My Response: a 'tail' of 2 Divergent Christianities, 2 Different Spiritual Flights to the Good Flock, Friends

From Chuck Fager's intriguing--shocking, probably to most non-Catholics--account of his visit as a senior to a Catholic University in Denver, Colorado, 1959:
"To this end, it was announced one day that we would soon be treated to a field trip, all the way to Denver, to visit the nearest Catholic colleges: Regis, for men, run by the Jesuits...

"I enjoyed the trip, though I was already clear that, as a budding atheist, wherever I went to college, it would be at a secular school. This resolve was greatly strengthened when we visited, of all places, the Regis library.

"I had long had fond feelings for libraries, and at first glance, the one at Regis seemed a fine specimen: well-lighted, relatively new, with many long open shelves. Open shelves of books to me embodied freedom of thought and learning, and its liberating possibilities. But something didn’t jibe with this appealing tableau. Behind the reference desk, my eye was caught by a large area enclosed by heavy mesh metal partitions, like chain link fencing but thicker, with a locked gate. Inside were more books; I could see the shelves through the mesh.

Were they antiquities? Precious manuscripts of historic value? They didn’t look like that.

"No. My question to a cheerful librarian got a straightforward answer: the enclosure was for books on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum: the Catholic Index of Forbidden Books.

"I stared at it in fascinated horror: of course I had heard of the Index. It was hundreds of years old. Where the Church was part of or protected by governments, it went hand in hand with censorship.
--
"A statue marks the place in Rome where Giordano Bruno was burned in 1600. He was held prisoner for six years before execution, but refused to recant his “heretical” views...But in 1959, there were more philosophers (Kant, Spinoza, and Sartre) on it than racy novelists, or for that matter, astronomers."

READ the rest of Chuck Fager's Friendly blog article at: http://afriendlyletter.com/a-tale-of-two-nightmares-one-asleep-one-wide-awake/

MY RESPONSE:
Chuck Fager's experience in Christianity as a teen (Roman Catholic) is so utterly different from my own (free-will Baptist), it shows, again as so often, that there isn't and never was just one Christianity, but many contradictory ones.

It's beyond my understanding that a Catholic university in 1959 would still have a jailed section of its library for some philosophy books!
Whew...Incomprehensible to a free-wheeling moderate fundamentalist boy as myself.

Of course, we Baptists had our own no-no's--no movies, no dances, no cards, no wine, no rock n' roll, etc. BUT I could read anything that I wanted, spent many an hour at the town library, school library, etc. During my senior year, I was into reading zen (Alan Watts), Kerouac, Aldous Huxley, etc.

I'm also shocked that Regis was run by the Jesuits! About the only fact I used to know about that Catholic movement was that it was very liberal, probably far more liberal than us Baptists.

What's intriguing is that while Chuck Fager and I grew up in such completely different religious backgrounds, like many other spiritual seekers, both he and I finally found our brood in the Friends.

What was that disjointed aphorism? Friends from very different brooded feathers flock together;-)

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Don't Miss This Must-Read Article!

Get disturbed and urged to think deeply across current theological, political, and cultural divides.

Read this bridge article promoting "progressive Quakerism"!

FAQS FOR FRIENDS– PART #9: JESUS & THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE

by Chuck Fager

http://afriendlyletter.com/faqs-friends-part-9-last-part/#more-6038

"...What’s Jesus Got to Do With the Golden Gate Bridge?"

"...one of the most agreeable years of my life was spent in San Francisco, from mid-1976 to mid-1977. Never mind that I was poor, even officially homeless for part of the time, because life was good. I had steady work as a reporter..."

"...a Progressive Quaker perspective, is inextricably tied up with my memories of one of San Francisco’s signal glories, the Golden Gate Bridge.

"Suppose the Golden Gate Bridge connected, not Marin County and San Francisco, but earth and heaven..."

