The RE Podcast
The RE Podcast
S15 E2: The One About Diversity In Quakerism
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As we continue to recognise diversity in faith traditions within our worldviews curriculums, I interview Dr. Rhiannon Grant about diversity in the Quaker tradition. Senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham, her specialism is modern Quaker thought.
Following on from the episode with Matthew Guest on Quakerism more generally, this focusses on how Quakers have changed overtime, non-theistic Quakerism, global Quakerism as well as advice about how to incorporate this into the classroom and avoid misconceptions.
Rhiannon was a knowledgeable and delightful guest and so easy to listen to!
She sign posted us to some great resources;
Her book 'Quakers do what? Why?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Quaker-Quicks-Quakers-What-Why/dp/1789044057
Pink Dandelions' books on Quakers
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Quakers-Very-Short-Introduction-Introductions/dp/0199206791
Quaker speak videos
https://quakerspeak.com/
Quakers in Britain website
https://www.quaker.org.uk/
Find out more;
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Webiste: www.therepodcast.co.uk
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SPEAKER_02:Welcome to the RE Podcast, the first dedicated RE podcast for students and teachers. My name is Louisa Jane Smith and this is the RE podcast.
SPEAKER_03:The podcast for those of you who think Hori is boring, which it is, and I will prove it to you. My guest today is Dr. Rianan Grant, an honorary senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham's Department of Theology and Religion. Her specialism is modern Quaker thought, and she is here today to talk to us about diversity in Quakerism and particularly looking at non-theistic Quakerism. Now I've done an episode with Matthew Guest about Quakerism more generally, so if you haven't listened to that one, I'd suggest listening to that one first. But if you have already listened to this one, stay listening and let's welcome our guest Rhiannon. Welcome to the RE podcast. Thank you. It's good to be here. Do you want to just introduce yourself for the listeners?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I'm Rhiannon Grant, as you already heard. I work with the University of Birmingham to do Quaker studies. I also work with Woodbrook, which is a Quaker educational charity. So, as well as supporting postgraduate research students, we run lots of short courses just for anybody who's interested in Quakerism. And I also do my own research and writing. So I've done several short books about Quakerism, including one called Quakers Do What? Why? Where I try to explain all the answers to all the questions people ask me over and over about Quakers.
SPEAKER_03:Fantastic. Just remind me the name of the Educational Trust again.
SPEAKER_01:It's Woodbrook.
SPEAKER_03:Woodbrook. I'll put a link to that because actually I know that people will be interested in have a look at that. That would be fantastic. Right, that's in my note. Thank you so much. So let's just start by clarifying our terms. In case anyone isn't quite sure what Quakers are, what are Quakers?
SPEAKER_01:So Quakers are a faith group, a religious community who, in particular, their distinctive claim is that everybody can have direct access to what they might call that of God within, or the inward light. So you can have a bit of history if you want it. Quakers start in the 17th century, at a time when there are lots of religious groups with lots of new ideas, and Quakers come along and say, you don't need to be particularly specially educated, you don't need to be in a different role in society. Anybody, everybody, can have this direct access to divine guidance if we just find the right ways to listen and to hear that.
SPEAKER_03:So that would have probably been very popular with the masses and not massively great to the established church at the time, I would imagine.
SPEAKER_01:The Quakers were not massively popular with the established church. They had a habit of going in and interrupting sermons and shouting back and arguing with people, which probably didn't help, although it was more socially acceptable at the time than it would have been now. But also they challenged hierarchies, Quakers externalized this belief that everybody is equal in the eyes of God by treating everybody as a social equal. So they used the same terms at the time it was the and now. They said that to everybody instead of using a formal version for some people and an informal version for others. They refused to follow the rules of hat honour, they wouldn't use titles, they tried to get rid of those kind of social rules that set some people up above others. And that indeed made them not very popular with a lot of people, and their religious beliefs were not popular, and there was quite a suspicion that maybe they were traitors, maybe they were planning something, you know, they're going off having these weird silent meetings where nothing is planned in advance, and you know, maybe they are plotting against the king. Well, actually, we know that they weren't, but there was this suspicion at the time, and they came in for quite a lot of persecution because of those kinds of things.
