The testimonies: a theological muddle?
John Lampen attempts to unravel some tangled threads
Roger Hill (letters, 6 May) challenges us by suggesting that present-day British Quakers ‘have invented four testimonies… which have been raised to credal status’ creating ‘a theological muddle’. He finds our present concepts of peace confused, truth and simplicity insincere, and equality unbiblical; so the four ‘fail the test of religious truth’.
I am not alone in sharing Roger’s doubts about the way we have recently been defining Quaker testimony in these four words. Ben Pink Dandelion wrote in his recent Pendle Hill Pamphlet Confident Quakerism, ‘I get worried about the shorthand lists of “the testimonies” we use today… First we need to remember these abstractions are creations of the last century. Until the late nineteenth century, Friends were against outward war and in favour of plainness, not peace and simplicity. Second, it seems we opt in and out of concepts such as “peace” and “simplicity” and, diffuse as they are, interpret them individually. Third, it seems we often forget the spiritual basis of testimony and perceive our testimonies merely as a set of values.’
But I profoundly disagree with Roger’s view that the testimonies have become the Quaker creed, just as I hope Ben would. There are two other ways of looking at them that I find more helpful. The first is as the sum of a set of actions we take, hopefully led by the Spirit, which witness to spiritual values. Thus the peace testimony is the presence of Elin Henrysson and Cathrin Daniel in Burundi, the Trafalgar Square vigils, the Cape Town Peace Centre, the Nagaland conciliation process, the development of peace education materials for children, Local Meetings’ work with asylum seekers and so on. It is also George Fox’s refusal to become a soldier, the constitution of Pennsylvania, John Woolman’s visit to the Indians in wartime, the attempt to avert the Crimean war, the Quaker conscientious objectors from 1914 to 1918, the work of the Catchpools in pre-war Berlin and a host of other past actions, remembered and forgotten. If we preached peace without these acts of witness it would, indeed, be a mere creed. Applying this test of faith in action, Roger is right to ask us whether ‘a testimony to simplicity… from a position of affluence… fails the test of truth.’
Second, look at the Quaker testimonies as agendas (a Latin word which means ‘things that need to be done’). This is a more helpful notion than creeds, reminding us that the work is unfinished. It allows for the way our efforts are revised in response to changing circumstances and new insights; consider how the testimony to simplicity is changing in the light of modern ecological awareness. The testimonies can indeed constitute, as Roger suggests, a liberal secular philosophy (which is why we find it easy to work on them with people of other faiths or none); but historically we came to them spiritually through our belief in the guidance of the Light that showed us these paths. I believe British Quakers, in general, still have the conviction that our witness must arise from our practice of worship.
The most visible testimony of the early Quakers was equality, which they showed in their plain language, simple dress and refusal of all forms of deference. I find it strange that Roger thinks this unscriptural. So many of Jesus’ sayings and stories contain attacks on prestige and prejudice. And it is magnificently summed up in Paul’s letter to the Galatians: ‘There is no such thing as Jew and Greek, slave and freeman, male and female: for you are all one person in Christ Jesus’.
So thank you, Roger, for compelling us to think. But please don’t lose sight of the spiritual faithfulness, which I have found (not least on Quaker Peace & Social Witness Central Committee) still largely underpins our witness in the world.
