Thought for the Week: What canst thou say?
David Parlett writes about words and meanings
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’.
Could our Friend have mistaken the meaning of the word? Doctrine is nothing more than ‘that which is taught’. If, as Quakers, we have no doctrine, then we have no message – in which case we have nothing to teach. Quaker Quest is a pointless exercise, and the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre a waste of space.
But such is not the case. If anyone asks what our doctrine is, we need only put a copy of Advices & queries in their hand and, when they have absorbed that, Quaker faith & practice. Almost every sentence of both publications is a statement of what we ‘teach’ in one form or another.
Or did the Friend who spoke simply get his vocabulary muddled up? Perhaps when he said ‘doctrine’ he was thinking of ‘dogma’, which is not merely a statement of belief or doctrine, but, by definition, one which members of a religious community are expected to avow without question. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as:
‘1. An opinion, a belief; specifically, a tenet or doctrine authoritatively laid down, especially, by a church or sect. Also: an imperious or arrogant declaration of opinion.
‘2. The body of opinion, especially on religious matters, formulated or laid down authoritatively or assertively; systematized belief; tenets or principles collectively.’
As Quakers we do not lay anything down ‘authoritatively’ in the hierarchical sense of the word. Our authority comes from the leadings of the Spirit, and these proceed from the bottom up, not from a centralised top down.
Or, again, was he being misled by the pejorative associations of the related word ‘indoctrination’? The primary meaning of this word is only formal teaching, which is not really our scene because we tend to do most things informally anyway. But it has, in recent history, become tainted by association with so-called brainwashing: the enforcement of assent to things not truly believed. That, also, is not our scene.
Indeed, so much do we dread the dangers of indoctrination that we more readily go to the opposite extreme: we fail to impart any useful information about our beliefs and practices to those who would be only too willing to hear it.
There is a little badge you can get from Friends House that reads ‘I’m a Quaker – ask me why’. If we are to have the courage of our convictions – or convincements – we should all wear such a badge and welcome the question: ‘Why?’ In answer to which, Friend, what canst thou say?
Statements of belief
‘We do not in the least deprecate the attempt, which must be made, since man is a rational being, to formulate intellectually the ideas which are implicit in religious experience… But it should always be recognised that all such attempts are provisional, and can never be assumed to possess the finality of ultimate truth. There must always be room for development and progress, and Christian thought and inquiry should never be fettered by theory…
‘Among the dangers of formulated statements of belief are these: they tend to crystallise thought on matters that will always be beyond any final embodiment in human language; they fetter the search for truth and for its more adequate expression; and they set up a fence which tends to keep out of the Christian fold many sincere and seeking souls who would gladly enter it…’
True basis of Christian unity, 1917
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