Religion & Politics; Social Activism
RELIGION & POLITICS (6)
266. Mending the World: Quaker Insights on the Social Order (by Kenneth Ewart Boulding; 1986)
About the Author—Kenneth E. Boulding was born in England in 1910 and educated at New College, Oxford and the University of Chicago. He served the League of Nations. He is a member of the Committee on Research for Peace of the Institute for International Order, and full time Director of the Center for Research in Conflict Resolution of the University of Michigan; he is also Professor of Economics there.
True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their efforts to mend it. William Penn
[Quaker concern for mending]—Quakerism was founded in a world that was torn apart by the Reformation, and by sects within the Reformation. The English Civil War, aside from Ireland was not as devastating as the war in Germany, but it tore the country apart. The restoration of Charles II that followed was a time of bitter persecution for Friends. The concern for “mending the world” came out of living in this time and out of a hunger for perfection. George Fox’s mystical experience included identification with the sinlessness of Christ and the innocence of Adam before the fall. The great message of perfectionism is that what is torn can be mended if we put our hearts and minds to mending it. Disillusionment with the hypocrisies and inadequacies of the existing order often turns people to seek for something within themselves.
[George Fox, Testimonies & Mending]—George Fox said: “When all my hopes in [clergy] … were gone, so I had nothing outwardly to help me … then I heard a voice which said, “There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition”; & when I did hear it, my heart did leap for joy.” Here inward & outward mix. He clearly discovered an inward Christ that paralleled the Bible’s & churches’ outward Christ. Early excess couldn’t destroy a sense of belonging, not only to a historical community but to the spirit & the [divine] revelation.
Once the big rip that separates from God is mended, life is different. Things which perhaps weren’t seen in need of mending before are now seen as needing it. [Sometimes], withdrawal from further tearing is an important step towards ultimate mending. Loving one’s enemies always means treating them as fellow human beings. In the life of Christ, one cannot really have enemies, people whose lives and welfare have a negative value for you.
Some [testimonies] were symbolic for particular times, like “hat honor,” plain language, & plain dress. Symbols of denying legitimacy are very powerful in social change, so the Quaker testimonies on equality in manners may have had much more impact on the larger world than is generally recognized. The more fundamental testimony of strict veracity & honesty had an impact far beyond the Society of Friends’ limits. [For example], fixed pricing made economic decisions much easier & certainly had something to do with the market economy’s rise.
[Quakers: Science and Law]—It was no accident that Friends played quite a disproportionate role in developing technology and science, [particularly] in the so-called Industrial Revolution in England in the 18th century. Quakers were also prominent in banking, lead, china, pharmaceuticals, clocks, chocolate, canals and the first railroads. The 2 best known Quaker names in the scientific community are John Dalton, founder of modern chemistry (18th century), and Arthur S. Eddington, involved in modern physics (early 20th century).
There is a certain similarity between the ethic which underlies science & the Society of Friends’ ethic. There are 4 principal components of the scientific ethic involving placing a high value on: curiosity; testing; veracity; [& direct personal experience]. It is interesting that these 4 principles also are law characteristics, especially of common law. It was Quaker insistence on fundamental common law principles that led the early Friends into trouble with the law as it then stood. But they changed the law even as it persecuted them; they mended it.
[Quakers & Politics]—The impact of Friends on political life has been complex and by no means easy to assess. [This Society] was a remarkable experiment [that greatly limited the hierarchy and used a comprehensive democracy]. Decisions were made by the “sense of the meeting,” as interpreted by clerk, rather than by voting. Representative to the larger meetings were selected by the “sense of the meeting.” Unless democratic government has a culture of “mending” internal conflicts and disputes beyond the mere formalism of majority rule, it is not likely to survive. The Quaker administration in Pennsylvania lasted a surprisingly long time, at least 70 years, before it succumbed to the strains of the French and Indian War; its impact was considerable. The spirit of Penn’s “frame of government” lives on in the Constitution, even though the “covenant of peace” does not.
Even though John Woolman’s [contribution to the anti-slave movement] had little impact outside the Society of Friends, the fact that a significant group of reasonably prosperous people could abandon slavery and remain prosperous set an example that contributed to the disappearance of slavery. The English Quaker John Bright played a small part in preventing Britain’s intervention in the American Civil War. Mahatma Gandhi was in contact with several Quakers, and [the principles of his nonviolent movement were certainly in harmony with Quaker principles]. The extraordinarily successful Quaker missionary effort in Kenya in the early part of the 20th century [brought a] political “mending” of a society in danger of being torn apart by tribal and racial conflict.
