Fancy Gap Friends Fellowship

Most folks know that Barclay’s Apology is as close as Quakers come to having a book of theology.  A contemporary of George Fox, Robert Barclay took what early Quakers were practicing and preaching and write it all down in a systematic and orderly way.  Reading it now we have no real concept of how radical it was in late seventeenth century England.  But Proposition 2, Inward and Unmediated Revelation, struck at the very heart of the way church was being done, not just in England, but in all of Europe.

Fox first experienced that inward revelation when after a long search, he records in his journal, “ then I heard a voice which said, ‘there is one Christ Jesus that can speak to thy condition’, and when I heard it my heart did leap for joy.”  Fox’s introduction to Christ did not come through going to church or hearing a preacher, or even through reading the Bible, but through a voice that spoke directly to him.  It was inward, because he heard it in the depths of his heart and soul, and it was unmediated because it was spoken directly to him.

And this was the message that Fox began to preach, not that it was possible, but that it was necessary for every man and woman to leave off all the outward trappings of religion and listen for this voice speaking in their own selves.  Fox called it the Light of Christ or that of God in every person.  And as he preached it, people responded from all walks of life – the nobility, the gentry, merchants and farmers and mill workers, even servants, the rich and the poor, the well educated and the uneducated.

And in the last half of the seventeenth century, Quakerism became the fastest growing religious movement in the world, but not just because Quakers were preaching the gospel as some claim.  All churches were doing that in one form or another.  What was different about the Quaker message was the idea that each person could hear God speaking to him or her in their own heart, and that this ever present Spirit would guide them into all truth, just as Jesus had promised, inwardly and without a mediator.  “Christ has come to teach his people himself,” Fox proclaimed, so there was no need for religious rituals or college educated ministers, or even church buildings.  According to Fox, church buildings were only steeple houses.  The church was the people in whose hearts Christ lived by faith.

Those early converts went everywhere sharing this good news, that there was that of God in every person and they didn’t need rituals or ceremonies, or to be baptized or join the church or swear to any creed, all they had to do was listen to the Voice within.  For obvious reasons, the religious establishment feared the Quakers and tried to silence them.  Writing in 1656, John Bunyan the author of Pilgrim’s Progress accused the Quakers of promoting the idea of “universal grace” and denying the historic Jesus.

There was also a great deal of opposition to the Quaker belief in total equality.  In early Quaker meetings, the rich and the poor, servant and master worshiped side by side.  And a message from God could come through anyone even the illiterate. The belief in that of God in every person was the great equalizer.

The thing that got Quakers in the most trouble probably was this notion of unmediated revelation.  Most churches believed that the Bible was God’s revelation and that it was on its pages alone that God provided guidance and inspiration and either mistrusted or refused to believe that the Spirit of God still spoke to men.  In response to this, Barclay said, “ take away the Spirt from Christianity, and it is no more Christianity than a corpse is a man once the soul and spirit have departed.”

Barclay quoted Dr. John Smith of Cambridge who wrote these words:

To seek our divinity merely in books and writings is to seek the living among the dead; many times we vainly try to find God in these, where His truth is too often not so much enshrined as entombed.  Intra te quaere Deum – seek God within your own soul.  He is best discerned by an intellectual touch of him.  We must see with our eyes, and hear with our ears, and our hands must handle the word of life -to express it in St. John’s words, the soul itself has its own sense as well as the body. And that is why David, when he wants to know what divine goodness is, calls not for speculation but sensation.  “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 30:8). The best and truest knowledge of God is not that which is wrought by the labor and sweat of the brain, but that which is kindled within us, by a heavenly warmth in our hearts.

   Inward and unmediated revelation is part of the DNA of Quakerism.  It is an integral part of who we have been for hundreds of years.  It is part of our birthright as Friends.  But it is not easy because it outs the responsibility for our spiritual growth and development right where it belongs-within each one of us.  It is so much easier to blame our lack of spiritual development on a church or a minister.  It is so much easier to pattern our lives on the written words of God in black and white in the Bible than to trust the Word that lives within us.  In the Old Testament, Esau sold his birthright for something that looked more appealing at the moment.  I hope that we as Friends never do the same.

For many the day after Thanksgiving traditionally kicks off the Christmas season. Shopping malls and department stores expect Christmas shoppers to make it the busiest and most profitable day of the year for them. Some radio stations begin playing only Christmas music 24/7. Many churches will start their advent celebration this Sunday as they once again focus on the story of a virgin and a journey, shepherds and angels, wise men and stars, and a baby in a manger – details we get from two of the biblical accounts of the life of Jesus. One of the other writers, John, gives us the short version in one verse:

The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one of a kind glory, like Father, like Son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish.

