Beyond the Boundaries: Convergent Friends and Quaker Renewal

The Old/New of Quakerism

What drew me to the Friends initially, probably not unlike many others, were the early testimonies. This conversion of sorts happened while I was at Malone College (Canton, Ohio), studying Bible and theology. There are many wonderful “old” things about the Friends that we all love, sometimes it might even be said that we love those things too much. While there are some great things from the past the Quaker tradition has the potential to offer “new” ideas, critiques, and theological reflection for our troubled world. One group of Quakers called, Convergent Friends, are looking into some these questions about an old/new faith and meeting together to discuss renewal with our tradition.

Blogging as A Way of Building A Community (of Convergent f/Friends)



As a young and earnest Evangelical Friend I desired to learn as much about Quakerism as possible, so I turned to the history books as well as the web. And, shortly after that, I started blogging.  I hoped to use my blog to dialogue with others, ask the hard question, and reflect theologically on Quakerism and the challenges of today's culture. Not long after that I found the long-time Quaker blog the Quaker Ranter. The author Martin Kelley is an unprogrammed "liberal" Quaker from FGC who has strong “conservative” leanings and is an outspoken Christian. Martin was the first Quaker I “met” who blurred my preconceived notions about the categories we’ve assigned to one another. Our blogs helped to bypass the denominational boundaries and the space and place that separated us and join us together in a common desire to see Quakers engage our culture missionally. 


If you were just to look at each of our respective locations in the Friend's church you wouldn't find two individuals further a part. But I found this to be anything but true once I started reading and listening to what Martin had to say on his blog. I realized that he was talking and thinking about the same questions that I was, and that he and I, from opposite ends of the Friend’s family tree, were standing almost side by side. Our blogs offered a way interact with each other while not feeling threatened by the common stereotypes and misinformation that can often dominate these kinds of encounters.  Since that time I've met many wonderful Quakers online (many who I consider close friends), including an unprogrammed Friend from San Francision, Robin Mohr, a woman many of us refer to as the mother of convergent Friends.



These online friendships is really how “convergent Friends” all started out, at least in its contemporary manifestation (discussions about historical convergent Friends like Everett Cattell and Lewis Benson is for another post).  The web has acted as a meeting ground for Quakers all over the world.  It gives us a place to come  together and share ideas, dreams, struggle through difficult questions, get mad, make-up and build friendships. Not only have convergent Friends used the web as a medium to facilitate a conversation otherwise not physically possible but these are conversations that have been waiting to happen! We've found so many Friends from all over who have felt the same as us; Robin has said many times, "the Winds of the Spirit are blowing across all branches of Friends."  These friendships are more and more finding their way into people's living rooms, porches, coffee shops, pubs, and meetinghouses as we gather to eat together and hear one another’s stories. 



Follow up:

Lots of New Questions (so few new answers)



This "convergent" conversation has been partially about naming what many of us, all over the world, have felt for a really long time; things have so radically changed in our world that the questions, as well as the answers, all seem to be so different that we need to re-think how these changes affect all areas of Christian life; and we can often find help and inspiration from unlikely (Quaker) places. When we look to Quakerism we find a lot of historical answers, but few answers from people who are engaging our contemporary culture as theologians and practitioners. When I say the questions have changed, I am referring to a wide array of issues that arise due to globalization, mass media, increasing mobility, cyberspace, economic decline, terrorism, post-christendom, the environment, war and postmodernity.  All these are features of our contemporary world that present radical challenges for all of us. 



The culture the church finds itself in today is different than it was during Fox, Penn, and Woolman's time. John Woolman never dealt with things like pluralism, sexual identity issues, bioethics, the effects of TV, Myspace or terrorism. Rather, ours is a world that is less and less concerned with physical location, built around a single cultural identity, or absolute certainty - that is one thing we can be certain of!  You can throw that old stuff out the window my generation faces different questions. It’s not that these older things aren’t important or don’t get dealt with, but they aren’t are the essential issues that are on the table for many of us. We are all aware of the various influences of major world religions, we know that we don't live in Christian society any longer and that there is no such thing as a monolithic culture. French philosopher Jaques Ellul has made it clear to us that Media and technology has reshaped the way we think and interact with each other in ways that order our entire world. We are exposed to hundreds of cultures through the television and the world-wide web. Information is instantly available to all of us and communities of friends are being cultivated through a computer screen. (How many of you are reading this on your cellphone or iPod?)

