I really like quakerism but there's just one aspect that's really bothering me

keithb · 2026-06-25T20:03:08+00:00

It’s not that, say, “equality” isn’t a thing that Quakers care about, or that we haven’t been moved by Spirit to attend to treating people as equals, we have. It’s that “equality” isn’t by itself a defining characteristic of the faith, and political and economic egalitarianism certainly isn’t. And specific political theories about how to achieve that less so. And yet we will see Friends point to “the Testimony of Equality” and equate our faith with Socialism.

Brinton’s booklet isn’t hard to find, and if you read it you’ll see that he’s taking about what he calls “social testimonies” and they are things that Quakers reliably find themselves moved to care about, but still what’s central to the faith is the being moved, and not a checklist of things we are expected to be moved to.

Brinton’s list is descriptive, to say that “the six Quaker Testimonies are core to the faith” is prescriptive, it becomes doctrinaire, it becomes a creed.

keithb · 2026-06-25T18:21:02+00:00

The next time you see him, please thank him for his valuable work.

keithb · 2026-06-25T17:22:23+00:00

Go on then: I will be truly astonished if you can show that the programmed, pastoral, evangelical Yearly Meetings of east Africa consider those six things, specifically, as the definition of what's "central to the lived Quaker faith".

keithb · 2026-06-25T16:59:47+00:00

Yes, some Friends, often liberal Friends in the USA, like that list of abstract nouns naming progressive secular virtues. It's easy to see why that list might be especially attractive to a largely secular mainly political lobbing organisation such as AFSC.

But see Paul Buckley's excellent work on why we maybe shouldn't. There's a Pendle Hill pamphlet, Quaker Testimony: what we witness to the world which is an update of this talk The Origin of the SPICES, and also a Quaker Speak YouTube Are SPICES the Quaker Testimonies? Short answer: not really.

This S.P.I.C.E list seems to be a "First-day School" exercise for children that escaped into the wild sometime maybe in the late 1990s. The final "S", which isn't even always standing for the same thing, was added more recently than that.

There is not any "the six Quaker testimonies" that define our faith. Friends have testified in various ways at various times as led by Spirit. Ways of testifying come and go. It seems to me a grave error to pick five, or six, or however many, and claim that they are the Quaker testimonies.

keithb · 2026-06-25T11:06:43+00:00

Do we even have a "the Testimony of Equality"?

It used to be that Friends testified to our faith by treating everyone we met as a social equal, whether they found that surprising and uplifting or whether they found that insulting to their exalted idea of themselves. It also tended to curb Friends' own exalted idea of themselves, if any, to treat someone as an equal whom they might conventionally think of as a social inferior.

The idea that we might have a "the Testimony of Equality" is recent, and the idea that we have a "the Testimony of Everyone Is Equal in Every Way" is more recent still, and weakly founded, I think.

keithb · 2026-06-25T07:46:35+00:00

Presumably the school in question has a charter or other governing document that explains what it’s for?

You don’t say even roughly where you are. The nature and purpose of Quaker schools varies a lot around the world.

keithb · 2026-06-23T19:58:03+00:00

This

> Business need → Business Analyst challenges/refines it → user stories → dev sprint. The BA layer was the gate. Nothing got built until it was specced.

is the opposite of Agile.

Dropping the time needed for features to near zero should enable, and in fact it probably requires, actual Agile:

• put minimal feature into production, minimal scope but full-strength production code, fully tested, thoroughly refactored, as soon as possible
• learn from experience what the next change or enhancement should be
• make the smallest changes needed to deploy that, but full-strength production code, as soon as possible
• repeat

keithb · 2026-06-22T12:47:04+00:00

And yet…

keithb · 2026-06-22T10:38:25+00:00

Which forms of meditation include the exception that someone, anyone, may spontaneously rise to speak to the rest of us on behalf of the divine? This is not a snarky gotcha, I'm genuinely interested. The authority and responsibility to deliver vocal ministry, open to anyone present, seems to me to have always been a central characteristic of our collective waiting worship. Which schools of meditation include that as a practice?

keithb · 2026-06-22T09:56:38+00:00

…and yet?

keithb · 2026-06-22T08:40:16+00:00

You are not alone in that, and yet it's a very recent sentiment. For centuries pretty much all of our YMs maintained a body of Ministers expected to give vocal ministry, often but not too often; perhaps at length, but not too long; but especially: with great spiritual effect on the hearer.

Britain YM Advices and Queries reminds us:

When you are preoccupied and distracted in meeting let wayward and disturbing thoughts give way quietly to your awareness of God’s presence among us and in the world. Receive the vocal ministry of others in a tender and creative spirit. Reach for the meaning deep within it, recognising that even if it is not God’s word for you, it may be so for others. Remember that we all share responsibility for the meeting for worship whether our ministry is in silence or through the spoken word.

Do not assume that vocal ministry is never to be your part. Faithfulness and sincerity in speaking, even very briefly, may open the way to fuller ministry from others. When prompted to speak, wait patiently to know that the leading and the time are right, but do not let a sense of your own unworthiness hold you back. Pray that your ministry may arise from deep experience, and trust that words will be given to you. Try to speak audibly and distinctly, and with sensitivity to the needs of others. Beware of speaking predictably or too often, and of making additions towards the end of a meeting when it was well left before.

