‘For me it need not and should not be “just” anything.’

There are a whole host of reasons to prefer a multi-layered spiritual identity. Peter Varney and Andrew Norman, both Anglican priests, reflect on what Quakerism means to them.

The current Viking exhibition at Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery has carvings combining Odin with Christian symbols. The merging of the two religions continued after the Vikings settled here. As other religions encountered Christianity in Africa, Asia and the Americas in later centuries, many of their followers found ways to continue to value their inheritance while practicing Christianity.

My research in the Malaysian state of Sarawak in Borneo has been among the Iban, the largest ethnic group among the indigenous peoples there. They have formed an identity which embraces both Christianity, brought by European missionaries, and traditional religion. The Iban show disinterest towards the traditional Christian focus on individual salvation, but have a rich religious practice, celebrating both the Christian festivals and their own community rituals. Many attend and participate in ceremonies, such as making a food offering to the spirit world and then sharing a meal. They think of the spirits as expressions of the Divine. A dynamic multi-layered identity has emerged as the Iban have recreated their own supportive communities within church congregations, even outside Malaysia, and engaging in social action which flows from their sense of caring for the natural world.

Another experience has been my encounter with Yoruba religion, as a researcher at University of Ibadan. In Nigeria and the Americas the practice of this ancestral religion continues. Its multi-layered identities challenge the exclusivist Christian teaching that ‘the way, the truth and the life’ is only through Jesus Christ.

In North America, as African Americans connect and learn from their ancestors’ beliefs, they become aware that claims of theological truth cannot be based on simple notions of identity. While there are no limitations on the nature of the Divine Being, there are limitations on the human understanding of God.

Renée Hill, an African American Episcopalian priest working in the Bronx, has written of her discovery of Yoruba traditions in the journal Modern Believing. She engaged with people who were healed, supported and protected by the Yoruba expressions of the Divine, the Orisa. She made her own relationship with Orisa, who she says protect and guide her to fulfil her purpose in this world.

Quakers in Britain also have multi-layered religious identities. We embrace nontheistic and universalist ideas, varied expressions of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and more. We feel that belief and practice are formed individually and can never be decided or dictated by others.

For more than twenty years I have juggled between my role as an Anglican priest and a member of the Religious Society of Friends and I have realised that I was probably never going to be able to opt definitively for one or the other. What has been important for me has been to recognise that both traditions look back to the time of Christ, that they are committed to living out God’s call and acknowledge the doubts and uncertainties that are part of a life of faith.

Perhaps the key is our spiritual practice; that which gives life in all its fullness, promoting our whole wellbeing, and the wellbeing and wholeness of those we love. As we bring into God’s light our emotions, attitudes and prejudices, as advised by number 32 of our Advices & queries, we can embrace ritual, reflection, rest, work and play.

From this short look at the tenaciousness of the indigenous peoples of the world to their own world views, and the way Quakers embrace multi-layered religious identities, the strength of the application of faith and belief is affirmed. May we continue to follow the fifth of the Advices & queries and ‘take time to learn about other people’s experiences of the Light’.

Peter Varney

Sitting in a café the other day I overheard a conversation about Brexit. ‘We just need to be free to get on with our own British ways – and to make our own trade deals.’ It was the word ‘just’ that for me hung in the air over the hubbub. The simple option of independence feels attractive. Meanwhile the evidence mounts up that for the UK just to do its own thing will be disastrous for all concerned.

Forty years ago I was ordained in the Church of England as a priest. But four years ago I decided that I just wanted to become a Quaker. Finally it was with the Religious Society of Friends that I felt at home. So let that be my chosen option. Soon I would be retiring and then completely free to act on that choice. My Area and Local Meeting welcomed me warmly and, I felt, understood where I was coming from (I wasn’t the only Anglican traveller there). I tried to make a proper commitment, and to balance that with my duties as a vicar. In private I would say: ‘Look, I really want just to be a Quaker now.’ But then the evidence started to mount up that it would not be so easy for me just to do my own thing.

The simplicity of Quaker worship was a blessed relief after so many years of having to stand at the front and lead services. I began to realise I felt burnt-out in that. But I found that the liturgy had shaped my inner landscape, and that I actually had no desire to abandon its profound drama, for example, in Holy Week. Appreciating the silence in Meeting I discovered that experiencing its settling and sense of presence was exactly what I loved about the Mass. At the heart of my disenchantment with Anglicanism was coming to feel that beliefs and creeds could only be symbolic and metaphorical expressions of the mystery of life. But in the Society of Friends I found the freedom to re-appropriate them as that – while feeling troubled about our exploration of how far Quaker inclusiveness can be stretched and the question of what would happen to us if we effectively lost touch with our Christian roots.

Eventually I asked for a Meeting for Clearness to clarify my muddle. The message was clear. For me it need not and should not be just anything, but both Anglican and Quaker. I was reminded of how Roger Schütz, founder of the ecumenical Taizé Community had said: ‘I found my own Christian identity by reconciling within myself the faith of my origins with the mystery of the Catholic faith, without breaking fellowship with anyone.’ Our world is
full of people who want to do their own thing. It tears us apart and imperils our future. Are we not prompted as faith communities urgently to model the testimony that it is rarely just anything, but usually both/and?

Now I have been asked, as a Quaker and an Anglican, to contribute to a diocesan day of prayer for the Church in Wales this coming summer. Please might I ask for any insights from Friends as I start to prepare my presentation? If you have dual membership, or if you have more decisively moved completely from Anglicanism now to being a Quaker, is there anything you might share with me about how that feels to you? Anything would be helpful, and complete honesty is fine, as is your anonymity if preferred.

Andrew Norman
Andrew can be contacted via the Friend.