Losing our religion?

Neil Morgan and Piers Maddox, who have very different understandings of the role of God in the Society, have some things to get off their chest

‘How nontheists view discernment is giving me a headache.’

I have just finished reading Rhiannon Grant’s Telling the Truth About God (see review, 8 March). This humane, kind, thoughtful book makes use of ‘ordinary theology’ and the bottom-up (rather than top-down) ideas of the later Ludwig Wittgenstein to think about truth in religion. It takes further some thinking in recent publications around theology, prior to the revision of Quaker faith & practice.

With the suggestion ‘Don’t think, but look!’, Ludwig Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations (1953) developed the notion of ‘forms of life’, and of ‘language games’ to describe ways of conceiving the world. These ideas were elaborated, and made use of by others (such as DZ Phillips in Swansea) to develop a deeply engaged, passionate but philosophically reformed frame for religious experience. How we talk together defines and describes what we are talking about – and at the same time defines us in the way we speak. Much of this way of talking would make sense to many Quakers. So far so good – and interesting, and well described in the book.

What really surprised me, however, was to learn that even nontheists in our Society use the process of discernment: ‘As I learnt when I sat in on the AGM of the Nontheist Friends Network’, says Rhiannon, in her chapter ‘Not God’.

Now, discernment is a key Quaker spiritual act (it is short for spiritual discernment, an act of spiritual listening, of becoming attuned spiritually). At least that is my sense of it, my understanding of it. It is the way I speak, having listened.

I remember how, a few years ago, as a naive new attender at our Local Meeting, I was very glad to be taught about discernment and what it meant. I learned how important and different it was to ‘deciding’ or ‘agreeing’. This personal introduction to discernment came from a direct descendent of WC Braithwaite, the Quaker historian, who could therefore trace his Quakerism back to the seventeenth century. This ‘showing’ to me – what the Greeks called an aletheia – was a literal revelation to me (perhaps, in retrospect, a Revelation with a capital R!).

Discernment, as a central Quaker event, is not something that can be reduced to something else. It calls forth to us, and cannot be reduced. I have in mind, in terms of this ‘something else’, something entirely positivistic, naturalistic, merely psychological, and secular (such as, say, could be described by ‘empathic listening’, or ‘considering from all angles’.) Otherwise, it simply loses its unique meaning as a distinctly Quaker word, as part of the central and meaningful language game we all share, as Ludwig Wittgenstein would have said – what we commit to in our speech, in our actions, in our lives.

So what is happening here? Why, frankly, don’t members of the Nontheist Friends Network (NFN) just ‘listen empathically’ to each other? In addition why, after it has done that, doesn’t the AGM vote on decisions, which would seem the logical and rationally consistent thing to do (in the absence of any sense at all of God, that is)? It just does not seem consistent to me. What is going on here?

It seems bizarre to me, I have to confess. I came away from Rhiannon Grant’s excellent book with the intrusive, disturbing, and rather queasy image of a group of atheists – painting it starkly – deciding to take Holy Communion because they felt a bit peckish! (It’s not the author’s fault this happened to me, I know. I’m sure I may have gotten things wrong here, and I have never in my life taken Communion. But you can hopefully see where I am going with this. I am just trying to firm up our notion of discernment, and its central role in Quakerism.)

Derek Guiton, in his The Beyond Within (2017), writes passionately about the erosion of Quaker values in the last few years. He quotes, at the beginning of his book, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: ‘You can only see things clearly with your heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.’

This is part of discernment, through the heart, seeing through to the transcendent – to seeing, to sensing, to feeling, and connecting with God. Isn’t that the nature of discernment that is so central to Quaker identity?

How nontheists view discernment is giving me a headache. More accurately, it is giving me a real and profound heartache. The pain has not been taken away by my doubts about the process of revision, in the present climate, of Quaker faith & practice. Something is deeply wrong here in the Society of Friends. It is not discussed, and needs to be debated.

I hope that the disturbing image I have is wrong. Perhaps it is unfair of me to the nontheists in our Society. But I simply do not understand it.

Could Rhiannon or someone from the NFN please explain to me what they are doing when they are discerning – or at least what they think they are doing? I honestly look forward to hearing.

Neil is from St Albans Meeting.

***

‘Let’s not be tribal. No spiritual police. No exclusivist arrogance.’

I see the Sunday Meeting as an oasis where all should be free to come and drink. More than in George Fox’s time, there are now many possible sources of inspiration. We all have different conditioning. That of God in everyone goes by different names and crops up in the strangest places. Let’s welcome all who come to drink, even those we think misguided. Let’s not be tribal. No spiritual police. No exclusivist arrogance. Who are we to deny access to the well?

I understand the discomfort that can be felt when words or ideas jar with those that you cherish. But in seeking to exclude others you end up excluding yourself, from the challenge of diversity. If you have genuine bread of heaven you should want to share it widely, not keep it to yourself.

Nontheists (I dislike the word) are all different. I can only speak for myself. I realise that there’s a long tradition of Christian nontheism within Quakerism. I was raised atheist, but felt the power of transformation in later life. I saw a path to commit to, and found bliss. I was with Buddhists at the time. I didn’t feel there was a deity involved but I was aware that if I’d been raised differently I’d have thought it God-sent. There was no light involved, but it felt as if a spell was lifted. It was only after reading James Nayler that I grasped the ‘light illuminating path of truth’ analogy. Different words and images describing similar experiences. Whether you call the source of light God or a network of brain connections doesn’t matter. The way that you respond to the awareness is what counts.

What do I choose to worship/venerate? The impulse to act to make the world better. I seek to nurture that spirit within me and within the world, to do my bit, my best. Some call it a path of charity or loving-kindness, compassion as action, universal goodwill. As I see it, the best way to venerate that spirit is to live it. I guess it’s a hybrid Buddhist/Quaker thing.

I appreciate the usefulness of a sense of higher external power for transformation, for some. And I appreciate the transtheist notion of two modes of thinking. But the disempowering ‘I am helpless’ AA approach only works for some, and I understand that psychologists don’t recommend it. Boosting one’s sense of inner capability is healthier. You have everything you need inside yourself.

Of course, Quakerism has Christian roots, but the spirit of Quakerism is something greater, in my view. Plain speaking, practicality, resistance to fakery, and commitment to act for things higher than profit and pleasure are much needed in the world. But perhaps less ‘God on our side’, more ‘one people one planet’. Given that we know that we are an eco-footprint burden on this Earth the question arises, how do we each justify our life?

Let’s celebrate our diversity, share our different paths and understandings, and the commitments we make. To paraphrase something written in 1673 about hats, ‘true unity lies in diversity, false unity in uniformity’. Who knows, perhaps one day more people will come to say: ‘Once I was an atheist-buddhist-christian-muslim-jew pagan-other, but now I am a Quaker.’

Piers is from Totnes Meeting.

---

Comments

Please login to add a comment