Reflection on ‘Aphorism 4’ (Every Prejudice)

“Every prejudice that exists in your society is a part of you. To deny it is to refuse to fight it.”
– Aphorism 4

To me this ministry is a direct and clear challenge. Many of us, and Quakers not least, like to think that we are so enlightened and have moved beyond prejudice and bigotry. We like to tell ourselves comforting lies, and this is a key example.

It’s understandable. We can be so scathing of those who are blatant racists, so negative about employers with sexist policies or pay rates, so condemnatory of those who attack others for their faith, that it is a simple matter of psychological self-defence that we struggle to see the speck in our eye when we decry the beam in another’s. Yet while it may not be the degree of hypocrisy described in the Sermon on the Mount, still, it is hypocrisy.

I’d imagine that a lot of you got a little defensive at that, as well. At being accused not only of being prejudiced but hypocritical as well. Here’s the thing:

Generations

So your generation changed the world?
You protested war, camped at Greenham.
You fought in wars for freedom, or wars of imperialism.
You dodged the draft, you called for peace.

So your generation changed the world?
With the summer of love, you called for change.
The sexual revolution, women’s liberation.
You saw what could be, and worked to make it real.

Reflection on ‘Maxim 4’ (Fox is no authority)

“Fox is no greater authority than you or I, nor was his access to the true authority any greater than ours.”
–Maxim 4

I was not surprised that this one was controversial for some Friends. I suppose I wish I were surprised, but really I was more relieved that it seemed very few found it challenging.

George Fox is often spoken of as the founder of the Religious Society of Friends. He was certainly a charismatic leader (and for those into Christian theology, that applies in both the everyday and technical sense), and the proto-Quakers of the North West of England did coalesce around him. Yet it is in the very nature of what he taught – and he wasn’t the only one teaching it, mind you – that we not ascribe authority to other people. The message being shared by various spiritual teachers of the time, including Fox, was that we all had access to the ultimate source of teaching and authority. Not only did we not need intercessory priests, as asserted by Luther and Calvin, but every single one of us could sit down and find the still small voice within, and know some measure of God’s guidance and God’s will (at the time, there would have been no question as to whether or not it should be identified as such).