What is Quaker Quest?
Quaker Quest is based on the idea that Quakerism is a spiritual path for our time that is simple, radical, and contemporary. Quaker Quest offers Friends an opportunity to articulate their faith, deepen relationships within their meeting/church, and share their spiritual stories with the larger community.

The public Quaker Quest sessions are structured gatherings for people interested in learning about Quakerism.  As part of the public Quaker Quest sessions, three people from the Quaker meeting share from the heart about their experiences on a particular topic.  These presentations are prepared in advance and include brief quotes from Faith and Practice or other resources.  Presenters mostly share stories that illuminate their journeys around the topic.  

How the blog series works
Each month from March until June, three Quakers will write 2-3 paragraphs on a certain topic from their experience as a Friend. I hope that the posts will spark a conversation that can continue online through people commenting on the blog posts.  Please email Emily at emilys@fgcquaker.org if you are interested in writing on one of the topics.

Schedule of topics
February- An introduction to Quaker Quest
March-Quakers and Equality
April- Quakers and God
May- Quakers and Pacifism
June- Quakers and Worship


For information on Quaker Quest, email quakerquest@fgcquaker.org or call 215-561-1700. Quaker Quest in the US and Canada is a project of Friends General Conference http://www.fgcquaker.org/quakerquest/organizers.


Typically we will have three people write on a specific topic in order to illustrate the diversity of beliefs among Quakers. However, in February we are featuring an example of one Friend’s experience participating in a model Quaker Quest session. Christina Repoley was one of three presenters at a workshop on Quaker Quest that took place at the FGC Gathering in 2008. Along with the two other presenters, she wrote up her presentation, which was then published in the December ’08 issue of Friends Journal.


My Experience with Quaker Quest by Christina RepoleyChristina Repoley presenting at the FGC Gathering

I was introduced to Quaker Quest before the 2008 FGC Gathering when I was invited to be part of a Quaker Quest workshop, which simulated what a Quaker Quest session might be like in a local meeting. I was invited to share on the topic of "Quakers and Jesus." For me, it was a wonderful way of having the time to think intentionally about a specific aspect of my faith and what I would want to share with people new to Quakerism about it. It also gave me the chance to get to know other Friends and hear about their beliefs in a fuller way. I learned more about what these Friends think and believe about Jesus than what I know about most of the other members of my own meeting. Quaker Quest provides a wonderful model for open and deep sharing with newcomers as well as those already part of a meeting.

This is an excerpt from Christina’s presentation on Quakers and Jesus at the 2008 FGC Gathering, which was printed in the December issue of Friends Journal.

Hi folks. I have to say that Jesus did not play a very big part of my spiritual life when I grew up in my Quaker Meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina. Growing up, we just didn’t talk about Jesus very much, if at all. I learned a lot about other faith traditions and I learned some really important lessons about community, peace, and justice, but very little about Jesus and radical Christianity.

So, because of the religious education approach of the adults in my home meeting, I grew up feeling pretty ambivalent, not having very strong feelings one way or the other about Jesus. The only time I really remember studying the Bible was when the kids in the Meeting went to see the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. Seriously. I remember sitting there with a tape recorder, listening to the soundtrack, stopping it and flipping to the Bible story that that song corresponded with. And that was really the entirety of my exposure to the Bible within my Quaker meeting. This is not true of all Quaker meetings, and it is not even true of that meeting today, but it was true at the time.

My view of Quakerism changed when I was eighteen years old and went on a Quaker Youth Pilgrimage, which brought together young Quakers from all over the world, representing the whole spectrum of belief among Friends.  We spent a month together, primarily in the area of northwest England where Quakerism began in the 1650s. This was really the first time that I encountered Quakers with a strong Christian identity who took the Bible very seriously. It was also the first time I really studied Quaker history and learned about the deep Christian roots of my faith.

We had regular Bible study and we talked openly about our own spiritual journeys. I loved it! I remember being so intrigued to study the life of Jesus and see how these ancient stories could have so much power and relevance for us today. I wondered why I had never learned this kind of thing before. It was exciting to me and I began to crave more of this kind of knowledge and experience.

