Polarization

Typically in polarized issues we think of it as sort of either or.  It is a or b, black or white, good or bad.   We do not as often think of the polls as falling on a spectrum, and we definitely don’t think of a spectrum as curving the point where the far ends might meet up (An example of this being if you put American politics on a circle the far left anarchist and the far right libertarians begin to meet up.)

It is painfully apparent that the US is extremely polarized right now on almost every issue and politics have become so divisive again (I say again because it is actually not the first time – remember families divided by the civil war? or not speaking to each other in the 70’s over hot button issues?) that once again there are families that cannot sit down to a civil Thanksgiving and where people I know are disowning family members.   I hear much despair both about how these gulfs will be bridged in families but also about how our country will be governable again.

Ironically, at the same time my Meeting has also become very polarized – but over a very different issue.   A registered Sex Offender has come to our Meeting and there was been far-ranging response to his presence in Meeting as well as far ranging interpretations of his behavior while in Meeting.  The Meeting initially came up with a policy regarding sex offenders and then after an incident where it became very clear that vagueness in the policy resulted in widely varying interpretation of whether the policy was violated or not, the Meeting has set out to rewrite the policy.  Sadly, the Meeting has also become very polarized in the process.

One Friend has helpfully asked us to think of this polarization as not whether x did Y or whether Z has unfairly accused x of something, but rather as that all of us in Meeting fall at different places on a spectrum that at one end values welcoming people, anyone, especially those who maybe underdogs in our society into the Meeting, and the other end of the spectrum those valuing safety for all the members of our Meeting and holding up the Meeting Community as of supreme importance.   This same member has then invited us in a series of conversations to notice the things we actually believe in common – which winds up being that:

* we would all like to feel safe

*that we believe in the redemptability of our fellow human

*we all want to be welcoming to other humans

*the world holds no guarantees anywhere about safety

*we believe in taking sensible precautions to reduce risk when we can, etc.  

By finding these initial values we agree upon we are slowly inching our way forward.

Like most Friends in the Meeting I was so dismayed that we were having this conflict and also that it was having the destructive power that it was having in the Meeting. I wondered how this could possibly come out right?   But also being new to the Meeting it was very clear to me that the conflict like some sort of bull dozer was pushing up to the light of day all the dark places, all the dysfunctioning and broken places in the Meeting.   And it becomes increasingly clear that there is no way through this conflict without fixing all the broken places….which if we fail will leave us shattered and if we succeed will make us stronger and vastly better as a community.

Recently George Lakey came to town giving a workshop on his new book: How We Win.  One of the very encouraging things George shared was how in his research for his previous book Viking Economics he discovered that the Scandinavian countries, now amazing models for the world in so many arenas, were a “mess” before they transformed into democratic socialist countries.  He discovered that they were at their most polarized point right before that change in governments.  Out of the polarization the common people kicked the 1% out of rulership.  He then looked at our own US history and realized that out of the polarization and class divide of the Great Depression came all of the reforms of the New Deal and out of the polarization of the 60’s and 70’s came the civil rights movement, the Clean Water and Clean air act, etc.   In listening to a friend of his who did beautiful metal work he heard his friend talking about having to heat up the metal to make it pliable and George realized that this is what polarization does – it heats things up till they become changeable. George asks us to see the polarization of our time as an amazing set of possibilities about to unfold.

I have believed about the Meeting conflict that if we succeed that we may find some answers that our society has yet to find about how we allow people who have committed crimes against society to be welcomed back into society and integrated back in.   But this week I had the even more radical thought that the nations polarity on immigration goes on the same poll between those who want to be welcoming to all and those that want our country tot be a “safe place” that provides for those already here.  I realized that if the Meeting succeeds maybe we will find some answers on how the heat of conflict and the longing to be community allows for the transformation of our broken US society.   Maybe it will equip some of us with some ways to approach the yawning US political divide which I think begins with finding where we hold common values even when our rhetoric and preferred policies are worlds apart. 

It is also very helpful to remember that God exists at all points of our poll.  The Creator is not just hanging out on one side of that poll.  So if God is in all part of the poll, the Divine is able to hold the tension of those conflicting points of views and to keep seeing as loveable all members of the conflict.