"This idea is not as silly as it sounds. At the old Lake Street Friends meetinghouse...a large window opened on a view of the bridge. On numerous First Day mornings during that year I sat and contemplated the scene."

"Often enough the great arched span was caressed and then obscured by rolling sweeps of fog, and it was easy to imagine that the far end came down in some dimension much stranger than Marin County."

"Thus, solid as the bridge looked, and was, not everyone who set foot on it made it to the promised land at the other end. There was no guarantee: to get across, one had first to find the bridge, then walk or drive straight, stay in lane, and keep going."

"And it was not long thereafter when it came to me that the bridge could serve as a parable of the work of Christ, as understood by early Quakers, and Progressive Christian Quakers today."

With this powerful metaphor and vivid image,
so begins a very deep, insightful, and inclusive article by Chuck Fager
on the matters of reality, identity, purpose, ethics, religion, and philosophy.

I tend to be skeptical of "progressive"-labeled writing
(for a host of reasons, but that's not the 'angles'here).

And I don't much care for long hyphenated words for Quakers,
or anyone else for that matter.
But given the extreme divides and contradictions within Quakerism
(and most worldviews for that matter), it is probably necessary as shorthand.

Don't miss this article.

See if it is, indeed, one of those deep moments of witnessing in meeting.



In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Part #2: Review of Meetings by Chuck Fager

from Amazon's website:
"Chuck Fager’s transition from a conservative Catholic, pro-military youth to an active peace witness and a lengthy period of “spiritual formation” among progressive Quakers...a special religious coming of age in the mid-1970s...in a continuing time of tumult and change."

"The result is both a compelling story of our time, and the narrative of a unique personal quest for meaning, transcendence, and a useful life."

Yes, no, and maybe not.

I've finished the book. Chuck does deliver some intriguing stories from his life as he promised. Kudos for that.

And at times, stories of his intellectual quest do come through clearly. His account of professor Milton Mayer of the University of Chicago is powerful and moving.

Furthermore, Chuck's recounting of those radical days of the late 60's and early 70's, and his involvement, will bring back many memories of that best of times, worst of times.

But overall this book appears to be at first-read weaker than some of his other books. Unlike those, this one seems fragmentary, more of a starting outline. There are key stories like wall pegs; now hang deep personal reflections on them.

Yes, the book has up appealing and shocking stories, but Chuck doesn't show how they relate to his interior life, doesn't put them in the context of his personal life, and doesn't reflect on them in relationship to his spiritual belief and life.

The reader feels unconnected and is filled with many questions unanswered.

For instance, there is the fascinating story of his discovering a missal like the ones of his childhood.

But after the very detailed nuanced narrative of how he comes across the book at the Saint Vincent de Paul thrift store, he just leaves the aged ritual book stuck on a shelf in a plastic bag.

We don't know how he felt and thought about religious ritual, and Catholic ritual especially, about how filled with superstition it seems, about it relationship to Church history, about cannon law, about hell and purgatory in relationship to himself and all humans.

This is so unlike his recent posts on the same sexuality controversy in North Carolina Yearly Meeting, where even in those brief blog posts, Chuck ferrets out the motives, reasonings, etc. of the not-so Friendly leaders in that tribulation, that ocean of darkness.

Here's another particular example of a disconnected story from Chuck's book:
Suddenly, half way through his autobiography, we learn that his wife, Tish, has a severe drinking problem, and he moves out. Then he speaks of his own "sin."

Wait a minute!

We readers didn't even know he had met a girl, gotten married, had a kid, developed relationship problems, etc.

We have no idea about his views of sexuality.

Or his coming of age as a teen guy in the late 1950's.

Or how his wife developed her alcoholism, and why they couldn't work this out.

Meetings is a short autobiography so Chuck didn't have time or space to go into great detail, but a short 2-page lead-in on his youth and girls, his views on sexuality, and his life relating to women was very necessary.

