Quakers and Catholics
- Bill_Samuel
- DTS
- DTS
- Bill_Samuel
- Bill_Samuel
- DTS
- K_J_L
- Bill_Samuel
- bradams
- Bill_Samuel
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» Bill_Samuel - Friends Beliefs and Faith
Peter has written very well.Early Quakers wrote many doctrinal tracts. Today, Friends diverge but a very large part of Friends views the Richmond Declaration of Faith as the primary normative statement of Friends beliefs. In many respects, it is quite orthodox in doctrine.
But Friends are not only not creedally based, we are not doctrinally based. This doesn't mean we don't have doctrines, but we place primary emphasis on the faith experience. It is the Holy Spirit that must direct our lives, not intellectual commitment to a set of beliefs. We take seriously the New Testament statements about living in Christ. It is my observation that some people who are living in Christ could not provide a good intellectual statement of Christian beliefs, while some people who could readily offer a correct set of doctrines are not living in Christ. They are the people early Friends derided as "professors" - those who professed faith but did not have "the life" of faith.
In my new faith community, Friends in Christ, we do not have a statement of beliefs but we do have a list of Core Values. The Values are how we commit to live our faith. The choice of Core Values rather than a doctrinal statement was very deliberate.
It is not essential that we can spout correct doctrines, but it is essential that we allow Christ to direct our lives.
-- posted by Bill_Samuel
» DTS - To All
Dear Everybody,I wish Peter's "Belief & Practice" response could be widely published and disseminated. It is magnificent and magnificently terse AND comprehensive-that quality itself a gift of God.
Bill's "Friends Beliefs & Faith" is, as always, the accurate representative of Quakerism. The problem, not with Bill but with Quakerism, is a failure to recognize that allowing "Christ to direct our lives" upon one's own experience of God, as it is at any particular moment, assumes that one's experience of God is complete and completely understood. Unfortunately, even leaving out the psycopathic and criminal who feel a direct leading from God, each of us finds that our 'experience' of God grows constantly. Most of us can look back on our own lives and recognizes times when our own very "best" efforts based on our experience of God to that time led us to do things which now appall us. Our most transcendent epiphanies are seldom false, but they are often partial and limited, either in what God can offer to our baby-step stage or by what we can at the moment receive. This is why Catholics 'train' and Evangelicals 'disciiple.' A rereading of Peter emphasizes that one's own 'experience' (conscience) must always be accepted humbly when it is at odds with the best wisdom of faithful and wise Christians down through the ages. A certai "Gee, were all those honored thinkers really dumber than I?" is in order.
Bill's reminder of the ease with which some beliefs of the 'head' are never transferred into the muscles is absolutely basic psychologically as well as religiously. But it is as easy to define one's 'experience' of God with the head as with the soul. Jesus foresaw all this, of course. In Jn 7:17, he made very clear how the 'will' (another word moderms do not like) determines where we arrive by either head or heart. "If any man wills to do his will, he shall know of the doctrine..." Which does, of course, assume that there is a doctrine to know.
In this matter of putting true Christianity -the doctrine according to Jesus-- into practice, I have read nothing outside the New Testament which has moved and inspired me as much as these words by an ancient (2nd cent) so humble as to be nameless, his words (of which these are only a portion) in print only as "Letter TO Diognetus."
"For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country,
nor language nor the customs which they observe.
For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a particular form
of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by singularity.
The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any
speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men;
nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any
merely human doctrine.
But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot
of each of them had determined,
and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life.
They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners.
As citizens, they share in all things with others,
and yet endure all things as if foreigners.
Every foreign land is to them as their native country,
and every land of their birth as a land of strangers.
They marry, as do all; they beget children;
but they do not destroy their offspring.
They have a common table, but not a common bed.
They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh.
They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven.
They obey the prescribed laws,
and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives.
They love all men, and are persecuted by all.
They are unknown and condemned;
they are put to death, and restored to life.
They are poor, yet make many rich;
they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all;
they are dishonored, and yet in their very dishonor are glorified.
They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified;
they are reviled, and bless;
they are insulted, and repay the insult with honor;
they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers....
