Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!hsdndev!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ut-emx!bill@emx.utexas.edu (Bill Jefferys) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Grace, Faith, Works: Perennial Question Message-ID: Date: 6 Feb 91 09:24:10 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: The University of Texas at Austin; Austin, Texas Lines: 84 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Cindy Smith asked some questions about Quakers; mindful that Quakers are a very diverse group, and that no one can speak for all Quakers, I'll try to answer her as best I can. Cindy wrote (concerning Anne Hutchinson): #1. She [Anne Hutchinson] made herself, effectively, the #Pope of her community, and not only that, made every believer a #similar Pope; in other words, one who receives direct revelation from #God and preaches the Word accordingly without error, as long as you #remain in the light. This would result in chaos. 2. If you believe #that you have this "inner light" (and I by no means deny that people #have it, my understanding is different), then you have the Holy Spirit #dwelling within you; if anyone opposes you (as they opposed Anne #Hutchinson), then they must not have an indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Ann Hutchinson was not a Quaker (contrary to what Cindy says, neither of the two Quaker histories that I looked at considered her to be the "first Quaker," and one did not mention her at all). If these two points were part of Anne Hutchinson's doctrine, then there are significant differences between Quaker belief and hers. Quakers regard the Inward Light "that enlightens every human being" [Jn 1:9], or the Christ Within, or the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, as the primary source of religious experience, from which all else springs. They believe that EVERY human being, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, experiences the Inward Light. For a Quaker, to regard some individual as "not having an indwelling of the Holy Spirit" would be nonsense. Also, Quakers make NO CLAIM that the Inward Light guarantees that one speaks or acts without error. It is quite common for Quakers to find that their leadings conflict. When this happens, they believe that with the aid of the Holy Spirit they can find a deeper level that will resolve the conflict. The Quaker response to such conflicts is to labor tenderly with one another, with everyone attentive to the Inward Light in others, until that deeper level is found. It is for this reason that Quaker business is conducted by the method of consensus. When an issue arises on which there is disagreement, no action will be taken as long as even a single person is opposed. Quakers are unwilling to override the Inward Light as experienced by even one individual, just to get something done. Sometimes it takes a long time, even years, to reach a consensus on an important issue. Frequently it turns out that the leading of a lone individual, who originally was a minority of one, ends up being the nucleus around which the consensus is built. Quakers are very aware of the dangers of going off on a tangent with a sincerely held, but false leading. The days when the Quaker movement was founded were yeasty, heady times where groups, like the Ranters, behaved in just this way. The early Quakers understood the dangers of such action, and their caution has persisted to the present time. The Quaker way to test all leadings against the Inward Light as others experience it, and against Scripture, to see whether they are genuinely of the Inward Light, or are merely individual notions or whims. Quakers are leery of both the Inerrancy/Sola Scriptura position as well as of a view of the Bible that would regard it as mere literature. They view Scripture as secondary to, but confirming of their direct experience of the Inner Light. The Quaker theologian Robert Barclay (1648-90), described the Scriptures as "a declaration of the fountain but not the fountain itself". The importance of Scripture is not in its words, or in proof texts divorced from their setting, but in the living experience of the Light from which the Scriptures sprang. That is, Scripture gains its authority for Quakers because the people who wrote it themselves dwelt in that Light, and because Quakers today recognize the Light, as seen in Scripture, from their own experience. Quakers regard neither faith nor works, but the experience of the Inward Light, as primary. If one truly lives within that Light, Quakers believe, then both faith and works will necessarily follow. The aspects of Quakerism that are most familiar to non- Quakers, such as their commitments to peace, social justice, and simplicity, and their refusal to take oaths, are for Quakers not rules to be followed, but instead grow out of their experience of the Inward Light. Bill Jefferys -- If you meet the Buddha on the net, put him in your kill file --Robert Firth