SPEAKER_03:I don't know what it says about me, but I'm just loving that. That's just how my brain thinks, the disruptor of the social norm. And sort of what happened next? So this was what 16th, 17th century. I mean, guess how did it survive if it really wasn't accepted by those in power?
SPEAKER_01:It starts off in the 17th century, and then Quakers do a few things that help them to survive, I think. So if we look at other groups, Ranters and Muggletonians and diggers from that time, they didn't necessarily survive. So what was different about the Quakers? One thing was that some of the people from that first generation survived into a second generation and introduced quite a lot of stuff that turned Quakerism from a movement, a kind of chaotic explosion of everybody doing their own thing, into something much more structured and organized. So they introduced a system of having meetings, of communicating with one another, of travelling between different groups so that you could keep some kind of check on what everybody was saying. So that kind of structure, it turns Quakerism into something more like a recognizable denomination, and that helps. There are also some legal developments and changes in wider society which help Quakers to survive. So the Quakers make a point of saying we're pacifists, you don't have to worry about us physically attacking you. We might disagree with you on the spiritual stuff, but you don't have to worry about us because we take this very clear pacifist stance. People became more open to religious freedom in various ways, and Quakers were able to kind of reach an accommodation with the state in various ways, so that, for example, their marriages become legally recognised. Those things happen over time. And also Quakers spread not just across Britain but internationally right across the world by Tadae, and that kind of spread and the developing diversity is interesting, but also having different communities in different places, particularly in the early stages around the Atlantic world, enables them to survive because they're they have strong communities and strong networks, but that also enables them to get involved in business and to make money and participate in the economy.
SPEAKER_03:And something that we did in the last episode was look at the origin of the name, which is just describing a religious experience of God, of like being in the presence of God and quaking. But actually, more so now is called the Society of Friends. And those kind of almost interchangeable terminology. And I think, yeah, as you say, they're probably most famously known for being pacifists, and certainly in the classroom, that is where our students are going to interact with them in terms of their pacifism. Let's think about sort of how and this is kind of relevant to our topic today, is that how British Quakers have changed over time? What's kind of that journey been?
SPEAKER_01:So we sometimes split Quaker history up into kind of a set of eras. Obviously, this is a generalization, but it makes it easier to remember and to talk about. So we have those early generations which are kind of developing the movement, forming the structures. Then we have a period which is sometimes called quietist, which is much more about turning inwards. So Quakers set up what's sometimes called a kind of hedge, a fence around the community, so that they only marry other Quakers, they mostly trade with other Quakers. They're not separate from the world around them, but they're mostly focused on what's happening within their own community. But then as we come through times through the 18th century and into the 19th century, there's more of an outward focus. There are evangelical movements in other churches, and Quakers, or at least some of them, start to see themselves much more as part of a whole Christian community, and they want to collaborate with other churches on things like being too total, so having no alcohol. They want to work with other churches on campaigning, and some of the work around anti-slavery campaigns, for example, involve that kind of collaboration with other churches. So they have much more contact with other churches. They start to pick up ideas and to think, oh, actually, what other people are doing is quite good. And some of them move towards much more focus on the Bible rather than the inner voice of God, much more focus on the Christian tradition as opposed to a distinctive Quaker tradition. But then there's also maybe a bit of pushback against that, and also a growing awareness of the way that society, in particular science, is changing. So at the end of the 19th century and into the early 20th century, we see a shift away from that kind of evangelism of focusing on Quakerism's Christianity, and towards what we call a liberal Quakerism, so one that's focused on bringing in new information, accepting the findings of science, accepting evolution, for example, bringing in new ideas, having what's sometimes called a progressive or a developing revelation, so that by the middle of the 20th century, Quakers have got this quite clear picture that Christianity is one way to understand religion, one source of information about the divine, if you like, but also that science is important, that that is a way we genuinely learn about the world and even about the divine, about creation, and that other faiths and other traditions can be useful ways to learn about the divine and to get religious truth as well. So we get people then who are becoming interested in Buddhism and Eastern religions, that's around in the wider culture as well, but it influences Quakers, and in this much more globalized society, Quakers move towards what we sometimes call universalism, or we might recognise as a form of pluralism in the context of other Christian churches as well. Looking outwards to other sources of information, still valuing the Christian tradition, but also drawing on science and other religions.