And we get only a very brief glimpse of his relationship with his mother. And we learn nothing of his relationships with his siblings. We don't know about his views, his ethical and spiritual wrestlings.

All of those aspects are very important in understanding the sudden split, of his moving out to a friend's.

And how did he meet Tish, and their marriage?
Was it a Roman Catholic wedding?
Was she a practicing Catholic?
What were their views on birth control?

And most importantly: What are his reflections of how his spiritual and religious experience relates to his sexuality and marriage?

Then there is a girlfriend, called Sylvia. Again, we have no idea who, why, when or how this relates to his religious life.

Even more importantly, he fails to reflect on all of this and other unexplained vague statements about "sin."

And he mentions having sex after his wife and him split? Does he mean he engaged in fornication?

Does he go to confession? Or not? Why or why not?

At another point in the book, Chuck states that his class ring, "the red and gold band" is much more important than his wedding rings!!

He wrote that the ring took on "much more important" meanings.

Again, as a reader, I am left confused.

We readers don't need lots of private details, but we do need to understand--to feel and experience and think what he did.

I don't expect an autobiographical writer to completely bare his soul or his very private life, but without some details, some description, and extensive inner reflection, the reader is left confused and unmoved.

If Chuck does a revision--
I did about 7 on one of my book after its first edition--
he needs to keep in mind the old very truism of writing:
Show, don't tell.

And in a religious autobiography, REFLECT on your motives, your inner directions, your shadow, and how all parts of your life relate to the spiritual.

And Chuck needs to remember that in many cases, he didn't even tell.

He's right, "any religion that's worth it is built around stories."

And he ought to have added, any religion that's worth it reflects on its stories.

Shows potential.

Evaluation: C-

Yes and No--Review of Meeting: A Religious Autobiography by Chuck Fager

from Meetings: A Religious Autobiography by Chuck Fager:

“I’ve been trying to lose my religion for years now, but it refuses to go away. Just when I think I’ve shaken it – put it firmly behind me, a piece of my obscurantist past no longer suited to the faithless life I now lead – it turns up again, dogging me...”
Daphne Merkin

Chuck Fager:
"Daphne Merkin wrote that in the New Yorker, and it made me smile with recognition. As I undertake to unpack in these pages, losing “my” religion was also a major goal of my early adulthood.

But for me there turned out to be a difference between religion” and “Religion”: shaking off the church of my youth was possible; but then “Religion” proved not so easy to discard. Everywhere I turned, it kept coming at me."

"Partly this was no more than inclination and predilection: even shorn of belief, feeling the prickles of a theological buzz-cut as when rubbing my scalp after visiting the barbershop, the stubble of religion was still there, and was soon growing again, combed differently perhaps, but not to be held back. I was still interested in the subject."

"I only know to approach the answers through stories: and one lesson has been that any religion worth its salt is built around stories..."
from Meetings: A Religious Autobiography by Chuck Fager.
Available on Amazon,
https://www.createspace.com/6272748
--

My Response--
Introduction:
First let me say: During a deep, dark, despairing time in the past, Chuck personally encouraged me to not give up, to instead overcome despair. He did this by sharing his own personal story dealing with despair and overcoming that dragon.

Eventually, Chuck even made it into one of my published books, my speculative/alternative history science fiction novel, The Feeling of the Earth. In that book he appears as a minor character, Charles Faber, working at Quaker House. A friendly thank you.

I doubt that I am in his new autobiography--haven't finished it yet--since I was only one of millions of past commas in his long life. He probably doesn't remember our email exchange during my time of the "ocean of darkness." Nor should he. But I am very thankful for his encouragement and direction.

Second, let us all thank him for his decisive witness
for many years against war,
racism and intolerance.

And for his compassionate work for years
with those in the military at Quaker House,
in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Now for the Yes and No.

Background
(Skip this if you want to jump immediately to the thesis of theism
versus nontheism and everything inbetween):

I admit to being a Friends' member-at-large, no longer officially related to the society.

