Archive for the ‘Quakerism’ Category

Reflections on Personal Discernment – The Abortion Issue

Monday, July 28th, 2025

NOTE: This is a paper prepared by me (Bill Samuel) in December 1993 (very slightly revised since) as part of my participation in the Spiritual Nurturer Program of the School of the Spirit. It was originally published on a domain I no longer control.

While reading Paul Lacey’s On Leading and Being Led (Pendle Hill Pamphlet #264), I found myself reflecting on my experience of discernment over the years on the issue of abortion. It seemed right that this should be the topic of my first reflective paper.

Earliest Remembrances

I don’t remember thinking about abortion or hearing about it when I was growing up. My first memory related to the abortion issue dates from my college years. Some students in my dormitory put up a sign on their door reading:

ACME ABORTION SERVICE

YOU RAPE, WE SCRAPE

NO FETUS CAN BEAT US

The college administration found this sign so offensive that they put considerable pressure on the students to remove it. However, I don’t remember any discussions of what made the sign offensive or of the abortion issue. Although it certainly illustrates the traditional feminist position (still upheld by Feminists for Life) that abortion is a male tool of oppression, I don’t remember doing much thinking about the issue at the time. However, the fact that I still recall the sign more than a quarter of a century later would seem to indicate that it had a real effect on me at some level.

As a young adult, I was very involved in peace and social justice causes. I identified with the left and was inclined to align myself with the most common left points of view on matters which I had not personally considered in depth. There was a period in which I probably would have tended to say I was “pro-choice” if asked my position on abortion. However, I was not active on this issue and had no strong views.

Influences of Others

During the Vietnam War, I spent a period of time very involved in a 24-hour-a-day vigil for peace in front of the White House started by New York Yearly Meeting of Friends (Quakers) and later turned over to a local group calling itself the White House Daily Meeting of Friends. The vigilers were my closest friends. I respected the spiritual wisdom of several of the vigilers, and they affected both my spiritual outlook and my views on issues.

One day, a couple of vigilers went off on an errand and didn’t come back for some time. When they came back, they explained why they had been gone so long. Their route had taken them past the office of the Papal Nuncio. A group was demonstrating there against the position of the Roman Catholic Church on abortion. My friends felt compelled to counter-demonstrate. They found some cardboard, made some signs, carried them and engaged in dialogue with the original protesters.

Until that time, I had not known the position of these friends on abortion. Their deep conviction that abortion was contrary to the will of God brought me to seriously consider the issue for the first time. I found that other vigilers whose spiritual wisdom I respected had the same conviction on abortion. This was a key test for me. How had God moved those whose lives demonstrated their trust in the Divine Source?

The position of these friends was what has come to be known as the “seamless garment” or “consistency” perspective. They held that all life was sacred in God’s eyes, and that all taking of human life (most took it further than human life, and were vegetarians as I had always been) was wrong. Therefore, war, capital punishment and abortion were all evil for the same reason. This view of the Friends’ peace testimony made sense to me. Vigil leaflets, which I prepared in consultation with other vigilers, began to include a section on abortion.

After being developed initially through the influence of those to whom I looked for spiritual guidance, my pro-life abortion position has been confirmed repeatedly through this test of the religious convictions of others. I worked for several years in the Legislative Office of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). There came a time when WILPF members began pressing for the organization to work for abortion rights and abortion funding. Our little staff of three – one active Jew, one disillusioned Catholic and one Friend – discussed this in a staff meeting. We found that all three of us felt for religious reasons we could not do such work for the organization.

I was also active for several years in the war tax resistance movement. As the alternative fund movement grew, our local group began to consider starting a local fund. I discussed this with one war tax resistance activist whose way of life exemplified her religious convictions. She told me she wasn’t sure if she could participate, because she feared such a fund might give money to abortion clinics. “I have the same problem with abortion that I have with war,” she told me.