SPEAKER_03:That's really interesting because it just feels that there's like a move that it was sort of challenging the status quo of Christianity, becoming much more assimilated to it, and then moving kind of almost like branching off from it a little bit. Because I think some of the mainstream Christian denominations would be kind of uncomfortable with embracing other religions as kind of valid paths to the divine. Which I think is interesting. Do you think then so as part of that because when you've talked about God within the Quaker tradition, again that's been sort of very much the divine line side of you to maybe then connecting much more with the Christian idea of a classical theistic god, but actually maybe now moving away from that classical idea. So how's the understanding of the concept of God changed over the history of Quaker?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, this is a really good question. Quakers are not very keen on formal theology and laying things out. I'm not clear that any of them have really believed in just the god of classical theism, as we might describe that in philosophy of religion, you know, the three omnis or whatever. I think Quakers are much more interested in the experience of God, so both the experiences of God that are recorded in the biblical texts, whether that's maybe in the Hebrew Bible, you've got Moses speaking to God directly, you've got a God who's much more emotional, who changes his mind, that kind of thing. Which maybe doesn't fit with the God of classical theism, as sometimes described anyway. And with that direct encounter with God in Christ, and in the story of Jesus and the teachings of Jesus, and Quakers were always interested in how we can have that experience now. So in the 17th century they were saying, This is happening to us now. The scriptures are one record of the Word of God, but the real Word of God is Christ, and Christ also lives on and can live in us and can be talking to us, and that idea of a spirit or an inward light that shines from God into us, and we are active in that connection now takes us quite away actually from some of the maybe detached picture that the god of classical theism can give us about what it means for there to be a divine creator and then a creation that is separate. So there's much more emphasis in Quakerism on the imminent divine, on God within us, God present and active in the world, active in the world through the actions of human beings quite often. And so that gives an opening both for Quakers to maybe sit relatively lightly to some of those traditional claims. There definitely are Quakers for whom those things are really important, for whom there is a real external divine. But there are also Quakers whose focus on the imminent has gone so far that actually they aren't worried about the transcendent bit, or the transcendent isn't necessarily transcending the whole of time and space. It's transcending the individual, transcending the ego, transcending into a world of others, of love and care and justice and those kinds of values, but also focusing on the human, focusing on how we participate, and you might get people talking about God as a metaphor, God as a verb, so instead of us worshipping a god who is outside us, we are godding, we are participating in that religious process.
SPEAKER_03:And so pluralism would be an appropriate term to use for the relationship between Quakers and God, in that there is a spectrum of understanding of what that means. And actually, I can't help thinking the story of the blind men and the elephant, in that each blind man has a concept of God and they're very different from each other, but God is big enough to incorporate all of those things. And so I think that's really interesting. And so I guess what that means is that you could be a Quaker if you want to define yourself and believe in the classical theistic God if you want to. You could be a Quaker and be a non-theistic Quaker. I don't want to say atheist, because I don't know if that's the right term to use if you have a concept of the God inside, or a concept of God as a metaphor, you're not technically an atheist, it's just a different understanding of what God is. But I presume that that pluralism slightly puts it at tension with some of the other Christian denominations.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so there definitely are Quakers who have that classical theistic picture, Quakers who believe in the resurrection, Quakers who don't believe in the resurrection, Quakers who would describe themselves as atheist, but who maybe wouldn't use the word God to describe even their experience in meeting for worship, for example.
SPEAKER_04:Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So there is that full range, and that does then create tensions sometimes within the community, but also if you're asking a question like are Quakers Christian in the context of should they join an ecumenical group? Quakers are Christian in some ways, in some really important ways. Quakers are not just historically but culturally and presently Christian and part of that developing Christian tradition. But also, there are definitely Quakers who are not Christian as individuals, there are Quakers who don't hold traditional Christian beliefs, or maybe they do at some points in their life and then they don't, and then they do, and because Quakerism doesn't want to have any kind of creed, doesn't want to have a written-down list of beliefs, it's maybe got space in the community for people to change their minds and have those kinds of debates in a way that is really useful sometimes and really difficult if you're trying to work out which side of a particular boundary does it sit.