I resigned from my local meeting of the Society of Friends in 2009. And since then have become a practitioner of the Society of the Swimming Pool:-)

Why exactly?

And what does this have to do with Chuck Fager's stories and spiritual reflections,
and my Yes and No to religion and Quakers in particular?

Patience...Though only the Divine seems privy to that virtue.

For a number of reasons, I've decided to give you the long version of this
(contrary to strong advice from my spouse to always give her and others
the "short version," the very short version!)

Religiously, I've been a part of the Quaker movement for nearly 50 years. First at Backbench Young Adult Friends Meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the fall of 1967. I was newly arrived on the East Coast to begin my service at a mental hospital after being drafted as a conscientious objector.

I don't remember if our meeting belonged to the Hicksite or Orthodox wing of the Quakers. Hard to say, there are many 'angles' in Quakerism, like in other religions. Yes I know I mixed my letters;-). It matters little now.

Then later I became a active member of California Yearly Meeting and then of Pacific Yearly Meeting.

When we didn't live near a Quaker meeting, my wife and I drove 2 1/2 hours into Phoenix for a while to attend 2 Friends meetings there.

But some Friends supported killing! So we changed to a progressive Mennonite Church when in Phoenix.

Later, we were avid members of California Yearly Meeting, but were troubled that it de-emphasized some key ways of Friends.

I tried to affect this when I was a member and teaching the Quaker history and spirituality class at our local meeting.

But then California Yearly Meeting's leaders came out in support of nuclear weapons in 1981. And our local meeting hired a fighter pilot as our released minister, etc.

So we resigned and moved on.

Later I resigned (but didn't become resigned to these severe losses) from Pacific Yearly Meeting when our "peace committee" opposed involvement in Christian Peacemakers in Iraq, etc.

Even most upsetting, some Quaker leaders came out in support of nontheism and self-identified as nontheists!

How can a religious/spiritual group whose central focus for 350 years has been on worship and ethics possibly come to think there is no Truth to seek and worship, and to act upon?!

Besides, haven't they read key books of deep spiritual experience by George Fox, John Woolman,Thomas Kelly, and so forth? Were those central thinkers deluded?

Sometimes, what this comes down to is a difficult question of very important philosophical semantics.

But most of the time, this whole issue and Friends is filled with contradictions, like what is characteristic of most religion.

Why am I recovering from religiousness, but being "dogged" by it?

And why, do I now belong to the swimming pool?

And I am not 'lyin' in the den,
but only a brief primate named Daniel in the swirl of the vast cosmos, seeking...

So when it comes to religion, all ideas spiritual, ethical, and philosophical, and the Society of Friends, here's a few of my answers:

YES

#1
See above for my thankfulness, for Chuck's many years of service helping others and for many other Friends who have been an inspiration, direction, and guidance.

#2
Chuck is to be commended for his vivid, user-Friendly;-) prose articles, blog, and other writings. One never gets bored with bland, obtuse, meandering prose when an article has the Fager name.

To use a wholly incorrect metaphor, as a writer and thinker, he shoots to the target.

Speaking of humor, Chuck majors in that with a wry angle. Yes, his off-the-wall sort of humor is hilarious.

Take the preface of his new book where he compares religion to hair:"...shorn of belief, feeling the prickles of a theological buzz-cut as when rubbing my scalp after visiting the barbershop, the stubble of religion was still there, and was soon growing again, combed differently perhaps, but not to be held back."

LOL, but what an apt metaphor!

Not that I know this personally. I've kept my hair long
(except for one buzz-cut at Christmas 1967) for many years and, basically, a beard since the late 60's.

But I know plenty of shavers and short-hairers, including my father, relatives, and friends for whom keeping that hair back is a never ending chore.

Even an early morning shave begins to look shady by afternoon!

