Thanks for reading and replying. I’ve really appreciated hearing from Friends on this essay. Not least because I should have phrased ‘some kind of detachment seems inevitable’ more carefully!

I agree with your point that real change is

has to be God driven and prayer empowered. God in Divine wisdom (which is often hard to understand) chooses to use us!

I suppose my focus was on the main things BYM needs to do in order to ‘unblock’ that sense of faith and empowerment from God. My own sense is anxieties about stating experiences clearly and too much bureaucracy are the major obstacles at the moment. Throughout, I am making the assumption that God is present and willing to act through us!

Best wishes

John

This essay offers some interesting thoughts and I am really glad you have put it out there for consideration yet I came away from it feeling like the real point had been missed.

I understand why you used the present situation in BYM as a starting point from which to make suggestions of change for the better as you see it.

Yet if we look at the way the Holy Spirit works and has worked throughout history (particularly among early Friends), God-centred change rarely comes in the form of gently tweaking the human formed and controlled structures of the day.

It comes with Divinely inspired transformation that often changes everything.

A revitalised and vibrant BYM or IYM will be dependent not on better use or implementation of our structure but on the spiritual renewal of individual lives refocused and rededicated to the leadings of the living Inward Christ that you hinted at when talking about the Young Friends Bible study.

As I have suggested to you in the past, that has to start with you and me and other concerned Friends. It has to be God driven and prayer empowered. God in Divine wisdom (which is often hard to understand) chooses to use us!

While God has given us the responsibility and opportunity to be catalysts for change we can change little in our own strength (something I am still trying to learn). Change can and will only come if God is the centre of our lives. If that begins to happen then experiential Christianity will once again be a living force for renewal within the Religious Society of Friends.

Ministry in Meeting will once again be inspiring, challenging and alive for those who minister will be doing so out of lives lived struggling to be obedient to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Social witness will be driven by the same promptings of a God driven worshipping community.

But all of this can only start with the dedicating or rededicating of the human heart.

Our ‘allergy’ to Christian language, though understandable, needs to be tackled. I agree with your point about those who have found Friends a ‘refuge’ from conventional Christianity. How to include them in a more boldly-stated conversation?

My own experience is that younger Friends (both convinced and ‘birthright’) are more open to Christian language and learning from the Bible.

I suppose this might be because they have not had dogma thrust upon them for decades – their first experiences are quite open-minded, so they don’t have that negative combination.

I know my own early experience growing up as a Quaker involved lots of contact with very Christocentric Friends, who were nevertheless very open to questions and disagreement. I think it safe to say that the combination of a bit of certainty and openness to questions is what kept me involved!

Perhaps my phrasing ‘given that some kind of detachment seems inevitable’ was a bit too strong? I think that looking at Britain YM at the moment suggests it as a strong possibility, but maybe not a guaranteed outcome!

What I’m trying to get across is that foibles and anxieties about language should not get in the way of deeper questions. An allergy (coincidentally, Johan’s term, too) to Christian language is no excuse for forgetting what we are trying to be- a community of faith which can identify and enact God’s will.

I completely agree with Johan’s thought that we need to be clear on what God is calling is to do. As it happens, I concluded my essay with: “If we are to recapture the passion of early Friends, we should start by asking the bold questions. What is God calling us to do in our time? Our shared structures do much to hold and test our discernment. Let’s ensure that they don’t stifle our calling.”

Johan, thanks for the link! Some great insights there

Perhaps not surprisingly in view of my evangelical Quaker identification, I identify a different “must” question for all Friends:

“What does God want to do in this world through Friends?”

To the extent that we neglect this urgent question, our other questions simply serve the ever-popular cause of endless fascination with ourselves.

God can do many wonderful things through people who do not believe in God or do not acknowledge Jesus as God-with-us, the one who (George Fox says) has come to “teach His people Himself.” But if we Friends persist in cutting our ties with our roots in favor of intellectual self-gratification, constantly reassuring ourselves that nothing supernatural, no dissent from our pervasively secular society, is necessary in a Quaker worldview, we risk simply becoming irrelevant to the life-and-death social, economic, and spiritual struggles of most of the world. We limit our market appeal and our spiritual hospitality to those who are congenitally skeptical, setting aside the needs of those who ARE ready to believe, but need to hear–from us, for example!!–about beliefs that are liberating rather than oppressive. And God will raise up, and IS raising up, new communities who will do in the 21st century what Friends did in the 17th.

Appreciatively,

Johan

PS: My own attempt to think about the future of Friends in Europe is accessible here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/16973879/Future-of-Friends-in-Europe-JFM3

I think I would agree with David that your argument that ‘some kind of complete detachment from our Christian roots seems inevitable’ – things are never inevitable and pluralism is more likely to lead to loss of a USP and a resulting lack of commitment (in terms of time and money) to the organisation, leading to its eventual demise, than the creation of new, vibrant form of it.

Pluralism within the Society also has its dangers, functionally speaking. Just as I know many who have discovered ‘Christianity’ through BYM Quakers and moved to more obviously ‘Christian’ denominations, so I imagine people will move on to more obvious forms of Judaism or Islam as they become exposed to these paths through Quakers (indeed, I do also know a few of these).

I do think that even if not inevitable, ‘some kind of complete detachment from our Quaker Christian roots’ is a genuine likelihood. In BYM, ‘Christian’ is now taken to probably mean some form of Protestantism or Catholic mysticism – and to be Christocentric Friend means that you are assumed to be culpable in the various unattractive aspects of normative Christian practice and belief. The sense that Quakers are (or were) a distinct form of Christianity that critiques all forms of religion, Christianity, Judaism, Islam etc, whilst acknowledging the universality of experience of the Light within, is mostly lost.

Peace and grace,

David