John 1:14 (The Message)

The theological term is Incarnation. The dictionary defines the verb to incarnate as 1) “to give a body, especially a human body to, 2) to personify, or represent in concrete form.” And according to John, that’s what God did. He took on a human body and came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ.

As most of you know, I recently spent a few days in San Antonio at the National Friends Pastors Conference. I went primarily for one reason -I wanted to hear the speaker. I have read several books and articles by Leonard Sweet and have been stimulated and challenged by what he has to say. This morning I want to share with you one idea that I picked up at the conference. And actually it wasn’t a new idea, but a reminder of something I already knew that had sort of gotten lost somewhere along the way. I think that it’s something that is extremely important for us as individuals and as churches to consider, particularly at this time of year as we think about Christ’s coming to earth. Sweet talked about some changes that need to take place in how we understand church and ministry if we are going to follow Christ’s example of how to reach people with the good news of his coming. And he gave us a quick and easy way to remember them as he talked about the MRI of a church.

The “m” stands for missional and represents a radical change in the way we “do church.” For some time now, our approach to reaching the world has been attractional or event/program oriented. The idea was that if we put up an attractive building in the right location with all the right events and programs, and the right catchy little phrase on the marquis, people would come. It worked, but only for a while. It’s really the idea we’ve talked about before – that we want to bring people into the kingdom of God, rather than put the kingdom of God in people.

The same was true in Jesus’ time. There was a building (the temple) where people came to worship. Jesus spent very little time there, however. Instead he spent his time invading the non-temple culture around him, reaching out in love to those who either would not or could not enter the temple. That’s what it means to be missional – to invade the world around us with the love of God, demonstrating it to everyone we can in any way we can.

The “r” is for relational. It’s the idea that the bond that really holds church fellowships together is relationships. In the past, we tried to build church fellowships based on common beliefs, a common creed, or common core values and principles. That’s what we thought created community. Brian McLaren says we have often confused community with affinity. The closest social groupings – family, friends and neighbors are held together by their relationships.

We find the same thing to be true among Jesus’ disciples. One brother told another, a friend told a friend. People don’t come to church to build relationships – they come to church because they already have relationships. The very first thing I ever read by Leonard Sweet spoke very strongly to me. He said when God wanted us to know him, to know his heart, “ he didn’t send us a proposition – he sent us a person.” So the gospel was relational from the beginning.

The “I” is for the word we talked about earlier – incarnational.
Jesus wants our lives to become a temple in which God can dwell so we can become the living story of Jesus to people around us. That’s what incarnation is about – not more information about God, but more indwelling of the Spirit of God.

And that’s what incarnation is really all about, making God visible in the world. Philip Gulley told a story about making God visible at a conference I attended a couple of years ago in Nashville.

Joanna, a mixed race woman lives in South Africa. Because she is of mixed racial heritage, she was considered “coloured” and experienced the same discrimination as did blacks in that country. After spending several years helping in the struggle against Apartheid, Joanna decided to take on the most violent prison in South Africa where Nelson Mandella had been imprisoned for eight years. The inmate population was controlled by prison gangs. New arrivals gained admittance to the gangs by commiting acts of violence on demand against those whom the gangs targeted. Prison authorities who had little concern or sympathy for the inmate population generally “looked the other way” and did nothing to stop or even deter the violence.

Alone this attractive young woman started going each day into the bowels of that prison. She brought a simple message of forgiveness and reconciliation, trying to put into practice on a smaller scale what Nelson Mandella and Bishop Tutu were doing to effect the nation as a whole. She organized small groups, taught trust games, and got prisoners to open up about the details of their horrific childhoods. The year before she began her visits, the prison had recorded 279 acts of violence, the next year there were only 2. Joanna’s results were so impressive that the BBC sent a camera crew from London to produce 2 one hour documentaries on her.

I met Joanna and her husband who has since joined her in the prison work at a waterfront restaurant in Capetown. Ever the journalist, I pressed her for specifics on what had happened to transform that prison. Her fork stopped on the way to her mouth, she looked up and said almost without thinking, “well of course, Philip, God was already present in the prison. I just had to make him visible.”

