i once wrote a credo in 2009

Constructive Theology : A Credo


‘When (one) seeks to know its knowing it also values and believes; when it values its valuing it does so as a discriminating, believing, doubting self; it believes and doubts its knowing and valuing.’

‘Here in the encounter of the ‘I’ with that mystery of power which has thrown it into existence and confronted it with these other selves, here in the presence of the wonder appearing in the question of the child and of the aged, ‘Why am I here?’ the awareness of the ultimate fact dawns upon us. There is a power or a structure or a form of reality here which cannot be changed.’
H. Richard Niebuhr, Faith on Earth, 25, 67.

By Blair Weaver
Earlham School of Religion
December 10, 2008

Dear Reader:

The purpose of this work is to write my credo. Credo is Latin for ‘I believe’. Therefore, I am going to write to how these beliefs came to be. To this end, I will speak of movement and begin with my earliest development.

edit: re: personal

As the yearning continues, I seek ‘a better place, a heavenly one’ in a Hebrews sense (Hebrews 11.16). And, unimpressed as I am by the limitations found in an imperialistic patriarchal Christian view as sole solution[1], I have gone to the fringes outside the status-quo and sought answers in the Gnostic and Eastern mystical spiritual tradition(s). This movement represents a deep concern for the outcast and more inclusive solutions.

My exposure to Christian images and metaphors was limited leading up to my conversion experience at the age of thirty (October 1991). It is only years after the fact that I can reflect and place my experience in Christian terms. For example, Abram was called outward in covenant; Jonah called to a new place; Jesus called his disciples outward calling them to make a decided break from the familiar and conditioned. What becomes interesting is the ‘work’ in one’s calling. I was called into a relationship and a tradition. In my case, given the reality of generations of Weaver’s and Putnam’s[2] (although ours was a Christmas and Easter going set) calling on and worshipping the Judeo-Christian God, I was being invited into a relationship, community and a book that spoke of the pathway. But first I had to meet the God who claimed me. The day after my conversion experience, I used the imagery of Paul’s ‘my eyes shed a layer’ without being fully aware of this image in the Bible. Somewhere the seed was planted in me previously.[3]

Since that day[4], I have entered the Biblical word and found much more about the process through imagery, metaphor and character: the aspect of wilderness, John the Baptist’s ‘not the light, but to bear witness to the light’[5], the significance of the Promised Land, Jesus’ resurrection, the Kingdom of God present upon repentance, the importance of a simplified ethic and daily aspiration: ‘Love God with all and neighbor as self.’ Therefore through Biblical metaphor, imagery, character and Story, I am able to find words and symbols to communicate deep truths about human existence.[6]

The shift in direction came in relinquishing my pharmaceutical sales experience for something entirely new. Somehow the seed of joining the Peace Corps was placed in me. In making the decision to join the Peace Corps, I sold much that I had, paid my bills and was left with a few possessions. I ventured forth to Aspen, Colorado to await Peace Corps assignment. Borrowing an old rusted Ford Escort, with the hood tied down by a rope and with one temporary tire, I left my native Kansas City and old friends and expectations and sought a new beginning on interstate 70. On the fringe of my old and familiar suburbs on a late autumn day, a sense of presence enveloped me at the midpoint in journey in the emptiness on the prairie. From out of my discomfort and despair, it was as if (God) removed a small pebble from a heavenly spicket; the world became infused with a golden Light. Every detail of the apparently stark farmland terrain took on a heavenly glow, a new richness of sight and a great wave of love enveloped me as all differentiated visible melted into One. The whole world became the kingdom of God in vision and sense. The weight of any self-identification or material concern dropped. All that remained was One Light that infused all vision without attachment. Everything was (God) and I vanished for a moment into ( ).

In informing ministry, I like to focus on experiences of God. Each gives us a glimpse of the truth that there is a goodness and an infinite guide and joy that lies both in and beyond all. It (God) is universal and many forms point to it where words drop and it (God) is sensed. It trumps any doctrine or dogma or conceptual ‘understanding’. Therefore, I place a great amount of weight on the mystical experience as a transcending reality giving a glimpse to the truth. I find affinity with the traditions (Quaker, mystics, Buddhists) who speak to this Universal and Undivided Light. Each varied mystical experience, whether it be in nature, in solitude or with other, speaks to a Universal truth.[8]

Since the day of conversion, I have stumbled and regained a sense of and yearning for God’s promise of a heavenly place ‘where all of the families of the earth shall be blessed.’[9] The subsequent journey has found me in places of wilderness; the river Jordan in the midst, the Promised Land in the distance (‘land flowing with milk and honey’). In answering the call or sometimes not, (God) has taken me to distant lands as a representative of the oppressor class in rural Kenya, on the Navajo reservation and in third world Samoa. As a result of these experiences, I have come to appreciate the importance of guarding against imperialism, of allowing fresh re-interpretations of old stories and how culture’s view and portrayal of God protect or react to the status quo structures and dogma.[10] Each culture engaged with the Biblical and Christian tradition and each came up with differing emphases. I have come to learn that I have the capacity to expand myself and compassion by entering into new cultures and different forms of expressing truth and the dignity of that expression. Whereas dogma can be oppressive, dogma and doctrines can open up people to the Divine Good[11] if approached in a non-imperialistic manner (in new life-giving creation).

As representative of the privileged class, I may find myself in a different position as it relates to ‘laying down one’s life for one’s friends’ (John 15.13) in comparison to many of my third world brothers and sisters. McClendon’s address of character ethic is important as it relates to the ‘tradition’ or ‘culture’ one finds oneself in relationship to ‘community’ and one’s use of the breadth of collective imagery and metaphor.[12] In my wanderings overseas, I became a world citizen and therefore my decision, for a more just world (out of my conditions and in identifying with the world community), is to consume less and to serve others. My developing opinion is that the Bible offers the world a mirror; especially ‘privileged’ cultures can distort by focusing on a lifeless doctrine rather than on character and thus ignore both the totality and a true universal ethic. The question becomes ‘who is your neighbor?’ and calls for a full-scale investigation into where one falls into the Biblical story. McClendon is correct in stating that a ‘love ethic’ is not enough.[13] I believe that it is my responsibility to follow Jesus based on where I find myself in the world as a single American male. I cannot expect the same solution for all other people.[14]

Credo part 2:

So what have been the general method and the sources of my theological inquiry to date? The start of my formal theological investigation began shortly after the conversion experience spoken of in my first section in the form of study and exploration-experimentation. The nature of the woods and the library became my new arena in my exploration of (God).