SPEAKER_03:But I think what's interesting is that the word Christian is not in the Bible. You know, it's a term that's been created by essentially people in power, and that sort of interesting debate that we often have in RE is who gets to decide the definition of something, or who gets to decide what a Christian is and what a Christian isn't. But also that there is these sort of similar kind of tensions even within established Christianity, that there is a change in theology or a change in attitude or a change of understanding, and there are a spectrum, you know, there are people that go to church and have been baptized and call themselves Christians but don't really have a relationship with God or don't really know whether they believe in God or not. And so there are Christians in India who believe in reincarnation, and so we have this kind of interesting debate about who gets to decide and who gets to define, and the reality is that we don't as humans, you know, that actually if there is a God that that's that's the you know ultimate definition. So this is kind of Quakerism within the UK. So more globally, what's the picture there? Where is that diversity as we move to a more global picture?
SPEAKER_01:So the majority of Quakers or members of friends' churches in the world are more on the evangelical side. So the country in the world with the most Quakers is Kenya. If you went to a friend's church in Kenya, you would find singing and dancing and Bible reading and much more of a traditional kind of Christianity that you would recognise probably from other Protestant churches elsewhere in the world. So that diversity then exists in different places. In North America, for example, if we look at Quaker meetings across the USA, we find that different strands of Quakerism exist alongside each other. So in quite a lot of US cities, you'll find a Friends Church in the evangelical strand and a Quaker meeting that's more in the liberal strand, and also some other groups, so maybe a conservative friends meeting, who combine more of the unprogrammed silent style of worship with a more traditional Christian theology than you would find in a liberal unprogrammed meeting for worship. So it's really interesting to see how those things have developed over time and how depending where the origin of a community somewhere else was, so some, for example, Quakers in South Africa are more in the liberal unprogrammed tradition, whereas Quakers in Kenya arise from missionaries going from the US from an evangelical branch in the first place. So you have to trace the flows of people and ideas in order to see how that diversity has developed and spread over time.
SPEAKER_03:What I'm kind of struggling with, Rihanna, and I don't even know if there's an answer to this, is then how you define what a Quaker is. You know, that is there any sort of like core tenets that have to be present for someone to identify as a Quaker? Because it feels as though now there's such pluralism I'm not entirely sure what the common trait is.
SPEAKER_01:So I think there are different approaches to this. So you might try a theological approach, and you would probably come down to something about everybody having direct access. So although there are Quaker traditions where there's a paid pastor, they don't think that that person has special access to the divine. It's more about them having time and energy set aside to do the work of supporting the community. And actually that priesthood of all believers idea you would also find in other Protestant groups. But you might also try something more like a genealogical approach. So you would say Quakers are Quakers because they descend from a Quaker group. And you might look at a family tree sort of model. You know, I and my cousin can be extremely different. We're still related because of that family history, but we can have gone off in very different directions, and there is quite a lot of that in the Quaker movement.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And what's their relationship like with the Bible?
SPEAKER_01:So that varies depending which Quakers you ask. Some Quakers are really strong Bible readers and they're reading scripture every week. Others the Bible is maybe one source among many, and particularly in some of the liberal Quaker meetings, there can be a sense that perhaps the Bible is less important than what we're learning now, than the revelation that we continue to receive. So that can be a vexed question among Quakers, yes.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. Now this could be my complete naivety. It doesn't feel as though there is as much corruption within the Quaker tradition as maybe with other Christian denominations. Maybe because of that pluralism, because of that way that they don't necessarily have an authority, they have people that just play a role to help it to function. Would that be fair to say?
SPEAKER_01:What kind of things have you got in mind when you talk about corruption?