I have had several friends whose position on abortion has changed towards a pro-life posture as they have spiritually grown. Usually this has come to a surprise to them. Their experience has been confirmed for me through the results of a poll I saw recently. The poll showed that, regardless of religious affiliation, people were more likely to take a pro-life stance the more active they were in their religious faith.

Although these incidents demonstrate the reinforcement of my pro-life position by others whose lives seem to me to demonstrate faithfulness to God, it is also true that many people with whom I share much spiritually have a different position on abortion. But in discussing the issue with them, their arguments have never seemed to me to be fundamentally spiritual. They start with a deep sense of identification with women with “problem pregnancies” and/or with “unwanted” children – an identification that rings true with me as exemplifying Christ’s own identification with the “least of these.” But this does not separate them from my pro-life friends, who have the same deep compassion.

The difference, as I have discerned it, is in the broader spiritual context. My pro-choice friends basically seem to accept the world’s assumptions about “unwanted” children and women’s options. My pro-life friends reject these assumptions, assuming that God can redeem any situation. The fact that in our human wisdom we can not see any “way out” for women in very difficult situations or any concrete possibility for a good life for the children is simply unconvincing to my pro-life friends and to me. My faith that God can redeem situations that seem hopeless from a human point of view is strengthened by my reading of many examples in the pro-life press.

I also see a parallel to the issue of war and peace. Serious arguments for violent responses to real problems come not from a love for the response, but from deep concern for the problems the response attempts to address. One can make good human arguments that military action is needed to counter the evil deeds of an Adolf Hitler or a Saddam Hussein. People who make these arguments usually have no love for war, just as most pro-choice people have no love for abortion. While one can always make human arguments against any particular military action, these have never been as convincing to me as the spiritual arguments. The Friends’ peace testimony is not based upon a worldly analysis of what works.

The Lesson From My Own Life

Another way I discern is by looking at how God has worked in my life. The story of how I came into this world definitely influences my position on abortion. When I was a fetus, the doctors were convinced that were I to live, I would be severely handicapped, both physically and mentally. My mother also had severe medical problems at the time of my birth. However, I turned out to be a very healthy baby, with no evident handicaps. My mother has lived an active life for decades since my birth. This demonstrates for me that what doctors or other experts “know” is not necessarily the truth. Our human understanding is always limited. And God’s ability to redeem any situation is not limited by scientific laws. My mother’s turning me over to God while I was in her womb made all the difference.

The arguments that abortion is justified in certain instances rest on assumptions based on human understanding about what will happen if abortion is not chosen. What the story of my life tells me is that these assumptions fail to account for the ways God can work. This lesson from my own life is confirmed by many stories I have heard and read of others.

The Test From Scripture

I believe it is wise to test our understandings with the written record contained in scripture. I recognize this is not easy and straightforward. Scripture does not speak directly to a current situation and may not say anything explicitly about certain issues. It is subject to interpretation, and we can easily mislead ourselves by twisting our interpretation of scripture to the desired result. Nevertheless, it provides a key reference point.

My own view of the Bible is that it is a record written by people inspired by God, filtered through their languages, cultures and experiences. The Bible also reflects a growth in understanding of how God works among us, and the New Testament reflects a fuller understanding than the Old for the most part.

In seeking to understand God’s will on any matter through the scripture, we should avoid over-emphasis on one or two brief verses. Rather, we should look for the themes that run through the Bible, particularly through Jesus’ teachings and the early church’s understanding of the Christian message. We then apply scriptural principles to a particular matter. In using a particular text, we should examine whether our application of the text to the matter at issue is consistent with the central themes of scripture. And, finally, we must seek and test scriptural understanding with the Spirit that brought forth the scriptures, as Quakers have particularly emphasized over the years. Prayer is fundamental to the right use of scripture.

