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2022/09/06

Evolution of Quaker Theology by Evans Lugusa - Kenya| Scribd

Evolution of Quaker Theology by Evans Lugusa - Ebook | Scribd

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Evolution of Quaker Theology
By Evans Lugusa
826 pages
28 hours

Evolution of Quaker Theology

EVANS LUGUSA LISIMBA Published in 2021 by

Posterity Publishers Ltd, Eldoret, Kenya

Description
The book, Evolution of the Quaker Theology, is an attempt to consolidate the vast literature available on Quakerism into one volume.

The Book delves into the deep history of the early period of Quakerism and the gradual evolution of the Quaker Theology into what it is today. Evolution of Quaker Theology is a significant and much needed addition to the African Theology and World Christianity at large, told from an African Perspective. In an easy to read way, one is able to see the global history of the Quaker Movement with simplicity and critical objectivity.

The Book is written with enviable simplicity and honesty about complex historical developments and makes it easy for the reader to visualize events spanning almost four centuries as one complete story.

The book provides a comprehensive account of the early Quakers and enumerates the men and women who shaped the Quaker theology across the globe, especially in Europe and America. Key among them is the founder of the Quaker Movement George Fox and his early converts including Margaret Fell, William Penn, Elizabeth Fry, John Joseph Gurney and Elias Hikes among many other notable Quakers of the early days.

Apart from the overview of the Quaker history, the book gives an account of Quaker Theology.

It captures different traditions of Quakers in the World family of Friends. The book delves into questions like why we have such diverse traditions among the same denomination of the Quaker Church and why the theology of one tradition is so different from that of another.

The book documents the Quaker Faith and Practice. The writer unravels some of the Quaker Traditions and etiquette and captures the core Quaker values or testimonies.

The book also gives insights into topical issues such as Water Baptism, Speaking in tongues, Sacrament and the Gift of the Holy Spirit. More contemporary topics such as the Role of Women among Quakers, Same Sex Relationship, Cremation, Death, Organ Donation, and Euthanasia are also highlighted. The book is a good resource for Theology Students or for the general reader who is interested in the broad brush of Quakerism. As Quakerism continues to evolve, adopting to the ever-changing world, important to note is that the book is anchored in what Quaker Faith holds dear as encapsulated in - Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Service - to all.

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Chapter Three Basic Quaker Theology What are the Basic Quakers Doctrines? Evolution of the Quakers over three Centuries Meetings for Wor- ship The Pastoral or Programmed Meeting The Unprogrammed Meeting The Rise of the Gurneyite and the Conservative Split Formation of Friends World Committee for Consultation Conservative Friends (Quietists) Holiness - Central Yearly Meeting of Friends Liberal Quakers - Friends General Conference Universalist Quaker Fellowship Evangelical Friends The Liberal Quakers Beaconites Nontheistic Quakers

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World Family of Friends International Membership Committee International Friends Organizations Quaker Organizations and Committees Life and development of small fellowship groups The Formation of Auxiliary Groups Membership among the Quakers Practical Quaker Theology Quakers and the Bible World Quaker Population Calendar and Church Holidays Quaker Influence The Rise, Spread and Decline of Quakerism
Chapter Four Quaker Faith and Practice Faith and Practice Some Quaker Statements of Faith and Practice Quaker Testimonies (Core Quaker Values) Basic Quaker Tenets and Testimonies The Seven Approaches of Quaker Peace Testimony

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Nontheistic Quakers
The world has been so assimilated into secularism that people
feel just okay to say I am a Quaker, but I am not a Christian. How
can you belong to a Christian organization and yet not subscribe
to the God of that organization? This is why I have problems
understanding the mind of the people who say I am a Quaker but
I am not a Christian. Atheism is a misguided thought or mindset.
The best way to understand God if you have serious doubts
about His existence is to try to take a deep look into science, and
you will realize that, science is backed and anchored on God.

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Santayana, and Josiah Royce. Basically, they resolved to resist the

influence of liberalism in the world. Brinton was the first to

present a systematic Quaker theology for the 20th century

Friends. He tried to address most of the Quaker questions that

have drawn away Friends from other Christians, and often caused

divisions among Friends, which are:

i. Is the Bible the ultimate source of authority, or the inward

light, or both?

ii. What is the difference between conscience and inward

light?

iii. What role does reason play in Quakerism?

iv. Is the light universal? Is there a Christian basis for univ-

ersalism?

v. How do Friends feel about the historical Jesus? What is

the universal Christ?

vi. What is the Quaker view of atonement? How has this

shaped Quaker attitudes and actions?

vii. What did Quakers believe in in ethics of Good and Evil

and human responsibility? What about the fall of man? The

original sin?

viii. What did Quakers believe about human perfectibility?

How do Friends feel about the relation between the Divine

and Human? The questions that Brinton put forward have

lingered in the minds of Quakers for centuries and the an-

swers presented were neither convincing enough nor suffi-

cient to bridge the gap and bring the Quaker movement

into one fold.

Today we have at least five Quaker traditions that, generally in

principle, are separated by the ideological thinking of the propo-

nents. There was an interesting dialogue between two thinkers in

a conference that brought together the various Quaker traditions

where Charles Thomas speaking on behalf of pastoral Friends ar-

gued that there is no reason why the Holy Spirit cannot commu-

nicate through pre-arranged worship, as in a sermon. Brinton re-

sponded that, “while it is possible for the Holy Spirit to commu-

nicate through this means, prepared talks on religion are best

presented before or are after a Quaker meeting for worship.

