To fashion one’s thought and action as a Quaker involves more than maintaining membership in the Religious society of Friends. It requires first coming to terms with both worldly and spiritual realities and then incorporating certain characteristic patterns of behavior into one’s life.

Chief among the spiritual realities are Light and darkness, however they may be conceived.

Light is sometimes conceived as God the Creator, omnipotent and omniscient, and then further identified as a loving father, as is done so magnificently by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. This image stems from Judaism and is generally retained by Christianity and Islam, but it represents only one possible way of conceiving of the principle of Light. Buddhism and Hinduism provide others, as does George Fox. To my mind there are four essential aspects or manifestations of God, that is of Spirit or the Light:

1. It is eternal, beyond being or not-being, and one and the same for all peoples at all times.
2. It manifests itself through Love, Hope, Joy, Truth, and Peace, and thereby always represents a force or power for unifying rather than dividing people.
3. It is equally present or accessible to everyone everywhere, but never fully disclosed or manifested at any one place or time and never to be identified with any one person or institution. And
4. In spite of being a power, it is also in a way impotent, for it depends on our hands, our feet, and our tongues to bring it to fruition in the material world, where it constantly encounters the opposing force of darkness.

Darkness, or the devil, is also sometimes conceived in human terms, as in the accounts in Matthew and Luke about the temptations of Jesus at the end of his 40 days in the wilderness, just as the Light is sometimes identified with specific human persons or institutions. It seems at times correct to identify certain persons or institutions as being in some respects agents of the devil, just as they may at other times and in other respects instruments of the Light. But what is essential about darkness is not that this or that person facilitates it or falls prey to its power, but rather that it represents a temptation for every person at all times. In our world today temptations are generally conceived in sexual terms, thereby ignoring the temptations that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke tell of Jesus confronting. Those temptations were the power to turn stone into bread (the green revolution of chemical fertilizers and pesticides), the power to survive a catastrophic plunge from on high (universal high-tech health care), and dominion over all the nations (unlimited political power). Except by a few fringe groups like some Buddhists and the Amish, the green revolution, high-tech health care, and domination and control, are more often regarded as positive worthy goals than as temptations in most of the world today, giving forces of darkness enormous influence.

As a Friend I am certain that the Light shines in and through every person, and through no person perfectly. So all of us can act in the Light, manifesting in our behavior its distinctive characteristics, despite the powerful temptations of darkness; but no one of us can speak for God, or bring the full and absolutely true message. As a Friend I further know that my words are worthless if they are not manifested in my behavior, even though no words or behavior can manifest the Truth perfectly. I also need constantly to test my special sense of the Light, since confidence that my work has been illuminated from above can easily become dark pride, a common work of the devil. My companions are those who share this sense of spiritual realities.

Realities of the world are of two radically different kinds, material and social. The material realities are hard facts about the natural world, both scientific facts and facts of natural history. Spinoza thought of material reality as just one aspect of God, and therefore he saw natural science as a way of beginning to know God. I like that idea, in part because both natural laws and God are things that we just have to accept, which we cannot fudge or get around. For clear thinking about reality, it is vital (and these days extremely difficult) to distinguish sharply between hard facts and interpretations, the ubiquitous speculations about their explanation or their meaning. A large part of speaking truth to power, though by no means all of it, consists in insisting on plain facts plainly stated.

Another part of the world consists of social realities, among which we again can distinguish great variety.

Greatest of all social realities is that partisan interests are regularly disguised as necessities or as hard facts. Politics, which is the struggle of control and domination and hence always divisive, disguises itself as government, which is the very different struggle for stability and prosperity and thrives on unification and cooperation rather than on zero-sum political contests. Justice comes disguised as death, or at least as imprisonment. Health is conceived as the product of drugs and potions. Obedience and submission come disguised as cooperation. Conformity wears the mask of maturity. Disagreement is portrayed as treason. License parades around as freedom. Hopes and wishes are asserted as knowledge. And so on. These disguises are often difficult to recognize, and sometimes lie buried deep within our own consciousness, making it a real struggle for us to speak the truth even when we desperately want to do so.

Among the great disguises of our time are blatant idolatry and blasphemy. Idolatry is the worship of false gods, and worship is devotion and tribute that makes no rational sense. Fads and fashions, commercial and amateur sports, movie and TV idols all qualify for consideration as objects of idolatry. But none can outdo the Pentagon and military might in general. If the military proves itself incompetent in Iraq, the US Senate votes 100 to 0 to increase its budget. The Oracle at Delphi never did so well. Blasphemy is taking the Lord’s name in vain. It is constantly practiced by nearly all priests and pastors, who regularly intone sectarian formulas as the word of God and treat ecclesiastical rituals the same way the Israelites treated the golden calf during the absence of Moses (Ex. 32:27-29). Whether concerned with ritual or with creed, these formulas divide rather than unite people, and therefore do the work of the devil. They are attempts to attain control and dominion, one of the very temptations Jesus turned away from. Priests and pastors who preach their own special way as God’s only way are ecclesiastical officials rather than genuinely religious persons. Their work is political. Struggles for wealth and power within the great religions, as well as those between them, are always more political than religious.

Quaker process and practice has many aspects, all concerned to see what Love will do, or how the Light will dawn in the minds and hearts of those who listen quietly. It is also concerned to speak truth, which is a product of accuracy and sincerity, as Paul Lacey has pointed out (Friends Journal, January 2004). None of this is easy, and I doubt any of it can be defined, but it does get expressed, and become recognizable, in various patterns of behavior. Briefly:

• Avoiding preaching, but showing others the transforming Spirit in our lives.
• Worshiping with a close local group who can hear and assess our leadings.
• Treating expression of our leadings as a sacrament, but avoiding pride in them.
• Crossing popular boundaries to bring despised or excluded “others” into our lives.
• Building ties and increasing discussion and collaboration with Quakers everywhere.
• Suggesting and modeling alternatives where others speak of necessities or impossibilities.
• Refusing to participate in war and violence and other denials of the Spirit.
• Avoiding politics but nurturing good government, including world government.
• Insisting on clarity in discussion, including the pragmatic implications of words.
• Distinguishing religion from both church and theology, and government from politics.
• Distinguishing the religious from the ecclesiastical and the doctrinal.
• Waiting for consensus or for the sense of a meeting rather than voting.
• Leading and showing the way without dictating or controlling.
• Using queries rather than rebuttals, so as to strengthen the Spirit in others.
• Not fearing or panicking, knowing the Spirit is at work even in moments of darkness.

Each of us will implement these themes in particular ways, inspiring others sometimes to follow and sometimes to lead off in other directions. At this present stage in my life I personally am called to three particular missions that witness to my faith. The first is to articulate in detail differences between government and politics and between religion and theology, and between leadings and rituals. The second is to show in detail parallels between Quakerism and the thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein, hoping to enable Friends to recognize their core values stated in new ways. The third is to help liberal Quakers of this country and Britain to become familiar with the Evangelical Aymara Friends of Bolivia and Peru, while assisting Bolivian Friends to participate more effectively in this world. Unlike the twelve general themes above, none of these particular missions need appeal to other Friends. And so it is bound to be. Although the Light is one and the same for all and leads us into blessed community, witness and testimonies remain widely diverse and are likely to be lonely even when blessed by the community. Both the community and the loneliness are part of living as a Friend in this world.

Newton Garver - - October 2006

(Thoughts stimulated by an FWCC gathering in Purchase NY, 13-15 October 2006, on the theme “Living as a Friend in Today’s World.”)

Newton Garver is Distinguished Service Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has published numerous articles and books, including This Complicated Form of Life: Essays on Wittgenstein.