#3
The liberal Quaker religion which Chuck has explained in great detail in his books such as Quaker Theology, Remaking Friends: How Progressive Friends, Some Quaker FAQs, Without Apology
is winsome, positive, and has contributed to the furtherance of compassion, justice, and truth.

What's not to like about it and other forms of liberal religion
which have a lot in common with Friends?

Well, that is in the NO part.

The YES section, to be continued--

NO

#1
We both grew up in the Vietnam generation, but my life actually took a very different turn from Chuck's.

He wrote in the Preface of his new book, "losing “my” religion was also a major goal of my early adulthood"!

Exactly, the opposite for me.

To reverse a phrase from C.S. Lewis,* I was dragged kicking and screaming from religion, desperately trying to hang on to that center of my life. Maybe, its time I write my own story, too.

Take a look at this ironic story from Chuck. In 1976, he was writing for the San Francisco Bay Guardian as a journalist feature writer of odd stories.

When he studied the very popular anti-tradition simple-life book of E.F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful, Chuck discovered that many of Schumacher's views come from Roman Catholic writers, though the academic speaks of "Buddhist Economics."

So when Chuck interviewed the thinker, he thought he had a "gotcha" question:
"Dr. Schumacher, wouldn't it have been more accurate...to have called your program 'Christian,' or even Catholic economics?"

...[E.F. Schumacher] "threw back his head and laughed..."But if I had called it 'Christian Economics,' nobody would have paid any attention."

Chuck got his story: "Exposed: E.F. Schumacher Is A Vatican Agent."

"The Bay Guardian's readers ate it up. The editors loved it. But the whole adventure still left me looking to stretch a skimpy paycheck at the St. Vincent thrift store."
--

What an ironic story. How wry is the fact that while Fager was dissing an academic over Roman Catholicism, he himself was regularly frequenting and economically supporting a Roman Catholic institution dedicated to the poor?!

And Chuck himself was poor, though not by choice, like the 'Poor Brothers' of that faith.

Chuck has played us a story comic song worthy of Samuel Clemens or Kurt Vonnegut's ironic wit.

Rather a thrifty combination of prose meaning, irony, humor, and contradictions.

But let's get deeper into Chuck's religious and philosophical views.

#2
Chuck writes about a holy relic card he found in a missal at the Saint Paul thrift store, ..."that the card had been brushed up against something, which had in turn touched something else, which touched something else, in a sequence repeated..."

"All of these were links in a sacred chain stretching back through twenty centuries, to one which had purportedly touched something which had been in contact with the actual cross on which Jesus hung and breathed his last..."
--

I don't think there is a better summation of religion, especially the Christian religion, than that description. Except, of course, Protestant Evangelicals and Fundamentalists--while rejecting relics as superstition--attach a similar extreme importance to the literal Bible.

This example is one of the two key reasons why I think religion in general, and Christianity in particular, is untrue. There is way too much superstition, illusion, and delusion.

As for Chuck's comments and points, to be continued--

P.S. One last gag:-)
I'm surprised that Chuck at this point didn't wise off with a comment on his autobiographical life--calling his autobiography--From Missals to Anti-missles.;-=)

But then his humor isn't as ridiculously corny-bad as mine. He was born in Kansas, not Nebraska, the Cornhusker state, like me:-)

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

* Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis, a spiritual autobiography: “the most dejected, reluctant convert in all of England . . . drug into the kingdom kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape.”

Quakerism and the Rejection of the Arts

Quakerism was one of many wild flowers of an egalitarian revolution and spiritual seeking movement that sprouted and bloomed in England during the late 1640's.

It was part of the vast social, political and spiritual upheaval known as the English Civil War and the 30 Years War (on the European Continent). So much of the great change was very uncivil and drastically unspiritual, but amidst all of the bloodletting and destroying, many people also turned to the spiritual.

The vast conflagration killed millions and devastated the landscape. The main opposing movements of the Reformed/Puritans versus the Roman Catholics slaughtered many hundreds of thousands of European and English people.