"Modern" and "Post-Modern" (What's this have to do with Friends?)

Social theorists and philosophers have argued that since around the 1950's a new, post-modern, era has arisen. It gets its name because of its coming after and rejecting the assumptions of the modern period, the predominate Western ideology since the early 17th century.  These terms, 'postmodern' and 'modern,' name historical periods of time, as well as cultural, philosophical, scientific and theological assumptions about our world. For our purposes it's important to note that the church is influenced by whatever culture it finds itself in, and tends to burrow from the culture to communicate the Gospel to the world. It’s not so much a matter of wether or not we are conformed, (Romans 12) but rather what is it we are conformed to. We get into trouble when we aren’t aware of the influence culture plays in our formation. Many times we think we are rejecting the world (and its culture) all the while we assume many of its more “invisible” qualities (ideologies, philosophies, assumptions, etc).

Among other things Modernity, or the Enlightenment, is characterized by an emphasis on individualism, efficiency, hierarchy, reductionism, foundationalism, and objectivity.  While some of those descriptions may fly over your head, they do mine, the important point to remember is that Modernity sought to pull authority out of it's social and historical context, base it on reason and reconstruct authority based on the individual self. The scientific method of the 17-18th century and it's quest for indubitable knowledge epitomizes this notion.  But both conservatives and liberals today are heavily influenced by this modern individualized authority inasmuch as they try to located Truth/Authority/Experience in a single, unquestionable foundation. In other words, here is the influence of an underlying assumption about the world that has influenced people on every side of the spectrum, and these are assumptions that many in our culture today were not born into and no longer hold.



Postmodernity, then, marks the shift away from these modern assumptions. The actual word was first used in 1960's architecture and has slowly spread throughout other areas of culture.  Looking back we see that philosophers like Ludwig Wittgenstein and JL Austin as some of our earliest "postmodern" thinkers.  Thus, postmodernity may be characterized by a renewed focus on the local, tradition, holism (anti-reductionist), community, and the arts; while also being pluralistic, non-hierarchical, anti-foundational, subjective, and organic in its emphasis [Here I am largely describing an “Anglo-American” postmodernity).  The period we are currently in is a transition time, where you can see both modern and postmodern world-views and assumptions colliding, competing and struggling with one another.

The Not-so Easy Task of Change (the "missionary" renewal of Quakerism)

So taking into account the Rich Heritage of Quakerism, as Walter Williams calls it, I find that the powerful communicative tool of the web, and the ever-so-challenging cultural questions of postmodernity leave us in a place of great anxiety as well as excitement. It’s never easy to change, it’s not even easy to talk about it, but the conversation is happening all over the Quaker world and often (though not always) outside the institutional boundaries. I invite you to take up these hard conversations in whatever way you feel led to contribute.

Our task will be to engage as missionaries our local cultures and in the process Friends will find renewal. We will need to reflect on our relationship to culture and how we influenced by it. This influence happens whether we want it to or, so how do we use the tools of the culture to transform those parts of the culture that oppress and dominate? How do we again see that God is already at work in the world and point towards the parts of culture that reflect the Kingdom of God? What do we do about those parts that reject God’s kingdom? Jesus’ life and ministry showed us what the Kingdom of God looks like by his inclusivity, love, equality, peacemaking, joy, hospitality, generosity, healing, etc. Jesus is our example for engaging culture, as my mentor Ryan Bolger likes to say, he was not so much counter-cultural as non-conformed within the culture.  We glean these insights and look to join in where God is already at work.

Convergent Friends are those Quakers seeking friendship across the many branches of our tradition, banding together and moving out into the world to engage in God’s mission. There are many who already do this, there are many who need to have this vision stirred within their spirits. Because we are a small group of people with no formal titles, creeds, or institutions we feel freed to ask the difficult questions, even ridiculous ones, without feeling like we need conclusive answers. We believe that in every generation things need to get re-worked that is why we're striving for open-ended answers that will serve our world now, not ourselves.  Ours is a new wineskin, overflowing with creativity, excitement and love for our neighbors as we look to embody what it means to be true f/Friends of Jesus.

I’d like to invite you to Join Us at the Convergent Friends Retreat in February.

Also please visit ConvergentFriends.org and QuakerQuaker.org for more info.