Shortly after that I started at Guilford College, a Quaker school, where I was part of the Quaker Leadership Scholars Program, again bringing together Quakers from many different backgrounds and experiences. I continued to find a lot of inspiration from Scripture study and in discovering more about who Jesus was and is.

Still, I get that one of the gifts of my experience growing up, without much theological formation, was that when I did finally encounter the Bible I was able to come to it without any baggage. I did not have a previous negative experience that I had to overcome, like so many of my friends. I got to start fresh. So the perspectives I got through study and dialogue with others was the basis of my understanding of and experience with Jesus, and it was energizing and inspiring. I particularly focused on Liberation Theology and Feminist Theology, and was continually amazed, challenged and inspired by Jesus, this radical teacher who has guided so many in struggles for justice and liberation.

I began to feel that following him, trying to live my life in some small way as a disciple of Jesus, was what I was being called to do. This is not just a rational conviction. I’ve come to love Jesus and feel him move in my life and heart.

As I became more personally interested in scripture and exploring who Jesus was, I focused a lot on the historical Jesus, on learning as much as I could about the context in which he lived. I also learned that most of what the Bible says really doesn’t make much sense without some level of understanding about what was going on historically, what cultural assumptions and practices were, and how Jesus' actions and teachings were interpreted in that context.

And the more I understood this, the more I believed that he was truly a nonviolent radical revolutionary. So I got the political messages, but I was still unclear as to what I thought about Jesus being the "Son of God," or even whether or not he was divine, or just a person like you or me. I was sure that I loved him, admired him, and wanted to follow him, but I was not sure if I believed in him, at least not in the way that it seemed like a whole lot of other Christians did.

Then I took a workshop on the early Quakers and Jesus. That really changed things for me. We were talking about language, and how the Biblical text has gone through so many translations. I knew about the ways in which translators of the Bible had used their power to utilize language that would favor their interpretations and their own theologies of power and privilege.

What was new for me though, was how certain seemingly insignificant words could have been translated in more ways than one. For example, we were told that the word in Greek that usually gets translated as "in" could just as easily have been translated as "of." Ok, seems like not a big deal, right? But think about how many times the Bible tells us to have faith in Jesus. What if we were instead advised to have the faith of Jesus. To be faithful to God in the way that Jesus was. This changed everything for me!

I now understand Jesus to be an example of what we might all be capable of if we were so radically faithful, so open to and in touch with God's spirit and movement in our lives.  This also helped me understand the meaning of the Kingdom of God, or the Beloved Community of God. I believe that Jesus calls us to lives of faithfulness and communion with God and others. The Kingdom of God that Jesus teaches us about is always present and always available, if we open ourselves up to participation in it.

When Jesus tells the rich young man that he will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven, that’s not because rich people can't get in. No, it’s simply because when we live in material affluence that deprives other of their basic needs, while deadening us to the interconnectedness of life, we simply do not participate in the Beloved Community. It’s our choice and we can always choose differently.

I see examples of these choices in my own life and in the lives of many Friends. I lived in Philadelphia for a few years after college, and while I was there my car was stolen. Now I wish I could say that I chose to stop driving my car for moral or environmental reasons, but this was simply a “choice” that chose me. What it meant, though, was that instead of getting in my car and driving to work, I walked more, I talked to my neighbors more, I had interesting interactions with people on busses, trolleys, and subways, and in short I was a more fully alive participant in my community.

This choice could be seen as a sacrifice. But, in reality, it is a choice that allowed me to participate more fully in the Beloved Community of God. I remember one day in particular during this time when, as I walked the streets of the city and as I interacted with people in the subway, I felt a deep knowing and recognition. I can only describe it as an intense opening of love and joyfulness. It felt like I saw and recognized Jesus in each person I encountered. It was an ecstatic and exhilarating experience, and it lasted all day long.

How amazing is it that this is the kind of community and life that Jesus calls us to? For me, this is what Jesus means. For me, Jesus shows me a way to live that is radical, nonviolent, challenging, and ultimately life-giving. He helps us to more courageously open the doors of our hearts and minds to the beautiful and joy-filled world of love that is always present, always available, if we but have eyes to see and ears to hear. And if we strive to lead faithful lives, the kind of faith that Jesus practiced.

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©2008 Friends Publishing Corporation.  Reprinted with permission.  To subscribe: www.friendsjournal.org