[The Schisms in American Quakerism/ Social Gospel Movement]—In the 19th century in the US the Society of Friends was torn apart by a succession of schisms. There was a bitter split between “Hicksites” & “Orthodox” in 1828. Within the Orthodox there was a split between the more evangelical “Gurneyites” & the more quiet & traditional “Wilburites.” [Gurneyites split further] between evangelical & revivalist groups on the one hand, & more middle-of-the-road Friends churches that eventually formed the 5-YM or Friends United Meeting.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Friends, especially the more “liberal” groups, in both the pastoral and the non-pastoral meetings participated in the “social gospel” movement, which expressed itself in both the Catholic and Protestant Churches. In both Britain and the US the social gospel of the churches and the secular and political movement for social reform went hand-in-hand with the labor movement. The British labor movement was more Methodist than Marxist. The US movement was strongly influenced by the Catholic Church.
The cooperative movement, dating back to the 1840’s in Rochdale, developed a somewhat new form of business organization in retailing. There has been a movement expansion of the state’s powers and activities. One facet is the greater regulation and control of private industry through such things as anti-trust laws. Another important movement has been the development of social insurance against unemployment, ill health, and old age.
The complex movement I have described above has been described as a movement towards a “welfare state.” It seeks to modify & ameliorate a market system’s tendency to produce unacceptable inequality in the distribution of riches, political power, & human dignity. To some extent social capitalism can be thought of as an expansion of the family ethic to the larger society, where young & old are supported by the activity of those in middle life, & the ill have been supported by the well. [The state enters where private distributions are inadequate].
[Modern World Mending]—What is in need of mending now? What sort of region of time are we in? What processes are we in the middle or end of? If it is a stable region, the recent past is good guide to the future. [In a period of change], immediate past is no guide at all. We may need to look to episodes, some quite distantly past, to give us a guide to what the future may be like. In my lifetime I have seen the development of television, computers, & nuclear power & weapons, none of which have had the impact that electricity & cars did; change may slow down now.
Nuclear weapons and the long-range missile have produced a new region of time, in which national defense has become the greatest enemy of national security. If present systems continue, San Francisco will be destroyed by an earthquake in X years, and the US and USSR, [and perhaps much more], will be destroyed by nuclear war in Y years. We see a science-based technology producing a long increase in what might be called “average riches,” mainly in the temperate zones. From a predominantly rural, immobile class structure, and small communities, we have passed into larger, urbanized, highly mobile, world-oriented, communicative society of today. One of the most striking features of the US in the last 200 years has been the rise of organized religion, to the point where over 60% of the population is now church members.
[Marxism, Capitalism, and Colonialism]—Another long movement of the 20th century has been the rise of a new secular political religion of Marxism. Marxism has challenged all the older religions, especially the Judeo-Christian complex. It promised a better world for the grandchildren; it hasn’t happened. The increases in riches have been achieved with the loss of personal freedom, failure to achieve anything like political democracy, tyrannical governments, and disastrous mistakes. In China there was the Great Leap Forward [actually a leap backward) and the tragedy of the Cultural Revolution. The worst tragedy of all was Cambodia, where a policy based on class war may have taken 2,000,000 lives and a near-perpetual civil war.
In the capitalist world, the period from about 1950 to 1973 was something of a golden age, in which per capita income doubled and in which poverty diminished. In many parts of the tropics the poorest got poorer. Large parts of Africa, especially, face a nightmare of soil erosion and population increase, leading to famine and enormous human misery. [Some countries suffer from a very rapid population growth.
One remarkable thing that has happened politically since the end of WWII has been the abandonment of empire by the British, the French, the Dutch, the Belgians, & the Portuguese. In one sense Soviet Union & the People’s Republic of China are the last of the 19th century empires, with the possible exception of Ethiopia. China would be better off without Tibet, & the Russians would be better off without Uzbekistan, Estonia & the others.
[Old Nightmares & New Uncertainties]—The old nightmare was the Great Depression of the 1930’s, which brought capitalism to a cliff’s edge & represented a severe shock to the belief [in self-correcting markets]. ¼ of the US labor force was unemployed, an even higher proportion in Germany & Australia. In 1932 & ’33, real national income was ¾ of what it had been in 1929, the unemployed were worse off, some of the employed were better off, debtors worse off & creditors better off. Compared with the catastrophe in the USSR’s 1st Collectivization at the same time, the Great Depression in the US seemed mild; it was bad enough.