The Bible does not have any direct references to abortion. The scripture that comes to me when I prayerfully consider abortion is “…as you did it to one of the least of these…you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40, NRSV) This text is reliable as it is simply one of the most graphic statements of a theme that is repeated over and over in scripture. And it seems clear to me that an unborn child is a prime example of one of the least of these. The unborn child is powerless and dependent. An unborn child with severe genetic defects, a prime candidate for abortion, is particularly one of the least of these. My understanding of this scripture as applied to abortion is that each abortion is, in some sense, a crucifixion of Christ.

The various lists and references to the “least of these” in scripture do not include the unborn child. But I don’t believe the Bible attempts to exhaustively provide such lists, so this does not indicate to me that including unborn children is stretching the meaning of the Biblical references.

There are several scriptural references to God’s work with us before we are born. “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139:13, NRSV) “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you….” (Jeremiah 1:5, NRSV) The story of Jesus’s birth exemplifies God’s love and knowledge of us before we are born. Jesus was conceived by an unmarried woman in humble circumstances; a situation that might justify abortion in many modern minds.

The theme running through this paper of God’s understanding being different than human understanding is a major Biblical theme. “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom….” (1 Corinthians 1:25, NRSV). We are called in live in Jesus’ “upside down kingdom.”

Friends (Quakers) and the Bible

Concluding Reflections

My own wrestling with the issue of abortion over the years has been important to my spiritual formation. It has led me to a position that is in contrast to that of many around me. Therefore, it has stimulated me to reflect on discernment, on the fundamental principles of my faith, and on my own faithfulness to God’s call when it is easier to be silent or complicit in what I inwardly believe to be wrong in the sight of God. It has led me to focus on some key questions. Who is really in control? In whom (or what) do I put my faith?

2025 Postscript – I want to highlight two books that came out long after I wrote this paper. Both deal with the understanding of pre-Constantinian Christians about violence, covering a variety of forms of violence, including abortion. They reflect that early Christians consistently held that the teachings of Jesus forbade Christians from participating in any form of killing.

Consistently Pro-Life: The Ethics of Bloodshed in Ancient Christianity by Rob Arner. 2010, Pickwick Publications. This is based on a thesis prepared by the author. He read everything he could find from the Early church fathers, and found their views of violence entirely consistent with each other and reflecting what we today call the consistent life ethic.

The Early Church on Killing: A Comprehensive Sourcebook on War, Abortion, and Capital Punishment, edited by Ronald J. Sider. 2012, Baker Academic. This book provides quotes translated into English from early Christian writers. It also includes some other source material, such as archaeological finds.

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Participatory Worship

Monday, November 10th, 2014

        So here’s what I want you to do. When you gather for worship, each one of you be prepared with something that will be useful for all: Sing a hymn, teach a lesson, tell a story, lead a prayer, provide an insight. (1 Corinthians 14:26, The Message)        

This is a subject in which I have had great interest for decades, but my thoughts have been stirred recently by an event and some things I’ve read.

A number of years ago I attended an independent charismatic church. At that time, they had a Friday evening service which was not programmed in advance. There was a pastor of the church who, in Quaker terms, clerked the service, helping it to flow as the Spirit led. At the beginning, you would see people talking to him, relaying what the Lord had said to them about what needed to happen that evening. The character of the service varied enormously week from week, as the Lord led. But most of what was vocalized was from the floor of the church. The only standard thing which happened is that, sometime during the about 2.5 hour service, bread and juice would be put out giving the attenders opportunity to take communion. That period would usually be pretty quiet. People often took some time to pray before consuming the elements, frequently kneeling on the steps which are used in place of an altar in that church. I really appreciated this service. Unfortunately, the church stopped doing it.

Charismatic and pentecostal churches often allow people from the congregation to offer a Word from the Lord, but at least at Sunday morning services that’s usually within the context of a service in which the usual Protestant prepared sermon from a pastor is the central focus, to the best of my knowledge. Perhaps some of them offer another time when it is all from the body, but I couldn’t find any in my area which do. (And I have theological issues with most charismatic and pentecostal churches.)

