Minute of Appreciation Dean Freiday
Christian and Interfaith Relations Committee, Friends General Conference, 2006
The Christian and Interfaith Relations Committee of Friends General Conference is deeply appreciative of the many contributions Dean Freiday has made over the years to the Christian and Interfaith Relations Committee itself, which he joined in 1958, to the Religious Society of Friends, and to Friends’ ecumenical relations nationally and globally. His zest for the scholarship side of the work, without institutional support and without formal training, his compelling curiosity, absorbing interest, and indomitable initiative, have been a gift of incalculable value.
The preparation of Barclay’s Apology in Modern English is paradigmatic of his concern to make Friends’ heritage accessible to people today. This same spirit underlay and motivated his Faith and Order work. His work has been shaped by the endeavor to bring the classic “historically normed” Quaker theology forward in a fully accessible way to Friends and to those around us. He has been able to interpret Friends’ position in a way that is especially accessible to Catholics.
An important aspect of Dean’s ministry has been the building of strong and affectionate personal relationships with a wide variety of ecumenical partners over many decades. In this regard he has forged strong links with Evangelical Friends when few FGC Friends were reaching out to Evangelical Friends or vice versa. He developed especially strong ties with Friends at the Houston Theological School and at George Fox College (now George Fox University), helping to link Mid-America YM and Northwest YM Evangelical Friends, providing them both connections to Friends in FGC Yearly Meetings. The honorary degree granted Dean by the Houston Graduate School of Theology testifies eloquently to the appreciation of this work from the Evangelical side, as does Dean’s collaboration with Arthur O. Roberts in editing A Catechism and Confession of Faith and Quaker Religious Thought.
Dean committed himself to building up institutional structures among Friends to sustain this work. His aforementioned work on, and on behalf of, CIRC is but one example. He has sought out potential ecumenists among Friends who might otherwise not have been led to such work and through careful mentoring has nurtured their growth in this regard.
Dean Freiday entered into the work of the Faith and Order Commission of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA when Jeffrey Gros, FSC, worked to broaden its inclusiveness. After Jeff departed the Commission, when others he had brought in drifted away, Dean Freiday worked hard to ensure that Friends continued to be actively engaged, greatly facilitating the later work of Ann Riggs when she assumed the directorship of the Commission previously held by Jeff. Jeffrey Gros has spoken of the importance in the Apostolic Faith studies of Dean’s insistence that language is inadequate to express the truth about God, a reminder that proved helpful to noncredal churches, feminist theologians, and others participating in the study; it changed the landscape of the whole discussion. One book that reflects this sensitivity is Faith to Creed.
Dean’s ecumenical admirers tell delightful tales. One example is that of Dean’s Traveling Minute for his trip to the Fifth World Conference on Faith and Order at Santiago de Compestela which reminded others of the official souvenirs that medieval pilgrims brought home from their pilgrimage visits to the same city.
Dean Freiday’s study of Catholicism and Quakerism led to his forming with Donald S. Nesti, CSSp, the Institute for Catholic and Quaker Studies. The long collaborative friendship between these two surely influenced Dean’s more theological writings, as in his Nothing without Christ, in which Donald Nesti’s name appears, among others, in the acknowledgments. The breadth of Dean Freiday’s theological writings was certainly nurtured by his ecumenical engagement, both within the Religious Society of Friends, and within the Church generally.
Dean’s generosity of time, attention, encouragement, and quiet support of many kinds has been so important to the Christian and Interfaith Relations Committee over the four and a half decades of his service to it that it is hard to imagine what the Committee would have done without him. To borrow language from earlier Friends, Dean Freiday has been well used indeed, and we have been greatly blessed.