To sum up all in one word --what the soul is in the body,
that the Christians in the world.
The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body,
and Christians are scattered through all the cities of the world.
The soul dwells in the body, yet is not of the body;
and Christians dwell in the world, yet are not of the world."
This does seem the practice to which we shall all aspire, and any Church, Meeting, discipline or catechism which helps us so live represents Christ's message for today. Faith and practice are not separate. Practice is faith in action.
In love, Dorothy
-- posted by DTS
» Bill_Samuel - Spell checking
Eye no this has know ms. steaks be cause eye put it threw my spell checker.-- posted by Bill_Samuel
» Bill_Samuel - Follow-up on this thread's issues
My mother suggested it would be helpful to post here the fact that my latest article, Keeping the Faith, addresses issues raised in this thread. Thanks, Mom!-- posted by Bill_Samuel
» DTS - Clarification
re Bill's last, for those with sieve memories like mine, it might help to know that the new aarticle refers to my 4/25 "Pease elucidate" asking how early Quakers kept unity of faith. To that Bill responsed 4/20 "articles" saying the answer required full article treatment. That is what this new article offers. Very well, I might comment, although still raising some practical questions. Anyway, I recommend you read it --and it has nothing to do with Catholicism. Dorothy-- posted by DTS
» K_J_L - Re: Clarification
In response to message posted by DTS:Hello all!
I just wanted to thank all you participants in this discussion. I am a "cradle" Catholic, but find that the Quaker testimonies speak to me as well. I was delighted to find in this discussion string that I am not alone, that there are other Catholics out there who fel the same. The Quaker testimony helps me be a better Catholic Christian.
Thanks agan, Kevin
-- posted by K_J_L
» Bill_Samuel - Re: Re: Clarification
In response to message posted by K_J_L, Peter posted a message. This raised a broader issue, so I moved it to a new thread I started called Members of other churches attending Quaker meetings.-- posted by Bill_Samuel
» bradams - Quakers & Catholics
This is more related to the original message than to anything else that follows.I am a Roman Catholic (although I know a lot of Catholics who'd say I'm not!)who was raised as a Pentecostal Christian and who has been attracted to the Quaker movement for about 18 years now. I've done a lot of reading and enquiring about Quakers, but haven't attended a meeting yet. This is mainly because we have a family lunch on Sundays and I have to travel an hour and a half each way to attend a Quaker meeting.
For me there are a few reasons why Quakerism and Catholicism complement each other nicely.
1. Religious experience. As a philosophy student I wrote an examination essay on religious pluralism, based on the UK philosopher John Hick. Basically, the argument goes that the only good reason for holding religious beliefs is religious experience, and that if you think your religious experience justifies your belief then the same goes for the religious experience of others. That seems to me to be the basis of the Quaker faith.
2. Stories/Tradition. Catholic priest GreeleyGreeley says that religion is story before it is everything else and it is story after it is everything else. It is human nature to tell stories about our experiences. We have been telling stories about our religious experiences since time immemorial. The stories of those who have come before us influence our stories. The stories of the Quakers would not have existed without the stories of the Protestants. In turn the stories of the Protestants would not have existed without the stories of the Catholics, whose stories would not have existed without the stories of the early Christians, which were dependent on the stories of the Hebrews, which were dependent on stories of the cultures they encountered in their travels. The emphasis on tradition is the strength of Catholicism. I could write much more on this point, but that will do for now!
3. Discernment. This something I think most Catholics need work on - although the Catholics that practice it do it well. It is something that I think would be enhanced greatly in Catholics by participation in Quaker meeting. The Catholic practice of a nightly Examination of Conscience is helpful too.
-- posted by bradams
» Bill_Samuel - Re: Quakers & Catholics
In response to Quakers & Catholics posted by bradams:Point 1 represents a serious misunderstanding of the basis of Quakerism, although a not uncommon one within a certain wing of contemporary Quakerism.
Early Friends believed in a singular Truth, and that anyone whose experience of Christ was genuine would recognize this same Truth. They regularly declared that those claiming to be Friends who proclaimed something different were not Friends.
-- posted by Bill_Samuel
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