SPEAKER_03:Maybe oppression of others or people that are in positions of power within the denomination, maybe using that power for evil. You know, the reality is that we've had two quite significant I'm trying to be quite sensitive news stories about quite big Christian traditions where that abuse has been towards children. You know, if we think about empire and the relationship that the Christian church has had with the history of empire or slavery or oppression of women or anything like that, do we have those kind of controversial things within Quakerism? And it's not to say that then Quakerism is better, but just to say that actually when you don't have those kind of traditional power structures, it's maybe less susceptible to those things.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so unfortunately, I think you do find those things among Quakers. So there have been, sadly, cases of child abuse, for example. There are cases of abuse and violence and manipulation. These are still human communities that we're talking about, and those things are present. I think sometimes the way that they manifest is different because of those different power or authority structures that if you're working, and British Quakers often these days work with a system where you only hold a role for a set period of time. So you might have three or six years in a role, but then somebody else steps into that role. And that is intended to, and sometimes succeeds in, limiting the kind of manipulations of power that are possible. It also means that you quite often have people who are very new to a role and lack experience and can be vulnerable in that kind of way, and that you can have individuals within the community who've done just about every role over the years, and even if they don't have a formally appointed role, they have a kind of informal authority, and somebody who's inclined to manipulate or to misuse power can use that kind of informal power as well as structures that are within a formal hierarchy. So I do unfortunately hear about cases of bullying and harassment. Sometimes there can be situations where Quaker meetings lack the resources to support people or to tackle those kinds of situations effectively. It might be just as bad in another church, but sometimes perhaps lacking that structure can be as much of a problem as having too much structure. And I think there's also Quakers, obviously, we focus on the positives and the things that we've done right, and Quakers have made big ethical commitments, often in a direction that the rest of society has then followed us, so you mentioned anti-slavery campaigning and things like that. But the history is more complicated than that, and there was a period, particularly in that early period of Quakerism, where enslaving people was the norm. And Quakers were considered disruptive for coming along and saying, Well, we think you should be nice to enslaved people, we think you should let them go to meeting for worship. On the other hand, they were only saying, Send your enslaved people to meeting for worship, because obviously we're right, and they weren't saying we should abolish this system, they weren't saying we should free these people immediately. And that position only develops over a period of time, and Quakers maybe do reach it ahead of the rest of society, but it's not actually straightforward, and it takes quite a lot of debate within the community and some really strong prophetic voices calling for this and explaining what the ethics of the situation are. So I wouldn't want to paint Quakers as brilliant. I think there are some really good things about the Quaker tradition, but there are also some difficult parts in Quaker history, and it's important to be aware of those as well.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you. And the reason I'm asking that is I think because when we are talking about diversity within a tradition, part of that diversity is authenticity. And it's trying to represent something as a whole rather than overly negative or overly positive. And I think the other thing is I think a lot of us asking questions about how we prevent abuse happening within power structures. You know, it's not something that is specific to Christianity or certain types of Christians. You know, it is a global problem amongst lots of institutions, whether that's the media or religion or whatever it might be. And I think a lot of people have come to that conclusion is that power corrupts, and so actually where there are these big power structures, and people are protecting that power, that that's where abuse happens. And actually, what we're seeing is that this is not a power problem, this is a human problem. And so if there are humans involved, there is going to be a misuse of even the small amount of human power that you have to inflict on other people. So I think that's really helpful. Is there anything else we kind of need to understand about global Quakerism and the diversity within that?