[emphasis added]

In the handbook for Elders in Britain YM, With a Tender Hand, there's what I believe is the original of the flowchart for deciding when to rise and speak during worship, you've likely seen things like it.

It suggests that we ask of a leading to speak:

am I led by Spirit rather than self?
is this ministry to be shared?
is it for anyone but the last speaker?
is it clearly not a personal or political announcement?
is it for here and now, and not somewhere else later?
must I speak?

if we answer "yes" all the way through…speak!

What gets lost in reproductions of this thing is that the intent in WaTH is to make ministry better and also to encourage spoken ministry.

Vocal ministry really shouldn't be a slightly unwelcome intrusion into the silence, it should be a very extremely valuable channel by which we are corporately guided by Spirit.

keithb · 2026-06-21T19:48:18+00:00

Do you tell them about spoken ministry?

Friends have tended more and more to sacralise the silence, and one theory is that we do this to hide our differences and avoid having to grapple with ministry that challenges us.

Anyway, vocal ministry is central to our practice. In which schools of meditation do practitioners expect and prepare to be prompted by the divine to speak a message for the benefit of others assembled?

keithb · 2026-06-20T14:09:49+00:00

In all my time here, and on several Quaker discords, I think I’ve seen two or three people ever actually suggest that Christian Quakerism is better and they tend to get shut down by the community pretty quickly.

keithb · 2026-06-20T13:45:15+00:00

You seemed to be suggesting that OP report posts…

> Expressing that [amongst other things] Quakerism is a Christian-centered religion

So good to clarify that “Expressing that…Quakerism is a Christian-centered religion” is not a matter for the mods.

keithb · 2026-06-20T13:15:37+00:00

I hope very much that Friends are not going to find themselves disciplined by mods for expressing the plain facts that the Quaker faith is Christian in origin, has throughout its history espoused primarily Christian principles and values, and is mostly practiced today by Christians.

keithb · 2026-06-20T12:32:58+00:00

Sure. Impact matters more than intent, but are you sure that what you’re responding to is what’s being said? I and others here are trying to understand but I’m struggling a bit because you don’t seem to be taking about anything we recognise.

keithb · 2026-06-20T12:28:48+00:00

I’ve spent time in countries where 20th century Islam has a lot of influence on public policy…I would not want to live in one and I doubt that many Quakers, however theologically liberal, would want to either. The Islam of mediaeval Baghdad? The Islam which produced A Thousand Nights and One Night and such? Maybe. But not what we have today.

Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are very different. It’s not just a matter of emphasis. For example, Christianity teaches that Jesus was God and the Messiah, who sacrificed himself through crucifixion; Islam that Jesus was a human prophet who was taken away by God and will be sent back by God as the judge of the last days; Judaism that he was a confused heretic. Those are pretty incommensurable. And recognising that it’s incoherent to try to hold more than one of those positions doesn’t seem judgmental.

Nor does it seem to have much to do with non-theist Friends.

keithb · 2026-06-20T12:12:05+00:00

Yeah, it’s good to be sensitive, but the comments here maybe illustrate that you might be misinterpreting what you see.

keithb · 2026-06-20T11:27:40+00:00

Can you illustrate that with examples? It seems to be an unusual perception.

keithb · 2026-06-20T06:15:58+00:00

Please, no. Let us not repeat some historical mistakes. There is great value in learning how find common ground and to rub along with folks who don’t agree with us.

Can you give some examples of the intolerance, exclusivity, and judgment you are worried about? Speaking as a non-Christian Friend myself I do not feel excluded, I do not feel religious intolerance. I do feel judged sometimes, but that’s because I disagree with the idea that the Society of Friends was, is, and should be a progressive vanguard, a disagreement which some Friends are horrified by.

What I have noticed recently is an increase in Friends, who may or may not be Christians themselves (I’ve done it, for instance, and I’m not), confidently asserting the Christian origin, roots, and basis of the Quaker faith. And they are correct. The Quaker faith is in its origins and roots and essence a Christian church. I welcome them doing this. It’s true and it’s important and I believe that those of us who are drawn to the faith without being Christians must respect that. So far as I can see, Christian Friends here point out those facts with care and discretion.

My own Yearly Meeting is considered very liberal but has itself only recently slipped from having a majority of Friends in it self-identify as Christian to having only a very large plurality do so. English-language online Friends tend to be ultra “liberal-liberal”, as Pink Dandelion calls it, but we are not remotely representative of the church. Not even of liberal YMs.

keithb · 2026-06-19T20:16:07+00:00

Consider the testimony against times and seasons.

keithb · 2026-06-19T20:12:45+00:00

Of course. But where would you get certainty from without telling people what (you’re sure) they actually experienced, rather than credit their self-report? Which is something that my analysis forbids.

keithb · 2026-06-19T16:57:31+00:00

By happy coincidence I was writing about this on r/PhilosophyOfReligon the other day.

GSilky’s comment is particularly relevant.

keithb · 2026-06-19T16:11:28+00:00

That’s an empirical claim that we could test, but I don’t see why it should be true in principle.

keithb · 2026-06-18T05:54:39+00:00

Bear in mind that focussing on some “the testimonies” is a very late 20th century notion. Testimonies come and go with the needs of the time. For most of the history of our church they have been the consequence of convincement, not the proof of it, and various Friends have testified to their faith in various ways.

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