Abiding Quaker

My first book on religion came from my grandparents the Christmas I was 14. Its title was What the Great Religions Believe by author Joseph Gaer. Deep discussions with my grandfather occurred most every night in those early teenage years, while he washed and I dried the dishes after dinner. Religion was a topic that interested us both, and I’m grateful that I can recall some of his wisdom.

My views were very different then: I was becoming surer of my agnosticism with each month that passed, a perspective that was to last for most of the next two decades. Part of his wisdom was accepting my 14-year-old ideas as worthy of discussion. My views now are no doubt closer to what his were then, as is my age.

I was reminded recently of one vignette in this book, and thought I’d share it here. It is one of a number of unauthenticated sayings of Jesus that were found in papyri in Upper Egypt in the late-19^th century and were thought to have been written between 150 and 300 A.D. The sayings, or Agrapha, were written in Greek. So, here’s the story:

One day Jesus and his disciples passed a man who spoke evil of them in a loud voice; but Jesus spoke only good in return. And when his disciples asked him why he spoke good to him who spoke evil, he replied: “Each gives out of his store.”

I’d like to think that my grandfather and I talked about that story.

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I want to give a shout-out to the reader in Hong Kong whose presence showed up today on the stat page of this blog for the first time since Typhoo Mangkhut hit in mid-September. Your frequent visits, as shown in the stats, had been a welcome sight for some months. I’m glad you’re safe and hope your city is recovering quickly.

The Quaker’s revolution was a movement to recover the experience of the power of God through the recovery of that gospel of power which had been lost “since the Apostles’ days.” — Lewis Benson

In August 1976 at Haverford College, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Lewis Benson gave a series of five lectures titled “A New Foundation to Build On.” The second lecture in this series is called “The Power of the Gospel.” It begins with a brief history of George Fox’s early life at the time he felt near despair of finding a way to live a right and true life, a crisis that was resolved when he was given to know Christ experientially. In this essay, Benson alludes to the same stultifying difficulty early in his own life. As a result of having passed from darkness to light, both Fox and Benson, for the remainder of their lives, made their first concern the presentation of the gospel and its message, for the gospel conveyed the power to overcome the human condition of alienation from God.

Though Scriptures bear witness to the availability of and necessity for coming into the gospel, the church of Fox’s time no longer taught this message, and it was no longer known. Isolated groups throughout the centuries had known and practiced this faith, but it had been absent from the church for 1600 years. It was the Quaker mission to recover the gospel and present it to the world.

Benson spends a major portion of the lecture describing the content of the gospel message that Quakers preached; it was most briefly formulated in the statement “Christ is come to teach his people himself.” In the seventeenth century, this summary expressed a unique understanding of Christ’s salvific work: his being present and active, with particular emphasis on his prophetic office or function as the teacher of righteousness.

Whenever [Fox] preached the gospel, he preached the “offices of Christ,” and especially the office of prophet, because it is by hearing Christ the prophet that the knowledge of God’s righteousness is received and the power to obey is given (Benson).

The essay concludes by referring to the 1945 discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a discovery that confirmed seventeenth-century Friends’ assertion that the gospel they preached was the same that was held by the Jewish Christians of the first century. Though it was a significant discovery, it had little impact on Quakers then or since, nor on Christians in general, for an apostasy is overcome not through gospel-corroborating scholarship but through the gospel itself.

This lecture series can be found at the New Foundation Fellowship website under the Resources tab and Lewis Benson’s writings.

And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay tribute? He saith, Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? Of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? Of their own children, or of strangers? Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free. Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou has opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee (Mt. 17: 24-27 KJV).

This isn’t your ordinary fish story, though it is incredible. Nevertheless, there’s a lesson about reality being taught here, a lesson to be confirmed by experience alone. For the experience goes well beyond that which we have learned is possible in nature, just like the story itself.

Peter is being taught in this passage that the new way that Jesus embodies will free him from the confines of the first nature, the nature given to all humankind. The story conveys this lesson by transcending nature at large, i.e., by presenting a miracle. The story’s miracle implies our human nature can likewise be transcended. By grace and truth, humankind’s state can be moved beyond its corrupt, sinful nature into a new and living perfection.