The Quaker tradition is to have worship in which there is not a program set in advance, but the Lord may speak through anyone gathered. However today most Quaker groups which are still non-pastoral have moved away from a center in Jesus Christ, and generally the range of expression which is acceptable is limited by a somewhat repressive WASP middle class cultural environment. I have been at a couple of Quaker gatherings where a session broke free from those restraints, and a vibrant, charismatic session resulted. However, that is rare.

I suspect a major reason why the kind of participatory worship Paul recommended to the church in Corinth is so rare is fear. What might happen if the Spirit was allowed to work in the congregation free from control by one or more leaders and from cultural constraints? It seems so much safer to keep things under human control.

So I have this concern for finding and nurturing spiritually alive participatory worship. I would appreciate reflections on this subject and any pointing towards where I might find such worship or how I might facilitate it.

-Bill Samuel, November 10, 2014

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An Open Letter to FCNL

Monday, December 26th, 2011

This email to Diane Randall, Executive Secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), was written in response to an email fund appeal from her. I have written a number of such emails over the course of the last 3 years, and I normally get no response. This one I am going to make public.

Dear Diane Randall,

For decades, I contributed regularly to FCNL. I felt it stood for what I believed in, and I could count on it. I thought it was largely free of partisanship.

Then came the Obama election. After the election, I saw a metamorphosis in FCNL. It seemed to become a branch office of the White House – of a President who campaigned on escalation of the war in Afghanistan, increasing the military budget, and increasing the number of military troops. These were all things FCNL traditionally would have opposed. The President kept all those promises, and FCNL supported him in that. It campaigned for a budget that increased military spending and devoted over half of all discretionary spending to the military. Joe Volk, then FCNL’s Executive Secretary, sent out an email asking supporters to write letters to the editor supporting the President’s Afghanistan policy.

At that point, I resolved to stop supporting FCNL. I pointed out this radical change in FCNL to others, and urged them to not support FCNL. Many FCNL supporters had the same reaction. If you will look at donation trends, you will see that FCNL’s income dropped dramatically during that time. The FCNL budget and staff were reduced. The official propaganda from FCNL was that this was due to the economy, but I’m sure FCNL’s betrayal of its values was a large factor.

Gradually FCNL moved back to its traditional positions. However, it has yet to publicly admit it got off course. I am a Christian. I believe in repentance and redemption. But fundamental to that is admitting the sin. I believe there are thousands of us willing to come back as FCNL supporters if FCNL will admit it went seriously off-track after the Obama election, and pledges never again to sacrifice its values to engage in a partisan effort. But we’ve been waiting for years for this, and so far have not seen any sign of an admission by FCNL that it went terribly wrong in that period. I continue to wait.

Bill Samuel

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Reflections on Independence Day

Sunday, July 4th, 2010

Today in the United States is Independence Day, when the country celebrates the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence back in 1776. At my church, we were completing our annual God in the Movies series, and we focused on the John Adams mini-series. What caught my attention was a particular remark by John Adams, and what I drew from it was quite different from what the day’s speaker did.

The comment, made by John Adams at the Second Constitutional Convention, which caught my attention was that the end would be worth the means. My own Christian understanding is that the end can not really be separated from the means. Rather, we must be sure we are using ethical means if we hope to achieve a good end. The ethical way may seem naive and impractical, but in fact it is not only the right choice, but the only pragmatic one if we really desire a good end.

As the speaker noted, John Adams was a man who really sought to do the right thing. There is much to admire in his life. However, he made a critical error in his thinking in his belief that the willful shedding of the blood of many people could be a means to a good end. This critical error was not only made by most of those who attended that Constitutional Convention, but also by most societies throughout the ages. The universality of the error does not make it right.

Our Lord Jesus Christ allowed his own blood to be shed for the freedom of all. But he refused to be a part of shedding anyone else’s blood, and rebuked Peter for cutting off the ear of the high priest’s servant at his arrest. The early Christian leader Tertullianus said, “the Lord afterwards, in disarming Peter, ungirded every soldier.” This was the almost universal view of the Christian church before Constantine.

