Why Are We Here?

It's a question we often ask. Sometimes it's because we managed to go into Boots or Marks & Spencer during the lunchtime rush when there's no good reason we had to be there then. Sometimes it's when we're at a family gathering and realise that we're doing no good to ourselves or anyone else. That's not what I'm writing about now, though. I'm talking about it as an existential question.

Some people have put forth answers they believe to be spiritually inspired. The difficulty there is that these people have produced so many different answers. How to know which is right? In a sense, it is part of the overall question of religious “truth”, and I approach it in a similar way to that in which I approach general universalism. The inspiration is not there to give us the correct answer, but to give us the answer that will help us, at the time it is inspired.

Repentance and Forgiveness

Like much of our spiritual experience, the Quaker
confessional is inward.

Once upon a time, I habitually listened to Radio 4. For the Americans, this is broadly similar to NPR – I don't know a good point of comparison for any other countries. Basically, it's one of the nine “mainstream” national radio stations from the BBC (there's also a tenth specifically focused on British Asian communities, and local stations for the nations and regions), and it's focussed on talk content. Comedy, drama, in-depth current affairs, that sort of thing. It's very popular with Quakers. If your Quaker community has a trope about ministry coming from a radio station, we have the same thing with Radio 4.

In the last few years, I've listened to Radio 4 less and less. While it has some wonderful content that isn't related to current affairs, there's a huge amount that is – and current affairs has gotten rather depressing lately. It would be quite bothersome to put it on just for the programmes we want and change station every time a news bulletin comes on. Not that we avoid all news; we follow a lot of news online, consuming it when we want to, on our terms. Managing mental health is very important.

Memento Mori

If Pascal were a (liberal) Quaker?

Remember you must die, life cries;
Your days shall end and then,
What shall you say you've done with life?
What account shall you keep?

What then shall come beyond this life?
It's clear that none can say.
Rewards may come for good deeds done,
Chastisement for your wrongs.

Maybe reward shall just depend,
On where you've placed your faith.
How then to choose among the range,
Of paths you see arrayed?

If there shall be a judge anon,
Selecting the elect,
There is little that can be done,
But hope that they are fair.

The Spiritual and Moral Imperative of Outreach

It is not enough for the door to be open. People
need to know it is there, and have some idea
about where it might lead.

I have often bemoaned the tepid attitude to outreach among many liberal Quaker Meetings, especially here in my home Yearly Meeting in Britain. There is, perhaps, more enthusiasm centrally, but in many Local and Area Meetings, it is not something that people put a great deal of thought or energy into. There are those Meetings that do go at it wholeheartedly, of course, and I applaud them for it.

Some of the arguments for greater outreach that I see – in fact, if I'm honest, most of them – focus on the fact our numbers are dwindling, and that there is a practical need to get more people involved in our Meetings. I feel there should be more attention given to the spiritual imperative for outreach, and so that is what I will be presenting in this post.

For the many denominations commonly considered evangelical, there is a clear justification for their work to bring others to their faith, and the insistent persuasion, sometimes veering into badgering, that they tend to employ. The Great Commission of Matthew 26, for those who do not believe it to have been fulfilled (preterism being a fascinating subject that I might return to on an occasion that I feel like doing more research into Christian stuff), is a clear injunction that does not seem unreasonable to consider to have been passed on to the whole Church. From that point of view, attempting to cause as many people as possible to become Christians is perfectly logical, however irritating some might find it. Some Christian or Christian-derived groups even hold the conversion of others to give one some sort of credit with God, to ensure a better result in the afterlife.

For that matter, in any faith – whether Christian or not – in which there is an idea of “salvation”, of a good or bad outcome after death that is largely determined by right belief (and perhaps right action as well), there is a clear moral imperative to at least give as many people as possible the opportunity to come to that right belief and to understand how they should act, and why. Repugnant as some of the acts it was used to justify over history might have been, there is a logic of compassion in trying to bring people “to God” in such a framework.

A Quaker Christmas

As I described in my previous post regarding Halloween, Quakers have a traditional testimony concerning times and seasons, that different days and different times of the year not have liturgical significance. However, as I also set out in that post, we can see value and benefit of festivals without ascribing them inherent religious significance.

In this post, I shall be applying the same approach to Christmas, and all of the things that go with it, both liturgically and culturally – advent, epiphany, even the secular new year celebration.

A Quaker Halloween

It's a strange idea, isn't it? After all, the traditional Quaker testimony against keeping of times and seasons holds that there is no spiritual significance to any day. Quakers do not, traditionally, take liturgical notice of Christian seasons and festivals, be it Lent or Advent, Easter or Christmas. How then can we have a Quaker Halloween, a festival that is now of limited liturgical significance even to mainstream Christian churches.

There's more to Halloween than the lack of liturgical significance, however, and more to Quaker approaches to Christmas and Easter than their lack of liturgical significance for us. The important aspect of many of these festivals is now, in the global economic north, cultural. Practising members of many faiths will celebrate elements of such holidays, giving presents and attending parties.

The Irrelevance of Life After Death

An aspect of diversity of belief among British Quakers, that we discuss less than most others, is the question of what happens after we die. There are likely several reasons for this, including that, for some, that belief is very important, and challenging it strikes deeply at their life and, perhaps, what helps them to maintain hope.

However, it strikes me that the greatest reason is a distinction in the Quaker motivation to right action. In rhetoric at least, many mainstream – especially, but not only evangelical – Christian churches, it is common to talk about the promise of heaven as a motivation to right action, or at least avoidance of wrong action, or at least for full and frank confession. In my time among Liberal Quakers, I have not seen or heard that used, rhetorically or conversationally. Rather, we see that we should do what is right, what the spirit urges, what love requires of us, simply because it is right – or indeed, that we cannot do otherwise, when the leading is sufficiently strong. We do it because of our conviction that it will lead to a better world, and that if all acted as we did, it would be a wonderful result. We do this because if we will not, who will?

I do not mean by this that we are morally superior to mainstream Christians. I don't even know what it would mean to be “morally superior”. It is, however, a difference, and one not unique to us; there are certainly those among many denominations, and many other faiths, who see right action in this way, as do many humanists. It is, however, more consistent among Quakers than any other faith group I have known.

Thus, the idea of what happens after we die, of life after death, of eternal reward and punishment, is something we do not speak of much – simply because it is seldom of relevance to our decisions and actions.

Written September 2017