A Progressive Quaker Sermon - By Lucretia Mott - A Friendly Letter

A Progressive Quaker Sermon - By Lucretia Mott - A Friendly Letter



A PROGRESSIVE QUAKER SERMON – BY LUCRETIA MOTT
APRIL 20, 2014 CHUCK FAGER 1 COMMENT
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NOTE:

Lucretia Mott, considered at the time of her death in 1880 to be the “greatest American woman of the nineteenth century” by many of her contemporaries, was a Quaker abolitionist, women’s rights activist and social reformer. She was a key figure in an insurgent movement of Progressive Friends. Her messages and actions are very pertinent today – and laid much of the foundation for the current women’s movement.



On Sunday March 5, 2017, at 1 PM, Chuck Fager, will give a presentation on “Lucretia Mott: What Would She Say If She Were Here Today? HINT: She’d tell us we’re in deep trouble and should get up and get busy. (She’d say it very nicely, but urgently).”

The talk will be at the Orange County NC Main Library, 137 West Margaret Lane, Hillsborough NC. The talk will focus on Lucretia’s wide range of activism on many concerns, her pioneering & unforgettable voice for women, and radical views on numerous other public matters. Free & open to the public.

Y’all come!

Chuck will also discuss how, along with her activism, Lucretia maintained a staunch devotion to family and to Quakerism, even as she helped shake her faith community to its foundations, and as a key figure in the Progressive Friends movement, pushed it toward a future many Friends wanted to avoid.

The presentation is designed for adults interested in Lucretia Mott’s legacy, social activism, women’s rights and related issues, regardless of their religious affiliation.

The presentation is sponsored by the Hillsborough Friends Meeting. Did I mention that it’s free and open to the public? Yeah.

The address excerpted here is more “theological” than activist (she wouldn’t much like the term “theological,” but it fits.) There was not much distinction between them for Lucretia.

PS. Lucretia never prepared her messages, spoke only when she felt moved, and did not write them down. We have this one (and others) only because stenographers were sent in to take them down by shorthand. Sometimes this was to preserve them for admirers; other times it was to gain ammunition for having her disciplined or even disowned (yes, there were several such attempts). The latter efforts did not succeed; but I’m grateful for the record anyway.



Lucretia Mott (1793 – 1880)

1849: Lucretia Mott– From “Likeness to Christ” – A sermon delivered at the Cherry Street Meeting in Philadelphia – Ninth Month 30, 1849


It is time that Christians were judged more by their likeness to Christ than their notions of Christ. Were this sentiment generally admitted we should not see such tenacious adherence to what men deem the opinions and doctrines of Christ while at the same time in every day practice is exhibited anything but a likeness to Christ.




My reflections in this meeting have been upon the origin, parentage, and character of Jesus. I have thought we might profitably dwell upon the facts connected with his life, his precepts, and his practice in his walks among men. Humble as was his birth, obscure as was his parentage, little known as he seemed to be in his neighborhood and country, he has astonished the world and brought a response from all mankind by the purity of his precepts, the excellence of his example. Wherever that inimitable sermon on the mount is read, let it be translated into any language and spread before the people, there is an acknowledgement of its truth. When we come to judge the sectarian professors of his name by the true test, how widely do their lives differ from his?

Instead of going about doing good as was his wont, instead of being constantly in the exercise of benevolence and love as was his practice, we find the disposition too generally to measure the Christian by his assent to a creed which had not its sign with him nor indeed in his day. Instead of engaging in the exercise of peace, justice, and mercy, how many of the professors are arrayed against him in opposition to those great principles even as were his opposers in his day. Instead of being the bold nonconformist (if I may so speak) that he was, they are adhering to old church usages, and worn-out forms and exhibiting little of a Christ like disposition and character.

Instead of uttering the earnest protests against the spirit of proselytism and sectarianism as did the blessed Jesus–the divine, the holy, the born of God, there is the servile accommodation to this sectarian spirit and an observance of those forms even long after there is any claim of virtue in them; a disposition to use language which shall convey belief that in the inmost heart of many they reject.

Is this honest, is this Christ like? Should Jesus again appear and preach as he did round about Judea and Jerusalem and Galilee, these high professors would be among the first to set him at naught, if not to resort to the extremes which were resorted to in his day. There is no danger of this now, however, because the customs of the age will not bear the bigot out in it, but the spirit is manifest, which led martyrs to the stake, Jesus to the cross, Mary Dyer to the gallows. This spirit is now showing itself in casting out the name one [after] another, as evil, in brother delivering up brother unto sectarian death. We say if Jesus should again appear–He is here; he has appeared, from generation to generation and his spirit is now as manifest, in the humble, the meek, the bold reformers, even among some of obscure parentage.

His spirit is now going up and down among men seeking their good, and endeavoring to promote the benign and holy principles of peace, justice, and love. And blessing to the merciful, to the peacemaker, to the pure in heart, and the poor in spirit, to the just, the upright, to those who desire righteousness is earnestly proclaimed, by these messengers of the Highest who are now in our midst. These, the preachers of righteousness, are no more acknowledged by the same class of people than was the messiah to the Jews. They are the anointed of God, the inspired preachers and writers and believers of the present time. In the pure example which they exhibit to the nations, they are emphatically the beloved sons of God.

It is, my friends, my mission to declare these things among you at the hazard of shocking many prejudices. The testimony of the chosen servants of the Highest in our day is equally divine inspiration with the inspired teaching of those in former times. . . .




Let us not hesitate to regard the utterance of truth in our age, as of equal value with that which is recorded in the scriptures. None can revere more than I do the truths of the Bible. I have read it perhaps as much as any one present, and, I trust, with profit. It has at times been more to me than my daily food. When an attempt was made some twenty years ago to engraft some church dogmas upon this society, claiming this book for authority, it led me to examine, and compare text with the content. In so doing I became so much interested that I scarcely noted the passage of time.

Even to this day, when I open this volume, so familiar is almost every chapter that I can sometimes scarcely lay it aside from the interest I feel in its beautiful pages.

But I should be recreant to the principle, did I not say, the great error in Christendom is in regarding these scriptures taken as a whole as the plenary inspiration of God, and their authority as supreme. I consider this as Elias Hicks did one of the greatest drawbacks, one of the greatest barriers to human progress that there is in the religious world, for while this volume is held as it is, and, by a resort to it, war, and slavery, wine drinking, and other cruel, oppressive, and degrading evils are sustained, pleading the example of the ancients as authority it serves as a check to human progress, as an obstacle in the way of these great and glorious reformers that are now upon the field.