Their beliefs led the soldiers to claim the predestination of billions of humans to eternal torture; they ravaged cities and countrysides, lied, stole, and destroyed thousands of works of art, sculpture, etc.

Historians write that almost a 1/3 of eastern Europe was destroyed. In England, Scotland, and Ireland so many were killed, harmed, and suffered, it changed a whole generation.

And all of them did this in tne name of Jesus giving God the thanks:-( The Puritans even marched into killing singing Bible verses.

Thankfully, most of leaders of the early Quaker movement, (at first termed the “Children of Light), turned away from all that endless savagery, slaughter, and mayhem.

Other Puritan influences on early Quakers were also negative, but most Quakers didn't go around slaughtering others as did the Puritans against the Roman Catholic Augustinians.

Quakers did adopt the rejection of artistic expression that characterized most of the Puritan/Reformed movement. They were all trying to "reform" and “purify” the Christian Church.

Fortunately, Quakers didn’t destroy thousands of works of art and beauty like the Puritan armies (which were much worse in this than the modern day Islamic State and Taliban who have blown up and bulldozed art treasures).

However, artistic expression was considered immoral. The brilliant musician and Quaker Solomon Eccles destroyed his own musical instruments:-(.

With this turning from aesthetics, drama, poetry, however, there was one wonderful counter result, early Friends turned inward to seek only the mystical beauty of the Light there.

So for a very long time Quakerism prohibited or took a dim view of artistic and literary creations, particularly dancing, drama, painting, sculpture, fiction, poetry, and architecture.

This led to a deep impoverishment toward creativity in the arts.

Even a century later, John Woolman, while so in ethics that he early on experienced from God the truth of the evil of slavery, yet he believed that poetry should be opposed.

It wasn’t until in the 1800’s that a little art in painting and in poetry bloomed in the Society’s austere desert.

Of course not all Friends or religious historians think this rejection of the arts was bad like I do.

I do need to show my cards (bad analogy since card-playing and other games were also banned by Friends).

I am an biased against all this prohibition and dismissal, because I am an artist and writer. Being an art major for 2 years at university, an oil acrylic, tempra painter, and earning my B.A. in Creative Writing gives me a very different perspective.

So, yes, I admit I am strongly against the early Friends opposition to aesthetics, and all the other bad influences from the Puritan/Reformed for that matter.

However, it is important to point out that part of Puritan reaction against aesthetics came about because of the gross immorality in Protestant and Roman Catholic culture and society, especially among aristocrats and the rich (the ones who could afford to pay for art, painting, sculpture, drama, and fancy clothes).

Look at modern western culture now. Media is often used to glorify what is base, vulgar, and even evil. Huge amounts of money--billions of dollars--are spent and made today by Hollywood and Internet for salacious and pornographic ‘art.’

Consider the amazingly creative and technically brilliant TV show, Sense8, by the Wachowskis siblings who gave the public, The Matrix.

Without a doubt, that show is one of the most creative, thoughtful, reflective, at times very compassionate, and artistic achievements in modern cinema.

But the show is also a modern paean to gross immorality, deep praise of the superficial, the untrue, the impure and the evil.

How is that possible?

Humans so often turn the very best to glorify the very worst.

On the other hand, other creative humans use the arts to bring the Good, the True, the Just, and the Beautiful to Light for all to experience.

Without the arts, we humans would be greatly impoverished.

Consider this:

Many modern Quakers emphasize silence, and most modern day Puritans (Reformed/Calvinists/Muslims) emphasize lecture.

But many, probably most, humans aren’t silent or lecture learners, but DO grow spiritually through artistic expression.

Which would most of the humans in your city or town prefer to go to a 2-hour sermon?

A 2-hour time of mostly silence?

Or a 2-hour movie?

