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Friends United Meeting |
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May 2005
Will it be Quakers by Name or Quakers by Action?
By Jacob Kuntz
When I applied for a position teaching at the Ramallah Friends School, a ministry of North-American Friends in the West Bank, I was terribly worried I was competing with a large number of applicants. In my mind both Quaker college graduates and individuals of all ages committed to peace in Palestine would be competing for the opportunity to work in a teaching position that afforded the opportunity to interact with Palestinians. I worked hard on my application and sweated the interviews. When I completed the process and was selected as a teacher of history I was ecstatic. It was then I asked Colin South, the then director of the schools, how many other people had applied for the position. Not one. In fact, not one in four years! I was shocked and, at the same time, disappointed; I wondered why more Quakers had not applied.
I am not a birthright Quaker. My family has no connection to Quakers of old or to modern Quakers. I was mentored by the care and patience of a few key Quaker men and women during my studies at a Quaker college. The Quaker approach was something that I felt I had always followed, as if intuitively. It was nice to put a name to the path. I started attending a small meeting in Oregon after college, and have been moving so much in the past two years that I haven’t even had a chance to take the membership class the church offers.
Where were the committed Quaker youth I had envisioned in my mind who were so very dedicated to the cause of peace as envisioned by Christ and implemented by Quakers? How could Quakers expect to have a Quaker school in Ramallah with one, or at best two or three Quakers involved?
Last summer, I attended the United Society of Friends Women International (USFWI) conference in Greensboro, North Carolina, as a representative of the Ramallah Schools. I was the only attendant under 30. I have enormous respect for the work of USFWI; they supported me as a worker in Palestine, but I cannot help but wonder what is in their future in regards to attracting younger members. One USFWI member told me that it was really hard to attract young women to USFWI for various stylistic and programmatic reasons. I would suggest that this problem is not confi ned to USFWI. Quakers are having a hard time relating to youth as the average age of Quakers gets older and older.
In honesty, as a relatively new Quaker, I have less concern over whether factual Quaker history survives and am more concerned with whether the Quaker approach to the Spirit survives. We have wonderful historical and amazing contemporary examples, but why are youth left uninspired? Have we lost our focus? I respect Quakers from the past, but as one Quaker scholar wrote: “What you have inherited from your forefathers you must acquire for yourselves to possess it.” There is only so much that can be taught, and as my recent experience teaching in Ramallah taught me: Old stones only have so much to teach. Eventually we have to recognize that the literal path Jesus walked, the site of the old temple, the churches, synagogues, the stones that held the weight of Christ as he struggled to Golgotha now hold the weight of living stones. Stones with whom Christ would have been concerned. The wisdom of our foreparents is living and breathing, not static and confined to Quaker libraries.
After a few short years of interaction with Quakers, I have been blessed by individuals committed to Christ and living according to the tenets of the Quaker way. These people were open to the moving spirit of Christ in the world. At the same time I have witnessed Quakers who have the tendency to spend a lot of energy on the pragmatics of religiosity. Quakers are going to have to ask the question, “Is it going to be by name or by action?” Are we going to live by the Quaker name, or by the action the Quaker path inspires? The Quaker way is susceptible to remaining in the confi nes of theory. Those of us who have seen it in action, benefi ting human lives and opening our hearts to the larger world, know it has no place in the vaults of theory. It demands action, a response, a vision exposed and followed. We, as a body of believers, must lay out a focused direction while leaving room for the movement of Christ.
Recently, a close friend shared his desire to be part of a community of believers committed to learning, to living, to experiencing the Spirit of Christ as it is revealed in the world. He expressed his frustration with current church systems and how difficult it was to find a community that was truly thinking, open to the light of Christ and capable of uttering three precious words: “I don’t know.” When I asked him why he didn’t attend a Quaker service, (a body he is very familiar with), he told me that although the Quakers were by far the most spiritually open community and Christ-oriented in its tenets, he always felt categorized and labeled when he engaged the members of the meeting. Many times he felt like a outsider because he was not a birthright Quaker.
The wandering, light-seeking outsider as represented in the persons of George Fox and Jesus Christ is a fi gure common to individuals in my generation who search desperately for something in which to give their lives. The Quaker way is what we are looking for. We are looking for something to give our lives to — both spatially and literally. If Quakers want to encourage my generation they will need to engage us where we are. We need partners, committed individuals and communities; Quakers open to the spirit and committed to the selfless way of Christ. I have been encouraged by a few individuals who embraced the Quaker path and were willing to share it as fellow pilgrims of the light. These individuals never addressed my age or ancestry, but valued the working of the Spirit in my life.
Those of us new to the Quaker path are little concerned with the fights over liberality, global-partnerships or evangelicalism. We don’t care what the color of the meeting carpet is. Forgive us if we slip and ask whether the vote over meeting clerk went well.
At the moment we are unencumbered by the specifi cs and open to the light. We understand the deeper we go, the more we will come to understand the politics and recognize the names of the inner-circle. For now, though, we are content to think we have not joined yet another social organization with religious undertones, but are actually a part and in step with Christ’s original path — a path of simplicity, a path of peace, a path of truth-telling, a path of justice, a path of God-centeredness, a path that led from the comfort of vague survival to the light of an inclusive, yet specific vision.
Jacob Kuntz is currently enrolled in a Masters program in Reconciliation at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. He lives and studies in Belfast, but calls Missoula, Montana home. By the time you read this, he will be back in Ramallah researching for a dissertation on the role of secondary education in peacebuilding and reconciliation.