Our job is not to take Christ to the world; he’s already there. God is already present in the lives of the people we come in contact with everyday, and may have even been working in their lives without their being aware of it. As we enter this Christmas season, the best way to celebrate his incarnation is to make him visible to those around us.

Do you ever wonder what the outside world sees when it looks at followers of Jesus? I think to our shame it’s not a very pretty picture. Over the past few years, I have been in a number of meetings where people have felt compelled to stand up for Jesus on a variety of issues which seems to be a euphemism for screaming and pounding on pulpits and condemning those who are not in agreement with them theologically. And we certainly know from history that this is a time honored approach that has done wonders for the kingdom of God.

And Jesus is our role model, right? So just like it says on our bracelets, we want to do what Jesus would do. After all, it says in the book of John that God sent his Son into the world to condemn the world, right? Oh, no-wait it says “God sent His son into the world NOT to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” Who thought that one up -like it’s really going to work. How will people know they are wrong if we don’t condemn them? If we were in their position, wouldn’t we want to be condemned? Would we not be totally overpowered by the love of God as they screamed at us and called us names?

We have a responsibility as believers to point out the error of people’s ways. And they have a responsibility not to return the favor. That would just be name calling. We have to stand for truth, and when people don’t accept that, we have no choice but to separate ourselves from them. We have historical precedent on our side. In the middle ages, people divided themselves over important issues like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Then we digressed into things like different understandings of baptism and communion, works versus grace, free will versus predestination, the role of women in ministry, and a host of other issues that called for us to separate ourselves and put up walls to keep out those infidels who would destroy our faith by holding a different viewpoint than our own. Those walls were critical for our survival.

Paul talks about building walls in my King James Bible, and you know you really can’t trust those other versions, but Paul actually used the King James in his travels, so naturally, it’s right in there. And yes there are folks who say the King James was translated in the seventeenth century at the bidding of a bisexual king, but we all know that’s a weak attempt to discredit the real Bible. And it doesn’t change the fact that Paul talks about Jesus building walls. Hmn -actually Paul talks about Jesus tearing down the walls of partition between us.

Even so, we have to deal with those who are in error in their doctrinal understanding or social testimonies. The Bible plainly says that there will be a final judgement where Jesus will say to some people, “you believed the right stuff, come with me,” and to others He will say, “you had it all wrong, you’re out of here.” Whoops-wrong again. It actually says He will separate people on the basis of what they have done or not done for others -“inasmuch as you did it for the least of these my brothers, you did it for me.” It’s like He’s saying what you do is more important than what you say or believe, that standing up for Him is about doing for others. Now I ask you what would happen to religion if we all took that to heart?

There seems to be a great deal of discussion taking place of late about whether or not early Quakers were universalists. Many modern Friends struggle with or even reject what they perceive to be the exclusive claim of Christianity to be the only valid path to God, and they question whether or not there was something broader and more universal in the message of the early Quakers.
Quakers were universalists in the sense that they believed as Robert Barclay says, “there is an evangelical and saving light and grace in everyone, and the love and mercy of God toward mankind were universal both in the death of his beloved Son the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the manifestation of the light in the heart.” Barclay refers to the Light within, the seed of God, or that of God in every person as a universal saving principle. So early Friends were universalists in the sense that they believed there was that of God in each and every person.

They were not, however, universalists in the sense that we use the word today. They did not believe that every religion was a path to God. They in fact did not believe that any religion was a path to God. Fox himself makes the claim that he was called to bring people out of or off of the world’s religions and into “a new and living way.” And the religion Fox was calling people out of was not Islam or Buddhism, it was actually Christianity as it was being practiced in England by the Catholic church, the Church of England, the Puritans, and a variety of other dissenting groups. Fox found in all of the churches of his day a tendency to rely on the wisdom of the leadership, their traditions, or their own interpretations of the Scriptures rather than Christ himself.

For Fox and the early Friends, the issue was not whether or not a person claimed to be Christian or Muslim, it was whether or not they were “minding the Light”, following the leading of the Inward Christ. They understood as we sing in a Quaker children’s song “there’s a Light that is shining in the Turk and the Jew.” They also bore witness that this same Light was in the red man and the black man, and every other person that inhabited the earth, and that if followed, it would lead every man and woman into a vital, living relationship with God. Fox tells a story in his journal about an encounter he had with a Native American man while visiting in North Carolina that confirmed to him that the red man had the same light in his soul as he himself did.