One wonders how history would have unfolded had there been a Gandhi in America in the period in which the Revolutionary War took place. In India in the 20th century, as in America in the 18th, there were many who were calling for war against British imperial rule. Yet Gandhi’s different way captured the imagination of the Indian people. In America during the Revolutionary War era, the Society of Friends (Quakers), which has a strong testimony against war, was still a major religious body. However, they had largely withdrawn from the public arena, after having been very active earlier in the colonial period. What would have happened if they had proposed an alternative, nonviolent strategy?

The political leaders in America chose to engage in war against the British. At great cost of lives, they “won.” However, let us look not only at the independence of the United States, but what has happened since.

Born in violence, the United States has a long history of violence since. We have fought many wars, most of them wars of aggression and domination, since, up to and including the present day. We suffered a great Civil War. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “America is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” When you use the means of violence, the end is violence and bloodshed.

And what about freedom? The “free country” enslaved African-Americans and engaged in genocide against native Americans. The country has taken military, political and economic action to deny many countries their own freely elected governments. How, for example, might the story of Iran be different if the U.S. had not instigated a coup against Iran’s democratic government in 1953 and installed a tyrant?

We reap what we sow. American leaders in 1776 unleashed a campaign of violence which still reverberates today. Our independent country is #1 in its military, but behind almost all other industrial nations in almost every indicator of economic and social well-being. We have stirred resentment throughout the world through military interventionism, the undermining of free governments, the support of tyrannical regimes and economic imperialism.

The good news of Jesus Christ is that God can redeem anything. If we “repent and believe the good news” our course can be changed and we can enter the blessed community of peace and well-being promised in such prophecies as Isaiah’s Peaceable Kingdom. Let us pray for and work for the day the United States humbles itself, confesses its sins, and turns from its ways of violence and domination.

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FUM – A Friendly Proposal

Saturday, July 19th, 2008

I served on the General Board and on the Executive Committee of Friends United Meeting (FUM), the largest of the several associations of Friends (Quakers) in the world, from 1990 until 1993. I am not currently involved in the FUM organizational structure, nor am I now a member of a constituent meeting, but I have retained a lively interest in FUM.

For a couple of decades, there has been controversy within and outside FUM over its position on marriage and the proper use of sexuality, particularly as it relates to personnel decisions. In 1991, based on earlier decisions, the following language was incorporated into the FUM Personnel Handbook:

Friends United Meeting affirms the civil rights of all people. Staff and volunteer appointments are made without regard to sexual orientation. It is expected that sexual intercourse should be confined to marriage, understood to be confined to one man and one woman.

Since that time, there has been increasing discussion in certain parts of the Society of Friends about same-gender relationships, and some Quaker bodies have moved towards holding marriages or ceremonies of commitment for same-gender couples. The five FUM yearly meetings which are also members of Friends General Conference (FGC), an association with a somewhat different Quaker perspective, have all moved in that direction to varying degrees, and in all of them there is considerable uneasiness with FUM’s position on this issue. However, most other FUM yearly meetings both in North America and in other parts of the world have maintained positions consistent with that of FUM. Over half of FUM’s membership is in Kenya, and Kenyan Friends have been particularly vehement in support of the FUM position on marriage and sexual intercourse.

There has been considerable friction between the five dually affiliated yearly meetings and the rest of FUM. However, in listening to some of the dialogue and reading some related documents, I find considerable desire among many Friends on both sides of the issue to find ways to continue to work together.

I am suggesting that recognition of certain facts and principles may show the way to making a modest step that could ease tensions:

  1. The understanding of marriage has such wide support within FUM that it needs to be understood that FUM is not going to change that basic understanding in the imminent future.
  2. Many Friends who are not in unity with FUM’s position on this do see great value in much of the work of FUM.
  3. There are a number of testimonies and principles held by FUM Friends, but living in accord with most of them is not stated in such direct and absolute terms in the personnel policies of FUM.
  4. While some Friends think FUM requires agreement with the policy in order to be a staff member of FUM, that is not part of the policy and FUM has been willing to hire people for important positions who did not personally agree with the policy.