My manner of exploration has always balanced a personal need for solitude and a need for community and relationship. Early on, I began to explore God away from the mainstream and in the works of Thoreau, Fromm and Joseph Campbell. These authors offered me an insight into the poetic spirit and set the challenge ahead for me. They helped explain the process into a more spiritual and mystical way. Books, therefore, have always been an invaluable resource which have provided me with balm to the sore soul, given insight into the greatest truths and have guided me through the trammels of life. In my first journal, I wrote down the thoughts from Thoreau, Fromm and Campbell:

‘I would not have anyone adopt my mode of living on any account, for, beside that before (s)he has fairly learned it I may have found another for myself. I desire that there be as many different persons in the world as possible, but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father’s or mother’s or neighbor’s instead. The youth may build, plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do.’ Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)

‘The statement that man can live under almost any condition is only half true; it must be supplemented by the other statement that if he lives in conditions which are contrary to his nature, and to the basic requirements of human growth and sanity, he cannot help reacting, he must either deteriorate and perish, or bring about conditions which are more in accordance with his needs.’ Erich Fromm, The Sane Society, (1955)

‘Whether small or great, and no matter at what stage or grade of life, the Call rings up the curtain, always, on a mystery of transfiguration, a rite or moment, of spiritual passage, which, when complete, amounts to a dying and a birth. The familiar life horizon has been outgrown, the old concepts, ideals and emotional patterns no longer fit, the time for passing of a threshold is at hand.’ Joseph Campbell, Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)

Thoreau’s individualism and passion, Fromm’s analysis of the challenges inherent in Western society and Campbell’s entry into the hero’s archetypal journey gave impetus and direction; walks with my dog in the mountains opened my heart and soul providing me a ‘church’. This ‘church of nature’, a recapturing of my ‘true self’[15] infused me with a new energy and opened my heart and soul to the imagery of transient things; the cycle of nature, the budding of a leaf, the freshness of meadow in song.

Books have always provided a primary inspiration for me. In a photo taken shortly after in Kenya, the books on my desk were as follows: the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao, The Portable Jung, the Dhammapah, Campbell’s Power of Myth, Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation, Hemingway’s Short Stories, an anthology of St. John on the Cross’ writings, Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Hesse’s Glass Bead Game. After engaging with the day in African community which brought with it many questions and frustrations and joys,[16] I spent my nights processing the day and life through reading and journaling. Books and the thoughts of others offered me particular voices; voices who engaged with the Biblical word (in some with their own religious traditions; see Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita) and sought to explain and speak deeply of God and the various conundrums of and solutions to human existence. Over the years, the spiritual friends have expanded and been refined in partnership with the friends of the world that I have met and learned from along the way.

Thomas Merton has offered me a wonderful voice in his deep passion for his Catholic faith, in his non-violent solutions and in his entry into Eastern forms of religion. His late-in-life entrance into Tibetan Buddhist, Zen, Taoist and Sufi teachings is illustrative of how one’s understanding of God and human community can be enriched through expanded engagement. The Benedictine Bede Griffiths is a great inspiration for me in his exploration into the Hindu tradition and in his attempt to language the similarities between Vedic principles and the Bible. Simone Weil provides, in her life and writings, an excellent example in her solidarity with the ‘poor’, in her embracing ‘affliction’ and in her struggles in entering her ‘Catholic’ community. Therefore, the ‘saints’, in this case those whose lives are only reflected on paper and who now are gone, provide me with rich sources of inspiration and guidance as embodied teachers.

Throughout it all, the Bible has been my central ground and foundation. Whereas I fluctuate in my acceptance of whether the Bible can provide the only source to the Christian community in today’s world, my historical position has been to live in some tension and to rely on a wide range of sources for ‘Christian’ inspiration. This range of sources includes expressions of the human dilemma in fiction[17], in life[18] and in the wide expanse of cultural expressions and fields of study as it relates to the human community.

As I undertake the challenging endeavor in ‘doing theology’, I increasingly believe that it is understanding ‘other’ amidst the myriad of expression of cultural forms that mutual transformation can take place.[19] Therefore, in loving other as myself, I am called into understanding their worlds of symbolic image and expression. This movement provides benefit: I can take from their ‘religious’ and spiritual heritage (ie. The Bhagavad Gita, the Dhammapadah, the Way of the Bodhisattva, Journey to the Power of the Lord) and often find a richer understanding of my foundational grounding. In addition, by gaining a greater respect for the beliefs and traditional forms of others, I can more authentically and effectively engage with a wider community and hence a wider (God).[20]

Hereby, in engaging with the challenges and demands of contemporary society in our work with an ever-widening circle, we are able to take from a range of wisdom narratives and teachings. We can learn from the biographical narratives (McClendon) from people such as Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Milarepa and the Sufi Ibn ‘Arabi. In both organizing my thoughts and in shaping my ideas, I have gained many riches from others outside of my original tradition that have helped inform fresh ideas and brought life and new interpretations in my Biblical studies. Arjuna, standing between two competing armies of relatives, weakens and is told by Lord Krishna to ‘fight the demon of the spirit which is desire’. This rich Indian text as part of a wider exploration has helped shape my understanding and passion in Abrahamic faith reconciliation[21] and taught me the value of working without a focus on ‘fruit’ as determining factor in measuring ‘correctness’.[22] The Buddhist Eight Fold Path, the Four Noble Truths, and the concept of emptiness and dependent origination have helped present new forms of ideas that are then carried forward in my reading of the Biblical text. The result is that new insights come up from out of a new reading of the Biblical text as a result of working with outside sources. Yet, sometimes I question the soundness (mental instability) and true intention (vanity and pride) in my reaching outward to non-Biblical sources. Often, I sense that I am in the hands of a ‘jealous God’[23], and due to a continued existential dread and the uncertainties inherent, I wonder if I may better serve my Lord by simplifying my method and sources.

In speaking to the process of Biblical exegesis, I build a developing paradigm for reading the Bible or particular gospel and then enter into the text with a fresh reading in building a comprehensive understanding. This approach speaks to how I work toward developing theological understanding through repetitive readings. In studying the gospel of Mark, I come to understand in a comprehensive task a purpose of the author; a call for a return to Galilee at the end that points the reader to the beginning[24] so that the reader may place themselves into the story again and identify with the periphery and react to Jesus, hopefully moving deeper in understanding. This type of principle I have attempted to carry forward in a full reading of the Bible as the way of Jesus to the cross as a point of higher reconciling truth in Christ that embraces dual traditions.[25] With this I hold to a view that, accepting the Markan priority theory[26], there is a progression in movement in Jesus and the disciples’ recognition and understanding from the gospel of Mark to the gospel of John. We find this in Jesus’ ‘why have you forsaken me?’ to God as bringing ‘the kingdom of our father David’ in the gospel of Mark (Mark 15.34, 11.10) to Jesus’ ‘it is finished’ as ‘King of Israel’ in the gospel of John. (John 19.30, 12.13)[27] John’s gospel points to a Jesus who holds to his Jewish heritage yet seeks a full inclusion of Samaritan that simplifies the message of inclusion and argues against ‘Pharisaic’ division. John’s Jesus as first-born Lamb of God sacrificed on the cross to Christ is a sacrifice that potentially calls for first-born reconciliation in Abrahamic faith tradition Story and covenant(s) and points to Jesus as the way, truth and life to a full inclusionary purpose.[28]

The thoughts and lives of Christian theologians and saints who have come before enrich my understanding of God and offer wisdom and inspiration in difficult times. When I consider a particular question, concern or situation, I turn to the Biblical story and the example of Jesus[29] for solace in addition to consulting those who have come before. Hereby, I rely a great amount in my discernment in turning to the Christian saints. St. John on the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Isaac Penington, William Penn, Meister Eckhart are examples of deep sources who help me in understanding who God is and help frame the theological questions and answers.

What I have come to appreciate in regards to the contemporary questions is that the solutions are to be found in the community of (Christ). It is found in the everyday interaction and in the commonplace. After relying so much on the Christian saints and in the ‘ideal’ church outside my own experience, (to the point that in difficult times I go to books rather than to people), I feel it is time for me to open up to a wider source that includes the people in my everyday circle and in a (church) that is not ideal but striving. This call is for a greater participation; an approach that moves toward a less ego-centric understanding of the (Christian) message and overcomes my selfishness to a truer and greater source of human love. The source is the person in front of me and a more connected solidarity with their struggles and celebrations. This appears to be my current tension in methodology and sources: I seek more broad inclusion in thought that comes from a wider exploration and more complex formations yet at the same time I seek sound counsel and a more vibrant daily acceptance and simpler foundation in (Christ).

