A while back, in Local Business Meeting, my
Meeting heard about concerns voiced by members of a reading group.
They had recently read and discussed Derek Guiton's A Man that
Looks on Glass, which led them
to question the impact of the increasing (or increasingly visible)
open presence of non-theists within our Meetings. There was concern
that non-theists did not believe in an external divinity, and thus
how they could believe in divinely inspired ministry or the seeking
of divine guidance in worship for business. That non-theists wanted
to change the Religious Society of Friends to fit their views, rather
than the traditions and experiences of the Society so far.
It is not the
first time I have come across concern about this among the Religious
Society of Friends, nor the first time I've come across it seemingly
prompted to Guiton's book. I shan't try to respond directly to the
book itself, not having read it, and I like to hope that the excerpts
I have seen quoted represent the most anti-non-theist parts of it.
However, as a non-theist Friend, I think I can respond somewhat to
the concerns people often appear to express in response to the book.
Non-theism doesn't have
any one, universally accepted, definition. It's fairly consistently
considered to be the complement of theism, but that in itself lacks
universal definition. I tend to work with the definition I was taught
in school – that theism describes any religious belief in which
there are one or more deities, that they posses what we might call
individual, personal identity, and that they are willing and able to
directly affect the world as we experience it every day. Some would
say that the god(s) must have created the world, or be omnipotent
etc. Still others would make the definition broader, rather than
narrower.
Personally, I use
the first definition given above, and it is on the basis of that that
I say I am not a theist, and thus a non-theist. Actually, I'm
something of a relatively hard agnostic when it comes to the nature
of the divine – I consider it ultimately unknowable, try though we
might. However, what things I feel comfortable saying about my own
conception of the divine would be that I do not consider it to have
personal identity, and I don't think that it directly affects the
mundane world. It affects us, to be sure, especially when we invite
it to do so in worship and discernment. It is part of each of us,
internal rather than external, but that Light in each of us can
connect with the Light in others in ways we cannot, or at least do
not, understand. Worship, be it plain worship or worship for
business, represents the attempt to unite the Light in each of us to
perceive it more clearly, as we do through ministry.
Now, I hope that
Friends would recognise that I don't fit the mould of non-theist that
raises concern. I believe in something that may be called divine,
even if it is part of us rather than something “beyond” us. I
find that the divine is able to guide us, individually and
corporately, and to transform us. Yet it does not fit the
characteristics that most people would assume if you said “god”,
let alone “God”, so I will not describe it as such, in the
interests of avoiding misapprehension.
While the details
vary, almost every non-theist Quaker I have communicated with is in
many ways similar. The precise details of how we conceive, or even
refer to, the divine varies. Some even attempt a relatively
materialistic explanation, that it is simply some part of our mind
that, like the unconscious, we do not understand much at all. Some
draw on concepts from other faiths to fit their description of it,
such as Buddha-nature.
Some maintain a non-theist conception of the divine yet identify as
Christian. With very, very
few exceptions, the non-theist Quakers I have known would still say
that there is something,
even if they reject trans-mundane identification of it, that we can
seek contact with, gain guidance from, and be transformed by.
Were there a large
influx of such non-theists into the Religious Society of Friends,
non-theists who merely went through the motions in Meeting for
Worship, and who viewed our business method as merely a modified form
of consensus decision making, I would be concerned. I have run into
one or two, from time to time. Where it has been appropriate, I have
expressed my own confusion about them, wondering “what are you
doing here?” Sometimes there has been no satisfactory resolution,
and sometimes we have each come to realise that our wildly different
conceptions are not as incompatible as we might think. Even among
those who openly say that they reject the idea of a supernatural,
trans-mundane divinity, those who staunchly stick to rationalist,
materialist interpretations, you may find that you simply have very
divergent ways of expressing and seeking to understand the same
thing.
Were anyone to be
plotting to subvert the Religious Society of Friends into becoming a
secular, irreligious social justice movement, I think they would find
themselves frustrated. Not by being found out and shown the door, not
by having their conspiracy revealed and being shamed, but by the
simple fact that it would not work. The ways of our faith, however
diverse our conception of the underlying reasons for them, are so
ingrained in our practices, our structures and our language, that no
slow change of decades could remove them. Perhaps in some smaller
Meetings, such a plot could gain headway, which would be awful for
the Friends already in such Meetings. Just as each Meeting is a
community of Friends, however, our Meetings form a community, too –
nationally and internationally. Such an attempt would not be like a
cancer or virulent disease, spreading from Meeting to Meeting as they
made contact. If one insists on such medical metaphors, it would be
like some harmless microbe, becoming isolated and frustrated in its
attempt to penetrate the organism. In practice, it is my opinion that
such people are more likely to be changed themselves, than to change
the Religious Society of Friends.
The real risk
this situation poses, in my opinion, is intolerance. No, I am not
saying that more traditional, conventionally religious Friends, whom
I shall refer to here as theists purely for brevity, must make sure
to tolerate non-theist Friends – though they have been doing so for
decades at this point, whether they knew it or not. No, while there
is a problem with unreasonable fear or distrust of the non-theist,
there is also a problem of the non-theist who is disdainful of
theists. I am sure we have all seen the contemptuous attitude to
religion expressed by some atheists, feeling themselves armed with
the works of Dawkins and Hitchens. People of faith are, to them,
delusional, or inferior, to those able to see the world “as it
really is”, who don't need an “invisible friend”.
Unfortunately, such an attitude is sometimes seen among non-theist
Quakers. They accept the validity of different approaches to the
divine, but think theirs is the best. That may be reasonable – I
imagine many theist Friends, whatever their theology, think their
approach is best. However, some insist on telling people that their
approach is better, that other Friends would be so much better off if
they cast off silly ideas like God or Jesus. They do not seem to see
that this is no different from more conservative Christian Friends
telling them that they would have a much better experience of the
divine if they accepted Christ.
Our theological
pluralism is a great strength. In it we have the opportunity to
explore the divine through many lenses, to understand it in many
ways, to be transformed more thoroughly. That means accepting thought
that is Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, pagan, and
non-theist – and that acceptance needs to come from us all. Our
corporate expressions can reflect each of these things, without
needing every expression to be compatible with all of them at once.
Adapted from a piece written for Leadings, the Local Meeting Newsletter Supplement of Lancaster Local Meeting. Original published December 2016, this adapted version composed at time of posting.