SPEAKER_01:I think we've covered the main things about theological diversity. We could talk more about the diversity of worship practice if you're interested in that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that would be really helpful, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I think I kind of alluded to this earlier as a sideline to the theological diversity. But people might have a picture of what a Quaker meeting in Britain looks like, where perhaps people sit round in a circle or on benches, you have an hour or so of worship, which is mainly silent, except if somebody is led to speak. So there's this sense of listening and waiting, and of surprise, and the unexpected could happen. And somebody might offer a reading from the Bible or from a Quaker text, they might reflect on an experience or a news story, something that they're praying about or that's on their heart at that time. There might be complete silence, or sometimes there might be prayer or even a song. But there's an emphasis on creating a space for whatever to happen in. So using silence as a tool to open that space to encourage people to listen and to let go of their preconceptions and the things that they worry about during the week and not to be writing a shopping list or planning dinner or whatever. And that sense of openness and anybody being free to speak is carried over into the services of Friends Churches, which, as well as having some singing and some prepared Bible reading and a talk that is at least partially planned in advance, although actually anyone who's given a sermon in any church knows that sometimes you get moved by the spirit to say something else and your script can go out the window. But also, rather than bread and wine communion, Quakers might use communion after the manner of friends, which is an open space in which there'll be some silence and people will speak. They might pray or request prayer, there might be requests for healing or testimony about what's happened, or reflections on news stories and what's going on in the world, and those kinds of things as well. So one way to look at this, you asked earlier about what brings the family of friends together, is there a theological connection? And I was talking about this idea of everybody having access and making a space for everybody to listen and to speak if they feel led to. And we could see that reflected in the worship practices, that although there are different ways to approach Quaker worship, and even Quakers who are firmly in the unprogrammed tradition and would normally have an hour of silence, unprepared worship on Sunday morning, will also sometimes have an all-age worship or a semi-programmed worship, where we make it easier for particularly people of different ages, but also people with different learning styles and things to participate by having some kind of prompt, maybe reading a story at the beginning, or having a song that we sing together, or an activity to do. There might be colouring or modelling or cuddly toys or any of those sorts of things. So we can see perhaps in that shared worship that there are connections and that this idea about everybody having access to the divine message is embodied in the way that people worship together, and that can come out differently in different contexts, but there is still this idea of making sure that there's space for everybody to listen and to speak if they feel moved.
SPEAKER_03:And I think you know, for some people that context would be quite difficult because they don't know what's going to happen. And I think, particularly in Britain, is we're not very comfortable with that space where no one knows quite what they're doing. But I think for other people that is such an inclusive, welcoming, empowering space in order to be able to connect to something greater than themselves. But I think what's interesting through all the answers you've given is that there is not just one way to do things. You know, that diversity within Quakerism is not just about the people, it's not just about the tradition or the history, but actually it's allowing humans to express themselves in their own authentic way rather than having to fit into a style that has been decided for that particular denomination. And I think that kind of leads me nicely onto my next question, which is that I think sometimes we simplify Quakerism and actually by doing that we maybe create misconceptions. And so therefore, we have this kind of 2D version that Quakerism is just a group of people sitting silently in a room for an hour and then going home. What kind of misconceptions do you come across when you're speaking to people about the Quaker tradition?
SPEAKER_01:Well, there's the one about Quaker oats. I hear that quite often. I think there can be a misconception that Quakers are historical and not around today. If you've read about Quakerism in the context of the English Civil Wars and not understood that actually this is a movement that's survived and changed and developed. I think there can be misconceptions about what it means to be religious. So I think in the context of an RE podcast, we have a picture that there are a whole range of different religions, and that in something like Buddhism, you would also find people who have a range of different traditions who are participating in what we would now call a religious tradition, but might not believe in the god of classical theism, for example. And I think there can be a misconception that the word religious on the beginning of religious society of friends has to mean something like traditional Christianity or traditional theism. And of course now I've described Quakerism for you, you can see that that isn't the case at all. I think there can be a misconception that Quakers are good, so sometimes when people say, Oh I could never be a Quaker, they say, Oh I'm not good enough, as well as I couldn't sit in silence for an hour, which actually you don't necessarily have to do. And some of the stories that we tell, as you say, when you tell a story, you simplify it, that can turn into a misconception. So there are misconceptions about pacifism. So Quakers as a movement are mostly historically pacifist. What that means has varied for different Quakers at different times. Quakers have not necessarily been pacifists, they've sometimes joined up, they've sometimes taken non-combatant roles, they've been active in war. Pacifism doesn't necessarily mean passive, and if you're going out running the Friends Ambulance unit, you might be going into the line of fire, you might be trying to help all of the wounded equally, but you're not sitting at home, you're not being cowardly. But it's equally valid as a Quaker expression to say, I'm not even going to help in that kind of way. I want nothing to do with this war at all, even if that means that I'm put in prison for it. And so there are a wide range of different expressions of that kind of conscientious objection to war. And I think it can be easy to flatten pacifism into maybe just the extremes, or into something that's focused on being passive or not doing, where particularly Quakers today would focus on active peace building.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so actually pacifism is a verb, it's a doing word that you have to work, you know, you're peacemakers, you know, and and that's really important. And I think, you know, when we're teaching any tradition, the nuance and diversity is important and the language is important. And I think that we're moving more into, you know, if we look at the history of RE, it was kind of predominantly Christianity, and then it was Christianity and world religions, and we looked at diversity between religions, and now we're looking at diversity within religions. The next step is diversity within each individual tradition. And so I think at the moment we're still sometimes a little bit stuck on Catholics think this, Quakers think this, Protestants think this. Actually, we still need to go that one step further and go, some Quakers, other Quakers, and just that language I think is really important. And I don't necessarily, you know, I'm just looking for my own practice, I've made that step into diversity within each tradition. You know, because I think that's difficult. As you say, it's much easier to simplify things and flatten things and put them into neat boxes. And I think it's a real challenge for us as RE teachers to create diversity, just very simply, just within that language of some and other. Do you have any sort of other advice if we are teaching about Quakerism, traps not to fall into, or discover something that could support or improve our teaching of Quaker?