Well did that servant of God, Elias Hicks, warn the people against an undue veneration of the Bible, or of any human authority, any written record or outward testimony. The tendency of his ministry was to lead the mind to the divine teacher, the sublime ruler, that all would find within themselves, which was above men’s teaching, human records, or outward authorities. Highly as he valued these ancient testimonies, they were not to take the place of the higher law inwardly revealed, which was and should be, the governing principle of our lives.

. . . Let us also not hesitate to declare it, and to speak the truth plainly as it is in Jesus, that we believe the time is come when this undue adherence to outward authorities, or to any forms of baptism or of communion of church or sabbath worship, should give place to more practical goodness among men, more love manifested one unto another in our every day life, doing good and ministering to the wants and interests of our fellow beings the world over. If we fully believe this, should we be most honest, did we so far seek to please men, more than to please God, as to fail to utter in our meetings, and whenever we feel called upon to do so in our conversation . . . and to exhibit by example, by a life of non-conformity, in accordance with these views, that we have faith and confidence in our convictions?

. . . I desire to speak so as to be understood, and trust there are among you ears blessed that they hear, and that these principles shall be received as the Gospel of the blessed son of God. Happy shall they be, who by observing these, shall come to be divested of the traditions and superstitions which have been clinging to them, leading them to erect an altar “to the unknown God.”

Full text of this message is at this page.

Several other posts on Progressive Friends include:

> A 19th century Virginia Friend’s lessons for us today.

> Living with & Writing about Progressive Friends.

> Early origins of the Progressive Friends movement.

> Progressive Friends & Spiritualism.

A Radio interview about Progressive Friends (25 minutes):

A Social Justice poem published by Progressive Friends

Related


A Progressive Quaker Message from Lucretia MottJanuary 2, 2018In “Cross-Generational Conversation: YAFS & OFFs”

Lucretia Mott's Birthday Secret: No Woman Is an Island?January 3, 2018In “Black & White & Other Colors”

Lucretia Mott & The Wild Chase SceneMarch 3, 2017In “Hard-Core Quaker”
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ONE THOUGHT ON “A PROGRESSIVE QUAKER SERMON – BY LUCRETIA MOTT”

Joan Kindler
MARCH 11, 2017 AT 2:16 PM


I have read this once. I will read it again…and perhaps many times. This woman was intelligent, insightful and I will research and read as much as I can. When George fox said there was that of God in everyone. what other “sermon”echos this truth . Jesus could not have said it better…It follows the teachings of Jesus as if heard for the first time. Becoming a Quaker over 40
year ago has given me spurts of growth and moments of revelations. This is a moment. Truth exists and is powerfully told by many men and women who have been given the gift to express this Truth in different but amazing ways.

Lucretia Mott’s Quaker Easter Message, Still Good the Day After - A Friendly Letter

Lucretia Mott’s Quaker Easter Message, Still Good the Day After - A Friendly Letter



LUCRETIA MOTT’S QUAKER EASTER MESSAGE, STILL GOOD THE DAY AFTER
APRIL 22, 2019 

CHUCK FAGER 4 COMMENTS
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Some years ago, a Friend who was much taken with what she believed was Quakerism’s essential, and defining character as a kind of mysticism, approached me. Knowing of my admiration for Lucretia mott, she asked if she should add Lucretia to her list of the great Quaker mystics.



Nope. Quite the contrary, I told her. In truth, Lucretia would in fact all-but head the list of the great anti-mystics of Quaker history. And as Lucretia’s motto was, “Truth for Authority, not Authority for Truth,” it would be untruthful say otherwise.

I don’t know what happened to that Friend’s list. But before all the folderol and sugar high of Easter weekend dissipates, it may be worth taking a few moments to consider Lucretia’s convictions on the seasonal fanfare.



In short, she had no truck with Easter; the whole thing left her cold, not only the churchly hoopla, but even more the theology it embodied. Repeatedly she expressed a sentiment that she put in an 1841 letter to Friends in Ireland:


“. . . as to theology, I am sick of disputes on that subject; though I cannot say just as my husband has–that he ‘doesn’t care a fig about it’–for I do want those I love to see their way out of the darkness and error with which they are surrounded. Moreover, I think there is so much harm done by teaching the doctrine of human depravity and dependence on a vicarious atonement, that I feel constrained to call on all, everywhere, to yield such a mistaken and paralyzing dogma (emphasis mine).” (Hallowell 209)

And in various formulations, that notion of depravity and the vicarious atonement for it by Jesus’ death and reported resurrection, is what the whole traditional Christian Easter event and story is about:


Humans are bound for hell, all of us, and human efforts are helpless to escape that fate.

Only an act of God can head it off, and so Jesus, being God and man, sacrificed himself and “atoned” (or “paid for”) this vast human “debt” of sin. Thereby God stayed His condemning hand, forgave humanity, and as as sign of it brought Jesus back to life on Easter.



Don’t ask me to explain all this; there are libraries of weighty tomes devoted to it. The point here is that Lucretia Mott completely rejected this whole scenario, decrying the “harm done” by it.

Yet she seemed devoted to Jesus. She quoted his words incessantly, affirmed his “messianic status,” and thought she was preaching his “gospel” message during her sixty controversial years as a Quaker preacher.

But if Jesus’ “gospel” was not about depravity and vicarious blood atonement, what did Lucretia say it was?



Scholar Priscilla Eppinger has put it in a nutshell: Salvation for humans would come through the faith of Christ, not faith in Christ. By this, Mott meant a faith like that of Jesus. She quoted from Paul’s letter to the Galatians (2:20):


“Faith of Jesus Christ is faith in the truth, faith in God and in man. The life that I now live in the flesh, said the Apostle, I live by the faith of the son of God. . . . Well [Mott added] what is this other than a faith similar to that which Jesus held, the faith of the son of God.” (Greene 124)

The faith of Christ, not faith in Christ. Neither Eppinger nor Lucretia originated this alternate motto. And what was this “faith”?

The chief sayings of Jesus that respond to this query are two: First, from Luke 4:


[14] And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee . . . .

[16] And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read.

[17] And there was delivered unto him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the scroll, he found the place where it was written,

[18]“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind;
to let the oppressed go free,
[19] to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

[20] And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.

[21] And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.

[Keep in mind that after he said this, the locals ran him out of town and tried to kill him. But I digress.]

The second passage is from Matthew 25, describing a vision of the last judgment, and explaining why some will be going to “heaven”:


37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?

38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?

39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’

40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’”

To which could also be added the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).

Thus, for Mott, Jesus’ “gospel” was a call to do justice, free the oppressed, tend to the poor and suffering, and build a loving and just community. And for Mott, his example of enacting this call was complete, making him a messianic (saving) figure for real living people, and an ideal, an archetype, for those who came after. The best of those who followed, be they male or female, Christian or not (including non-theists), could not only carry on this “saving” work, but also become “messiahs of their age,” leading many into “the Kingdom of Heaven,” not in the sky, but on earth.