During the War, the war industry rose to 42% of the economy. There was an illusion in the 1950’s that only the war industry can save us from unemployment. We cannot help wondering whether what has happened once could happen again, or whether we have built enough defenses in economic policy against a recurrence. The number of permanently poor people isn’t large, but poverty circulates through quite a large population section at the lower income levels. The United States hasn’t gotten very much richer since the late 1970’s; unemployment was 7% to 10%. The increase of war industry meant forgone civilian production & a productivity decline through a brain drain from civilian to war industry. The debt & interest burden is getting close to 10% & is a very severe burden. This is beginning to affect the banking system.
[There has been] great difficulty in solving the inflation-unemployment dilemma. Psychologically, we might summarize the inflation problem by saying it is a result of everyone wanting more than there is to have, with some people thinking they can get away with it! Inflation is an addictive drug, rather like heroin. It works, but we need larger doses of inflation to produce the same effect. My own view is that this problem is soluble within the framework of social capitalism. Many devices have been suggested, [e.g.] taxation of increased income due to increase in money wages or prices, or moderate price, wage, & interest control.
[Learning to Mend the World]—The institution of stable peace has been growing around the world ever since it started, probably in Scandinavia after the Napoleonic Wars. We have enormously expanded the cultural repertoire of the human race. With all this we have clearly not done enough. [We need a] more conscious learning process towards human betterment; up until now much of the movement towards betterment has been unconscious. The world scientific community has been grossly remiss [by] developing systems for our destruction, [rather than for our betterment]. To an alarming extent the scientific community has turned away from its larger responsibilities to the total system of the human race, [with only] a few lonely voices raised in protest.
It may seem almost ludicrous to suppose that a group as small as the Society of Friends could make any contribution to this overwhelmingly important problem. The Society of Friends has a disproportionate number of members of the scholarly community. [How could there be an] application of the ethic and method of the scholarly community [to the process of guiding] the human situation from bad to better rather than from bad to worse? Could this lead into development of projects, institutions, and political and legal structures which would increase the probability of human betterment? One could visualize perhaps an “invisible college” dedicated to normative analysis, involving a deep commitment to the scholarly ethic.
What I am proposing here is in a sense a new discipline. The 1st object of study would be the formation of human valuations themselves. Another area of study is how human valuations express themselves in human decisions. How are our “future” images formed and how are they valued [in decision-making]? It would include a study of “bad decisions,” of disappointment, [and of unexpected results of decisions]. This would involve the study of decisions of the powerful. Underlying all decisions is an intricate structure of beliefs, feelings, and motivations, which could be called the “moral environment.”
Those who have “narrow” moral vision [including little beyond themselves] are generally criticized & regarded as “bad.” Those who have a broad moral vision, [including as much of the rest of the world as they can manage], tend to regard themselves as “good.” The question of how people learn to be alienated, selfish, & malevolent is something that needs much further study. But those who have a broad moral vision, if that vision is unrealistic, may do much more harm to the human race than the narrowly selfish, particularly if they achieve positions of power. One not impossible dream is that the Society of Friends might employ some human & financial resources to develop an institute devoted to the study of human betterment. To mend the world we need a sewing needle, perhaps even better a sewing machine; the Society of Friends is in a good position to make one.
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14. Religion and Politics (by Wilhelm Sollmann; 1941)
Introduction [About the Author]—Friedrich Wilhelm Sollmann's (1881-1951) outspoken criticism & working for democracy catapulted him to the forefront of German politics at World War I's end. He was the editor of a daily paper in Cologne, 10 Rhineland periodicals, & a political expert with the German Versailles delegation in 1919. He helped found the German republic, & influenced the constitution's final draft. He was a potent voice in the Reichstag for 15 years & twice Interior Secretary. He helped organize passive resistance to French troops in the Ruhr Valley. He educated people in democratic citizenship as editor, columnist, national news service director, & on an adult education board. He was the 1st member of parliament to be attacked by Nazi stormtroopers.
Exiled in 1933, he became acquainted with members of the Society of Friends at Woodbrooke in England, & now lives in the US. He taught at Pendle Hill for 13 years. He believed that religion served as a moral compass for liberal democracy so long as it retained vitality; this pamphlet outlines this view.
