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A Quaker Understanding of Jesus Christ, Part 3

© Arthur O. Roberts

3. A mind set that the self is sovereign. This mind-set blunts the early Quaker experience of the Light coming as terror and judgment before bringing assurance and peace. This enthronement of self-esteem makes penitence, discernment, submission to authority, covenant commitments, and acceptance of external discipline difficult. Furthermore it facilitates self-justified conduct. This mind set is considerably at variance with the normative Quaker emphasis upon self-denial.

4. An assumption that cultural pluralism entails religious and ethical relativism. This produces a penchant for diversity that prizes inclusiveness as the highest form of tolerance, that delights aesthetically in discovering peripheral religious views. This position attracts religious seekers unhappy with dogma or organizational structure, but it weakens central Christian doctrines of creation, incarnation and atonement, and it diminishes awe before the Lord God almighty. When truth is considered disparate rather than coherent, unified actions become difficult to achieve, resulting in an inordinate preoccupation with process, including modes of worship, moral discipline, and decision-making. As settled convictions become fewer, ethical options multiply and Biblical/covenantal authority weakens. For Quakers this means that in meetings "gathered for business" consensus becomes rather than reflects the "the mind of Christ."

5. A rejection of any foundational universe of discourse. All systems of thought accordingly are viewed as provisional products of human thought. In rejecting foundational concepts of any sort (Platonic, Biblical, or enlightenment, or blends thereof) post-modernist epistemology challenges Quaker assumptions about the nature of truth. From a reductionist perspective such an epistemology reduces Quakerism to instructive sociological phenomena - a museum exhibit of human religious behavior. From a pluralistic perspective such an epistemology releases Quaker, or other religious truth claims, from a burden of empirical proof. Neither a disparagement of religious claims nor their exclusion from canons of rationality accords well with the passionately unified spiritual, rational and moral convictions of the first "Publishers of Truth."

6. A flirtation with neo-animism. To replace abandoned mystery ("Christ in you the hope of glory"), or from a sense of unfulfilled spirituality, some Quakers have turned to neo-animistic paganism, in forms such as goddess or new age religions. These approaches substitute myth making for theological reflection and naturalistic ethics for Biblical morality. Fox's vision on that ancient haunt of demons, Pendle Hill, ("a people in white raiment to be gathered to the Lord") may be better understood by Friends (Latino, African, Inuit) more recently freed from animistic fears and priest-burdened religion than by modern neo-animists who bask in the socio-cultural benefits of a culture leavened by reason while rejecting its theological foundation.