Silhouetted figures against a bonfire at night. Photo: By Alessio Soggetti via Unsplash.
‘What canst thou say?’: Damian Entwistle on better understanding between theists and non-theists
‘Encounter presupposes risk.’
‘Any man who judges by the group is a pea-wit.’ Buster Kilrain, in Gettysburg, by Ron Maxwell.
‘We are all different. Don’t judge, understand instead.’ Roy T Bennett, The Light in the Heart.
As a participant at the Conference on the Future of British Quakerism, I heard something said in a small group session that startled me, somewhat. It was reported by more than one Friend that overtly Christian ministry, offered in their Meetings for Worship, was met with wry smiles or raised eyebrows. I was dismayed to hear it. It seems to me that this is something for elders to address. But I also wondered whether this might point to a wider consideration: is there a need for a conversation, among Friends, about how non-theist Friends are situated within the Society? How do we preclude the possibility that such Friends might be among us, but not of us?
Further to this: in December, Meeting for Sufferings received a report on the ongoing work to revise the book of discipline, and a question was posed about how the pluriformity of belief, found among Friends, might find expression in the revised book. The question noted the results of the Quaker Survey 2023, which indicated that the proportion of Friends identifying as non-theist is approaching twenty per cent. Meanwhile the number of Friends who believe in God is decreasing – fewer than half now do so.
These two concerns have been presenting themselves more forcefully to me, of late. I wonder whether they are so interwoven that in order to say anything useful on the one topic, we must fully engage with the other. I am confident that we can do this, as Friends, but I’m not sure how we might best accomplish it. Atheism is not a monolith (any more than Christianity) and the paths to it, and from it, and surrounding it, are manifold. Yet Advices & queries affirms our expressed intention to ‘know one another in things that are eternal’, so I think we might make a useful start by speaking and listening to one another with purpose; so that we might come to know, as we are known.
Theist and non-theist Friends cannot do this unless we encounter one another, and encounter presupposes risk. We must make ourselves vulnerable, alongside the other. This is a task for individual Friends, in individual Meetings, and only good can come of it, because our respective spiritual journeys, and our gathered Meetings, are a collective endeavour. Our way of worship, and our discernment, is founded upon this principle.
Making sense of one’s spiritual journey is the work of a lifetime, if it is accomplished at all. When I review my own, it seems scarcely credible to me, and certainly not predictable.
I set off on my spiritual trek sixty-three years ago, as a newly-baptised Catholic. That paradigm was my home for thirty-one years, the last five of which I spent as a friar minor (Franciscan). My spirituality (and much of my ministry in Meeting) is informed by that Christian formation, and by the particular life and example of Francis of Assisi. More recently, I have experienced some springs from the insights afforded by Sufi Islam.
When I stepped away from Catholicism, and embraced Friends, I was a fully-formed trinitarian Quaker, but as I continued on my way, that description became less and less applicable. I came to see the hand of God in many religions, and when particular faiths laid claim to exclusive possession of Truth, I was troubled by that. I could readily affirm that different faiths participated in a larger Truth, but not that any one of them had an exclusive claim on it. The more time I spent with this, the more readily I could discern new light from different sources. As time passed, and my journey continued, I began to find myself more and more uncomfortable in a paradigm where different faiths pointed (ultimately) to the same God (which insight I had previously been comfortable with, and nourished by). The prevalence of the Golden Rule no longer spoke to me unambiguously of many paths leading to one God but, rather, a repeated iteration of a universal human aspiration/insight.
‘Humans are more than we suppose ourselves to be.’
I sit in Meeting, now, as our one atheist Friend. When I awoke to the realisation that I’d unevolved into an atheist, I stepped away from Meeting for two years or so, because I could not find a way to situate myself. Where is the place in Meeting for Worship for someone who does not worship? I couldn’t answer the question, so I kept away. Friends remained solicitous and eventually I figured that they’d sooner see me in my accustomed chair, than have a standing order and an empty chair, so I resumed my attendance. By then, I’d found a way to resolve my perplexity, so it was a joyful, and serendipitous return. I explained my absence, Friends nodded sagely, and we moved on together.