Introduction [By the Author]—: "A man who aspires after loving the meanest creature as oneself cannot afford to keep out of any field of life ... Those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is." Mahatma Gandhi
"I can indeed imagine an ethical politician ... who conceives the principles of statecraft so that they can coexist with moral law." Immanuel Kant
"While I am as far as ever from being able to go into politics myself, I should now hold that God may be just as truly revealed in a person who enters this field and accepts conditions which I couldn't ... as in a devoted evangelist." Henry T. Hodgkin
To ignore the relations among the citizens of a nation & between nations is to be indifferent toward the integration or disintegration of society; it is to leave to irreligious people decisions about peace & war. With irresistible dynamic power politics thrusts itself even into the religious field. Religion, on the other hand, shows itself as passive toward politics. Politics has been the poorer for lack of religious characters engaged in political leadership. The deep disillusionment with the church is the result of its actions and inaction along certain lines.
A dictatorship sets out to train a whole nation in one line of thought & action. It must consider religious independence [of even small groups] as a political danger, especially in respect to young people. Every religious person has a higher loyalty [than the state]. Dictatorships must exclude religious freedom. Separation of religion from politics is impossible. Religion can never identify itself with a single political or social creed. Religion deals with the spiritual redemption of humankind, an eternal task essential in all periods of history & under all systems of political administration and economic organization.
Oppression, Ancient and Modern—Seldom or never has a church or a body politic been free from oppression. "Concentration camps," secret police, inquisitions, torture, gallows, the stake, the cross are neither German or Russian peculiarities. In the very midst of the 18th century capitalistic system, Marx & Lenin were allowed to develop, print & spread their ideas in opposition to that system. Perhaps never before did a ruling economic system accord such liberal treatment to its opponents. Under the capitalistic order political, social, religious freedom & tolerance were more highly developed than ever before. This freedom was greatest in the most capitalistic countries, Great Britain & the US. Never have religious groups suffered under a capitalistic regime as they suffer in the anti-capitalistic states.
Under competitive economic systems there is increased nationalism & world-wide antagonism of our gigantic national economies. Under dictatorships, community is always limited to one race or single class. How does one develop non-competitive society without sacrificing individual freedom? Pope Pius XI's Quadragesimo anno encyclical combined criticism of liberal Capitalism with warning against the state's omnipotent power. Is democracy of the masses possible without dictatorship by the masses? Belief in democracy doesn't mean belief in the masses' infallibility. How can Christians teach dangers of deifying masses or leaders when many shun the company of political sinners? Jesus & his 12 didn't seclude themselves from [such pople].
Security & Freedom—As Christians we must be alarmed that in the struggle for social security millions of people are ready to let go of freedom. In dictatorships security is available only to people who ready for total submission to the ruling political caste. The one who keeps faith with ones ideals must pay for it with economic insecurity, imprisonment, death or exile. How does one balance security & freedom in a political system? This is the most difficult question under any political system because it is more deeply rooted than any other in our material institutions & routine. An individual must have higher responsibilities than obedience to class, party or deified leader. Oppression & persecution have been practiced under many systems & in all nations. In nations, those which are victorious, prosperous, satisfied, with ample territories, produce a different government & economic system from those which are defeated, impoverished, dissatisfied, & confined within narrow boundaries.
Christian democracy must reject self-righteousness and self-complacency. The unprecedented power of modern dictatorships lies in their efficiency in oppression, persecution, and corrupting propaganda. Only with our technical instruments is a government able to control all aspects of public and private life over a large territory. It is incorrect and unwise to talk as if there were only a difference of degree between modern democracy and the totalitarian dictatorship; the cleavage between them is deep and impassable.
Criticism of Democracy—Criticism of democracy is as justifiable as is discontent with other human institutions. Democracy believes that human beings & institutions may develop to higher civilization only by a lot of individual liberty. Even in its army, democracy envisions only an instrument of the government [controlled by & made up] of democratic civilians. The soldier is the dictator's ideal; war is the highest manifestation of the moral strength of individual & nation. [There are only soldiers: of labor; of food production]; uniformed youth; mothers producing the greater armies of the future. The ruling philosophy excludes all intellectual & spiritual challenge [in order to pursue] class war, race war, or world revolution. During the war in Europe], not one political, pacifist, or religious group was able to work for peaceful change in social & international relations on the basis of equality. Quaker relief work has been possible only because these agencies have wisely limited activities to charity. In the dictatorships, a number of pacifists have already paid for their convictions with torture & death.