Credo 3:

The movement is an attempt to reclaim my roots while opening up to a greater (Other). This particular section is difficult due to the fact that I admit to an incomplete view of (God) given the scope of ‘loving (God) and (neighbor) as self.’[30] I have some understanding of what I want God to be from out of my Christian heritage[31] and experience. This ‘heritage’ is in the form of tradition and story that provides me with a ‘language’ to describe the God I call on and assists my understanding in how God works through Creation in Jesus Christ. I must confess that I know of other forms of word and story that also give a public testimony to the relationship between (God), humankind and Creation and sustain other communities. I cannot discount these other forms or consider that my form of words or language is superior to theirs.

Speaking of multiple religious traditions, each[32] are composed of narratives that give word to a unique historical heritage and provide general guiding principles for the community. These narrative and laws are presented in a structure of words and sustained by ritual. Yet contained within each can be found a germinating seed as a guiding ethic.[33] Within the Christian tradition, ‘a germinating seed’ could be identified as Jesus’ distilling the commandments to ‘loving God with all and neighbor as self’ and in considering the Samaritan, the greatest outsider, as inside the fold.[34] In the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, the guiding ethic could be found in the Bodhisattva’s universal compassion. In the Vedas, we have the Bhagavad Gita and Lord Krishna’s calling Arjuna outside of historical association to ethic-teaching. In both the Jewish and Muslim traditions, there is a similar ethic contained within their scriptures and traditions that speak to hospitality and loving others as oneself.[35] Therefore, each of the religious traditions of humankind spoken of contains within them a self-correcting element.

If one is to enter into each of the religious traditions in spirit, the vehicle of both scripture and tradition can point the participant(s) into a universal ethic even while maintaining particularity (although many fail to do so.) When I speak of the God that I believe in (particularity) how can I place this within a context of ‘faith seeking understanding’ and balance ‘knowing’ with ‘movement into greater revelation’ and respect other ‘vehicles of transformation’ as viable partners?

As a Christian, I have a wonderful tradition where I am inserted into it and I am forced to make my way. Or in a more ideal sense, it is not I that make my way but God.[36] But how do I speak of this God? What are the challenges we have in speaking and believing in God? To me, it is similar to the germinating seed; a distilled teaching within a much more complex and quantitative whole. In similar manner, the Bible is a matrix of complexity. As life in narrative and words and law, the golden thread of way is presented in Jesus to the Christ, cutting through to a simplified commitment: ‘God is love.’[37]

As a Christian, the challenge for me ‘in speaking of God’ is how can I speak of a ‘God of love’ when there are Christian examples that so distort the ‘germinating seed’? television-evangelists, George Bush endorsing the bombing of Iraq as the ‘greatest might of military power in history’ in the name of Christ? A ‘Christian’ nation founded on the extermination and trickery of Native American Indians? A country built on the back of African slaves? The nation that bombed Nagasaki and Hiroshima?[38] How do I speak of a ‘God of love’ when (He) sent (His) Son to ‘save the world’[39], Jesus was crucified and was resurrected to Heaven, and what we have is the Holy Spirit and now three books of contention in the Torah, New Testament and Koran? Each book contains a tale of the end of the world and saved remnant? How do I explain a ‘God of love’ in the midst of Rwanda, Sudanese genocide, Nazi concentration camps, a growing differentiation between the rich and the poor, media distortion and American excess especially among American Christians?

The challenge in believing in God for me is whether God created human or human created God? If God created the scriptures of Jew, Christian and Muslim, then I am confused. If each is taking us (some segments) to Armageddon, is it human or God who is doing this? We have fundamentalists who believe and speak strongly of their ‘God’[40]. We have liberals who are less concrete in their belief (or concrete against the fundamentalists) and speak of a ‘God’ that is less graspable and more inclusive. Is it my ‘God’ that is so important? This seems fairly human-centric to me considering the importance of a greater ‘other’ and the grand nature of God. Therefore, my challenge in believing in (God) is in my self-opinion and ‘tradition’ as the only way.

I do believe in partnership between God and human and in the power of belief. Whereas I can have no certainty of what happens in the bardo interval or in the abrupt end of body[41], I do believe in the power of belief. Word counters word; what we may choose may become our reality. The gospel of Luke equates fruit with word: ‘by their (word) you will know them.’[42] I can choose words that make for ‘peace and mutual up-building’[43], I can attempt to love my enemy[44], I can assure others that the God that I believe in is the God that Jesus called to asking for mercy[45], but I cannot assure if my choices please this God I believe in. Nor do I know if I am completely disillusioned in that I am on the right path.

Reader, I cannot help but give credence to other forms of expressing and naming (God) in relation to Creation. Traditions are in the form of tension; a pushing and pulling and in reaction. The participants engage both within traditional forms and outside these forms. In speaking of God, I stress the importance of word[46] again. Is the word chosen a word of encouragement, love and hope or is it a word of punishment, judgment and division? The Bible is full of these opposing forms and we have a choice in co-creating with God either a world of peace or a world of judgment and division.[47]

Therefore, the question of the ‘wideness’ of God’s mercy for other confessional communities is a very difficult question. In the Christian tradition, the answer to the question of mercy finds itself across a wide spectrum between fundamentalists and the more liberal type.[48] Even within Scripture, the answer shifts from Jesus’ ‘Go away, I do not know you’ (judgment)[49] to ‘forgive them for they do not know what they do’ (mercy)[50]. Every ‘religious’ tradition has within them the vehicles for transformation and means to live a quality life (of course Christian denominations may differ in what this ‘quality’ should look like). I would hope that our motivation to live a quality life is centered on Jesus’ love for the outsider and in His great mercy.

Whereas I agree that there is a benefit in having a relationship with a personal God which comes from out of my ‘conditions’[51] (and I may suggest ‘Jesus to Christ’ to others), I also agree with the soundness of the Dalai Lama’s words: ‘It is not whether one believes in God or the Buddha or is an atheist, but if one has the right motivation and a good and warm heart in daily living.’ This does not mean that I do not see ‘a benefit in believing and having a faith in God’ but I cannot monopolize on the language and structure on what ‘a benefit in believing and having a faith in God’ looks like. Islam certainly responds to this statement. Jews believe and have a strong faith in God. The Buddhists believe and have faith in the Buddha-nature within all sentient beings. Some atheists may place faith in humanity. So when I speak of believing in God I speak on two levels: one, in my belief of the ‘God’ I know through my own languaging system (‘the God who sent His Son to show the way’) and secondly, through God’s workings through other ‘religious’ traditions.

