From A Friendly Letter, #130-131
(double issue) Third & Fourth Months (March-April), 1992
REFLECTIONS ON FUM'S CULTURE WAR RETREAT:
NO CLEARNESS, PERHAPS A TRUCE
James Davison Hunter did not attend the Retreat for Clearness of Friends United Meeting over the weekend of 3/13-15 in Richmond, Indiana, but if he had, he would have felt right at home.
Hunter wrote one of the hot new books for people concerned about American culture and its prospects: Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (Basic Books, 420 pages, $25.00 cloth). It is no criticism of Hunter, a University of Virginia sociologist, to say that the book makes generally depressing reading; but then, the FUM retreat was not exactly a barrel of laughs either.
Hunter's thesis is basically that our society is increasingly torn between two competing and incompatible forces, which he calls orthodox versus progressive. They clash over many issues, from abortion to gay rights to pornography and so forth-- a familiar list.
A BATTLEFRONT IN RICHMOND
Hunter believes more is involved than simply disagreements over issues; would that it were so simple! Instead, he says, "the culture war emerges over fundamentally different conceptions of moral authority, over different ideas and beliefs about truth, the good, obligation to one another, the nature of community, and so on. It is, therefore, cultural conflict at its deepest level.'' The winner, he says, will gain no less than the power to define American culture as it enters a new millennium.
Culture war battles are more often fought within groups such as churches than, as was once true, between denominations: "orthodox'' Protestants, Catholics and Jews have more in common with each other than with the "progressive" wings of their own sects, and vice versa. Similarly, many in each party are more at home in alliances with like-minded folks in other denominations than the opposition in their own.
That description fit the FUM Richmond retreat, all right, in spades.
It started out promisingly enough: The facilitators, Jan Wood and Lon Fendall, of Wilmington College, were excellent: skilled in group process, they also presented a fine example of egalitarian leadership, a model all too rare in pastoral Quakerdom.
Further, Wood and Fendall knew the turf: Since FUM had just emerged from a bruising conflict over "realignment", they spent much of the retreat leading participants through a process aimed at promoting forgiveness and reconciliation, as a base for renewed vision and greater unity. Through most of this time, many felt there was progress being made along these lines, though there were difficulties as well.
Chief among these difficulties were repeated, ominous proclamations by various pastoral Friends that there was in the group some monstrous evil that had to be isolated and exorcized before FUM would be right. Scarcely an hour went by without a call to "renounce and denounce the devil among us" (Shirley Settle, Iowa YM); or to unmask those "giving the Judas kiss" (Ardee Talbot, staff); or to beware of false prophets who justified evil and who were liable to be struck down by God at any time, as foretold in such scriptures as Ezekiel 14:9 (Charles Mylander, Southwest YM).
SATAN AND THE TWO BIG "LIES"
Exactly who or what was thus referred to, was not made clear. In part, I suspect, it may have been a covert way of expressing anger at my reporting and comment about "realignment", which its advocates still resent. But this was hardly all of it; something more seemed to be implied, some transpersonal, demonic spectre threatening the whole enterprise.
Yet despite these recurring discordant notes, as the final worship and business session opened on First Day morning, 3/15, the retreat seemed to be on track, and many were hopeful of a positive outcome.
Not long into this session, however, all these hopes vanished. Hugh Spaulding, a North Carolina pastor with Indiana roots, stood and announced that he had a message for us, direct from God.
Spaulding's "oracle" identified the source of evil in FUM which had been so often spoken of earlier. This turned out to be none other than what are central principles of the faith and practice of the liberal FUM yearly meetings, such as Baltimore, namely their affirmation of pluralism, in theology and in views of the Bible.
To Spaulding's God, however, these notions were "two lies" which had been "poisoning the Society of Friends for 175 years," (circa 1820, and the controversy that yielded the great Separation of 1827). These "lies" had to be exposed as the evils they were.
Spaulding repeated his thesis several times in increasingly frenzied tones, while reassuring the group that what he was speaking were not his, but God's words. At his crescendo, he was waving his arms and crying out, "Do you believe it? Do you believe it?" Several Friends leaped to their feet with shouts and cries of agreement. Among them was Billy Britt, Superintendent of North Carolina Yearly Meeting, who then underlined and reinforced Spaulding's message.
THE MOUNTAINTOP-OR THE PITS?
To those who agreed with them, these messages came as an epiphany and a catharsis, a chance to trumpet triumphantly what they feel they have too often had to whisper about and apologize for. But for many other Friends, they were shocking and assaultive. Sally Otis, a Friend from New York YM, tearfully protested, and asked plaintively why Spaulding and Britt could not admit that the diversity of faith in her Quaker community was in any way legitimate.
The response to Otis came from James Le Shana, a young pastor from Southwest. Opening a Bible, he cited Paul's familiar image of the Christian community as a body. Repeating Spaulding's "poison" image, Le Shana compared the kind of Quakerism found in unprogrammed YMs to a deadly toxin lodged somewhere in this sacred body. Such a lethal intrusion must be gotten rid of, cut out, he insisted.
Why? Here he quoted Paul: "'What fellowship has light with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? ...Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing....'" (2Cor. 6:14-17; Belial, incidentally, is a synonym for Satan; it also means "worthless" and "wicked".)