Not by chance but by logical consistency, the highest degree of religious liberty and the widest variety of denominations exist in the US. On the whole, religious tolerance in this country is worthy of democracy's spirit, and it could not have developed without political freedom. This should stimulate us to improve democracy by making Christians more Christians and democrats more democratic. Neither defense nor improvement of democracy will be possible from the basis of a negative and unproductive criticism. Democracy and Christianity have in common the conviction and the experience that real improvement requires slow growth. Historically speaking, liberty and a full larder go hand in hand; dictatorships look toward the democratic US for food stuffs.
Moral Growth is Slow—Democracy has never been a material issue alone, nor will it ever be. In 1647, Colonel Rainboro imagined groups varying in social standing, and demanded for the humblest the right to live his own life however difficult and troublesome it might be. That right and responsibility belong to everyone. Does a class society or a classless society help more toward the attainment of [self-expression and redemption]? It is doubtful whether a classless society offers more opportunity for individual self-realization than a society with many social groups and class differences. One may accept democracy or reject it, but one can't believe in the potential autonomy of all and still support political systems with super-classes, super-races, and the deification of one political philosophy and its leader. Is the contrast between democratic ideals and reality any greater than that between Christian ideal and action? Democracy's brotherhood of men and Christianity's Kingdom of God are very close together; we are no nearer to one than to the other.
All really great things in life grow slowly; this seems to be an unavoidable law in nature, ethics, [& democracy]. There are no short cuts to reason, understanding, justice, and love in the realm of human relations. Each generation of humankind can [safely] make only microscopic contributions to [humanity's] growth. History teaches us that premature actions are reactionary rather than progressive in their effect, creating national and international explosions no less evil than belated action.
[The rash and vainglorious actions of dictators can lead to military machines, conquest, racial fanaticism, class tyranny, and thinly disguised imperialism]. All too many authors have praised as dynamic progress what was merely the return to a primitiveness which we had believed to have been overcome forever. The essentials of Christian democracy are the striving for Truth & the good of individuals. Growing wisdom, vigilant patience, and courageous action are the trinity of democratic needs and [the basis of] spiritual growth.
Democracy is Young—Inequalities our forefathers accepted as unalterable are now violently opposed by millions. Mass movements organized for the purpose of embodying economic equality, social justice, and social security in the solid structure of government are not as yet a century old. 100 years ago, [social] evils were accepted with indifference by nearly everyone including most Christian churches. Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, and the US are still leading the world to in material and spiritual standards. Are we disappointed in democracy, or confused because of democratic life's complexity? It is very difficult to be great in a democracy, where the shortcomings of the most august leader must stand the harsh glare of public scrutiny.
In a democracy we must face life in all its contrasts of knowledge and ignorance, bravery and cowardice, tenderness and brutality, honesty and corruption. Democracy means eternal struggle between a multitude of interests, creeds, dreams. A democratic country never knows periods of rest, of settling down and enjoying the achievements of the past. Every generation will have believers in and prophets of a still better society, which will be proclaimed in the clear bright atmosphere of intellectual freedom.
It is the lack of revealing criticism which has deceived many well-meaning intellectuals and even political scientists into becoming supporters of Communism and Fascism. The present crisis of our civilization is caused by many forces: tremendous productive capacity; lack of purchasing power; lack of national and international cooperation; impoverishment of ethical and spiritual life; lack of audacity and imagination in [supporting democratic revolution]. The remaining democracies are certainly more highly developed than any totalitarian system in all fields of human endeavor, save one. A dictatorship is better able to prepare for total war unhampered by public criticism than is a democracy. [A dictatorship's staying power] in a long war remains open to question. The only recognizable achievement of dictatorships turns out to be their hindrance of all constructive work in all countries, dictatorship or democracy, [by preparing for and waging war].
Mental Impoverishment—There is a certain amount of truth to the theory that Germany and Italy turned to dictatorship and militarism as their only option as "have not" nations, but propaganda has exaggerated it greatly. Germany has never been a "have-not" nation, nor will Germany ever be. Her people have astonishing technical and scientific skill, discipline, order and thrift. The theory of the "haves" and "have-nots" is more sen-timental than realistic. "Have" and "have-not" labels makes us susceptible to imperialistic arguments. The existence of colonies would exclude the self-determination of the inhabitants of the colony. We must envision a worldwide federation of free people with equal rights to markets and raw materials.