Several other passages in this chapter affirm the real possibility of transcending our first-birth nature. When an idea is presented convincingly a number of times and in various ways, the likelihood of its being grasped is increased. One instance among the plethora of argument, evidence, and conviction may at last raise the veil that darkens the mind, plant a seed that grows in the heart.

If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you (20).

And they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again (23).

Jesus’s question to Peter (of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers? [25]) begins a course of reasoning designed to teach Peter that he has closer connection to God (as His child) than do those religious authorities who (alienated strangers to God) uphold religious, social regulation, such as paying and demanding tribute. Jesus is teaching Peter that he is beyond that alienated, tribute-paying nature of the world; he has a closer relationship to God: that of a son.

To finish his lesson with a demonstration of its truth, Jesus instructs Peter to perform an act that is impossible in nature: to get money from a fish’s mouth. He has taught Peter that (human) nature can be transcended, and now he wants Peter himself to partake of this knowledge, to have it confirmed by experience.

This passage is about coming into gospel freedom, freedom from captivity to  corrupt human nature: the final line Jesus speaks to Peter before sending him off to find the fish is “Then are the children free” (26).

There’s a thematic symmetry in this chapter. The opening verses (1-5) also  carry the lesson that with the coming of the new, living way, the paying of tribute is become defunct. In paying tribute, choosing what resources to give over to God, one assumes control, and asserts this arrangement is just and adequate. In the new way that Jesus brings to the world, humankind no longer arbitrates the dispensing of resources to God, no longer pays tribute, but instead yields to God’s command. Power and predominance of will shift their locus away from ourselves and onto God, once again to their rightful place that has been from the beginning.

And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart. And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him. Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him (1-5).

We are told only of Peter’s reaction to the appearance of Moses and Elias: he wants to honor them and Jesus—to pay tribute—by building tabernacles, one for each. (The tabernacle was a type or figure of God’s dwelling with his people [Ex. 25: 8-9].) Even as Peter speaks of his intent to pay tribute, however, he is interrupted by the voice coming out of a bright cloud: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him”(5). God’s command, “hear ye him,” disrupts Peter’s plan. The voice commands the new way God is to dwell with his people: no longer through man-made tabernacles, but by hearing the Word of God, which is Christ. The enveloping structure of the tabernacle is superseded by the enveloping cloud of light; paying tribute is superseded by hearing the beloved Son.

The middle passages of this chapter teach a variety of lessons about the work Peter and the other disciples will soon take up after Jesus has been killed. The timing, sequence, and history; the expectations of suffering and frustration; and the healings, their source, and how to perform them are all lessons covered in the middle portion. Yet standing like bookends at either end of this chapter is Jesus teaching the difference between the man-made religion of paying tribute, and the nature-transcending faith that comes down from above. The prominent position afforded this lesson in the first and last passages of this teaching chapter bespeak its significance as the first and last lesson that a disciple must learn.

And why is the devil, and they that be of him, called a deceiver, because he is out of the truth, and would draw others from and out of the truth, and so destroy them both body and soul, but Christ destroyeth him (George Fox, Headley Manuscript, Friends House London, p. 311, catalogue item number 8, 82F).

In Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film Schindler’s List, there was a scene that has remained with me as an accurate portrayal of the dynamics of evil. This particular scene offered a glimpse into the suprahuman power of darkness that lies behind the temptation to evil to which we, as humans, are exposed and regularly succumb as a matter of course. The state or condition produced by such yielding to temptation is called in our tradition’s parlance “worldliness,” “the world” being the term that signifies humanity’s opposition to God. George Fox writes: “All relations in the world are Devilish, Selfish, heathenish and earthly” (Cadbury, Annual Catalogue of George Fox’s Papers, item 6, p. 61).

The recalled scene from the film centers on an interaction between a commander of a camp and a young female Jewish engineer. She has discovered that one of the camp’s buildings has a faulty foundation that will inevitably lead to the building’s collapse, if not corrected. The scene begins with her rushing into the presence of the camp’s commander and his men who listen to her confident, fervent warning. After the commander has heard her out, he pauses a moment to consider the situation, and then promptly orders one of his men to shoot her. The scene ends with her murder.

