Body language: Barney Smith has words

‘Quoting the spiritual experience of early Friends is not enough.’

Contemporary Quakers tend to put early Quakers on pedestals. This has been important as a way of separating Quakerism from evangelical Christianity of the Victorian era. Evangelicals and early Quakers did after all use the same biblical language, even if they made very different uses of it.

Biblical language is a wonderful concoction, especially as we had it in the King James version. The original texts include Bronze- and Iron-Age Hebrew, Aramaic, and the street Greek of Paul and the gospel writers. All this was rewritten into scholarly Greek and Latin, and then translated into seventeenth-century English, itself a relatively new hybrid of Saxon and French – the language we see in Shakespeare’s plays.

In the sixteenth century the Bible had become a stick with which to beat the Roman Catholic Church, becoming an authority in itself for the new ‘protestants’. For most early Quakers it was the only language available to describe their faith. But although they recognised the authentic voice of Jesus in the text, it was that voice that they considered an authority, rather than the text itself.

Early Quakers lived through a remarkable period of history. Charles I had had his head cut off; political reformers had been defeated by a combination of Presbyterians, gentry and merchants, who then tried to impose Presbyterian order, and were losing popularity as a result. Into this febrile world came Quakers, with a radical version of Christianity. With their own form of ‘end time’ belief that ‘Christ is come to teach his people himself’, they expected to convince everyone, even beyond Christendom. These Friends had the confidence of the ‘Christ within’, and were bolstered by the imagery of the Book of Revelations.

So they also had the historic opportunity of a country in ferment. No one was sure how things would pan out – but there was a common language for faith. Then, with the return of the monarchy and episcopalian Christianity, the conditions changed – and the style of the early Quakers changed in response. The prophetic movement (once assertive and dynamic) became a prophetic community with discipline and survival among its chief characteristics.

What I am saying is this: quoting the spiritual experience of early Friends is not enough to create a world-changing movement. There is a degree of uncertainty about our modern world, and in the west faith does not hold political power. But Mammon has a tight grip on our media and our politicians, and it seems beyond our wit to loosen it. The language of faith has become amazingly polyglot. The languages of science and sociology are more pervasive, and for most people the language of the Bible is foreign.

What we have in common with early Quakers is our humanity and its inherent spirituality. We share an emphasis on compassion, community and inclusivity. We express it in terms of the word ‘Love’. What we do not have is their particular circumstances of history and language – and we cannot turn back the clock.

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Comments

Quite the contrary. What we (are supposed to) have in common is a belief in - and a felt experimental experience of - the Inward Light of Christ. We have a thoroughgoing spiritual life, an ever-deepening relationship with God, in our ongoing striving to live Life by the Spirit (Gal 5:22-3). I confess to be puzzled what non-theist Friends are ‘harkening unto’, what the ‘still, small voice’ is, therefore, if it is not the Lord!

By markrdibben@gmail.com on 4th January 2024 - 14:17

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