What is a struggle to communicate is that my languaging of ‘Jesus to Christ’ as ‘the way and the truth and the life’ is a truth both within and outside my tradition. In the first case the truth is literal within the context of the tradition and in the second it is ‘a template of way’ outside of tradition. (Jesus) laid down his life, privilege, and worldly rights so that others may have life and Spirit and be transformed through his teachings and example.[52] The Buddha also gave up privilege in surrender to spiritual exploration and a wilderness experience that resulted in his life example and teachings-spirit. All people can take (Jesus’) example in holding to their original tradition while seeking a greater inclusion.[53]

The ‘experience of faith’ to me is in finding wonder in the great expressions of ‘in believing and having a faith in (God)’. I think this is helped by understanding the (God and goodness) in each human being over against an understanding that the base of human is sin. I also do not think that ‘believing and having a faith in (God)’ is in hoping for (or speaking to) Armageddon as coming from God and believing that our ‘remnant’ of which we are a part will somehow be collectively saved. Nor is it in discounting the Buddhists as being ‘atheists’ and therefore out of the fold of God’s mercy. This is true for all ‘religions’; religions as ‘denoting attitudes that may be taken toward every object and every proposed end or ideal.’[54] The question of faith becomes a collective effort both inside and outside of our traditions:

‘Every time a human being opens to (God and other), wherever (true love) exists and (egoism is surpassed), when human beings seek justice, reconciliation, and forgiveness, there we have true (Christianity) and the (Christic structure) emerges within human history…(Christianity) not only exists where it is explicitly professed and lived in an orthodox manner but emerges whenever a human being says ‘Yes’ to goodness, truth and love.’[55]

(Christianity) is lived in the interval, the space between ‘religious’ traditions.

Credo 4

William Penn carries forward many of these themes in the appendix to his 1699 Christian Quaker[56]. He solves the ‘Christian form’ by focusing on the ‘Spirit’. He universalizes ‘Christ’ as ‘the creating Word that was with God’[57] and found in other ‘religious’ traditions. He calls Christians to transcend forms of difference and to walk in ‘the Rule of Faith and Life’ which will allow them to ‘read, understand and believe their scriptures rightly.’[58]

Penn’s intent in his appendix to his Christian Quaker is to identify ‘The Rule of Faith and Life’ within the context of ‘many faiths in the world.’[59] He places God as both Creator and Saviour over the person of Christ: ‘faith is an assent of the mind to the discoveries made of God[60]…as the great Creator and Saviour of his people.’[61] ‘The general rule of faith and life’, ‘the Spirit’[62], ‘the light of his Son shining in man’s conscience’[63] was found in ‘Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Job, Jethro&’[64], ‘Thales, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Philo and Plutarch’[65] as well as ‘in latter times; Du Plessy[66], Grotius[67], L. Herbert[68] and above all Dr. Cudworth.’[69]

Referring the reader to the ‘ancients’, Penn takes from pre-Constantine Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria in defending the ‘gospel times, which is universal’[70]:

‘All are Christians who live with Christ, as Abraham and Elias: and among the Greeks, as Socrates and Heraclitus.’ (Justin Martyr, 100-165 AD)

‘The law and nature and of discipline is one – and Moses seems to call the Lord the covenant: for he had said before, the covenant was not to be sought in scripture…the gospel is the operation of one Lord…one must pass from darkness to life.’[71] (Clement, 150-215 AD)

Penn defines ‘faith’ in these terms:
‘faith is inward, spiritual, begotten of the immortal Word, in which is life, and that life the light of men, and that this Word of life and light was the rule; then no book, writing or engraving on visible or perishable matter, can be the rule now.’[72]

To Penn, the ‘constant measure’ and ‘judge of controversy’ in matters of faith is found in ‘the new creature’ (and therefore the new creation) in ‘Christ’: ‘the old legal creation which then passed away, but the Rule of new creation…the way, teacher, guide, rule, light, spirit that directs and keeps in the steady paths of truth, is Christ Jesus our Lord.’[73]

Penn is not discounting the importance of scripture: ‘they are to be reverently read, believed and fulfilled, under the gospel’[74] but he urges the ‘Christian’ to ‘be led of the Spirit and arrive at the end for which the scripture was given forth.’[75] The ‘light and spirit of Christ…fulfills the scriptures.’[76] This is the eternal voice of ‘Emmanuel, God with men…the Spirit of Truth which leads all Christians into all truth’[77]; the same ‘light of the eternal Word that delivered those past things to Moses, and gave that prospect of future things to the prophets.’[78]

I have chosen Penn because in 1699 he recognized that for Christianity to be truly universal, the person of Christ had to be seen as the Word in the beginning and the end (alpha and omega), ‘the eternal Word, Christ Jesus’[79], ‘the immortal Word in which was life.’[80] Penn demonstrated that the Rule of Faith and Life is in the ‘new creature and new creation’ found in ‘men of all ages’ and ‘in many faiths in the world.’[81]

Penn called for an internal correction. He called for the ‘religious’ to be deeply engaged in scripture[82] and tradition but to transcend to the ‘school of Christ’[83]. The ‘old’ is ‘the utmost of that literal knowledge, historical faith and outward religion’ and does ‘not belong to the kingdom of God.’[84] He calls the faithful Christian into ‘self-denial and walking in the Spirit.’[85]

I recognize, however, that this entry is incomplete as it relates to a Christian view of humanity and the ‘basic human problem’. Penn takes a certain utopianism to the question of sin for he may be guilty of ‘optimism of spirit and to a lively vision for the future.’[86] Penn focuses on a new way of seeing in the form of Jesus’ ‘Come and see’[87] yet instructs the Christian in no tangible acts to overcome sin. Penn is advocating not just ‘a purity and perfection’ in ‘self-denial and walking in the Spirit’[88] but in a perfect vision. This is a tall order.

Many Quakers and Penn could be placed in Reinhold Niebuhr’s[89] ‘utopianism’ category: ‘when a group seeks for unqualified realization of the Kingdom of Christ in history’ as ‘the reconstruction of human society into a commonwealth of perfect love or perfect equality or perfect liberty.’ (Niebuhr, 1951, 205, 206)[90] David Johns references Reinhold Niebuhr and Baumeister to critique utopianism: is it soft? Can it lead to ‘self-righteousness and a crippling naivete’?[91] Does a Penn ‘utopian’ ‘evade realities by hoping for a progressive alteration of the character of human history?’ (Niebuhr, 208)[92] Johns writes: ‘Utopian visions are more difficult to maintain the more closely one interacts with social and religious difference and complexity.’[93] But is Penn’s utopian vision something different?

William Penn’s vision for the ‘Christian’ is an open utopianism that closes in on itself in critique and opens up in love to the Other.[94] Johns helps with a quote from Walter Wink: ‘either we face the fearful shadow in ourselves, withdrawing the projections we have placed on our outer enemies, or we will mimetically act it out against some feared opponent and pull down the pillars of the world on our own heads.’ (Wink, 1992, 206, 207)[95] Johns reminds us ‘that being called by God is not an occasion to claim a perfection or a moral separateness from the wider human community.’[96] I believe that the spirit of Penn would agree with a self-correction in ‘acknowledging (one’s) own sin and (one’s) own need for grace is no different than anyone else’s.’[97]

Hereby, I take Penn’s vision for the Christian and of human nature to be optimistic and positive. This follows the general Quaker belief that ‘humans are not only free but able to know good and evil and act morally.’ (Janet Scott, 1980, 38)[98] ‘If we regard our fellow human beings as capable of goodness and trust and love, these are the capacities that they develop.’[99] Penn finds resolution to the problem of human sin in the individual and collective in recognizing their own compliance in sin[100] and in their projection of evil outward. He also recognizes the resolution in the Spirit over ‘form’ and an extension of ‘Christ’ outward to color all of humanity (Boff, p 18).