Barclay says that while knowledge of the Scriptures is useful, a person can actually find and follow the Light within without having any outward knowledge of Christ’s life, death, or resurrection. The saving power is in the Light itself rather than the name by which it is called. Thus all people can come to know and be known by God, but not by following the teachings or practices of a particular religion. In fact, no matter what the religion, whether it be Islam, Buddhism, or Protestant Christianity, when its precepts are contrary to the guidance of the Christ within, we must follow the Light we have been given. So in that sense while there may indeed be some good in all religions, there is also that which is false and contrary to the Spirit of Christ in all religions that must be resisted. For the early Friends there was only one true religion and that was following the leading of the Christ within. It was both personal in the sense of individual guidance and leading, and at the same time universal in the sense that it was in the heart of every person.

William Penn expressed it this way. “The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious and devout souls everywhere are of one religion. When death takes off the mask, they will know one another though their various liveries make them strangers here.”

After thoughtful prayer and reflection, we feel compelled to respond to a question that was posed during our annual Ministry and Counsel session by one of the individuals about to become a recorded minister in North Carolina Yearly Meeting, “ if you people don’t agree with us, why do you want to be Quakers?”  We found the phrase “you people” troubling because such language not only immediately separates and divides, it also renders those so labeled as being “other”.   We also had some difficulty with the implication of the question, whether intended or not, that there is one agreed upon set of beliefs held by some in North Carolina Yearly Meeting that determines what it means to be Quaker.  There are several thousand people in the United States alone who call themselves Quakers but would not find themselves in unity with much of what was put forth as Quaker doctrine or Quaker understandings of spiritual truth during the Ministry and Counsel session.  So perhaps the proper answer to the question is that the reason we choose to remain a part of North Carolina Yearly Meeting is precisely because we are not in agreement, not only with some of the current beliefs and practices of North Carolina Yearly Meeting, but more importantly perhaps, not in agreement with the notion that any individual, monthly meeting, yearly meeting, or other entity has the right or authority to limit or reduce Quakerism to being made up of only those who share their own particular beliefs and understandings.

Our Yearly Meeting is diverse in many ways.  The clerk’s reference to Somerton Meeting during the opening devotion was a reminder that within our Yearly Meeting we have some meetings that can trace their beginnings back to George Fox’s visit to America in 1672.  We have meetings that were formed in the 1750′s by Quakers from Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware who followed the Great Wagon Road down the Shenandoah Valley to Deep River.  All of these meetings have a very deep and rich Quaker heritage and history of 150-200 years of active witness to the testimonies of Friends that predates the signing of the Richmond Declaration of Faith, or the adoption of the uniform discipline on which the North Carolina Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice is based.  Some of what these meetings stand for and have tried to articulate comes from their basic understanding of Quakerism developed as a part of that long, rich history.

From its very inception, the Quaker movement was based on the premise that there is “that of God in every man”, that which apologist Robert Barclay calls “the saving, spiritual light by which every man is enlightened.”  Early Friends bore witness to this truth experientially and affirmed it to be so, and Quakers have continued to recognize and re-affirm this as one of the great spiritual truths upon which our Society is founded, that there is that Light of God in every man and woman regardless of race or color, or creed or place of origin, or sexual orientation, or any other construct of man that seeks to label and divide humankind.

Robert Barclay, the great Quaker apologist, states very clearly in Proposition 6:.

There is an evangelical and saving light and grace in everyone, and the love and mercy of God toward mankind were universal, both in the death of his beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the manifestation of the light in the heart.  Therefore, Christ has tasted death for everyone -not merely for all kinds of men, as some foolishly say, but for everyone of every kind.  The benefit of his suffering is extended not only to those who have a well-defined outward knowledge of his death and sufferings, as those are declared in the scriptures, but even to those who by some unavoidable accident were excluded from the benefit of this knowledge. 

   We willingly admit that this knowledge is very beneficial and inspiring, but not absolutely necessary for those from whom God himself has withheld it.  For, if they allow his seed and light to enlighten their hearts, they may become partakers of the mystery of his death, even though they have not heard of it.

  Fox himself demonstrated his belief in this principle right here in North Carolina as he recounts in his journal.  In dealing with an argument from one who insisted this Light was only in white men, Fox asked a Native American whether or not there was something within him that caused him to feel sorrow when he had wronged another.  When he assented that there was indeed such a spirit within him, Fox declared it proof that there is indeed a universal and spiritual light in all men everywhere which if not resisted will lead to salvation.  William Penn expressed it in these words:

The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious, and devout souls everywhere are of one religion.  When death has taken off the mask they will know one another though their various liveries make them strangers here.