Diversity and Unity in the Religious Society of Friends

One of the trickiest things before the Society of Friends today is how to embrace our diversity without losing our Center or that which defines us as a faith.  Since the times of the great splits in Quakerism we have not handled this well. The scar tissue is present and in some cases contributes even to this day to our difficulties.

A look at almost any page of Fox’s journals shows that our founder most definitely saw himself in a personal relationship with an Inward Christ and that he had memorized the Bible from which he quoted frequently.  It is hard to argue anything other than he defined himself as a Christian.  This explains why historians list Quakerism as a Christian church. Yet the heart of his message, that we could know the Truth experientially and personally, embraces a kind of tolerance that naturally allows for and includes a huge diversity of beliefs.  Among modern day unprogramed Friends, we find those who identify as Christ-Centered or Christian, as God centered Christians, as God Centered non Christians, Universalist or humanist Friends, and any number of Buddhists, Jews and Pagans who find the local Friends Meeting to be their spiritual home.  Most Friends Meetings welcome and include all who come to worship there – sometimes cheerfully and peacefully, and sometimes not without tension and conflict.

Travel among unprogrammed Friends and you will quickly find that various Meetings can become fairly polarized between at least two of the above mentioned groups.  You will also see that people can feel quite threatened as to whether their brand of Quakerism is really welcomed and accepted in Meeting, and anxious about whether “those people” will take over the Meeting and destroy that which the individual holds most precious and dear.  The conflict is often especially sharp around language – whether God/He or Goddss/She or God/no-gender pronoun should be used and whether Christ or no Christ should be used in spoken messages. 

Diversity

One can also hear expressed fears that we have become so tolerant and accepting of divergent views that we are in danger of becoming nothing but a group of nice people who all meet together on Sundays and are politically progressive!  (This especially can be seen in the contentious dialogue about whether sweat lodges should be allowed at FGC.)  Is it possible to stretch a religious view so far that it no longer means anything?  In 2009 would George Fox still express himself in the same way and what would he think about the diversity in our midst?  (This is a guy after all who went to other people’s churches, stood up in the pews while the minister was speaking and preached his own Truth of the Inner Christ!)  Talk to anyone who has served on a committee to rewrite our Faith and Practice and you will hear how hard it is for us to come to consensus on a statement of our beliefs.  (Several Yearly Meetings have Faith and Practices’ more than a dozen years old for I fear this very reason.)

Tolerence

I can only speak to these questions in a personal way.  I grew up in one Meeting, sojourned among many, and then transferred my membership some 12 years ago to my current Meeting.  I feel that both my Meetings have embraced lovingly the diversity of beliefs in our midst.  I was instructed as a child by my parents that Quakerism is a historically Christian religion and that the correct answer to the question “did I belong to a Christian church?” was yes.  This was taught to me by my father, who was very clear that he did not believe in the divinity of Christ, but only in the historical Jesus.  Jesus was as powerful a teacher for him about non-violence as his other two cherished heroes: Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.  My father identified as a universalist and a humanist.  I identify as a non-Christian Quaker, with a devout belief in God, who belongs to a Christian church.  This maybe confusing for some, especially non-Friends, but it is not at all confusing to me.

Some of my closest friends in Friends have always identified as Christ Centered Friends and this is not troubling to either them or me.  It is not a problem because when we speak to each other of our spiritual experience, we find at the heart the same relationship to the Divine.  In fact I think when one reads the great sacred texts of any religion you can feel beneath the surface of the words the experience of the Eternal One.  I wonder if we could learn to listen to each other this way in Meeting?  If a speaker gives a message with different pronouns or descriptors of God than we might use (The Christ, he for example or the Goddess, She) could we learn to hear the Eternal One beneath those words?

The balancing act between tolerance of other Friend’s views and the abandonment of the essence of Quakerism is the most challenging thing before us.  It is good that Buddhist or Jewish or Pagan individuals feel they can come and worship with us- that our format is flexible and accepting enough for them to find the Truth as they know it in the silence.