In assessing Penn here, I think it is helpful to turn to Jesus and to investigate those whom he confronted? Jesus confronted the leaders of his own religious group in discussion (Pharisees)[101] and in an act of ‘violence’ (overturned the tables of the moneychangers) against his own group.[102] He challenged his followers in their sense of self-righteousness[103], he pushed to extend one’s sense of ‘neighbor’ on ethic (‘the one who showed compassion (mercy)’)[104] and he found a simplification in worshipping God ‘in spirit and truth.’[105] The challenge is in the problem of ‘what to do with evil’ for Jesus turned his disciples away from using force: ‘my kingdom is not of this world.’ Therefore, we are caught between fight and passivity.[106]

Penn does not offer direct solutions to the ‘systemic sin’ or ‘bring attention to the need to liberate both oppressed and oppressor’ that lies outside of our religious traditions. He does ask for acts of love and holy living over disputation.[107] From his example, he calls us outward into increasing concentric circles, in breaking down seen ‘division’ as Jesus did in the gospel of John. He asks us to offer the same ‘ethic’ outward, to pronounce the same spirit in Other that we hopefully see in ourselves and to build consensus in supplementary endeavor.

Therefore, in selecting Penn I am selecting a certain affiliation in one approach to the human problem. There are many other essential approaches. This reinforces the need for a true body of Christ both within our traditions and extended outward.[108] I am pleased that Penn extends the body of Christ, the Israel of God with such yearning and insight.

Conclusion

‘We are being saved. Ultimate power in history and nature is one with ultimate goodness; both strain toward a restoration, fulfillment, and completion (perfection) of being.’[109]

Two themes in this essay have focused on a new creative sight common to Jesus’ first call to ‘Come and see’[110] and in a healthy understanding of ‘self-denial’. H. Richard Niebuhr defines ‘self denial’ as ‘not the negation of self, but the acceptance of the limitations upon the self, whereby others are being affirmed.’[111] In a closed system, it is very difficult to break out to see the wider world and the creative potentiality within it. Even though I have attempted to be as inclusive as possible and open and respectful to other faith traditions, I know from my own experience my complete dependence on the Abrahamic God and the example of Jesus Christ as King of Israel. Without a deep commitment to this God and a wrestling with tradition and its scripture, I would not have come to some understanding of the way of Jesus to the Christ[112], the ‘Jesus Christ of faith’[113] and my limitations as a child of God. H. R. Niebuhr states: ‘If limitations be accepted as the revolution of understanding of the self as an instrument of God and not as center of existence may take place, God, not the self, is the proper center of all things.’[114]

This realization of dependence on God and Jesus’ way to the cross assists me in engaging with a wider circle with others. As I intersect with others of difference both within my own tradition-community and in reaching out to the larger circle, I recognize a loyalty to the undertaking: this ‘third entity of the triad of loyalty is the ‘cause’.[115] The circle ever widens and bridges an ever increasing potentiality that does not set out an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ and is willing to enter into solidarity in ‘value’. Niebuhr well said: ‘interpersonal loyalty is deepened and reinforced by mutual commitments to super-ordinate centers of value.’[116]

Penn and H. R. Niebuhr are not utopian thinkers but practical ones. In a world of so much complexity, their call is to an optimism centered on the resurrected Christ and a positivism that celebrates in ‘whatever is…is good.’[117] This is not a naiveté nor an avoidance of the ‘difficult’ but a recognition of the reality to that which gives life and light in Christ Jesus as presented by Penn. In the gospel of John, we have the words of Jesus: ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.’[118] We reap on what has been sown before and carry forward in our sowing in all traditions. This is a Word that gives life and light (new creation) in a world in darkness. God help us in our carrying forward from out of wherever we are placed. Our contribution is to the vine that lives. H. R. Niebuhr adds: ‘thanks be to (God) that creation is not complete, but that it continues toward us and also through us.’[119] What an exciting concept! The question becomes to what we value? Niebuhr: ‘to value rightly is to value according to a universal standard and from a universal standpoint; it is to value as God values.’[120]

Yet even as we set our sights on a greater universality and seek to find the love for outsider that Jesus sought in his encounter with the Samaritans in the gospel of John and Paul in his letter to the Galatians[121], we must remember to ‘serve that which is at hand; serve the nearest.’[122] After traveling across the world, C.S. Lewis’ insight rings true: ‘we travel the world and return home to see it for the first time.’ Let us find ways of universalizing and valuing what comes ‘toward and through us’, ‘serving that which is at hand’ without division in love and compassion and place our celebration in a ‘radically monotheistic’[123] (God) manifested in a myriad of form.

Thank you Reader, I hope that you have taken something from my travels through and with others to help explain what ‘I believe’. I believe in the Holy Spirit.[124] May you come to find and move in the ‘way and truth’ that gives you and yours life. Shalom.

Note: Please read footnote 124.


Bibliography:

