with me.
Christine Davis and I have over a period of twenty years and more travelled the length and breadth of Scotland talking to any group that asked us about Quakerism, using the Tapestry as an illustration. We enjoyed it; we met interesting and interested groups and always had a warm welcome.
We used slides – and I still do because I find modern technology very scary – but this means that we can take specific panels/slides to illustrate our point and make a connection with what Friends have done in the past and with what Friends are doing today. It is important that people know that Friends are ‘not all dead’!
I wish Ralph Hill well in his hope that a DVD would soon be available for those who can cope with modern technology.
Alison Burnley
Searching for Agnes and Olga
My husband and I visited Terezin in April 1992, prompted by the memorial plaque to 45,573 Jews who died between 1941 and 1945 displayed on the wall of the recently built Park Hotel where we were staying in Prague. We both have Jewish forebears, in each case on the side of our mother’s father. Our mothers’ maiden names were Fitterer and Goodman. In each case, our great-grandparents fled an earlier wave of anti-Semitism, the Fitterers ending up in London, the Goodmans in Roscommon, Ireland.
What I remember most about Terezin was the quality and cheerfulness of the children’s artwork: they had mostly not portrayed their surroundings, but their former lives, including plenty of plants and animals. It was moving when you looked at the dates of their short lives. I was born in 1934 and they were my contemporaries. We also visited an old Jewish synagogue and cemetery in or near Prague.
Barbara Crawford
Right to conscientious objection not respected
There seems confusion on this subject, both in quotes from letters and in editorial (News 20 May). Those of us who registered as conscientious objectors in 1938-1946 had to be quite clear about it. Legislation had established the right to apply for registration as a CO, either unconditionally or subject to conditions, and to appeal if a tribunal’s decision was adverse. Whilst some registrations were unconditional, most were subject to the condition of undertaking ‘alternative service’, which had the object of ‘screening out’ those who were simply seeking a ‘soft option’, and this was generally accepted both by pacifists and by society at large.
The case of Michael Lyons (20 May) is far from clear. He has been prepared to serve in the navy, so is no pacifist. He does not object to military service in general, only to fighting in the war in Afghanistan. His objection is ‘based on both the level of civilian casualties and his belief that British casualties should not be given priority in medical treatment’. These are worthy considerations, but impossible to translate into practical administration, and certainly no basis on which to claim, with Emma Sangster (20 May), that in the UK (which in any case has abolished conscription) ‘the right to conscientious objection… still exists more in theory than in practice’.
Grigor McClelland
Nontheist Friends Network
In the Friend (20 May) I found an invitation for Friends to join ‘The Nontheist Friends Network’. This, and the quotation from a section of the website of Britain Yearly Meeting, distressed me very much.
We are a ‘religious society’ and I cannot reconcile that with there being nontheists in membership. There may well be linguistic tricks and intellectual arguments that are intended to show that Meeting for Worship and Meeting for Worship for Business are merely meetings for ‘worthship’ and have no God dimension but I feel this does a disservice to our wish for plain speaking. When I am at Meeting for Worship, I worship. I do not look for worthship.
Of course, I agree that anyone is free to attend our Meetings, but membership implies much more than that.
If I were an humanist or an atheist I would join one of the many groups of similarly minded people, and feel in fellowship with them, rather than be a member of a society that seeks to serve God.
It is time that Meeting for Sufferings and/or Yearly Meeting took this matter up and sought some minimal criteria for membership. Without such criteria the distinction between member and non-member is a nonsense. With some such criteria our sense of fellowship would be strengthened.
David Heathfield
Comments
At the beginning of area meeting for worship for business this week, a Friend peered at my face closely, as though looking for something. I thought I had something unseemly and embarrassing stuck on it. Then she said, You really don’t look Jewish”. At the end of the same meeting, another Friend approached me and peering intensely and quizzically into my eyes said, “I don’t understand. From what you say I just can’t believe you are one of them (an atheist). You say things that I would say myself”. It may time for Friends to review their assumptions about a lot of things.”
By miriam on 14th June 2011 - 0:06
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