However, I do not feel that being welcome means that one then gets to change what Quakerism is.  I do not expect that a welcome guest in my home gets to move all the furniture around.  Even though I do not identify as Christian I do not get to change Quakerism from being a Christian religion or claim to the world that it is not Christian.  I believe that Christ and universalist mysticism were both central threads in the spirituality and practice of George Fox and early Friends.  I do not believe that either group of current Friends can claim that they are the only legitimate inheritors or practitioners of Quakerism.  Both threads are woven throughout the history of Friends.

The influence of American liberalism is one of the things that have contributed to confusion among Friends about how to respond to our differences.  For the most part the US educational system is based upon liberalism and certainly American social change organizations are.  Liberalism is a way of thinking about the rights of individualism, freedom of speech and self-expression, change, new ideas, tolerance, coalition building by finding common ground, and finding value in all experience,  etc.  When wed to politics they are a very positive force for change.  These are all very valuable ideas, but they are not theological ideas.  Most Quakers in the US are in their life outside of Meeting, liberals and associating with liberals.  Thus we bring a liberal mindset to Meeting when issues of what to include and what to exclude from our Meetings arise.

I hope if someone came to Meeting and worshipped with us for a while and then one day came wanting to perform animal sacrifice in the Meeting fireplace because they had found this to be a very meaningful spiritual experience in another setting, that we would say NO!  I think that is so clearly contrary to the spirit of the peace testimony or the practice of silent worship that we would be clear to say No to this.  However, many Friends equate so closely the posture of Liberalism with the spirit of Quakerism that they are left struggling how to say No because to do so is counter to the spirit of individualism, tolerance and coalition building that is part of Liberalism. 

Unlike other churches we do not have dogmas that claim you must believe this to be one of us and if you don’t you are not part.  We have testimonies- a more softly held set of beliefs. We say instead, “this is the Truth as we have so far been shown it”, humbly allowing that we may be shown new Light and that our understanding of the Truth may evolve.  I am delighted that we hold the Truth in this flexible way instead of as a rigid thing chiseled in stone.  And I am aware that it makes it hard for many Friends to even answer the question:  “What do Quaker’s believe?” when they are asked this question.  I have encouraged other Friends for years to answer from the spectrum and then in the particular.  In other words to be able to say:  “Some Friends believe X (one end of spectrum), other Friends believe Y (other end of spectrum) and I personally believe Z.” This speaks to the power of Quakerism, that it is flexible and a place of individual encounter with the Truth!

Our testimonies do not define the boundaries of Quakerism, like dogmas do for other churches.   Because Friends struggle to even answer “what do we believe?”, Friends are often at a great loss how to respond to attenders who come to us with views or practices disparate from Quakerism and wishing to practice those beliefs within our Meetings.  Perhaps we have enough clarity to say no to animal sacrifice or other spiritual practices which are clearly foreign to Quakerism, but practices from the world like voting, Robert’s rules of order type conducting of a committee or simply the secular assumption that our lives our private and not the business of our community are all things which can creep in below the radar of a liberal stance and start to change the nature of Quakerism.

Rooted in Truth

Thus we find ourselves in the very strange position of needing to be able to say to all in our midst:  “You are welcome here, the Truth you find is welcome and your expression of it is welcome, and we will not change our Practice of Quakerism unless our whole group is lead in discernment to change it”.  Otherwise any time someone dissented from any belief or practice we have, and it had to be laid down, then in fairly short order we would have no belief or practice at our center any more!  (In some of our very small Meetings and worship groups around the country I fear this sort of liberal desire to embrace everyone has indeed led to such a loss of belief or practice at our center.)  If people are attracted to us for the beliefs and practices we have, then they need to be willing to either learn and adopt those beliefs and practices, or not adopt them, but co-exist in a spirit of tolerance and forbearance to those aspects they are not in unity with.  (a posture somewhat like standing aside in business meeting.)  This then in the end might be one of the most valuable things we have to teach the rest of the world:  a model of how diversity, tolerance and acceptance coexist with a centered position rooted in Truth.

Was Published in Friends Journal Sept. 2009