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Friends United Meeting |
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September/October 2006
Quakerism: Does it Work Now?
By Santosh J. Chandy
As I grew up in the programmed Quaker tradition, I never really understood what it meant to be Christian. In school, Quakers were delegated to one paragraph in the history books, which equated us to the Amish with a slight progression toward current technologies. Nevertheless, I continued as a Quaker, understanding we stood for such life mottos as: “Live Simply So Others May Simply Live”, “Want Peace? Work for Justice.” I once wondered if all Quaker dogmas could be reduced to bumper stickers.
As I grew older, and progressed through high school, college and now in graduate school, I find myself in situations where I have to defend my faith and its conditions. I have also found myself in dire situations where my faith in God was the only thing I had to lean upon. At that hour, I realized these dogmas I learned would not help me, mentally, strategically or spiritually. I realized that while they were a good way to live lives “like Jesus would want us to live,” they didn’t reaffirm my commitment to Christ and my trust in him. This realization occurred a few years ago and was a large blow to my preconceived ideas of being Christian.
The end result of this is that I have decided I may not want to go through life being a Quaker. While I believe in what “most” of what Quakers believe in, (albeit I tend to be more towards the conservative branch), I enjoy reading Stan Baker, Tom Mullen, etc., (humor columns) in Quaker publications and enjoyed the warm welcoming my family and I felt at large Quaker gatherings, I feel that all of this cannot help me work towards the goal of being a Christian.
In addition, as a “young adult,” I do not see any growth strategies for my age demographic in Quaker communities. Will unprogrammed worship survive in a age of Gen X/Y/Zs such as myself who enjoy the live Praise Bands, capsulated 8-10 minute sermons and the free cup of Starbucks that accompany each church visit? Quakers will always be around—that’s because we tend to do things differently. Yet this differentiation strategy may not be enough to keep me focused as a Christian…and to me, that’s a problem.
Santosh Chandy is the President of Vizrio, Inc., a Web Site Design and Strategy Implementation company in Illinois.