Even Jesus’ death, a trumped-up execution, was part of the pattern: she had seen many face death in similar causes; she knew her Quaker martyrology; she had walked in the shadow of that valley herself not a few times. He (and they) were “resurrected” in the lives of their successors.

Note that none of these gospel passages includes or depends on belief in any set of doctrines or notions of divine “atonement,” or miracles or heavenly interventions.

Lucretia and her message faced opposition in many quarters, often intense, and especially from the ruling ministers and elders. When she visited the Indiana Hicksite Yearly Meeting in 1844, after a days-long jouncy coach ride, she was met by a delegation of ministers & elders who told her to turn round and go home.

When she refused to do that, they then insisted that if she sat in any of the body’s sessions, she must keep quiet.

She declined to follow this command as well.

But the next year, the The Clerk of that Yearly Meeting, John T. Plummer, struck back, by issuing an “Admonitory Appeal” to members over his signature. It showed how angry Mott’s appearance and message had made him:

But who are these that are running to and fro in the earth, in their own time, and will, and strength; babbling of temperance, and non-resistance, and slavery, and benevolence, and communities, and the scriptures, and the sabbath, and woman’s rights? These are the thieves that cannot abide the way of humility and the cross, but climb up some other way, and steal the testimonies of Jesus, and are lifted up in their self-sufficiency . . . .

“Oh! seriously consider, friends, what it is to assume the prerogative of the Most High! Keep [i.e., stay] at home; be still in your minds; wait upon him; and whatsoever he bids you do, that in meekness do; and your reward will be with him. But go not after the Beast of many heads and many horns; even though some of them should be like the head of a lamb; it is but one of the many forms of the heads of the beast, that would fain deceive the very elect.

And what if we should say, that this head, that is like the head of a lamb, has deceived many, and it has even now written upon its forehead, ‘PROGRESS, MORAL SUASION; but its heart is puffed up with presumption, and in it is written SELF-SUFFICIENCY, and even BLASPHEMY against the Most High.’

“. . . It is He [God], and not man [or woman], that governs . . . . Then who art thou, oh! man! worm of the dust! Dead leaf of the forest, driven to and fro by the wind! That thou undertakest to reform the world! Art thou greater than He who created thee?”

Many other efforts were made to silence and disown Mott and like-minded Friends; I have documented several aimed specifically at her. But she was too nimble a Quaker politician, and they never managed to snare her.

Instead, Mott kept delivering her non-miraculous, non-mystical gospel; in her ”home” meeting in September 1849 she declared,


“This creed based upon the assumption of human depravity and completed by a vicarious atonement–connected with a belief in mysteries and miracles as essential to salvation–forms a substitute for that faith which works by love and which purifies the heart, leading us into communion with God and teaching us to live in the cultivation of benevolence, to visit the widow and the fatherless in their affliction and to entertain charitable feelings one unto another.” (Greene 97)

She considered any such faith or religion which hindered the living out of God’s will to be false religion. A faith like that of Jesus would lead each person toward their own divinity as each lived into the increasing fullness of God’s reign.

Mott also rejected the special God-Man status orthodoxy conferred on Jesus. Instead, she looked on those, women as well as men, who acted out what she called the “practical” vision of God’s kingdom in later eras as equally children of God, themselves as much potential new messiahs as Jesus. In March 1869 she stated,


I look to this class [reformers] for such changes in the commercial world, in the monetary system of the country, in all the relations of capital and labor, in all the influences around us–. . . to remove the terrible oppression, the terrible wrongs which so large a part of our fellow human beings in this and other lands are groaning under, . . . I say the only means I know of appointed by God in any age of the world, is the faithfulness of His children, the obedience of those who are sent, the Sons [& daughters] of Him in every age, the Messiahs of their age, who have gone forth proclaiming greater liberty, greater truths to mankind, greater duty for that entire community. (Greene 335-6)

So this is Lucretia Mott’s Quaker Easter message. Like it or not, it seems to me to have lost little relevance 140 years after her death in 1880.

And it’s worth considering the day after; or even the day before.

==============

A footnote on sources:

James & Lucretia Mott, Life & Letters, by Anna Davis Hallowell, 1884. Online here at archive.org

Greene, Dana, ed. Lucretia Mott: Her Complete Speeches and Sermons. New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1980. (Not online.)

Eppinger, Priscilla Elaine. Messiahs of Every Age: A Theological Basis of Nineteenth-century Social Reform. Quaker Theology #10, Spring-Summer 2004

Fager, Chuck. Lucretia Mott, Liberal Quaker Theologian. Quaker Theology #10, Spring-Summer 2004.





Related


Lucretia Mott's Birthday Secret: No Woman Is an Island?January 3, 2018In “Black & White & Other Colors”

A Progressive Quaker Message from Lucretia MottJanuary 2, 2018In “Cross-Generational Conversation: YAFS & OFFs”

A Progressive Quaker Sermon - By Lucretia MottApril 20, 2014In “Hard-Core Quaker”

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4 THOUGHTS ON “LUCRETIA MOTT’S QUAKER EASTER MESSAGE, STILL GOOD THE DAY AFTER”

Tom Costello
APRIL 22, 2019 AT 3:01 PM


Thanks, Chuck, for reminding us how Friend Lucretia perservered.
REPLY

Pat Fateneau
APRIL 22, 2019 AT 4:44 PM


Marcus Borg speaks of the pre-Easter Jesus. The Jesus before the scribes assigned all sorts of miracles to him so that Christianity would appeal to the masses For the first time, I felt like I could embrace this Jesus
REPLY

Rex Sprouse
APRIL 22, 2019 AT 5:09 PM


A perennial frustration for me: Many contemporary Quakers are so unfamiliar with Quaker religious thought over the centuries that they assume that “Christianity” equals beliefs like Substitutionary Atonement, the Virgin Birth, “accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior,” etc., etc. How many Quakers today believe that the Quaker religion and the Quaker way of life represent (or should represent) Primitive Christianity revived?
REPLY

Joan Kindler
APRIL 22, 2019 AT 6:47 PM


Thank you for the real meaning of Easter…I have never been comfortable with the “classic” story..so cruel…and think I have made the resurection a reaffirmation a symbol of God’s Love

Lucretia Mott 1849 sermon

Lucretia Mott sermon

delivered at the Cherry Street Meeting in Philadelphia, September 30, 1849

----

It is time that Christians were judged more by their likeness to Christ than their notions of Christ. Were this sentiment generally admitted we should not see such tenacious adherence to what men deem the opinions and doctrines of Christ while at the same time in every day practise is exhibited anything but a likeness to Christ. My reflections in this meeting have been upon the origin, parentage, and character of Jesus. I have thought we might profitably dwell upon the facts connected with his life, his precepts, and his practise in his walks among men.