SPEAKER_01:I think what you've just said about noticing diversity, even if you can't go into all the details, is quite useful, probably for all traditions and not just Quakerism. I think you used the word authenticity earlier, and I think that idea that each person is trying to be true to their own experience, and that means that they're going to have a range of different expressions, a range of different opinions, a range of different interpretations of what it means to them to be pacifist in this moment and this situation. I think that's quite helpful because it supports that idea of diversity, but also with something shared, that there is this shared commitment to truth-telling, and again I imagine this would stand for a lot of other traditions that people are doing their best to tell the truth as they have it, and that is limited in all sorts of ways because we are limited human beings, but also that we recognise the integrity of people's attempts, and I think that's quite important in talking about diversity generally, that we're not necessarily pitching one person against another and saying, Oh, you know, they disagree, so one of them must be right and the other one must be wrong, even if we can't possibly know which way round that is, but we can frame it as there is this diversity because people are different because they have different experiences as well as different background and different knowledge.
SPEAKER_03:Is there a danger of universalism being used? You know, that actually what we really need to have is critical realism. You know, that there are more than one truth, but there are things that are false. And I'm just wondering to what extent within the Quaker tradition there is an understanding that there are things that are I don't know, maybe there isn't a sense of absolutes, maybe there isn't this sense that things are always wrong for all people in all times. Is there a danger maybe of being too pluralistic and too universalist that we accept any interpretation?
SPEAKER_01:So I think it depends quite a lot what area you're talking about. So modern liberal Quakerism is very, very relaxed about theology, to the point where even being clear about your own theology might be a bit taboo, and people would like you to stay uncertain and to say, oh well, we don't really know about metaphysics, for example. But the position is quite different when you come to ethics. So if we see and I think a traditional Quaker approach would see a link between truth and goodness, and between falsehood and evil or harm, and in that kind of ethical context, you can see Quakers drawing quite clear lines, so it might mean different things to different people to be pacifist, but what they are interested in is not killing not causing harm, not supporting harm. Sometimes that might even have come to the point of saying what's going on is so bad that violence is necessary, but almost always it comes to nonviolence, to perhaps creative nonviolence, perhaps non violent but physical resistance, and to all sorts of campaigning and protests and making your point within the political system through diplomatic channels by talking to people and negotiating an opening space for people to listen to each other, and I think a lot of peace building rests there. But there is something absolute about not harming. So when you frame universalism in that very broad way, we're crossing over both theology and ethics, and I think. I think Quakers have different approaches in those two fields.