Nearly a quarter century after having first seen this film, I mistakenly recalled the woman being dragged away while continuing to protest the commander’s failure to understand the danger: the building would collapse if nothing were done. Having recently again watched the film, I found a different, more powerful ending to the scene from what I had previously imagined.

The scene ends with the woman being shot, but immediately before her murder, she and the commander exchange one line each of dialogue. The brief exchange unmasks and displays the forces of good and evil that lay behind the conflict just played out between them. As the woman is forced to her knees prior to being shot, she defiantly asserts: “It will take more than that.” To which the camp commander readily replies: “I’m sure you’re right.”

Her dying assertion (“It will take more than that.”) implies the truth cannot be altered or destroyed by the silencing of those who speak it. Truth, the Word of God, is eternal and unchanging, and as such, it remains unaffected by that which was “a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth” (Jn. 8:44). In this scene, that point is made when the woman withstands the demonic assault by remaining grounded and speaking the truth until the end.

The commander’s reply (“I’m sure you’re right.”) while mockingly affirming the  right and the true, simultaneously conveys a readiness to continue destroying beings who—alone of all God’s creatures—can know and speak truth. By ordering the murder of the truth-speaker, the commander unmasks a satanic defiance that would always have the exalted truth subjugated: whether that dominance is gained overtly by the killing of the body (as in this scene); or covertly, insidiously, through eliciting an overriding fear of diminishment or death.

Such fear quickly draws the mind away to creaturely self-service, and leaves the soul languishing unattended and desolate, its lifeline to God abandoned. For it is only in attentive relationship with God that the soul lives (Jn. 17:3). The forfeiture of the living relationship with God is signified in our tradition by the term “the Fall of man.” “By their fall they came under another power, another image, another likeness, and another god, even the god of the world” (The Works of George Fox, vol. 8, p. 136).

Though there were many other scenes in the film where destruction occurred on a larger scale, this one scene stood out because of the stark depiction of the characteristics of evil, and not simply its consequences. As opposed to satanic evil, the distinguishing mark of human sin is weakness: a refusal to honor truth when tempted by the possibility of possessing whatever one loves instead of truth. A weak succumbing to temptation is the mark of human sin. In this scene, however, we see not only human but also demonic evil, the origin of the temptation of human beings, who in weakness yield. Writes Emil Brunner in Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption:

Human sin, thanks to the fact that we are not pure spirits, but body-mind creatures, is never “complete.” Its negative “perfection” would be pure defiance, pure arrogance, that is purely spiritual sin. But our sin, thanks to the fact of our human constitution as “body-mind,” is always a mixture of defiance and weakness, of tendency to temptation both on the side of the mind and of the senses (139).

In its demonic form, evil is “perfect” defiance of God; it originates in the rebellion of “that being who could not endure not to be equal with God” (Brunner, 145), and it manifests in willful rejection of the divine imperative to obey the God of truth. In fact, George Fox identifies the rejection of truth as the defining act by which the devil became the devil: “he became a devil by going out of truth and so became a murderer and a destroyer” (Nickalls, 212).

Evil is perpetuated by tempting weak humans to reject the truth, and thus dishonor our Creator who has created us in His image, as beings enabled to discern and participate in truth, which is Christ (Jn. 14:6). To abdicate our humanity’s gift of the ability to know and participate in the truth, and thereby to defy God’s will, is to become less than human; it is not to become more than human, as the serpent enticed, “ye shall be as gods”(Gen. 3:5).  Fox expressed this loss of humanity in the following passage from his Journal:

Now some men have the nature of swine wallowing in the mire, and some men have the nature of dogs to bite both the sheep and one another; and some men have the nature of lions, to tear, devour, and destroy. And some men have the nature of wolves to tear and devour the lambs and sheep of Christ; and some men have the nature of the Serpent (that old adversary), to sting, envenom, and poison. “He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear,” and learn these things within himself. And some men have the natures of other beasts and creatures, minding nothing but earthly and visible things, and feeding without the fear of God. Some men have the nature of an horse, to praunce and vapour in their strength, and to be swift in doing evil; and some men have the nature of tall, sturdy oaks, to flourish and spread in wisdom and strength, who are strong in evil, which must perish and come to the fire. Thus the evil is but one in all, but worketh many ways; and whatsoever a man’s or woman’s nature is addicted to that is outward, the Evil One will fit him with that, and will please his nature and appetite to keep his mind in his inventions, and in the creatures, from the Creator (Nickalls, 59).