While this notion that those of other faith traditions can and do have relationships with God through the Light of Christ may sound a bit too much like universalism for some folks, it is clearly an understanding that was commonly held by early Friends.  As evidenced by their writings, early Quakers were in fact more comfortable speaking of  their religious experiences as a  turning toward the Light or minding the Light, than in the more traditionally Protestant terms upon which  some in our Yearly Meeting seem to insist.

Traditionally Friends have also had a differing understanding regarding the role of the scriptures in our lives.  Again turning to Barclay, we find in Proposition 3:

Nevertheless because the scriptures are only a declaration of the source and not the source itself, they are not to be considered the principal foundation of all truth and knowledge.  They are not even to be considered as the adequate primary rule of all faith and practice.  Yet, because they give a true and faithful testimony of the source itself, they are and may be regarded as a secondary rule that is subordinate to the Spirit, from which they obtain all their excellence and certainty.  We truly know them only by the inward testimony of the Spirit, or as the scriptures themselves say, the Spirit is the guide by which the faithful are led into all Truth.  Therefore according to the scriptures, the Spirit is the first and principal leader.  Because we are receptive to the scriptures, as the product of the Spirit, it is for that very reason that the Spirit is the primary and principle rule of faith.

  Whatever conclusions our Yearly Meeting may have reached in the past regarding the authority of Scripture, the fact remains that the Quakerism of Fox, Penn, and Barclay and other early Friends was not based on the primacy of the scriptures, but instead what Fox termed “that of the Spirit which gave them forth.”  It is difficult to understand how anyone could read Barclay as we would hope all Friends do and come away with any different interpretation or understanding.  Even our own Faith and Practice says:

The Canon of Scripture may be closed, but the inspiration of the Holy Spirit has not ceased.  We believe there is no literature in the world where the revelation of God is given so fully as in our New Testament Scriptures . . . We feel them to be inspired, because they inspire us, we go to them for guidance because as we read them we feel our eyes are being opened and our spirits kindled.  We search them because “They are they that testify of me.”  It is the living Christ we want to find, the eternal revealer of the will of God.  It is the spirt behind the letter that we need.

While there seem to be many in North Carolina Yearly Meeting who feel the need for some kind of creed or confession around which Friends can unite, Quakerism has from its very beginning been a non creedal movement seeking unity through the Spirit of God rather than a set of theological statements.  There are those among us who regard the Richmond Declaration as a kind of creed or series of doctrinal statements that defines what it means to be a Friend.  There are others among us who feel that the Richmond Declaration is a snapshot of who Friends were in 1887 that may or may not be an accurate reflection of who we as Quakers are now, nor of who Quakers were prior to that era,  basically because growth and change and new understandings of Truth are healthy.  The forward to our own Faith and Practice says:

A religion based on truth must be progressive.  Truth being so much greater than our concept of it, we should ever be making fresh discoveries.

As we look over the history of Quakers, it appears that virtually every split or schism in the Society of Friends has been brought on by those who claimed to be “orthodox” and refused to continue in fellowship with those who in their opinion were not. Alan Jay in his autobiography has some very harsh, but very true things to say about the divisions that have separated Friends during their history, specifically that no split has ever advanced the kingdom of God, nor has any division however justified it might seem, shown the world the one great witness Jesus said would be readily visible among his followers, “by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, that ye love one another.”

We have recently witnessed the results of one group of Friends trying to impose their understandings on others in the struggle Western Yearly Meeting has gone through and have just this week heard that with great sadness Indiana Yearly Meeting has announced an imminent split in their Yearly Meeting due to their inability to work through theological and social differences. It is our hope and our prayer that North Carolina Yearly Meeting-FUM will not be the next to fall prey to such a division.

Finally, we would offer this as our response to the question. We are all here because we believe Quakerism is for us the best and most fitting expression of our understanding of who God is, as well as who we are, and the relationship between God and all humankind, as well as our relationship to one another, and to all living things.  We all seek to follow the Light and leadings of Christ  as they have been revealed to us to the best of our understanding, and we all have work to do for the furtherance of God’s kingdom here among us. As we pursue this work of the Kingdom in accordance with the various ways we are called and the diverse ministries to which we have been led, may we all hold one another tenderly and gently in an atmosphere of mutual love, respect and tolerance as becomes those who call themselves followers of the One who showed us by example what it means to love.