The dictatorship's teaching is drill rather than education. Free research is abolished as well as free worship. The result is intellectual and spiritual indigence. Modern dictatorships often have to use or abuse [at least the appearance] of democratic methods. The same dictators who oppressed political religious and racial minorities at home demanded equal rights for their nations in international relations. Totalitarianism does not pay; the undercurrent of democratic resistance is too strong. In spite of gigantic efforts they have only increased poverty within the nations and fear among the nations.
How strong must the power of democracy be when 3 decades of wars, civil wars, persecutions, terrorism have been unable to crush it. Dictatorships pay reverence to the spirit of democracy, but they are not able to understand it. Vainly they try to realize the dream of happiness for all by force. Dictatorships will never achieve justice and peace. Their terrorizing corrupts all moral forces that work for peaceful evolution. Only in democracy are all free to compete with the dark forces which they have inherited from the past.
International Cooperation has Worked—People despair of international cooperation after only a short-lived attempt to create international machinery for peace. The League of Nations failed because it was neither democratic nor universal, being based on the dominance of the victorious over the defeated.The reluctance of the US to join deprived it of the most powerful and experienced of the democratic countries.
The League of Nations included 60 of 65 sovereign nations in existence. It created the World Court in 1920 at the Hague. This court stands as the 1st attempt to create world justice by law. One other success of the League was the Saar Territory's administration from 1920 to 1935. A legal & peaceful plebiscite was held in 1935; 90% of the mostly German population voted to rejoin the Fatherland. 5 notable failures of the League to resolve conflicts worldwide are standard material in all peace groups, while the League's peaceful solution of the Saar conflict isn't so widely used. The temptation to yield to negative criticism is strong even in Christian pacifist circles.
Doing Justice to the League of Nations—Frequent doubts about international democratic cooperation is based on the Disarmament Conference's failure to achieve its aim. An international peace technique is completely new and lacks experience with the momentous question of how to reduce armament without endangering national security. How can all people achieve permanent peace? When I worked on disarmament, the literature presented practically no technical answers to the technical questions. The first Disarmament Conference will find a successor which will lead us another step further along the road to world community. The building up of an effective democratic peace machine is not the work of one generation.
[Failure to see any of the League's successes led to the negative psychology that Hitler's war of revenge was inevitable]. Parts of this militaristic treaty and its astronomical reparations were altered by Germany's passive resistance and patient diplomatic negotiations. It is incorrect to claim that no concessions were made and that therefore peaceful change did not work. The peace treaty at Versailles was unjust and unwise, but [it led to some successes], and Europe was a paradise compared with its present state. Germany by abolishing the methods of international democracy deprived herself and the world of a unique opportunity. A disarmed democratic Germany in an armed world would have been strong support to all friends of peace, democracy, and Christianity. Such a Germany would have been better off than even a victorious Germany after this costly war.
Need to Influence the Masses—Christian democrats are thinking of living the spirit of community in small groups. They consider it impossible to permeate the existing large social units with a sense of brotherly solidarity. They may help individuals, but one may doubt they will ever influence larger section of society. Has Christianity a social and democratic message only for small units of seekers or is the gospel capable of influencing large social units and nations? The power of Jesus' language and the truth of his parables would have been impossible without his knowledge of people.
Democratic education may be prepared in small cells, but it must radiate into the minds of millions if it is to lead to action. The smallest economic units & individuals are drawn into mass organizations for the defense of their interest. Relations between government & citizens, employers & employees, can be reasonably adjusted & regulated only by well organized large units. Today an atomized, [totally individualistic society is unworkable. In a democracy the only way to influence mass organizations is to work in & through them. Are we wise to leave leadership to religiously indifferent people or enemies of religion & democratic rights? What can we do to spread the spirit of Christian democracy among governments, political parties, employers, workers?
Neither Slave nor Master—Abraham Lincoln said: "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy." Under Fascism, National Socialism and Communism, the individual exists for the sake of the nation or for the cause of the party. Christianity and democracy meet each other on the common ground of the worth and dignity of the individual. In accepting and using the democratic right of free organization we cannot refuse it to any social group. Free organization is just as important as free worship, free assembly, and free speech. The power of the organization resides in the solidarity of their members.