Boff, Leonardo. Christ the Liberator. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. 1972.
Campbell, James. Understanding John Dewey. Chicago, IL: Open Court. 1995.
Campbell, Joseph. Hero with a Thousand Faces. 1949.
Dupre, Louis & Wiseman, James O.S.B. Light from Light: An Anthology of Christian Mysticism. New York, NY: Paulist Press. 1988.
Edwards, Jonathan. Paul Helm, ed. Treatise on Grace and Other Posthumously Published Writings. Cambridge: James Clark & Co. 1971.
Edwards, Jonathan. A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections. New York: Cosimo Classics. 2007.
Fowler, James W. To See The Kingdom: The Theological Vision of H. Richard Niebuhr. Nashville: Abingdon Press. 1974.
Fromm, Erich. The Sane Society. 1955.
Jensen, David. In the Company of Others. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press. 2001.
Johns, David. ‘A People of Unclean Lips: Reclaiming an Anthropology of Complexity’. Scully, Jackie Leach; Dandelion, Pink, ed. Good and Evil: Quaker Perspectives. Surrey, UK: Ashgate Publishing. 2007.
Jung, Carl. Aion. New York, NY: Princeton University Press. 1959.
Kavanaugh, Kieran & Rodriguez, Otilio O.C.D. The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross. Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications. 1991.
Keenan, John P. The Meaning of Christ. New York: Orbis Books. 1989.
Keenan, John P. The Gospel of Mark: A Mahayana Reading. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. 1995.
Kim, Hee-Jin. Dogen Kigen-Mystical Realist. Tuscon, AZ: U of A Press. 1975.
Maslow, Abraham. Religions, Values and Peak Experiences. New York, NY: Penguin Arkana. 1964.
McClendon, James William. Biography as Theology. 1974.
Merton, Thomas. The New Man. New York, NY: The Noonday Press. 1961.
Mudge, Lewis. Abrahamic Faith Tradition Paper. NCC Ecumenical Conference. Oberlin, OH, 2007.
Mudge, Lewis. The Gift of Responsibility: The Promise of Dialogue among Christians, Jews and Muslims. New York, NY: Continuum. 2008.
Niebuhr, Richard R. ed. Niebuhr, Helmut Richard. Faith on Earth. New Haven/London: Yale University. 1989.
Penn, William. Christian Quaker and his divine testimony stated and vindicated from Scripture, reason and authority. London: T. Sowle. 1699.
Penn, William. No Cross, No Crown. London: West, Newman and Company. 1904.
Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro. Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism. New York, NY: Schoken Books. 1963.
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. 1854.
Tolstoy, Leo. A Confession and Other Religious Writings. New York, NY: Penguin Books. 1987.
Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1952.
endnotes:
[1] This credo will focus on Christ as ‘solution’.
[2] Father and Mother and extended family; the unconscious accumulation.
[3] I believe that there is an interesting relationship between experience and the Scriptures-story. We hear stories and it is in experience that these truths become more real for us. Is it that my experience connects with the story or is it narrated in the story? (The idea of journey; progressive understanding to greater universality?)
[4] ‘Conversion is wrought at once. That knowledge, that reformation and conviction that is preparatory to conversion may be gradual, and the work of grace after conversion may be gradually carried on, yet that work of grace upon the soul whereby a person is brought out of a state of total corruption and depravity into a state of grace, to an interest in Christ, and to be actually a child of God, is in a moment.’ Jonathan Edwards, ‘Treatise on Grace’, Paul Helm, ed. Treatise on Grace and Other Posthumously Published Writings, (Cambridge: James Clark & Co., 1971), 34. Yet grace is ‘the seed of glory, the dawning of glory in the heart, and therefore grace is the earnest of future inheritance.’ (162) Election: ‘many have been the mischiefs of that false and delusive notion of the witness of the Spirit…pardoned (elected)…many have been the false and vain (though very high) affections that have arisen from hence…it is feared that multitudes of souls have been eternally undone by it.’ (165)
[5] John 1.8.
[6] H.R. Niebuhr suggests that ‘the present Jesus Christ of faith is the companion who reconstructs the faith by which we have lived in the past’. Editor’s note, Richard R. Niebuhr, ed., Helmut Richard Niebuhr, Faith on Earth, (London: Yale University Press, 1989), 89.
[8] For example, in the cross country drive, the experience came in repentance, in surrender, in calling to God and speaking of trust in His guidance as preparation for His presence (even perhaps unspoken but in ‘yearning’). I think of Jesus’ ‘It is I, be not afraid’ in interval to ‘the other side.’ (John 6.16-21)
[9] God’s promise to Abram in Genesis 12.
[10] In Kenya, the emphasis on preaching was liberative coming from an oppressed tribe. In authoritarian Samoa, preaching emphasized a controlling and authoritative God calling for strict obedience and conformity illustrating the ‘malleability’ of the ‘Christian’ message.
[11] Taking from H. R. Niebuhr’s reference to Aquinas: ‘a living faith by the redirection of the will.’ James W. Fowler, To See The Kingdom: The Theological Vision of H. Richard Niebuhr, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1974), 7. HRN referring to Aquina’s Summa Theologica, II, part II-II, Q. 4, arts 1-5.
[12] In McClendon’s view, the metaphor and imagery comes from the Biblical story, yet extends to other religions and others who have travelled before. James William McClendon, Biography as Theology, 1974.
[13] ‘Any discussion of world poverty that does not come round to demanding a radical change in our habits of consumption and waste, our tastes, our profligate standard of living, our values is generally a hypocrisy. There are no technical answers to ethical questions.’ Theodore Roszak, Where the Wasteland Ends, 1972.
‘All our knowledge of matter and law will not afford us guidance in so simple a matter as what to do with a piece of bread in our hands. We shall not learn thereby whether to give the bread to our daughter, to a stranger, to the dog that eyes it hungrily, or to eat it ourselves; nor shall we thus learn whether to defend the bit of bread as our property against all-comers, or to yield it to the first person that demands it of us. The laws of matter do not shape our decision, nor enlighten us how to decide these things. Yet living is entirely made up of such decisions. On these decisions, happiness depends.’ Leo Tolstoy, no reference.
[14] The ‘Christian’ solution is particular to changing situation and in relationship. The overlap of circumstance and circles of circumference introduce complexities in ‘Christian’ engagement. (Considering McClendon’s character).
[15] Thomas Merton: ‘The effect of life in society is to complicate and confuse our existence, making us forget who we really are, by causing us to become obsessed with what we are not.’ Thomas Merton, The New Man, (New York: The Noonday Press, 1961), 178.
[16] Principal lessons were a recognition that I had a capacity to ‘mis-interpret’ (aha!), that beliefs and morals are culturally formed and that my incoming ‘understandings’ of the African peoples were entirely ‘constructed’ by Western media and were partial and distorted.
[17] Whether it is Ernest Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea, Dosteoski’s Crime and Punishment, Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, Melville’s Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim, and Glen Shaw’s The Priest and His Disciples: Murata Hyamuzo.
[18] Whether it be my father Robert, paternal grandmother Mildred, Joseph Nganga and Muma Aoma Muma in Kenya, Navajo elder Larry Smiley, ESR instructors, Vietnamese elder Cao Tran and all others+.
[19] James Fowler reference to H. Richard Niebuhr’s In the Nature of Religious Experience: ‘HRN clearly believes that the Other meets us in the revelation event in such a way as to transform, remake, and renew our categories of valuing, our master images of the heart by which we interpret action upon us, and our behavioral actions and responses to actions upon us.’ Fowler, 172.
[20] Yet I must protect against thinking of being more advanced (rather than a different form of ‘grace’): ‘There is a greater danger in thinking ourselves more advanced, because opinion has an effect.’ Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1952), 47. Abraham Maslow discusses a great challenge: ‘The job will be to get mystic-transcenders-peak experiencers versus legalists together to understand each other, to get along with each other, even to love each other.’ Abraham Maslow, Religions, Values and Peak Experiences, (NY, New York: Penguin Arkana, 1976), 26.
Studying Dogen’s thought for non-dual understanding of ‘stages of spiritual progress’ as contained in enlightenment itself, ‘stages to enlightenment as virtues of enlightenment.’ Hee-Jin Kim, Dogen Kigen-Mystical Realist, (Tuscon, AZ: U of A Press, 1975), 66.
