Thought for the Week: What canst thou say?

David Parlett writes about words and meanings

by David Parlett 12th June 2015

In the opening worship on the Saturday morning of Yearly Meeting I was more than a little disturbed to hear a Friend in ministry assert, with apparent pride, that ‘As Quakers we have no creed or doctrine’.

It is true that we have no creed, but misleading to claim that we have no doctrine. Paradoxically, in so far as asserting that no creed means we do not summarise our faith in a set and unalterable form of words, the fact that we have no creed is itself part of our doctrine; for one of the many beliefs that unite us is that ‘the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life’.