The distinctive characteristic of Quaker worship is that it offers a

unique opportunity for the Holy Spirit to manifest itself sponta-

neously and without human contrivance. These theologians

would however, agree with the 19th-century Danish religious

philosopher Søren Kierkegaard that “the highest of all is not to

understand the highest but to act upon it.” However, the 21st

century saw the diminishing influence of Quaker theologians on

the scholarly scene, though we have a new crop of scholars of re-

pute among the Quakers today. One man I have read his books

and attended his talk in Nairobi recently is Dr. Richard Forster, a

very deep and insightful man who has written books like ‘Spiritual

Formation’ among others that I know.

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2022/08/30

Mysticism: Quaker and Universalist by Rhoda R. Gilman - Quaker Universalist Voice

Mysticism: Quaker and Universalist

by Rhoda R. Gilman

By Rhoda Gilman

During the past three years the Quaker Universalist Fellowship has discussed the possibility of following up its three QUF Readers with a book-length collection of Quaker universalist publications on mysticism. Lack of resources and energy have stalled the project, but it has led me to read and compare a good many of the pamphlets and articles that have been published in the last 25 years by QUF in the USA, QUG in the UK, and by other Quaker organizations and authors.

Mysticism is a burning topic these days. In the past 60 years science has transformed our view of the universe, and technology has transformed our world. The two have complemented and reinforced each other. The dizzying speed of change, plus the failure to find a new worldview that will explain the mysteries of relativity and quantum theory, has turned many philosophically-minded people, including some scientists, to exploring intuitive ways of knowing. Meanwhile violent religious conflict has erupted as people have been faced with terrifying new crises and have clung desperately to the familiar orthodoxies of the past.

For three thousand years doubt and mysticism have gone hand in hand, and both have been persecuted by religious authorities everywhere. A third companion is universalism, and although the relationship is complicated, it is very close. Among Christians, Quakerism, along with a few other metaphysical offshoots, has been led to explore its roots in late medieval mysticism and its newer relationship to Far Eastern mystical traditions, Vedic, Buddhist, and Taoist.

Although science makes no such claim, it is implicitly seen in our time as the touchstone of what is real. With its formulas and equations, its controlled experiments, and especially its power over nature, it has become the doubters’ dogma. Yet of the Quaker works I have been reading, only three acknowledge its importance in discussing mysticism.

Jack Mongar’s The Universal Sense of the Numinous is largely a historical account of the dialog between science and mysticism that has gone on since 1900. He ends with a brief discussion of the tensions within the Society of Friends that led to the founding of the Quaker Universalist Group in Britain in 1979, followed by the QUF in 1983.

James Riemermann is a nontheist and skeptic, who denies that any meaning exists in the universe outside our own accidental consciousness. Yet his essay on Mystery: It’s What we Don’t Know concludes: “Part of that ineffable mystery of self-awareness is a built-in longing for eternity, for a connection with ultimate meaning. We don’t know why we have it, but we have it.”

Quaker author Mary Conrow Cuelho’s book, Awakening Universe, Emerging Personhood: The Power of Contemplation in an Evolving Universe, is rooted in the “new story” of expansion since the “Big Bang” that has been popularized by Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme. She extends it to include the development of self-awareness and the quest for self-actualization, leaning heavily on psychiatric theories, especially those of Carl Jung.

In the Pendle Hill pamphlet, Quaker Views on Mysticism, Margery Post Abbott, like Thomas Kelly, makes little distinction between mysticism and traditional faith in the existence of a loving god. Mysticism consists in a personal feeling of divine presence, a thing which cannot be described. She tells of steps in her own spiritual journey, and numerous sidebars tell the stories of other Friends.

Personal experience of a more dramatic kind is recounted by Patricia A. Williams in the QUF pamphlet Hazardous Engagement: God Makes a Friend. Instead of a journal, a series of letters addressed to God record encounters in which the divine makes appearances in various forms over a period of 14 years.

Mulford Q. Sibley’s Quaker Mysticism: Its Content and Implications originated in a lecture addressed to non-Friends. He briefly affirms mysticism as an experience of true, ineffable reality then goes on to recount Quaker acceptance and rejection of it over a history of 300 years.

In What is Spirituality? also originating as a lecture, but in one addressed to Friends, Harvey Gillman provides a preface to what may be a long personal struggle with the meaning of mysticism. Poetry and metaphor are his preferred languages.

Paradox haunts even the title of Daniel A. Seeger’s essay The Mystical Path: A Journey to The One Who Is Always Here. With little reference to Quakers, he describes the perceptions of what mysticism is and what it is not, returning in the end to the sacredness of pure silence. His words have a Taoist feeling.

Finally, my own QUF pamphlet, The Universality of Unknowing: Luther Askeland and the Wordless Way, contrasts the insights of a non-Quaker and virtually unknown contemporary mystic to the distinctly Quaker approach articulated by Rufus Jones and others. Like Eckhart, Spinoza, and some Eastern mystics, Askeland asserts the unitive nature of reality and its inaccessibility to human thought and language, which rest on differentiation. Along with him and with Dan Seeger, I am drawn by the power of inner silence.