Humble as was his birth, obscure as was his parentage, little known as he seemed to be in his neighborhood and country, he has astonished the world and brought a response from all mankind by the purity of his precepts, the excellence of his example. Wherever that inimitable sermon on the mount is read, let it be translated into any language and spread before the people, there is an acknowledgement of its truth. When we come to judge the sectarian professors of his name by the true test, how widely do their lives differ from his?

Instead of going about doing good as was his wont, instead of being constantly in the exercise of benevolence and love as was his practice, we find the disposition too generally to measure the Christian by his assent to a creed which had not its sign with him nor indeed in his day. Instead of engaging in the exercise of peace, justice, and mercy, how many of the professors are arrayed against him in opposition to those great principles even as were his opposers in his day. Instead of being the bold nonconformist (if I may so speak) that he was, they are adhering to old church usages, and worn-out forms and exhibiting little of a Christ like disposition and character. Instead of uttering the earnest protests against the spirit of proselytism and sectarianism as did the blessed Jesus--the divine, the holy, the born of God, there is the servile accommodation to this sectarian spirit and an observance of those forms even long after there is any claim of virtue in them; a disposition to use language which shall convey belief that in the inmost heart of many they reject.

Is this honest, is this Christ like? Should Jesus again appear and preach as he did round about Judea and Jerusalem and Galilee, these high professors would be among the first to set him at naught, if not to resort to the extremes which were resorted to in his day. There is no danger of this now, however, because the customs of the age will not bear the bigot out in it, but the spirit is manifest, which led martyrs to the stake, Jesus to the cross, Mary Dyer to the gallows. This spirit is now showing itself in casting out the name one of another, as evil, in brother delivering up brother unto sectarian death. We say if Jesus should again appear--He *is* here; he *has* appeared, from generation to generation and his spirit is now as manifest, in the humble, the meek, the bold reformers, even among some of obscure parentage.

His spirit is now going up and down among men seeking their good, and endeavoring to promote the benign and holy principles of peace, justice, and love. And blessing to the merciful, to the peacemaker, to the pure in heart, and the poort in spirit, to the just, the upright, to those who desire righteousness is earnestly proclaimed, by these messengers of the Highest who are now in our midst. These, the preachers of righteousness, are no more acknowledged by the same calss of people than was the messiah to the Jews. They are the anointed of God, the inspired preachers and writers and believers of the present time. In the pure example which they exhibit to the nations, they are emphatically the beloved sons of God.

It is, my friends, my mission to declare these things among you at the hazard of shocking many prejudices. The testimony of the chosen servants of the Highest in our day is equally divine inspiration with the inspired teaching of those in former times. It is evidence of the superstition of our age, that we can adhere to, Yea that, we can bow with profound veneration to the records of an Abraham, the sensualist Solomon, and the warlike David, inspired though they many have been, and I am not disposed to doubt it, more than to the equal inspiration of the writers of the present age. Why not acknowledge the inspiration of many of the poets of succeeding ages, as well as of Deborah and Miriam in their songs of victory of Job and David in their beautiful poetry and psalms, or of Isaiah and Jeremiah in their scorching rebukes and mournful lamentations?

 These are beautifully instructive but ought they to command our veneration more than the divine poetic language of many, very many, since their day, who have uttered truth equally precious? Truth speaks the same language in every age of the world and is equally valuable to us. Are we so blindly superstitious as to reject the one and adhere to the other? How much does this society lose by this undue veneration to ancient authorities, a want of equal respect to the living inspired testimonies of latter time? Christianity requires that we bring into view the apostles of succeeding generations, that we acknowledge their apostleship and give the right hand of fellowship to those who have been and who are sent forth of God with Great truths to declare before the people; and also to practice lives of righteousness, exceeding the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees, and even of the chosen ones of former times.

The people in their childish and dark state, just emerging out of barbarism, were not prepared to exhibit all those great principles in the near approach to fullness, to the perfection that is called for at our hands. There is this continued advance toward perfection from age to age. The records of our predecessors give evidence of such progress. When I quote the language of William Penn, "it is time for Christians to be judged more by their likeness to Christ than their notions of Christ," I offer the sentiment of one who is justly held in great regard if not veneration by this people, and whose writings may be referred to with as much profit as those of the servants of God in former ages; and we may well respect the memory of him and his contemporaries as well as of many not limited to our religious society, who have borne testimony to the truth.

It is of importance to us, also, to speak of those whom we know, those whose characters we have fuller acquaintance with, than we can have with such as lived in ages past, that we should bring into view the lives of the faithful of our generation.

Jesus bore his testimony--doing always the things which pleased his Father. He lived his meek, his humble and useful life--drawing his disciples around him, and declaring great truths to the people who gathered to hear him.

His apostles and their successors were faithful in their day-going out into the world, and shaking the nations around them. Reformers since their time have done their work in exposing error and wrong, and calling for priests of righteousness in place of vain forms. The bold utterances of Elias Hicks and his contemporaries aroused the sectarian and theological world in our day. Their demand for a higher righteousness was not in vain. Their examples of self-denials and faithfulness to duty should be held up for imitation. We overestimate those who have lived and labored in days long past, while we value not sufficiently the labors of those around us, who may have as high a commission as had their predecessors.

Let us not hesitate to regard the utterance of truth in our age, as of equal value with that which is recorded in the scriptures. None can revere more than I do the truths of the Bible. I have read it perhaps as much as any one present, and, I trust, with profit. It has at times been more to me than my daily food. When an attempt was made some twenty years ago to engraft some church dogmas upon this society, claiming this book for authority, it led me to examine, and compare text with the content. In so doing I became so much interested that I scarcely noted the passage of time. Even to this day, when I open this volume, so familiar is almost every chapter that I can sometimes scarcely lay it aside from the interest I feel in its beautiful pages.

But I should be recreant to the principle, did I not say, the great error in Christendom is in regarding these scriptures taken as a whole as the plenary inspiration of God, and their authority as supreme. I consider this as Elias Hicks did one of the greatest drawbacks, one of the greatest barriers to human progress that there is in the religious world, for while this volume is held as it is, and, by a resort to it, war, and slavery, wine drinking, and other cruel, oppressive, and degrading evils are sustained, pleading the example of the ancients as authority it serves as a check to human progress, as an obstacle in the way of these great and glorious reformers that are now upon the field. Well did that servant of God, Elias Hicks, warn the people against an undue veneration of the Bible, or of any human authority, any written record or outward testimony. The tendency of his ministry was to lead the mind to the divine teacher, the sublime ruler, that all would find within themselves, which was above men's teaching, human records, or outward authorities.