Regardless of the extent of the consequences–-whether vast societal destruction or a single lie confined to a single, corrupted mind–-the dynamics of human evil are always the same: assent to temptation coupled with defiance. Its outward consequences are indicative only of its extent but not of its intrinsic character, for that is determined at its inception, not in its effects. That evil is first acceded to within underscores the inescapability of personal responsibility. Taking personal responsibility is the sole human act that can hinder both succumbing to personal sin as well as to the social sin of conformity, necessary for scapegoating and other grander-scaled, collective expressions of evil.

Holding the line, speaking the truth is the Christian’s (Quaker’s) obligation in the Lamb’s War. If the God of truth is honored in just one mind, heart, and soul, the world is not lost, as Jesus showed us by prototypal example. In this statement given before Pilate shortly before the end of his earthly life, Jesus identified his life’s purpose not only for himself but for us all.

To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice (Jn.18:37).

Seventeenth-century Friends of the Truth heard his voice and preached the Word of reconciliation to the fallen world. And we continue, grounded and speaking the truth until the end.

The ministers of the word that preached that, preached the word that reconciled people to God, and did hammer down and cut down and burn up that which was in them and had made a separation betwixt them and God, so it’s called the word of reconciliation and reconciles all things to God in one, both things in heaven and things in earth (Annual Catalogue of George Fox’s Papers, pp.179-180, catalogue number 15, 40G).

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When I began to concentrate my studies on all the writings of George Fox more than forty years ago, it was during the period of Quaker history that might be called the “high tide” of the mystical interpretation of Quakerism. And when I had first encountered Fox’s Journal just fifty years ago, I was not a professing Christian. If I had any bias when I read the Journal for the first time, it was in the direction of hoping to find in Fox the “perennial philosophy” of the mystics. But as I continued to study Fox, I became convinced that the great work on which he labored so faithfully all through his life was to preach the good news concerning Jesus Christ and how he saves people, and I became convinced of the truth of this gospel message.  – Lewis Benson

“The Christian Universalism of George Fox” is the tenth and final lecture in the series Rediscovering the Teaching of George Fox that Lewis Benson gave at Moorestown (N.J.) Meeting in 1982. These lectures were prepared with those in mind who had been reached through hearing gospel ministry and, as a result, had wanted to “become involved in the work of preaching it again.” Each of the first eight lectures in this series covers a specific area of Fox’s teaching. The final two lectures (this and the previous one: “Fox’s Teaching on the Holy Spirit”) were included to prepare those who will go out to preach the gospel, and who can expect to “run into questions about holy spirit religion and about non-Christian universalism.”

In this essay, Benson distills significant points from various scholars’ writings regarding the interface between universal mystical faith and Quakers. Rufus Jones figures prominently in this inventory, and Geoffrey Nuttall, Melvin B. Endy, and John Yungblut are mentioned as well. Going beyond scholarly positions, however, Benson presents Fox’s moving past intellectualism and into the wisdom of sequential, inward experience, which culminates in the knowledge of the inward Christ as person (i.e., having a face). The verse from 2 Corinthians 4:6, encapsulated in the following, was frequently referred to by Friends:

Believers in Christ Jesus and the apostles and disciples…preach Christ the covenant of light among the Gentiles, and so bring them from the darkness to the light, from the power of Satan to God…and brought them inwardly to the light that shines in their hearts, to give them the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

A frequent charge from the earliest decades of the movement was that Quakers eliminated from their faith Jesus Christ “who dwelt in Galilee and Judea and was crucified, buried, and rose on the third day.” Though Friends always denied the accusation, and owned Christ’s “appearance of him in his body of flesh,” they formally stated their position in “The Christian Doctrine of the People called Quakers Cleared.”  Benson quotes from this document, which was prepared in 1694 by trusted ministers and leaders in the Society. Here is one statement from that document: “The son of God cannot be divided…nor is the sufficiency of his light within set up by us in opposition to him.”

