Revelation and Gospel Order Among Friends

Workshop number: 
23
Frederick
Martin
Audience
Who may register: 
Open to All (adult & high school)
part time-attenders welcome
Time breakdown
Worship/worship-sharing: 
35%
Lecture: 
15%
Discussion: 
50%
Experiential Activities: 
0%
Description
Leader Experience: 

Graduate student in Quaker theological history at Andover Newton Theological School. My graduate school leading was discerned with the help of a clearness committee under Monadnock Monthly Meeting's Ministry and Counsel Committee, and developed out of an earlier leading for intervisitation. I taught history and peace studies at The Meeting School for 8 years, and studied at Pendle Hill with Douglas Gwyn, Ben Dandelion and Chris Ravendal, among others. I have led youth programs for FGC Gathering, SAYMA, and NEYM, and adult workshops for Beacon Hill Friends House, Monadnock Monthly Meeting, Moses Brown School, and New England Yearly Meeting.

Short Description: 

Activists or contemplatives, we seek utopia, a world transformed. Early Friends proclaimed that new world and read the Bible for guidance toward it, particularly apocalyptic literature like Revelation. We will engage in worship-sharing around difficult Biblical passages, and discuss our contemporary struggles in light of how early Friends discerned way forward.

Long Description: 

Many of us dream of and work toward a new world, a restored or transformed world, a utopia. As activists or contemplatives or just livers of life, we hope for and struggle for that vision. Is it in the future, or among us even now? The early Quaker movement, and the early Christian movement, both wrestled with these questions. Recent scholarship on early Friends has come to see them as very enthusiastic about apocalyptic and millenarian outlooks. They believed, not that the world was going to end, but rather that God's full intentions for a just, peaceful, and happy world --a changed world-- were just about to be realized, soon, in seventeenth-century England. For guidance they looked to the Bible: they called their non-violent campaign the Lamb's War. Douglas Gwyn states that George Fox's favorite book in the Bible was Revelation. The Gospels contain many teachings by Jesus about the basileia/reign of God/kingdom of heaven. Like the early Friends, and the early Christians to whom Revelation was written as an encouragement during hard times, we may feel the transformation of Spirit inside us, yet feel troubled when it's not reflected in the world around us.

Many Friends may be uncomfortable with the Bible, or especially with Revelation, full as it is of confusing and violent images. We will use a model of sharing readings and worship-sharing around selected passages of the Bible designed to invite participants to share their doubts and concerns about the texts as well as to relate personally with them. The leader will give short lectures on the narrative structure and symbolism of Revelation and other apocalyptic literature within the Bible; and summarizing recent scholarship on early Friends' use of it and the rise, fall, and reconstruction of their hopes for a new world. The most important part of the workshop, hopefully, will be the insights we may discern, and inspiration we may gain, as we consider our own work on today's issues in light of the engagement of early Friends with the thread of utopian vision woven throughout the Bible.

Within each day's workshop, a preliminary plan looks like: 15 min opening worship, 40 min Bible reading and worship-sharing on it; 30 min lecture/presentation about Bible (order might be switched); 30-40 min reading from early Friends (epistle, testimony, proclamation, etc) and worship-sharing on it; (or 20 minute lecture on early Friends and 20 minute discussion); and 30-40 minutes discussion of application to present-day/contemporary/personal issues.

Bible readings will come from Revelation, Isaiah, maybe Daniel and Joel, Mark (esp ch 13), perhaps some kingdom parables from Mark or Luke. Readings from early Friends will include excerpts from: Francis Howgill's testimony about the Westmoreland Seekers ("the kingdom of heaven did gather us as in a net") and his convincement narrative; James Naylor's The Lamb's War; and epistles of George Fox, for instance To Friends in the Ministry (1656) which contains the famous quote about walking cheerfully over the earth.

Recommended preparation reading: Douglas Gwyn, Revolutionary Quaker Witness: learning from the Lamb's War of the 1650's (Beacon Hill Friends House; pamphlet-length, available from QuakerBooks of FGC)
Additional suggestions:
For deeper background: Douglas Gwyn, Apocalypse of the Word: the life and message of George Fox (Friends United Press; longer, in depth) or Ben Pink Dandelion, Heaven on Earth: Quakers and the Second Coming (Woodbrooke College; longer, rather technical/academic).
For contemporary application: Sandra Cronk, "Gospel Order" (Pendle Hill Pamphlet #297); Jack Kirk, "Kindling a Life of Concern: Spirit-Led Quaker Action" (Pendle Hill Pamphlet #404); Alice and Staughton Lynd, "Liberation Theology for Quakers" (Pendle Hill Pamphlet #326).