Reframing our thinking
Jeanne Warren considers the words ‘religion’, ‘transcendent’ and ‘personal’
Language can become a barrier to thought and communication rather than a facilitator of it. I think that three words –‘religion’, ‘transcendent’ and ‘personal’ –have each suffered this fate, and they need to be refreshed. While sensing the impatience that such a suggestion may bring, I nevertheless offer it for serious consideration.
In an age dominated by scientific ways of thinking, ‘personal’ has come to represent something inferior, less rigorous and less important, because it is so variable and hard to pin down. It is private, ‘my personal opinion’. But the word has another dimension. John Macmurray, the Scottish philosopher and Quaker, pointed out over eighty years ago that what we often call an ‘objective’ attitude is really an ‘impersonal’ one. This points us to the other meaning of ‘personal’, as the opposite of ‘impersonal’.
In this broader sense, ‘personal’ refers to all the aspects of the world which are of most significance to us: our desires and fears, our relations to each other, our intentions, actions and painful dilemmas, and anything connected with meaning or purpose in our lives. Far from being less important, the personal is of the greatest possible importance to us, far more so than the expertise that we have developed in managing the impersonal aspects of the world, though that is important too.
‘Religion’ is about the personal aspect of our lives – in this broader sense of ‘personal’. Individuals vary in the interest they take in their interior lives, from the deeply mystical to the wholly practical. But all are persons, all have choices to make in how to live, and all suffer the effects of others’ bad choices. This is the varied and centrally important realm of religion. It is about how we live together on this earth, as well as how we live with ourselves. It is of concern to everyone, and of specialised concern to some.
Historically, religions have developed over time and been conserved in outdated forms. It is an understandable mistake, but a mistake nevertheless, to restrict the term ‘religion’ to whatever form we knew in our youth – whether as participant or antagonist. There is in our religious life a capacity for development. Religion that has become the private concern of a few or, at the opposite extreme, a collective quasi-political movement, has lost its way. Without the more general understanding of the term, religion has no room to grow. And we need it to grow, to mature beyond where it is now. It must not lose its roots, but we need to be willing to lop off diseased branches. Discerning which is which can be more difficult than with a tree.
The term ‘transcendent’ is another impediment, often associated with the word ‘God’. It is a mistake to locate the ‘transcendent’ outside ourselves. All of us have the capacity of transcendence. We can get outside ourselves and look at our situation, while remaining in it (immanence). If we did not know this in ourselves we could not attribute it to God. Our ability to imagine what does not exist is a god-like creative capacity but one which we commonly experience.
Experience was one of the key emphases of early Friends, who rejected ‘notions’ and proclaimed what they ‘knew experimentally’ as George Fox put it. Because we are inter-personal beings we know in everyday experience how we are affected by what is beyond ourselves, ‘beyond’ being another understanding of the term ‘transcendent’.
Sometimes the effect can be profound, as when we feel we are saved by the love of another person. Sometimes the effect seems to come from somewhere unseen but still felt. This does not happen to everyone but should not be dismissed for that reason. If we reflect on our own experiences, we are likely to pay more attention to those of others. None of this is ‘magic’ or otherworldly. It is part and parcel of the personal.
With this framework, of a religious realm in our personal life that helps us to reflect on the transcendent, as well as the more mundane in our experience, I think we are better equipped to talk about the way forward for Quakerism.