Highly as he valued these ancient testimonies, they were not to take the place of the higher law inwardly revealed, which was and should be, the governing principle of our lives. One of our early friends, Richard Davies, attended a meeting of the independents, and heard the preacher express the sentiment that the time would come when Christians would have no more need of the Bible than of any other book. He remarked on this saying of the preacher, "Hast thou not experienced that time already come." Does not this imply, or may we not infer from this, that our worthy friend has experienced that time already come; was it a greater heresy, than that uttered by the apostle Paul, when he declared that those who had known a birth into the gospel, had no more need of the law? that they were under a higher dispensation than were they who were bound by their statutes and ceremonies?

Let us also not hesitate to declare it, and to speak the truth plainly as it is in Jesus, that we believe the time is come when this undue adherence to outward authorities, or to any forms of baptism or of communion of church or sabbath worship, should give place to more practical goodness among men, more love manifested one unto another in our every day life, doing good and ministering to the wants and interests of our fellow beings the world over. If we fully believe this, should we be most honest, did we so far seek to please men, more than to please God, as to fail to utter in our meetings, and whenever we feel called upon to do so in our conversation, in our writings, and to exhibit by example, by a life of non-conformity, in accordance with these views, that we have faith and confidence in our convictions?

It needs, my friends, in this day that one should go forth saying neither baptism profiteth anything nor non-baptism, but faith which worketh by love, neither the ordinance of the communion table profiteth anything, nor the absence from the same, but faith which worketh by love. These things should never be regarded as the test of the worshipper. Neither your sabbath observance profiteth anything, nor the non-observance of the day, but faith with worketh by love. Let all these subjects be held up in their true light. Let them be plainly spoken of-- and let our lives be in accordance with our convictions of right, each striving to carry out our principles. Then obscure though we may be, lost sight of almost, in the great and pompous religious associations of the day, we yet shall have our influence and it will be felt. Why do we wish it to be felt? Because we believe it is the testimony of truth, and our duty to spread it far and wide. Because the healthful growth of the people requires that they should come away from their vain oblations, and settle upon the ground of obedience to the requirings of truth.

I desire to speak so as to be understood, and trust there are among you ears blessed that they hear, and that these principles shall be received as the Gospel of the blessed son of God. Happy shall they be, who by observing these, shall come to be divested of the traditions and superstitions which have been

clinging to them, leading them to erect an altar "to the unknown God."

In the place of this shall an altar be raised where on may be oblations of God's own preparing. Thus may these approach our Father in Heaven and hold communion with him--entering his courts with thanksgiving, and his gates with praise, even though there may be no oral expression. He may unite in prayer and in praise, which will ascend as sweet incense, and the blessing will come which we can scarcely contain.

[Reprinted with the kind permission of the Friends Historical

Library, Swarthmore College]

A Progressive Quaker Message from Lucretia Mott - A Friendly Letter

A Progressive Quaker Message from Lucretia Mott - A Friendly Letter



A PROGRESSIVE QUAKER MESSAGE FROM LUCRETIA MOTT
JANUARY 2, 2018 CHUCK FAGER 1 COMMENT
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“Truth for authority, not authority for truth.”

Lucretia Mott, considered at the time of her death in 1880 to be the “greatest American woman of the nineteenth century” by many of her contemporaries, was a Quaker abolitionist, women’s rights activist and social reformer. She was also a key figure in an important insurgent movement of Progressive Friends. Her messages and actions are very pertinent today – and laid much of the foundation for the current women’s movement.



Thursday First Month (January) 3, 2019, will mark Lucretia’s 226th birthday.

What message would she have for us if she were here today?

HINT: She’d likely tell us we’re in deep trouble and should get up and get busy. (She’d say it nicely, but urgently).

In fact, her message might sound like this . . .



NOTE: The address excerpted below is more “theological” than activist (she wouldn’t much like the term “theological,” but it fits.) There was not much distinction between them for Lucretia.

PS. Lucretia never prepared her messages, spoke only when she felt moved, and did not write them down. We have this one (and others) only because stenographers were sent in to take them down by shorthand. Sometimes this was to preserve them for admirers; other times it was to gain ammunition for having her disciplined or even disowned (YES, there were several such attempts). The latter efforts did not succeed; but I’m grateful for the record anyway.

Lucretia Mott (1793 – 1880)

1849: Lucretia Mott– From “Likeness to Christ” – A sermon delivered at the Cherry Street Meeting in Philadelphia – Ninth Month 30, 1849


It is time that Christians were judged more by their likeness to Christ than their notions of Christ. Were this sentiment generally admitted we should not see such tenacious adherence to what men deem the opinions and doctrines of Christ while at the same time in every day practice is exhibited anything but a likeness to Christ.




My reflections in this meeting have been upon the origin, parentage, and character of Jesus. I have thought we might profitably dwell upon the facts connected with his life, his precepts, and his practice in his walks among men. Humble as was his birth, obscure as was his parentage, little known as he seemed to be in his neighborhood and country, he has astonished the world and brought a response from all mankind by the purity of his precepts, the excellence of his example. Wherever that inimitable sermon on the mount is read, let it be translated into any language and spread before the people, there is an acknowledgement of its truth. When we come to judge the sectarian professors of his name by the true test, how widely do their lives differ from his?

Instead of going about doing good as was his wont, instead of being constantly in the exercise of benevolence and love as was his practice, we find the disposition too generally to measure the Christian by his assent to a creed which had not its sign with him nor indeed in his day. Instead of engaging in the exercise of peace, justice, and mercy, how many of the professors are arrayed against him in opposition to those great principles even as were his opposers in his day. Instead of being the bold nonconformist (if I may so speak) that he was, they are adhering to old church usages, and worn-out forms and exhibiting little of a Christ like disposition and character.

Instead of uttering the earnest protests against the spirit of proselytism and sectarianism as did the blessed Jesus–the divine, the holy, the born of God, there is the servile accommodation to this sectarian spirit and an observance of those forms even long after there is any claim of virtue in them; a disposition to use language which shall convey belief that in the inmost heart of many they reject.

Is this honest, is this Christ like? Should Jesus again appear and preach as he did round about Judea and Jerusalem and Galilee, these high professors would be among the first to set him at naught, if not to resort to the extremes which were resorted to in his day. There is no danger of this now, however, because the customs of the age will not bear the bigot out in it, but the spirit is manifest, which led martyrs to the stake, Jesus to the cross, Mary Dyer to the gallows. This spirit is now showing itself in casting out the name one [after] another, as evil, in brother delivering up brother unto sectarian death. We say if Jesus should again appear–He is here; he has appeared, from generation to generation and his spirit is now as manifest, in the humble, the meek, the bold reformers, even among some of obscure parentage.