[21] ‘Our call is to bring life to humankind…the gift of responsibility for interpretation-in the presence of, before the face of, the Other-that is intrinsic to the covenant Promise. And in turn, such responsible-to-Promise interpretation by Jews, Christians, Muslims-not to speak of other religious communities- is a gift of ‘responsibility’ to humankind in another sense: a gift of the presence of people whose behavior brings ‘blessing’ rather than ‘curse’. Lewis Mudge, Abrahamic Faith Tradition Paper. NCCC Ecumenical Conference. Oberlin, OH, 2007, 9.
[22] Luke speaks of bearing fruit in patience. Taking into consideration ‘the wilderness’ and ‘being in the world but not of it’, there may be some lag time in seeing fruit. Remaining steady on the path without fruit presents a challenge. St. John on the Cross: ‘That person would be very ignorant who thinks that because sweetness and delight are failing him or her, God is failing him or her, or should think in having these (s)he is having God.’ Kieran Kavanaugh, Otilio Rodriguez O.C.D., The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1991).
[23] i.e. Deut 6.15.
[24] Mark 16.7, 1.14.
[25] In the context of two or three gathered in His name and/or Jesus sacrificed to higher reconciling truth on cross between two. H.R. Niebuhr: ‘A logic of polarity, we might say, is a mode of thinking that tends to attend to the wholeness, the unity, of a complex phenomenon, by juxtaposing the detailed but partial views of it acquired from the several possible points of vantage (each of which may tend to make totalistic claims for its perspective), and by combining those perspectives, making such reconciliations of their contradictions as can legitimately be made, but without any specious removal of the tensions between them.’ Fowler, 176. May I add?: ‘the otherness of ultimate meaning is not grounded in some intuition into a logocentric essence beyond the flux of signification but in the exitingency to push against the borders of language in a quest for a silence beyond language.’ John P. Keenan, The Gospel of Mark: A Mahayana Reading, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1995), 15.
Teresa of Avila: ‘Or, like the bright light entering a room through two different windows; although the streams of light are separate when entering the room, they become one.’ Teresa of Avila, from ‘The Interior Castle’, Louis Dupre & James A. Wiseman, O.S.B., Light from Light: An Anthology of Christian Mysticism, (New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1988), 287.
[26] Mark as first gospel through gospel of Luke and Matthew to the gospel of John.
[27] We see this in the progression of insight on the behalf of the disciples and Jesus’ recognition of purpose in the Transfiguration (Mark 9.2-10, Matt. 17.1-9, Luke 9.28-36, John 12.28-30) and Gethsemane (Mark 14.32-42, Matt. 26.36-46, Luke 22.39-46, John 18.1, 12.27, 14.31) ) for example in Mark through Matthew, Luke to John.
[28] Trying to unite the particular with the universal. As I attempt to pull all I encounter in the Bible to support my developing paradigm of inclusion, I question if I am missing something and whether this is truly the way. Even though this has born some fruit, I wonder if it is the most faithful path: ‘You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me; yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.’ (John 5.39-40)
[29] Or Job, Jonah, Joseph, Philip, Abraham, Ishmael, blind man, Esau, Jacob, Cain, Abel, Noah, Legion, Paul, John the Baptist, Nathaniel, Mary, Thomas, Esther, Miriam, Hagar, Isaac, Joseph father, Philemon, Man at Bethesda, Lazarus community at Bethany, Samaritan woman at the well, Moses, People at Cana, a poor person at River Jordan…..
[30] Considering Jesus’ understanding of neighbor as Samaritan in Mark 12.30-33 and his movement in the gospel of John to seek a ‘spirit and truth’ alliance with the Samaritans: extended to ‘world’ setting 2008. Jesus, as Jew, holding to his tradition while seeking a simplification of entrance ethic (blind man made to see: ‘If any is a worshipper of God and does His will, God listens to him.’ (John 9.31))
[31] My limited background mix of Presbyterian upbringing and experience with Catholic, UMC, UU, Baptist Brethren and Quaker groups.
[32] I will include Buddhism within the group of religions which will be made clearer later.
[33] I will struggle with differentiating between ‘germinating seed’, ‘guiding ethic’ and ‘spiritual essence’. I would like to tie this with ‘Word’ and ‘Christ’. See Edwards’ ‘Spirit’ as ‘an abiding principle of action.’ Affections, 130.
[34] What might this ‘ethic’ look like in comparison to a guiding belief as Christian identification? (i.e. ‘And God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.’, John 3.16) Is there a difference Reader, in identifying the guiding identification in a belief (John 3.16) versus an ethic to guide behavior? Does the right belief naturally equate to the right action-works? Or do the right action-works translate to a right belief in Christ?
[35] Leviticus 19.18, Sura 4.36.
[36] Fowler quoting H. R. Niebuhr quoting Augustine: ‘With Augustine, Niebuhr sees the center of God’s redemptive action in Jesus as the Christ: ‘I do not say to thee, seek the way. The way itself has come to thee: arise and walk.’ Fowler, 163.
[37] John 15.12, Luke 23.34.
[38] Necessity to confess, to look internally, acknowledge for greater authenticity. There is a danger in ‘born again’ when it is equated with ‘need not address’, a lack of self-reflection or a nationalist or imperialist stance.
Carl Jung: ‘The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.’ Carl Jung, Aion, (New York, NY: Princeton University Press, 1959), 71.
[39] Bringing up the challenges of gender languaging, reinforcing patriarchal inequality and/or depicting Jesus as ‘white’ against the rightful objection of liberation and feminist thinkers. Is a softening in the language of translations the solution?
[40] ‘Just as Paul contrasts the wisdom of God (mystery) with the mind that generates standpoints (‘temptation to boasting and self-centered consciousness’), one must not engage in discriminative thinking, weighing this standpoint against that, as if a correct standpoint could lead to salvation.’ John Keenan, The Meaning of Christ, (New York: Orbis Books, 1989), 35.
[41] Reincarnation or resurrection?
[42] Luke 6.43-45.
[43] Romans 14.19.
[44] Matthew 5.44.
[45] Luke 23.34.
[46] Not simply word, but the intent or gesturing in interaction.
[47] Bringing up the challenge of what to do with evil-sin?
[48] D.T. Suzuki: ‘Both schools started with the same spirit, pursuing the same course. But after a while one did not feel any necessity for broadening the spirit of the master and adhered to his words as literally as possible; whilst the other, actuated by a liberal and comprehensive spirit, has drawn nourishments from all available sources, in order to unfold the germs in the original system that were vigorous and generative.’ D. T. Suzuki, Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism, (New York, NY: Schoken Books, 1963), 15.
[49] Matthew 7.21-23.
[50] Luke 23.34.
[51] I am taking the Buddhist position that all arises out of conditions. The idea that I have a personal God and vehicle in Jesus Christ comes from my heritage; my ancestors claim this same belief. I cannot judge a Hindu for his or her Hinduism. I take from Gandhi’s suggestion to Christian missionaries: ‘Strive to make a Hindu, a better Hindu; a Muslim, a better Muslim…’ (notation without reference)
[52] What does this mean for the unprivileged?
[53] As they can follow (Buddha) genuinely into a simpler and meditative lifestyle.
[54] As defined by John Dewey. Campbell, James, Understanding John Dewey, (Chicago, IL: Open Court, 1995), 276.
Add H. R. Niebuhr: defines ‘religious need’: ‘for that which makes life worth living, which bestows meaning on life by revealing itself as the final source of life’s being and value, which is formal and transcendental.’ Fowler, 171.
[55] Leonardo Boff, Christ the Liberator, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1972), 248-249.
[56] This paper focuses on twenty-five pages of text in ‘A Discourse of the General Rule of Faith and Practice and Judge of Controversy’ in Penn’s 1699 Christian Quaker and his divine testimony stated and vindicated from Scripture, reason and authority; a reprinting of his 1674 Christian Quaker.
[57] 225.
[58] 241.
[59] 224.
[60] H.R. Niebuhr: ‘When we assent notionally to the statement that God is one, the words ‘God’ and ‘one’ both refer to ideas; in real assent the word God refers to a reality vividly imagined, felt and loved. Only such real assent, that is, assent to reality, vivifies and empowers a man; notional belief, though it be logically gained by inference from undoubted premises, is feeble in comparison.’ H. R. Niebuhr, Faith on Earth, 8.
[61] 225.