Hmm;-)

I've spent many hours in silent meditation, prayer, open unprogrammed worship, and reflection...

and am an aficinado of long lectures on history and religion and spirituality...

but my first love is the artistic, the poetic, the visual, the creative!
--

Brief history of Quakers and their later responses to the artistic rejection:

In the early 1800's, Bernard Barton, later called "the Quaker poet", wrote an aesthetic article justifying the arts. His main poem, "The Convict's Appeal," protested against the harsh British system of criminal justice, especially its use of the Death Penalty for many offenses.

Keep in mind however, that even on ethical issues, Quakers were often uncreative and almost passive. Partially because of such intense persecution, Friends had rejected and turned away from their very early expressive, revolutionary vision and became traditional, conservative, and often rigid.

In the modern era, many look back and credit the Quakers with abolition, but that is only seeing a few Quaker peaks. Actually most Quakers until the late 18th century owned slaves or supported slavery. Many of the ships which transported slaves were Quaker owned!

Even worse, a Massachusetts Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends "in 1837 voted not to permit anti-slavery lectures at Quaker Meeting Houses...!"

The rising poet, John Greenleef Whittier said "he could never again be the representative to the Yearly Meeting...Although he did not believe Quakers should sing in Meetings, he wrote over 100 hymns, mostly for other denominations, many of which are still sung in Protestant churches today."
North Shore Community College
http://myweb.northshore.edu/users/sherman/whittier/quaker/

"George Fox had a very definite 'puritan' view of the arts. To him these 'jests and toys' were nothing but a distraction from God and Truth and as such were to be entirely avoided by Friends. The only purpose of sports, games, poetry, plays and music as far as he and other early Quakers were concerned was to while away time that should be dedicated to a higher and more serious end."

"Another objection to the arts was that they were not true. Plays were particular offenders here as not only was the story being told not real but actors dressed up and pretended to be someone else!"

Some serious religious poetry was allowed for private personal devotion.

In 1799, Elizabeth Fry, the Quaker prison reformer, wrote,
"How much my natural heart does love to sing: but if I give way to the ecstasy singing sometimes produces in my mind, it carries me far beyond the centre; it increases all the wild passions, and works on enthusiasm."

"Many say and think it leads to religion, but true religion appears to me to be in a deeper recess of the heart..."

However later she did write,
"My observation of human nature and the different things that affect it frequently leads me to regret that we as a Society so wholly give up delighting the ear by sound."

"Surely He who formed the ear and the heart would not have given these tastes and powers without some purpose for them."
--

"Paintings were seen as superfluous decoration and portraits were particularly frowned on as leading to personal vanity. This is the reason why there are so few contemporary representations of Quakers in the 17th and early 18th centuries."

"In 1846 for example London Yearly Meeting minuted 'We believe [music] to be both in its acquisition and its practice, unfavorable to the health of the soul. . . .'"
http://stumblingstepping.blogspot.com/2013/01/quaker-alphabet-week-2-for-arts.html
Quaker and retired librarian, Gil S.

Some Quaker thinking showed the anti-humanistic influence of the Reformed and the Augustinian views (even though all Friends rejected those horrific theologies). In regards to paintings of families and portraits:

"Sorrowful it is...Shallow indeed must be the religion of him who knows not that in himself, as a man, dwelleth no good thing."
from The Friend, Philadelphia

Such an extremely negative view of humanity and the arts started to gradually change. Consider the beautiful painting, The Peaceable Kingdom , by Edward Hicks, 1830:

And by 1895 Quaker leader William Charles Braithwaite wrote,
"It needs to be recognized that our Society has not escaped the tendency to narrow down spiritual action to certain prescribed ways as a substitute for the reality of the spiritual life."

"For example, while Friends have been among the pioneers of modern science they have, until recent years, repressed all taste for the fine arts."

"These, at their greatest, always contain some revelation of the Spirit of God, which is in the fullest harmony with our spiritual faith."

"In the fields of music, art, and literature, as in others, Friends may witness to the glory of God and advance that glory by their service."
--

At present, we have fine Quaker organizations who support the arts such as the Fellowship of Quakers in the Arts and the Quaker Arts Network.