His spirit is now going up and down among men seeking their good, and endeavoring to promote the benign and holy principles of peace, justice, and love. And blessing to the merciful, to the peacemaker, to the pure in heart, and the poor in spirit, to the just, the upright, to those who desire righteousness is earnestly proclaimed, by these messengers of the Highest who are now in our midst. These, the preachers of righteousness, are no more acknowledged by the same class of people than was the messiah to the Jews. They are the anointed of God, the inspired preachers and writers and believers of the present time. In the pure example which they exhibit to the nations, they are emphatically the beloved sons of God.

It is, my friends, my mission to declare these things among you at the hazard of shocking many prejudices. The testimony of the chosen servants of the Highest in our day is equally divine inspiration with the inspired teaching of those in former times. . . .




Let us not hesitate to regard the utterance of truth in our age, as of equal value with that which is recorded in the scriptures. None can revere more than I do the truths of the Bible. I have read it perhaps as much as any one present, and, I trust, with profit. It has at times been more to me than my daily food. When an attempt was made some twenty years ago to engraft some church dogmas upon this society, claiming this book for authority, it led me to examine, and compare text with the content. In so doing I became so much interested that I scarcely noted the passage of time.

Even to this day, when I open this volume, so familiar is almost every chapter that I can sometimes scarcely lay it aside from the interest I feel in its beautiful pages.

But I should be recreant to the principle, did I not say, the great error in Christendom is in regarding these scriptures taken as a whole as the plenary inspiration of God, and their authority as supreme. I consider this as Elias Hicks did one of the greatest drawbacks, one of the greatest barriers to human progress that there is in the religious world, for while this volume is held as it is, and, by a resort to it, war, and slavery, wine drinking, and other cruel, oppressive, and degrading evils are sustained, pleading the example of the ancients as authority it serves as a check to human progress, as an obstacle in the way of these great and glorious reformers that are now upon the field.

Well did that servant of God, Elias Hicks, warn the people against an undue veneration of the Bible, or of any human authority, any written record or outward testimony. The tendency of his ministry was to lead the mind to the divine teacher, the sublime ruler, that all would find within themselves, which was above men’s teaching, human records, or outward authorities. Highly as he valued these ancient testimonies, they were not to take the place of the higher law inwardly revealed, which was and should be, the governing principle of our lives.

. . . Let us also not hesitate to declare it, and to speak the truth plainly as it is in Jesus, that we believe the time is come when this undue adherence to outward authorities, or to any forms of baptism or of communion of church or sabbath worship, should give place to more practical goodness among men, more love manifested one unto another in our every day life, doing good and ministering to the wants and interests of our fellow beings the world over. If we fully believe this, should we be most honest, did we so far seek to please men, more than to please God, as to fail to utter in our meetings, and whenever we feel called upon to do so in our conversation . . . and to exhibit by example, by a life of non-conformity, in accordance with these views, that we have faith and confidence in our convictions?

. . . I desire to speak so as to be understood, and trust there are among you ears blessed that they hear, and that these principles shall be received as the Gospel of the blessed son of God. Happy shall they be, who by observing these, shall come to be divested of the traditions and superstitions which have been clinging to them, leading them to erect an altar “to the unknown God.”

Full text of this message is at this page.

An Australian Quaker’s Transforming Encounter With Jesus | A Whole Heart

An Australian Quaker’s Transforming Encounter With Jesus | A Whole Heart



An Australian Quaker’s Transforming Encounter With Jesus
Posted on April 5, 2019by friendmarcelle


David Johnson seems an unlikely person to write a book about the Gospel of John. He had a long career as a geology professor and co-authored a standard textbook on the geology of Australia. His book reveals that when he first felt drawn to read the gospels, he did not speak about it to others. Yet it’s clear from his writing that careful reading of the gospels, meditating on them, living with them, and learning to follow the teachings of Jesus, including the inward teachings, transformed Johnson’s life. In 2007-2008, he spent eight months reading nothing but the Gospel of John, verse by verse. In his book, Jesus, Christ and Servant of God: Meditations of the Gospel According to John, he shares what became clear to him through that time.



Johnson begins his chapter-by-chapter meditations on John’s gospel by describing the “eternal mystical vision” that we encounter in the first chapter. John 1:1 begins, “In the beginning was the Word” and continues by speaking of the Light that lights every person that comes into the world. Johnson recommends praying with these opening passages, and highlights the oneness of Word, God, Light, and Jesus: “The equivalence of Word and Light and Truth, all in Jesus, is found throughout John’s gospel. First, the Word, the breath of God, is the creator of all. Second, there is the divine Light that sustains life, and this Light is in all. Third, Jesus was the Word and Light as a physical reality while he was alive on earth. Western minds have trouble grasping the interrelationship of these three, that they are one—and more, that everything is simply a function of this divine creative energy that we can experience as the Light within or as the divinely spoken Word.” (10)

Drawing on passage after passage of words spoken by Jesus, and from his own spiritual experience as he turned to the living Christ guiding him from within, Johnson draws a map of the spiritual journey to which Jesus invites his followers. He reveals, as well, an emphasis in the words of Jesus that has been overlooked in mainstream Christianity, but which is very consistent with Quaker understanding and experience since the beginning of Quakerism in the seventeenth century.

During the secret nighttime visit of Nicodemus to Jesus, Jesus reveals that Nicodemus—and all of us—are called to a spiritual rebirth. The nature of this rebirth is beyond the capacity of our mind to fully understand, and requires a thorough change in ourselves that we all resist. This process involves a pruning of ourselves that can be painful, but is necessary if we are to bear the fruit of the Spirit. Johnson writes:

The change needed within us is more than we imagined. Here is the truth of the matter, which is shocking and hard to accept; this rebirth is nothing short of the dying of the ‘old man,’ the former self, with its reliance on one’s own strength and knowledge and qualification. … This will be difficult language for many, but the truth of it cannot be denied for it is the experience of the holiest people in history as well as the calling within us. If you are hearing this you are probably also hearing your own resistance, as I was. Consider the possibilities of complete humility and powerlessness in this matter, of letting go of that resistance, of praying for help in cutting it loose. For only in facing the inner death can we be brought to spiritual rebirth and the start of that regeneration, during which we must daily and resolutely maintain our fervent attentiveness to the Light within. (38-39)