I think the feeling that FUM has dug in its heels has helped inflame tensions among those Friends who disagree with the policy. I wonder if FUM couldn’t slightly recast its policy in the hopes that this would make it easier for the dialogue to continue, and for the FUM family to unite in support of the programs of FUM. I am thinking of a minute along the lines of this:

Friends United Meeting reaffirms it position as an organization that sexual intercourse should be confined to marriage, understood as being between one man and one woman, while recognizing that not all Friends within FUM are united on that position. FUM also reaffirms the civil rights of all people, and its policy of making staff and volunteer appointments without regard to sexual orientation. It is vital that all persons appointed to staff and volunteer postions in FUM understand and accept that this is the current policy of FUM, whether or not they are personally in full agreement with it. Those responsible for selecting persons for positions with FUM should be sensitive to whether applicants live in accord with FUM’s policy. Where applicants are not committed to living in full accord with FUM’s current position on this matter, those responsible for selection should consider that in the full context of the person’s overall commitment to the programs of FUM and Friends’ testimonies as understood by FUM, and the specific needs for the position under consideration.

I don’t know whether or not Friends will find this suggestion helpful, but I felt led to offer it. Anyone may reprint and distribute this blog entry or portions thereof without obtaining further permission from me. Should any efforts be made to move along the lines suggested, I would appreciate knowing about it.

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Why I am evangelical but not an Evangelical

Friday, May 16th, 2008

The catalyst for this post was An Evangelical Manifesto, which I reflected upon in my last post. And my perspective on the subject is deeply informed by two traditions/movements within the Christian church with which I have been heavily involved. One is Quakerism in which I spent much of my life. Another is what is often referred to as the Emerging Church conversation or movement. While I have only formally been a member of an Emerging Church for three years, I was part of a group which had much of the same perspective long before the term Emerging Church had been dreamed of. That little spiritual community which became known as Friends in Christ melded Quaker and what now would be called Emerging Church perspectives in a way that could be called an early precursor of the loose Convergent Friends movement of today. Here I will note that in the long list of Manifesto signatories I could not identify any Quakers or any of the prominent public faces in the Emerging Church conversation.

As I indicated in my earlier post, I fully identify with the definition in An Evangelical Manifesto: “Evangelicals are Christians who define themselves, their faith, and their lives according to the Good News of Jesus of Nazareth.” Playing off that document’s insistence on capitalizing Evangelical, I am saying I am evangelical in terms of the root meaning of that word expressed in that Manifesto definition, but I’m not comfortable with some other aspects of the description of Evangelical, in which the Manifesto is faithful to the tradition of that part of the Christian church. That leads me to seeing myself as fitting the term if left lower case, but not really accurately defined when it is upper case.

The Bible and Authority

The Manifesto, and here it is indeed representative of Evangelicalism, refers to sola Scriptura (by Scripture alone), the “supreme authority of the Bible,” and “the Scriptures our final rule for faith and practice.” It claims this is shown by “Jesus’ own teaching and his attitude.” This is a Manifesto, not an apology, and it doesn’t do references, so I’m not sure what they rely on for that.

I find Jesus saying in scripture that I am the way and the truth and the life. (John 14:6, NIV) This is a radical statement, and one hard for us humans to accept because we want to be able to package up truth in a neat, rational box. Jesus tells us this impulse is wrong. The people that he had such conflict with are precisely the religious leaders of his day who wanted to tie up faith in a neat little box. Relying on purely the written word of the Bible as the Truth doesn’t really quite succeed in achieving the goal of the neat little box, but the urge to make the book supreme is an attempt to move in that direction. Evangelicals also proclaim Christ is Lord, but their emphasis on the written word as the sole determiner of Truth tends to contradict that. I am not an Evangelical because, in the end, I’m not sure that Evangelicalism is really centered on Jesus Christ.