Benson identifies a more recent challenge to the early Quaker message as “denominational-mindedness.” The principle behind this thinking is that different “natures” require different philosophies or theologies, thus accounting for the many denominations. Since Benson’s time, denominational-mindedness has gained ground among Quakers, and a diversity of philosophies is now seen as valid not only for those outside of the Society but for those within. A tightening conformity to the doctrine of individualism has accelerated the proliferation of ideologies within the Society. Resisted by most is the observation that human nature is intrinsic and universal, the same in every time and place, and that Jesus Christ speaks to this universal condition.

Benson concludes this lecture series with the following:

[Early Quakers] were proclaiming that Christ, who is present in the midst of his people in all his offices, is the means that God has provided to save not just the Jews, or the Christians, but all people, all nations. The need today is for more men and women who are prepared to go forth and proclaim this gospel to Quakers, Christians, and people of all faiths, or none. “It is a wonderful thing to be called to the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”  

This tenth lecture can be found under the Resources tab in Lewis Benson Writings at the New Foundation Fellowship website.

Today is the day the world celebrates as Pentecost. Though we Quakers have a mild taboo against celebrating particular days, I do often celebrate them, privately, because all the direction and structure of my life is acknowledged in these particular days, and I am affirmed through celebrating a shared knowledge and purpose with those of the past. “Hello Peter; hello David; we are just some centuries apart, but our inward life, our knowledge and love of God, is the same.”

There have been and are others who like me have known life’s fulfillment through having been given to know the Inward Christ, have sought to dwell in the house of the Lord forever, and are committed to proclaiming the Kingdom. Some, like Peter and David, were also given words and tasks that we who follow in time can rally around and rejoice in, for they come from the pure human heart that knows its Creator’s greatest gift, the Presence of His Son, Christ Jesus.

I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved; Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope; Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance (Acts 2:25-28).

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The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.

T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

The following is based upon gospel ministry given in a Philadelphia meeting on May 6, 2018.

There is a story of Jesus and his disciples walking toward Jerusalem. Along the way, Jesus saw a fig tree in the distance, and upon approaching it, he saw that it had leaves but no fruit, “for the time of the figs was not yet”(Mk. 11:13). Then Jesus cursed the tree, saying, “No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever” (14). Though it was the nature of the tree to bear figs only in season, he cursed the tree for having no fruit.

As with so many incidents that take place in Scripture, this story tells us something of ourselves, and in this story, we are being taught something about what is expected of us as human beings. Like the fig tree, we humans have a particular nature, the human nature, and what its fruits are is well-known to each of us: we have our particular strengths and limitations, our seasons of fear and desire, our fruits of virtue and vice. These all are a part of our human nature.

We are being told in this story that just as more was expected of the fig tree than its nature could yield, more, too, is expected of us than that which our nature can produce. To meet the expectations that are placed upon us–and that we place upon ourselves–we must be more than what our nature confines us to be. We are commanded to be righteous and loving (Jn. 15:12), yet human nature does not allow us to be this; it always lets us down. We try and we fail, and we try again.

How are we to handle this problem with which we are cursed? Is self-deceit our nature’s only possible escape from imposed and internalized expectations of the unattainable? Is the honest person’s only option the agonized cry of Paul: “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24)

It is through receiving the spirit of Christ that we become more than our nature allows. It is through receiving this Spirit that we may bear divine fruit of love and righteousness, which is beyond human nature to yield. We prepare to receive this divine Spirit by stilling our human nature and waiting in truth, in that emptiness where, in truth, Truth is not yet come. Through waiting to receive, Friends found that Truth is given, and our human nature transcended and fulfilled. Friends of Truth discovered that we could come into unity with the One whose divine image we bear as sons and daughters of God, and thus come into loving, righteous fellowship with one another. Their discovery confirms the reality that, in any age, we humans can bear the fruits of the Spirit, in season and out, no longer prevented by the confines of our nature; it is  the one true miracle!

Who are ingrafted into Christ? Can any one be ingrafted into him, but as he is inwardly revealed and made known? Yea, is not he in them who are ingrafted into him, and are not they in him? Is not he that is truly regenerated cut off from the old stock within, from the root of bitterness within; and is not he implanted into the new stock within also; insomuch as he sensibly feeleth the pure, holy root of life bear him, and the sap thereof springing up in him, causing him to bring forth fruit to God in due season? (Penington. Works: IV, 165.)