In Johnson’s reading of the gospel of John, and in his experience, he finds the inward Light to be a reliable and always-available guide in this process of death of the old self and spiritual rebirth: “The mystery of God calls me, and the Light of Christ shows me my errors and the narrow path to follow. This Guide is not a bewildering set of regulations; it is the Light within, available to all, at all times.” (57)

Although clearly Christ-centered himself, Johnson’s writing is gently inclusive of those whose theology and religious language differs from his own, as illustrated in his words on abiding: “I understand abiding as a conscious wish and practice to be attentive to the Light within, whether each of us experiences that as the Holy Spirit, as the presence of Jesus, or as a turning to the unknowable God. The more we seek the divine presence, the more it is revealed to us. We live in it and it lives in us.” (143)

I expected this book to focus primarily on David Johnson’s personal experience living with the teachings of Jesus recorded in the Gospel of John. Though his own journey clearly informs his insight into the meaning of the gospel, in the book he reflects primarily on the stories and teachings of the gospel itself. Rather than say a great deal about his own experiences, he sometimes includes passages from the experience of early Quakers to illustrate how the teachings of the gospel have been experienced by Friends, andoccasionally he quotes others, including Thomas Merton.

In his commentary on the chapters of John’s gospel, Johnson notes the frequency with which John’s Jesus emphasized a distinction between himself and God, and how heindicated that he does only what God wants to do through him. Thus, Jesus emphasizes his role as servant of God. The first example Johnson points out is in John 4:34, when Jesus tells his disciples, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” In John 5:19, Jesus says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.”

Johnson suggests that Jesus is providing a model for all of us to follow, if we will. To live that way requires us to surrender our own willfulness and to become receptive to the work of the Spirit in and through us:

Can I, can we, become like Jesus, seeking and depending on God’s guidance moment by moment, following so that we say and do just what God asks of us, completely faithful, with trust and courage and simplicity and vulnerability and love, just as Jesus did? To enable the first disciples to do this, to undertake such ministry, Jesus breaths on them, saying: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Jesus used the word “receive”. He does not say, I give you the Holy Spirit. The disciples, and each one of us, have to make a conscious decision to receive the gift. (170-171)

Jesus abides in God, and we, too, are invited to abide in God, with Jesus, in the Light of Christ. Johnson emphasizes that the heart of the matter is learning to love as Christ loves, and to let the love of God flow through us to others:

We are to love one another with no excuses so that our love may become more Christ-like. We find our love is the love of God made available to us. Jesus confirms this new covenant is to love one another that we may abide in him and he in us. The love of his being, the Eternal Christ, can then flow through us. (197)
* * *

David Johnson will be leading a May 5-9 course at Pendle Hill Conference Center entitled John’s Gospel: Retreat and Refreshment. Because of grant funding supporting this offering, the course is considerably less expensive than most 5-day courses at Pendle Hill. David Johnson is a Friend of great spiritual depth and this is a very special opportunity to spend time in the company of this Quaker from Australia. Here’s the link for more information and to register: https://pendlehill.org/events/johns-gospel-refreshment-and-challenge/

Jesus, Christ and Servant of God: Meditations of the Gospel According to John, can be ordered from Inner Light Books in hardback, paperback or ebook versions, as can Johnson’s earlier book, A Quaker Prayer Life.

© 2019 Marcelle Martin
* * *

Our Life is Love: the Quaker Spiritual Journey, by Marcelle Martin, is available from Inner Light Books in hardback, paperback, and ebook. (An excerpt and a study guide are also available on that website.) Designed to be a resource for individuals and groups to explore their spiritual experiences, the book describes the journey of faithfulness that leads people to actively engage in God’s work of making this world a better place for all. To order multiple books for a study group, postage free, contact us.

For information about other upcoming courses and workshops with Marcelle, go toTeaching and Upcoming Workshops.

Find a Quaker Meeting near you: Quaker Finder

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Lost Cause?: IS AFSC a Lost Cause for Friends? (Probably.) (Quaker theology Book 32) - Kindle edition by Chuck fager, H.Larry Ingle. Religion & Spirituality Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Lost Cause?: IS AFSC a Lost Cause for Friends? (Probably.) (Quaker theology Book 32) - Kindle edition by Chuck fager, H.Larry Ingle. Religion & Spirituality Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.








Lost Cause?: IS AFSC a Lost Cause for Friends? (Probably.) (Quaker theology Book 32)Kindle Edition
by Chuck fager (Author), H.Larry Ingle (Author)


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No sooner had the AFSC’s Centennial bash gotten underway in spring of 2017, when somebody rained on their parade: another multi-million budget shortfall was acknowledged, with more job and program cuts. 
This was getting to be an all-too familiar story; almost as familiar as the empty promises to “re-connect” AFSC with actual living Quakers. 
What had happened? In marketing talk, the answer is straightforward: besides foolishly wasting millions of dollars, AFSC had trashed and squandered its brand, and is paying the price. 
And what was that brand? 
Look at the name: It wasn’t “American.” 
It wasn’t “Service. 
And by god, it wasn’t “Committee.” 
It was “Friends. 
And more than that: the Society of Friends. 
Still more; the Religious Society of Friends. (Or RSOF.) 
What’s all this got to do with Quaker theology? Everything. The thesis of this compilation is that it is theology – or whatever is behind that term, which makes Quakerism real, and this this difficult-to-pin-down “quotidian” is what animates Quaker witness and service; and that without it, the service is fatally compromised. 
And that AFSC, in cutting loose from the RSOF, in all its messy “quotidian” (yet through which somehow the Spirit seems to work; after all, it birthed AFSC) has undermined the most precious aspect of its brand: its authenticity. Marketing experts agree that without that, the group is like a cut flower, the roots severed. 
This cutting is not a new phenomenon. Clarence Pickett, its most revered Director, said as far back as 1945 that “there is no legal connection between the S[ociety] of F[riends] and the AFSC.” “Theoretically,” he admitted, “the AFSC could become composed of non-Friends entirely.” 
As, in practice – not theoretically – it almost entirely has. 
What had happened? As one Board member put it in 1991, “If you look down the list of major donors, people say again and again, ‘I’m giving money to AFSC because it’s a Quaker organization and when Quakers do peace work, they do it right. . . .’” 
Well, maybe they once did it right. But in AFSC, Quakers aren’t doing it anymore. 
Alas, while drawing up their latest list of experts, AFSC has overlooked two of the most experienced analysts in the field, namely: professor H. Larry Ingle, and Chuck Fager. 
We stumbled into this assignment in1979, when a discussion of AFSC unexpectedly broke loose. I was the convenor, Larry an enthusiastic participant. We’ve been on this unfolding case ever since. This collection brings together most of the major pieces we have produced. 
Reading AFSC internal documents, it looks more and more like AFSC's “anti-oppression” thrust has indeed displaced “the formal Quaker identity” as the group’s sacred center. Certainly it’s been endlessly useful in internal politics. As one exasperated CEO put it in 2008 in an uncharacteristically candid moment: “There is a culture of white guilt in this organization that is stifling and patronizing.” 
But what if this exaltation is misplaced? What if the legacy of racism is a problem to be worked on rather than the successor to Quakerism as the group’s religious center? 
And what has happened when a culture’s sacred has been sucked out of its vessel, replaced with a farrago of imported and shifting notions, given over to outsiders, and the vessel is then paraded around to collect money from the credulous? 
Larry and I are aware that our work has not endeared us to many at the higher levels of AFSC’s rickety staff ladder, and likely frightened some at lower rungs who fear for their jobs (probably rightly, but not on our account.) It is a kind of consolation to find in its records evidence that some of its higher-ups have occasionally put in serious effort at not taking us seriously. No doubt our worst continuing offense is that we have insisted, unlike almost all the internal reshufflers and reformers, in doing our work openly, in the public prints, and online. 
And here we are, doing it again.