SPEAKER_03:And I'm always interested because I think people have caused harm because of their moral beliefs, and that's always an interesting one in terms of again who defines what harm is. And so some people think allowing people to sin is harming somebody. So you have to stop them from sinning. You know, and actually, even just you know, chemical castration of gay people was seen as a moral action to protect someone from harm. And so, you know, there's kind of nuance within that. I mean, it's so fascinating, and I think that to understand Quaker is kind of refreshing. It creates a kind of really beautiful space for us to stand back and just observe without the absolute structures of ways of approaching things and thinking. And I think people are nervous of freedom. I think people have this idea that humans are inherently bad and they're giving them too much freedom and taking away those rigid structures is going to create something unmanageable. And actually, what Quakers have done is shown that that's not necessarily true, is that actually if you take away rigid structures and if you create freedom and you allow space for authenticity, overall it's something that's quite positive. And actually, I don't know if this is too much of a reach, but there's something quite anarchical about Quakers in that we don't need a power structure to tell us what to do and what not to do, that humans kind of instinctively know what's right and wrong. I don't know if that's too much of a reach.
SPEAKER_01:Well yeah, I think there's something to it, and I think there's something about the Quaker tradition that's about balancing the need for structure and predictability, and actually somebody to take on the role of making the tea or unlocking the building. And also this sense that everybody is equal and that we have different gifts, but that we can all participate in making the community what we want it to be. So, yeah, there is something, if not anarchical, then at least non-hierarchical about that, and about trying to do that experiment really to see what things are like if you set aside some of those structures that we find in the rest of society.
SPEAKER_03:And just as we close, is there a good place to go to get some good resources that we can use in the classroom?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so there are some good websites. So the website of Quakers in Britain has resources about what it's like to go to a Quaker meeting, has videos with Quakers talking about their faith. The website QuakerSpeak is based in the US, but they have a website and a YouTube channel with lots of short videos with different Quakers talking about their experience and their perspective on all of the things we've talked about today and many more. So those would be really good resources if you want to get a Quaker voice into your classroom. And there are also quite a lot of books that are introductions to Quakerism. So Ben Pink Dandelion did a very short introduction to Quakerism, which gives a good overview for something a bit longer and more academic. He also did an introduction to Quakerism, which gives you much more of the history and background and would fill in the gaps in a lot of what I've said today. There are also books mainly aimed at Quakers, but which give an introduction to what does it mean to go to meeting for worship, why do people do it, what's actually happening, and books about Quaker pacifism as well. So yeah, there are lots of resources and I could um send a list or something if you want to put it on the website.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that would be fantastic. Yeah, and I I've got obviously your book as well, Quakers Do What? Why, which I'll put on there as well, plus the Quakers Speak. Yeah. So lots of great stuff there. Thank you so much. And just kind of any final thoughts you want to leave the listeners with.
SPEAKER_01:Well, after all those things I said about being authentic and expressing yourself, I guess that's my final thought that this is part of the Quaker tradition, but it's also for all of us. Quakers think that we can all, if we listen, have access to this divine guidance, and we can understand that in many different ways, but it is there and available to everybody, and it tends to lead towards love and justice.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, okay, they're two of my favourite words. And if you could wake up tomorrow, Ryan, and one thing was different about the world, what would you want it to be?
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's tempting to say I'd want everyone to be a Quaker. I'm not sure that I actually would. No. Because we'd lose all of this wonderful diversity. I think if I could have one thing to change, it would be for everybody to have time to listen to each other, rather than leaping to conclusions and relying on prejudices and judgments made in advance. So just making that space, which so often we're in a hurry and we don't have time to actually listen. Events overtake us.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And if we could make that space to really connect with one another, that would be my change.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and I think we're sometimes really scared to listen to views that are different from us. I think it takes a lot of bravery to not talk and just to listen to somebody. And I think, you know, not necessarily more now than ever, but particularly at the moment, it's so important that we listen to the voices that we're trying to shut out. Oh my goodness, thank you so much, Rihanna. This has been so helpful and such a lovely progression from just a basic understanding of Quakerism to kind of take it into that authentic diversity. And I really hope that this episode makes our representation of Quakerism better. And to be comfortable with the messiness, and I think that's something that I've got a sense of this: that RE is messy and we know this, and too often we try and tidy it up and neaten it up. And actually, what's beautiful about RE is its messiness. So thank you for giving us a space where we can celebrate that. Thank you. It's been good to talk. My name is Louisa Jane Smith, and this has been the RE Podcast. The podcast for those of you who think RE is boring, but it is not. It challenges us to stand up for love and justice. But thank you so much for listening to us bore the life out of you.