Sound democracy has always been based on economic independence of its citizens. Aristotle said: "Where some possess much, & others nothing, there may arise extreme democracy, or pure oligarchy; tyranny may grow out of either extreme ... it isn't so likely to grow out of a middle, nearly equal condition." [The recognition in the ancient & medieval world that some people weren't economically independent (e.g. slaves, women, industrial workers, farmhands, & serfs) made it consistent to grant democratic rights only to the economically independent.
In America, at least the opportunity existed for all citizens to achieve economic independence by acquiring property. The poor rank and file of the 1776 army, the small farmers, discontented laborers, and former indentured servants, fought for both liberty, property, just wages, and business ownership. The founders of the republic based their constitution on individual liberty and property, seeing these 2 as the basis of free citizenship. The founding fathers distrusted the collectivism of money power as much as the collectivism of propertyless masses. They wanted to protect material and spiritual freedom against majorities, whether of voters or of economic power. The fusion of ideals with economic material advantages made the American dream a reality and attracted innumerable disowned men from Europe and from Asia.
Contrasting Status—Valid education for Christian democracy is impossible if we gloss over the fact that gigantic private economic powers are threatening freedom by economic despotism. A conflict between massed property on one side and massed propertyless people on the other might well be fatal to our democracy. Massed property and massed proletariat work as destructive forces against a balanced material and spiritual democracy. Privileged classes fearing loss of power turn against others' democratic rights, while the unprivileged become hostile toward a system which they feel has done nothing for them.
Big businessmen may hold the opinion that certain labor activities are damaging the general economic status, but may find their own economic liberty lost under a dictatorship. On the other hand, in many countries large groups of workers helped destroy democracy by their propaganda of the proliteriat. Marx and Engels expected the middle class to be ruined and to join forces with labor against capital. Even ruined middle class people remained middle class in their thinking and did not want to be united with proliterians. They dash into the anti-democratic camp to escape communism; then all social groups end up losing their political and economic freedom. There is no rule by the masses, but simply the dictatorship of party militia and bureaucracy.
[The deep disintegration of Europe had more to do with class hatred & unrestrained materialism in social & international relations than with the Versailles Treaty]. We must overcome the social & spiritual disintegration out of which the treaty grew. We can't blame one treaty, or one country, one dictator, or one system alone. We have lost moral direction & are therefore unable to adjust our human relations to current material conditions. We must attack the total confusion with the total truth of Christian democracy [i.e. the best democracy has to offer].
It is obvious that the problems of democracy in the US are not basically different from those in Europe [between the 2 world wars]. Big employers & corporations distrust democratic development, especially taxation, social security, and the economy. Farmers and middle classes feel pinched and are afraid of losing their property by economic convulsions. The present political indifference of most American workers is a deplorable fact. Increasing participation of the workers in the public administration & increasing cooperation between management and workers require education in citizenship. [A citizen's responsibility means that employers are responsible to and for employees, and employees are responsible to and for the prosperity of the plant in which one earns one's living]. More rights means more responsibility; that is the moral law of democracy.
Inevitable Change—The personal attitudes of most Americans is democratic. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to propose a definition which would satisfy all those who believe in it. It is impossible for any government or political party to successfully picture a democratic utopia, for in a democracy there would never be unity in regard to such a dream. Democracy is eternal evolution, change, struggle. Democratic government will al-ways be a compromise between various interests and insights. Democratic government programs are bound to be more vague than those in dictatorships, but with longer lasting achievements.
The wars in Europe, Africa, and Asia already have visible economic and social consequences. Currencies break down; debts rise; the financial structure is upset. Foreign markets are lost through blockade and counter-blockade. Production is geared toward the destruction of other nations' wealth. The war will teach every child to trust in force and to crush their opponents. No country & no political system has escaped the [chaotic] cyclone. In the past 50 years there have been at least 25 major international conflagrations. No large country can claim to be free from responsibility for them. All people are involved.
Powerful & Undefeated—Democracy calls upon different social elements in every country to solve economic problems by cooperation of all the nation's social groups, & to solve international conflicts by international cooperation. The world must become a federation of free states, with free discussion & free decision-making. As long as the ideals of the rights, brotherhood [& sisterhood] of all live in us, Christian democracy isn't dead. The citizens of occupied Denmark have shown admirable moral resistance through their democratic spirit. The totalitarian aim has no appeal for free people. We should tolerate restrictions on civil rights only in time of national need, not as retreat from democracy's principles. Without faith in democracy we can not save or improve it.