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File Size: 892 KB
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Meetings: A Religious Autobiography eBook: Chuck Fager: Books

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Meetings: A Religious Autobiography Kindle Edition
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This book describes Chuck Fager’s transition from a conservative Catholic, pro-military youth to an active peace witness and a lengthy period of “spiritual formation” among progressive Quakers. All this happened in a time of war, sharp social upheaval and personal turmoil. The account culminates in a special religious coming of age in the mid-1970s, which in turn marked the opening of another period of intertwined personal and broader history, in a continuing time of tumult and change. 
The result is both a compelling story of our time, and the narrative of a unique personal quest for meaning, transcendence, and a useful life.




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Top Reviews

Daniel Wilcox
3.0 out of 5 starsReview of Meetings by Chuck FagerJune 25, 2016
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
rom Amazon's website:
"Chuck Fager’s transition from a conservative Catholic, pro-military youth to an active peace witness and a lengthy period of “spiritual formation” among progressive Quakers...a special religious coming of age in the mid-1970s...in a continuing time of tumult and change."

"The result is both a compelling story of our time, and the narrative of a unique personal quest for meaning, transcendence, and a useful life."

Yes, no, and maybe not.

I've finished the book. Chuck does deliver some intriguing stories from his life as he promised. Kudos for that.

And at times, stories of his intellectual quest do come through clearly. His account of professor Milton Mayer of the University of Chicago is powerful and moving.

Furthermore, Chuck's recounting of those radical days of the late 60's and early 70's, and his involvement, will bring back many memories of that best of times, worst of times.

But overall this book appears to be at first-read weaker than some of his other books. Unlike those, this one seems fragmentary, more of a starting outline. There are key stories like wall pegs; now hang deep personal reflections on them.

Yes, the book has up appealing and shocking stories, but Chuck doesn't show how they relate to his interior life, doesn't put them in the context of his personal life, and doesn't reflect on them in relationship to his spiritual belief and life.

The reader feels unconnected and is filled with many questions unanswered.

For instance, there is the fascinating story of his discovering a missal like the ones of his childhood.

But after the very detailed nuanced narrative of how he comes across the book at the Saint Vincent de Paul thrift store, he just leaves the aged ritual book stuck on a shelf in a plastic bag.

We don't know how he felt and thought about religious ritual, and Catholic ritual especially, about how filled with superstition it seems, about it relationship to Church history, about cannon law, about hell and purgatory in relationship to himself and all humans.

This is so unlike his recent posts on the same sexuality controversy in North Carolina Yearly Meeting, where even in those brief blog posts, Chuck ferrets out the motives, reasonings, etc. of the not-so Friendly leaders in that tribulation, that ocean of darkness.

Here's another particular example of a disconnected story from Chuck's book:
Suddenly, half way through his autobiography, we learn that his wife, Tish, has a severe drinking problem, and he moves out. Then he speaks of his own "sin."

Wait a minute!

We readers didn't even know he had met a girl, gotten married, had a kid, developed relationship problems, etc.

We have no idea about his views of sexuality.

Or his coming of age as a teen guy in the late 1950's.

Or how his wife developed her alcoholism, and why they couldn't work this out.

Meetings is a short autobiography so Chuck didn't have time or space to go into great detail, but a short 2-page lead-in on his youth and girls, his views on sexuality, and his life relating to women was very necessary.

And we get only a very brief glimpse of his relationship with his mother. And we learn nothing of his relationships with his siblings. We don't know about his views, his ethical and spiritual wrestlings.

All of those aspects are very important in understanding the sudden split, of his moving out to a friend's.

And how did he meet Tish, and their marriage?
Was it a Roman Catholic wedding?
Was she a practicing Catholic?
What were their views on birth control?

And most importantly: What are his reflections of how his spiritual and religious experience relates to his sexuality and marriage?

Then there is a girlfriend, called Sylvia. Again, we have no idea who, why, when or how this relates to his religious life.

Even more importantly, he fails to reflect on all of this and other unexplained vague statements about "sin."

And he mentions having sex after his wife and him split? Does he mean he engaged in fornication?

Does he go to confession? Or not? Why or why not?

At another point in the book, Chuck states that his class ring, "the red and gold band" is much more important than his wedding rings!!

He wrote that the ring took on "much more important" meanings.

Again, as a reader, I am left confused.

We readers don't need lots of private details, but we do need to understand--to feel and experience and think what he did.

I don't expect an autobiographical writer to completely bare his soul or his very private life, but without some details, some description, and extensive inner reflection, the reader is left confused and unmoved.

If Chuck does a revision--
I did about 7 on one of my book after its first edition--
he needs to keep in mind the old very truism of writing:
Show, don't tell.

And in a religious autobiography, REFLECT on your motives, your inner directions, your shadow, and how all parts of your life relate to the spiritual.

And Chuck needs to remember that in many cases, he didn't even tell.

He's right, "any religion that's worth it is built around stories."

And he ought to have added, any religion that's worth it reflects on its stories.

Shows potential.

Evaluation: C

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James S. Eisenberg
5.0 out of 5 starsThe 60's and A Spiritual Odyssey/Honestly !August 8, 2016
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Fager has written a fascinating, sometimes painfully self honest spiritual autobiography.
His intense view of 60s life and politics rings very true.
A really superb read !

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John Calvi
5.0 out of 5 starsThis is a good and very readable account of a young man seeking ...June 18, 2016
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This is a good and very readable account of a young man seeking his way in the world, in coming to awareness of the spiritual and political matters of relationships, country, war, and religion. I recommend it and think it's an interesting story of moving from the military life to peacekeeping.n

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