So how might the repeated iteration of a universal human aspiration/insight present itself? To me, as the realisation that humans are more than we commonly suppose ourselves to be. That we have a (spiritual) capacity which recognises the good, that aspires to it, that goes out from self in search of it, that sifts the self to uncover it. One day, in Afterwords, I asked our oldest Friend what name we might give to ‘Meeting for Worship’, if it were not ‘Meeting for Worship’? There was a brief pause, then Margaret replied, ‘Meeting for Good’. It works for me. The repeated iteration speaks to me of encounters which unfold to us the ‘better angels of our nature’ (as Lincoln put it in his first inaugural address). Of encounters with ‘God’ which are encounters with our deepest, most authentic, selves. Where is the place in Meeting for Worship for someone who seeks such an encounter? Any chair they choose to occupy.
Although I have described myself as making a spiritual journey (and that’s an apt framing), my lived experience was not of intrinsic alteration, of exchanging one set of beliefs for another. It was (and continues to be) an experience of distillation, refinement, clarification; as if in a crucible. It seems to me (for all that my later state appears far removed from my first) that I continue to affirm what I have always affirmed. I stand in concentric (and overlapping) circles of encounter, extending further than I can apprehend. What is new is the (somewhat clumsy, and evolving) vocabulary that I have at my disposal to describe my experience. Wittgentstein asserted, ‘Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.’ He has a point, but we reach as far as we can (and a bit further?). Here I am; thirty-two years a Friend, alongside the same pilgrims, drawing living water from the same well, wearing a bemused expression and cradling an unfamiliar bucket.
Looking out from my Local Meeting, I wonder how we might encourage conversations among Friends, theist and non-theist? How we might affirm what we understand about ourselves as a pluriform Society? How that might find expression in the revised book of discipline? And how, once we have affirmed who we are to ourselves, might we frame that conversation with those who come among Friends?
Comments
There is another divide, between those who consider the theist/nontheist question really matters, and right is on one side (I have heard a few minister) and those who want us to “grow in depth and understanding and mutual respect”. From conversations, it often seems to me that our experiences of being moved are similar, and that our explanations of it are secondary.
The via negativa explores what God is not. I do not believe in God the “Father Almighty”. At one point I said, I am rationally nontheist and emotionally theist: I have a strong personal relationship with the God I do not believe in.
In the wider culture people group themselves in social media silos by differences of opinion, hotly asserted. Clickbait seeks to activate us. Quakers should not be seduced by this culture, but seek to be better listeners, as a countercultural witness to truth.
By Abigail Maxwell on 31st January 2025 - 8:41
“it often seems to me that our experiences of being moved are similar, and that our explanations of it are secondary.”
Thank you for putting that so well.
By Moyra Carlyle on 5th February 2025 - 2:09
J’entends la question ici posée, dans ce bel article, comme un dilemme entre la croyance et la foi. Les religions institutionnalisées, les dogmes, crédo et autres, tentent toujours de nous expliquer ce qu’est Dieu, de le qualifier. Bref, d’alimenter la croyance qui, comme toute croyance, flirte avec la superstition. Jésus dans le “Sermon sur la Montagne” ne s’est jamais aventuré à cela. Dieu est au-delà de tout ce qu’on peut décrire. Nous savons qu’Il est la source de tout, qu’Il est là, et cela devrait nous suffire. En fait, à mon sens, c’est l’humain qu’il faudrait qualifier, et par voie de conséquence sa relation à Dieu. Sa relation à Dieu, car il y en a une puisqu’Il est concevable, et cette relation ne fait pas de l’humain un vassal. Le Quaker a vu juste, vivre l’expérience de Dieu en soi, dans son intime le plus profond.
By Dominique BOILLAUD on 5th February 2025 - 8:27
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