Also some contemporary Friends leaders such as Jan de Hartog and Chuck Fager have written fiction.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Reflecting on Chuck Fager's "Some Quaker Faqs"

Introduction:

Here's the latest fax from the eternal realms;-)

This short article deals with Friend Chuck Fager's intriguing new series at his Internet blog, A Friendly Letter, where he is contrasting one version of creedal religion (New Covenant Temple) with the Society of Friends (of the progressive sort).

He shows in startling detail why seldom if ever shall the twain meet, participate, or agree. These two contrasting worldviews have very different perceptions, many different ethical values, even different halos;-). Furthermore, alien creeds such as NCT do harp on and on about very strange doctrines.

Don't miss these very lucid contrasts by writer and thinker Chuck Fager.
http://afriendlyletter.com/

For even deeper analyses check out the excellent Friends journal of discussion and study, Quaker Theology, of which Chuck is the editor, Stephen Angell and Ann K. Riggs, associate editors. The latest issue, #27, is online for free at http://quakertheology.org/QT-27.html
The volume contains insightful articles such as "Thunder in Carolina, Part Two: NCYM-FUM and "Unity" vs. Uniformity by Chuck Fager.

But now on to chewing on "Some Quaker FAQS," reflecting on the points of Fager's A Friendly Letter:

#1 "So one other way some important theologians have thought about him [Jesus] is, not a sacrifice, but a kind of model for humans to ponder, of how a non-wrathful God might want others to live, or at least learn about life." Chuck Fager

MY QUESTION:
Why would a "non-wrathful God" allow, let alone cause/will/ordain, that billions of humans over the time of the last few hundred thousand years be persecuted, oppressed, harmed, and slaughtered by others, often in the name of God?

And, probably even worse, why would such a loving God allow billions of humans to endure severe suffering and excruciating deaths from various forms of natural evil and disasters from the Black Death, malaria, small pox and cancer to tsunamis, hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes?

I should caution that Fager already acknowledges this conundrum only a paragraph later when he writes, "much of life still has a tragic character."

#2 When questioning Evangelical Christianity's belief in a "personal relationship" with Jesus, Chuck uses the analogy, "But many of us have read or heard about Harry Potter, seen him in movies. How does any of this add up to a 'personal relationship'?"

MY RESPONSE:
This analogy by Fager doesn't work well except for the few mythicists who claim that the historical leader, Jesus, never existed but was a completely fictional character. The vast majority of historical scholars think Jesus existed.

Closer to the point would be to say this spiritual "personal relationship" with Jesus is like having one with another real and admired historical leader such as Martin Luther King Jr. or C.S. Lewis or George Fox.

Strangely, in fact, religious people often do speak of just such occurrences, not with Jesus only. The famous Christian writer J.B. Phillips, actually claimed that he did have a spiritual relationship/encounter with C.S.Lewis after the latter's death.

Phillips wrote that Lewis came to him in a vivid vision, stood in front of him in his locked house, and spoke words of comfort which helped Phillips overcome a deep depression!

In addition, C.S. Lewis himself and other famous religious thinkers have also written of their own supernatural encounters with dead humans.

So if one is willing to accept the view that the essentially true is the spiritual and eternal, then a relationship with a dead person (who is only dead on the level of matter and energy) isn't nearly as bizarre as it first sounds. Heck, these same humans, also, believe in angelic visitors from the supernatural realm.

Chuck Fager may be showing his hand (sorry to make an analogy between poker and spiritual philosophy;-)
that he is a modern--
one who isn't superstitious in the supernatural sense of the term.

I agree with him. I'm an Enlightenment modern. Besides, I've never believed in angels hovering in the air, didn't think, (even in my most devout years as a Christian), that there is a supernatural realm where dead people in Heaven are observing us, can communicate with us, etc.

To be continued--

In the Light,

Daniel