I believe the premier Quaker apologist, Robert Barclay, put this question of authority well in his Apology for the True Christian Divinity. He states that the scriptures do contain revelations of God to the saints, but notes that, “because they are only a declaration of the fountain, and not the fountain itself, therefore they are not to be esteemed the principal ground of all Truth and knowledge, nor yet the adequate primary rule of faith and manners.” Barclay notes “that the Spirit is that Guide by which the saints are led into all Truth” and goes on to make this key argument:

If by the Spirit we can only come to the true knowledge of God; if by the Spirit we are to be led into all Truth, and so be taught of all things; then the Spirit, and not the Scriptures, is the foundation and ground of all Truth and knowledge, and the primary rule of faith and manners

I find Barclay’s arguments convincing. (See also Friends (Quakers) and the Bible.)

My immersion into the Emerging Church conversation has provided me with further insights into understanding the scriptures. I have learned about narrative theology. To me, this provides a way to better explore the richness of the scriptures than a doctrinally centered theology. I can observe that Jesus taught largely by telling stories, and by the story of what he did. Looking at the whole Bible, I can see that it is predominantly stories. By taking the narrative approach rather than a literalist approach, we are better able to explore the many facets of the stories in the scripture and to translate them into lessons for how we can live more faithfully.

The narrative approach sees the narrative as continuing, not stopped at some point in time with what’s in the canon, which is consistent with the early Quaker reluctance to embrace the idea of a fixed canon. When I participated in the Journey Seminar, the membership class for Cedar Ridge Community Church, I appreciated the approach of a journey which included what was recorded in scripture, the history of the Christian church in its many variations, and the life of this particular local faith community. It gave me both a sense of the “cloud of witnesses” and of the importance of the continuing spiritual journey in which I can participate. At the end, to become a member, I signed a sheet of paper that was committing myself to principles of living out the journey with Christ within the context of this particular community, but did not contain doctrinal propositions. This felt right to me.

Protestant?

While what I have just written about is the primary reason for my reluctance to consider myself an Evangelical, there is another (albeit related) concern. Evangelicals hold strongly to being Protestant, in contrast with the alternatives of being Catholic or Orthodox. I feel a reluctance to limit my Christian understanding to just one of the main divisions of the Christian church. This view, too, has been heavily impacted by my involvement in both Quakerism and the Emerging Church conversation.

There has been a debate about whether or not Quakers are Protestants. (See Are Quakers Protestant?) Early Quakers contrasted themselves with both Catholics and Protestants (Orthodox were simply not a part of the religious conversation in 17th century Britain where the Quaker movement started, but I’m sure Quakers would also have contrasted themselves with the Orthodox if they had been), essentially regarding both streams as apostate. In some areas, they saw Protestants as having moved from part of the errors of Catholicism, but not all the way. As regards the scriptures, their argument was in fact primarily with Protestantism.

While identifying with the Quaker reluctance to put themselves in one of the big boxes of Christianity, I became increasingly reluctant to see that solely as rejecting those major streams. My participation (1993-94) in the Spiritual Nurturer Program of the School of the Spirit greatly contributed to that. While the Program was Quaker, the majority of the readings were from the monastic tradition, which has been writing in depth about spiritual nurture for many centuries. I found that I really identified with most of what I read from the monastic tradition. That did not make me want to convert to Catholicism, but it did result in a great appreciation for the spiritual richness within that tradition.

At Cedar Ridge, the teachings and practices draw from all three major divisions of the Christian church. All are seen as part of the story in which we see ourselves. While in the Emerging Church conversation we recognize many ways in which all three traditions have gone astray at various points in history, we don’t have the unrelenting negativism towards them that marked the early Quakers. We also see a lot of spiritual vitality in all of these streams of Christianity. I identify with this perspective.

* * * * * * * * * *

This post may be too long, but I hope it gave you some food for thought. I would welcome comments on it.

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