By now, many more unprogrammed Friends were weeping. This writer, too, was in great distress at hearing my faith and that of my entire branch of Quakerism subjected to such a stream of verbal abuse and spiritual violence, probably the worst such outburst in my 26 years among Friends; this was culture war in stark combat. Perhaps this is why my response was combative, outrage rather than tears. When Le Shana finished, I stood and, I confess, began an angry retort.
For this I was shouted down twice and silenced; another landmark in my Quaker experience.
Thus the morning went. Finally, with but few minutes to spare before lunch, the group approved, without discussion, a summary minute, drafted by a committee of three. This minute, approved without discussion, bears some examination. Here's the text:
NOT JUST ANOTHER MINUTE?
"We as gathered Friends recognize and proclaim a new birth among us. We affirm as a corporate meeting that we are now visited with new life. We do testify this life is not of our own creation, rather it is God-given, birthed by God's very Spirit, laboring among us.
"We name our own sinfulness, particularly the sins of rebellion, arrogance, self-righteousness and fear, by which we have relied solely upon our own strength, and have created mistrust of God's work among us.
"We announce that all our actions in Friends United Meeting will be governed by the one God--Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ and Holy Spirit--who is present among us to teach us himself.
"We commit ourselves as the FUM General Board and Commissions to nurture this understanding of Christ as revealed in Scripture, sound reason and the gathered meeting. We further commit ourselves to elder those who would criticize this understanding of FUM's mission.
"We welcome all Friends who feel the divine call to worship with us on this basis."
At one level there is little new here: FUM has always been defined as a Christian Quaker body; no one to my knowledge has proposed that it be otherwise. But also since the beginning, there has been conflict over what is and isn't Christian and biblical. This minute's key phrases are as wide open to multiple and competing interpretations as ever--no change here either.
Where, then, is the "new life" that the minute proclaims?
Clearly, some Friends left feeling FUM had somehow been changed for the better. But for many of those who had been left stunned and sobbing by the "lies" and "Belial" harangues, confusion, unease and a sense of having been violated and brutalized were common responses, even several days later.
One person who is certain about where the "new life" came from is Stephen Main. In a 3/18 letter, sent with the minute to various FUM clerks, he acclaimed Spaulding's message about "lies" and "poison" as "the authentic word from God" to the retreat, adding: "The lie that one can be a Quaker without following Christ and that one can follow Christ without being faithful to the Scriptures was renounced as unacceptable among us."
BACK TO BARCLAY'S BASICS
But in fact the minute speaks only about FUM, not about who qualifies as a Quaker, and the retreat would certainly not have united on the Spaulding-Main-Le Shana propositions. Indeed, quite the contrary: the affirmation of theological pluralism and a variety of understandings of Scripture is foundational to the unprogrammed FUM yearly meetings' faith.
They have excellent warrant for this, too: such authoritative Quaker founders as Robert Barclay said much the same thing: "There may be members of this catholic [i.e., universal-Ed.] Church not only among all the several sorts of Christians, but also among pagans, Turks [i.e., Muslims-Ed.], and Jews. As Barclay also points out, similar sentiments are found in the gospels. (Cf. Matthew 25:31ff; for more on this topic, see AFL #53.)
Barclay wrote in 1676. Thus the "lies" that so exercised Spaulding have been around much more than 175 years; try 320 among Quakers, and 1962 among Christians. Yet evidently some feel the retreat minute provided divine ratification of their partisan interpretation of Quaker orthodoxy.
And therein could lie the minute's novelty, mostly a potential for mischief. The commitment to "elder" those who "criticize" could be used as a club. But any "new life" in FUM will not last much longer than the first time this faction attempts to swing such a club at another FUM group, particularly on partisan doctrinal grounds like those in Spaulding's supposed "revelation". Then, to anyone who knows FUM's history, it will be back in an all-too depressingly familiar cycle.
Is this too pessimistic? A more optimistic take, offered by one experienced observer, is that the evangelicals needed a clear "win", and feeling that they got one, they should be able to let go of the siege mentality evidenced there and in the "realignment" campaign, and things will get better.
Maybe. Much will depend on the decisions made by four Friends: Bob Garris and Marilynn Bell of Western YM, David Brock of Indiana and Marvin Hall of Wilmington YM. They are the search committee for Stephen Main's successor. If they find someone whose heart and ears are open to all the branches of FUM Friends, then anything is possible.
THE CALL TO BUILD CONSENSUS
Real progress will only come about with careful building of consensus and coalition among the varying strands of FUM's diverse membership.
But another round of heresy-hunting, homophobic, incompetent "leadership" such as it has been afflicted with for the past few years would probably be fatal, achieving FUM's "realignment" via self-destruction at the center. So the search committee deserves the prayers--and input--of all those concerned with FUM's future.
Still, if the FUM Retreat seemed unhappily to confirm James Davison Hunter's thesis in Culture Wars, fortunately it is not the whole story. At many other, perhaps more important points among us, Friends from the "orthodox" and "progressive" camps do manage to work together effectively across their lines--from the Friends Committee on National Legislation to the Quaker US-USSR Committee. These efforts offer signs of hope for a genuine Quaker peace witness in the culture wars, hope that the FUM retreat, sadly, fell far short of providing.
Copyright © by Chuck Fager. All rights reserved.