[62] 228.
[63] 225.
[64] 225.
[65] 226.
[66] Philippe de Mornay (1549-1623): Huguenot apologist. ‘The all to unity constantly appeared throughout his activities and his thought. In politics he attempted to find a minimum consensus, while in religious affairs he tried to find and establish the principles common to all. His attacks against the absolute power of the papacy in his Treatise on the Church (1578) and his Concerning the institution, the usage and the doctrine of the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist in the early Church (1598) did not prevent him from working in favour of conciliation between Roman Catholics and Protestants, nor from upholding the idea of a religious concord and hoping for the gathering of a joint council of Protestants and Roman Catholics. He upheld the latter notion in his In favour of the Council (1600). He esteemed that between Calvinists and Catholics there were no divergences of a fundamental nature. For this reason nothing should oppose the co-existence of the two confessions.’ http://www.museeprotestant.org/Pages/Notices.php?scatid=136&noticeid=726&lev=1&Lget=EN
[67] Hugo Grotius (1583-1645). Advocate for separation of church and state. Writings led to the governmental view of the atonement central to the Arminian movement.
[68] ?George Herbert (1593-1633). was a Welsh poet, orator and a priest.
[69] 225. Ralph Cudworth (1617–1688). Leader of the Cambridge Platonists. ‘His two major works, The True Intellectual System of the Universe (1678) and A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality (1731), were influential among the New England Transcendentalists and provided crucial support for Ralph Waldo Emerson’s belief in the infallibility of intuition.’ http://www.alcott.net/alcott/home/champions/Cudworth.html
[70] 231. I am introducing the reader to H. Richard Niebuhr to supplement Penn: ‘Such a value experience is primitive and original. It deals with that absolute source of all value by relation to which all other things have their value.’ Fowler, 171.
From H. R. Niebuhr’s Nature of Religious Experience (1937): Niebuhr would endorse Penn’s insight on Spirit over scripture: ‘the experience of the ground and source of all value leads to the criticism and reconstruction of the ethical system rather than to the support of one which has been accepted as absolute prior to the experience.’ Fowler, 171.
[71] 227.
[72] 227.
[73] 234.
[74] 235.
[75] 235.
[76] 235.
[77] 244.
[78] 240.
[79] 232.
[80] 228.
[81] WP begins his discourse: ‘For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature; and as many as walk according to this rule, peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.’ (Galatians 6.16)
[82] To Penn, Scripture is a Rule of Faith and Life: ‘as some instrument, by and through which this great and universal rule (the living, immediate, omnipresent, discovering, ordering spirit of God) may convey its directions.’ (236)
[83] 247.
[84] 248.
[85] 249.
[86] David Johns, ‘A People of Unclean Lips: Reclaiming an Anthropology of Complexity’, Jackie Leach Scully, Pink Dandelion, ed. Good and Evil: Quaker Perspectives, (Surrey, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2007), 121.
[87] John 1.39, 4.29, 11.34. H. R. Niebuhr: ‘So act as to express conscious membership in the universal community of faithfulness, to respond with hope to redemptive intent and power in all actions upon you, and to express trust in and loyalty to the cause of that One to whom and to whose cause Jesus the Christ is loyal.’ Fowler, 165. Something Penn might agree with.
[88] In Penn’s No Cross, No Crown (1666) written over thirty years earlier, he instructs: ‘The doctrine of the Cross of Christ is the only true door to Christianity. What is important for us? What is our cup and cross that we should drink and suffer? The denial and offering up ourselves, by the same Spirit, to do or suffer the will of God for His service and glory.’ William Penn, No Cross, No Crown, (London: West, Newman and Company, 1904), 32.
[89] H. Richard Niebuhr’s elder brother.
[90] Johns, 121.
[91] Johns, 121.
[92] Johns, 122.
[93] Johns, 122.
[94] David Jensen: ‘the Christian life is not marked by others conversion to Christianity (my way of belief), but my conversion to others.’ David Jensen, In the Company of Others, (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2001), 144.
[95] Johns, 122.
[96] Johns, 124.
[97] Johns, 124.
[98] Johns, 124.
[99] Johns, 124.
[100] May I add Tolstoy’s: ‘begin to live by seeing the purpose and well-being of your life in the daily progress of your soul’s liberation from the illusions of the flesh, and in the increasing perfection of love (which amount to one and the same thing).’ Leo Tolstoy, A Confession and Other Religious Writings, (NY: Penguin Books, 1987), 221.
[101] John 9.39-41. ‘For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see (judgment) may see, and that those who see (judgment) may become blind. Some of the Pharisees near him heard this, and they said to him, ‘Are we also blind?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind (to judgment), you would have no guilt; but now that you say ‘We see (judgment)’, your guilt remains.’ My insert of (judgment) as exclusionary judgment.
[102] John 2.13-17. Following miracle at Cana, ‘best wine for last’. Jesus buried as Jew (John 19.38-40) and identified as Samaritan (John 8.48-49).
[103] Matt 7.21-23.
[104] Luke 10.29-37.
[105] John 4.24.
[106] Remembering Jesus’ ‘do not resist him who is evil.’ Matthew 5.39.
[107] 246.
[108] Potential discussion of Edward’s differentiation: body of Christ and spirit of Christ.
[109] Fowler from H.R. Niebuhr’s 1952 class lecture, 165.
[110]Later addition: In Jonathan Edwards, I am gathering a piece to the power of ‘Come and see’ in Edwards’ insistence on God’s holiness and His moral perfection (‘perfectly just and righteous and true’) as the base from which all flows. (Affections, 190+)
[111] Ibid, 196.
[112] Jesus as way, truth and life and resurrected to the Christ. ‘Christ’ as presented by Penn.
[113] H. R. Niebuhr writes on the ‘Jesus Christ of faith’ as ‘subject of betrayal’: ‘profound distrust because of his trust (attitude dangerous to the existence of his nation, of its cause as the people of God, of its leaders, worship, laws…), because of his loyalty to God (suspected as something demonic), and because of his loyalty to all the creatures of God (dangerous to all treasured values).’, Faith on Earth, 95.
He adds: ‘But the faith of Jesus Christ came to the end of its historical existence with the cry: ‘My God, my God why have you forsaken me?’ There was faith in the cry: ‘My God!’ But it is the uttermost cry of faith, at the edge of nothingness.’ Ibid, 96. ‘In our relation to this betrayed, forsaken, destroyed and powerful Jesus Christ we are enabled to qualify our distrust of the Ground of Being so that we pray to the mystery out of which we come and to which we return, ‘Our Father who art in Heaven.’ Ibid, 99.
[114] Fowler referencing H. R. Niebuhr’s 1952 class lecture, 197.
[115] Fowler, 207: ‘Following Royce, Niebuhr refers to the third entity in the triad of loyalty as the ‘cause’’.
HRN: ‘there is a certain reciprocity here between loyal selves and the cause; the movement of loyalty is not entirely from self to cause; there is a movement from cause to self, a movement which has something of the nature of a claim or demand...an object of trust…the mystery of the Transcendent…a cause beyond all causes, to an object of loyalty beyond all concrete persons and abstract values, to the Being or the Ground of Being which obligates and demands trust, which unites us to the universal community…but though in ruined form yet there are evidences of its presence in all our existences as faithful-unfaithful selves.’ Niebuhr, Faith on Earth, 59-61.
[116] Fowler, 207.
[117] Fowler from Niebuhr’s 1952 class lecture, 178.
[118] John 15.5. Jesus’ I am statements could read to reference to God speaking through Jesus. ‘The Father is greater than I.’ (John 14.28)
[119] Fowler from Niebuhr’s 1952 class lecture, 180.
[120] Ibid, 180. ‘The brave (person) of the Promethean type confronts a distrusted transcendent reality with courage; the brave person trusting stands before God like Job asking for an answer; the fearsome person confronts the distrusted Transcendent with trembling; the fearsome person full of trust is awed but not cowed and there is joy in his awe.’ Niebuhr, Faith on Earth, 92.
[121] ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’ (Galatians 3.28)
[122] Fowler from Niebuhr’s 1946 class lecture, 182.
[123] Ibid, 181.
[124] John 20.21-23: ‘Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you’…he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ (We) do not shy away from ‘evil’ or ‘sin’ but prepare and enter into it with a forgiving and compassionate heart and stance, not ‘corrupted’ in retaliatory intent but met with peace and confidence in (God).