QUESTING QUAKERS Since the Network has never much interested itself in the denominational allegiances, if any, of its members, we know very little about the relative strengths of the different traditions within our movement. Anglicans are probably the largest grouping, but Quakers are also well represented. Given the non-credal, tolerant and broadly liberal outlook of the Society of Friends, this is hardly surprising. The Society harbours agnostics, humanists and outright atheists within its ranks and, by and large, the more Christocentric majority is content to welcome them provided they know. modestly show that they know their place as a well-behaved minority on the Society’s margins, No-one is going to be disowned for reading Sea of Faith magazine.
Recently, however, the columns of The Friend and the Quaker Universalist have been buzzing with argument for and against non-literalist or non-realist viewpoints. Interestingly, both Christocentric and some Universalist Quakers react strongly against SoF humanism, particularly when they find it expressed within the pages of their own journals. But the debate is on, and each of us participating in it has much to learn from those who differ from us.
Enterprising as you’d expect a Quaker to be, the publisher William Sessions of York has sent us a batch of books which they believe should be of interest to SoF readers.
Kenneth Barnes is a distinguished scientist, educator and broadcaster, and From Chaos to Creation (£4) gives us an explanation of chaos theory or ‘‘the Principle of Uncertainty’’: a sort of non-realist view of science. ‘‘We can have no picture of reality,’’ says Barnes, ‘‘apart from that provided by our senses, and by the imagination that puts impressions into order: no shape, no colour, no brightness. The observer and the observed are inseparable in a wholeness’’.
Meg Chignall’s The Universal Jesus (£6) and Ronald Blackburn’s Jesus - the Proclaimer Proclaimed (£6) both offer demythologised versions of the Jesus story from a familar liberal-realist rather than radical non-realist perspective. Lorna M Marsden’s The Descent of the God (£6) discusses spiritual crisis and its relevance to the threat of ecological disaster, with an awareness of the importance of the language of myth and metaphor but a muddled (as it seems to me) aversion to humanist “‘self-sufficiency’’ and ‘‘the isolated arrogance of the human brain’’. A S Maney in A Faith for Living (£4) is more perceptive on the interface of humanism and traditional religion.
Not from Sessions but privately published by herself comes Winifred White’s Concern for Vision (£3 from 153 Oak Tree Lane, Birmingham B30 1TU). Winifred was sub-editor of The Friend from 1935 to 1951 and, quoting Don Cupitt (‘‘Probably most people’s first need is to work on their own religious history: where they have come from, where they are going’’), she charts her own course from a conventional Christianity to a ‘‘tentative’’ non-realist and still questing and questioning faith.
At the end of her rambling but endearing book she wonders whether her beloved Society of Friends will prove not only tolerant but adventurous enough to keep her in membership. I’m sure it will. But the adventure will be mutual. When it comes to promoting non-realism among realist believers, only the incurable adventurer need apply. - DB LETTER FROM AMERICA Eric S MacDonald From the tone of many of the articles and letters in Sea of Faith magazine, I guess I would be classified as an unregenerate realist. I find no difficulty, for instance, in using the traditional realist language of creed and story. I do not cringe at the thought of celebrating eucharist or praying to ‘‘someone”’ called ‘‘God’’.