Strong Leaders of Free Citizens—Democracy is compatible with strong leadership. No democracy can stand weak leadership for long. Democracy is lost without action, and action requires leadership. It is technically impossible and it ruins democracy to turn over every momentous decision to the nation's masses. Elected officials may show a more balanced judgment than millions of citizens swept away by propaganda & prejudice. We must be careful not to trust too much in plebiscites as such.
The US Presidency is an example of powerful leadership in a democracy. The President's powers here are broader than elsewhere. As the voice and symbol of national unity, he is leader of the greatest democratic federation. Weak Presidents have been intimidated by by so much power. They have not known how to use it. [Jefferson is admired, even though] he acted unconstitutionally in purchasing Louisiana. Andrew Jackson used dictatorial methods, yet history now sees him as the first leader of modern American mass democracy. Abraham Lincoln pushed his executive powers to the limit and beyond during the war to save the democratic federation. The results of restrictions and violations of the forms of democracy in national emergency depends on the [democratic] spirit which creates and controls such restrictions.
The Spreading of Facts/ The Call for Action—Many Americans doubt the wisdom of their government in Washington; very few question the strength and future of American democracy. The life of democracy rests with the rank and file of the citizens. When it loses their support democracy is doomed. The democratic way of life recognizes that one lives not by bread alone, but that one needs bread first to live on. Work is the first necessity; without work no consumption is possible. Fear of the term propaganda should not prevent us from spreading the facts about how democracy is responding to the citizens' interests. While democratic freedom grants the right to wide criticism it should also include the duty of doing justice to the existing administration. One-sided criticism is destructive and will result in democracy's collapse.
The program of modern Christian democracy includes: work for all; development of useful production; no monopolies; private emergency insurance; arbitration between social groups & nations; regional & world federation of nations; gradual disarmament & international police force; voluntary national & international cooperation; liberty for individual's growth; individual liberty combined with powerful, responsible leadership; new concept of moral statecraft; seeking national & international solidarity; stress Christianity's universal character.
Dictators' aims always include waste of material & human activities & they exclude cooperation of people with different ideals. In a dictatorship there can't be full use of all economic or spiritual productive forces. Most of the people who complain about party machines & their bosses haven't expended nearly the same amount of time, effort, & enthusiasm in trying to wipe out these machines as politicians & racketeers have given to building them. Aggressive energy is pitifully lacking in many religious groups today. When people loved justice more than peaceful acquiecence they have attacked corrupt politicians, and the machine have been defeated.
Religious denominations have a task in educating democracy which can't be tackled by other groups. The churches offer an opportunity for groups across all sorts of economic interests and social standing to meet on neutral ground. Nowhere else could the great moral issues of democracy be discussed better or more profoundly than in Christian denominations, with their goals that are similar to democracy.
Actually, every religion could make a vital contribution by teaching that democracy like every moral effort demands a hard heroic, patient struggle, that no democracy is better than its citizen as no church is better than its members, that each must conquer the war lord in one's own breast. No democracy, no religion lives & acts in its true spirit if it doesn't work for solidarity in the whole of human society. Religion without democracy will be enchained. Democracy without religion, without its deepest spiritual forces, will perish from dry rot. Are Christians ready not only to preach but to act, to teach, to write, to organize, to administer, to lead in politics?
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"I can indeed imagine an ethical politician ... who conceives the principles of statecraft so that they can coexist with moral law." Immanuel Kant
"While I am as far as ever from being able to go into politics myself, I should now hold that God may be just as truly revealed in a person who enters this field and accepts conditions which I couldn't ... as in a devoted evangelist." Henry T. Hodgkin
To ignore the relations among the citizens of a nation & between nations is to be indifferent toward the integration or disintegration of society; it is to leave to irreligious people decisions about peace & war. With irresistible dynamic power politics thrusts itself even into the religious field. Religion, on the other hand, shows itself as passive toward politics. Politics has been the poorer for lack of religious characters engaged in political leadership. The deep disillusionment with the church is the result of its actions and inaction along certain lines.
A dictatorship sets out to train a whole nation in one line of thought & action. It must consider religious independence [of even small groups] as a political danger, especially in respect to young people. Every religious person has a higher loyalty [than the state]. Dictatorships must exclude religious freedom. Separation of religion from politics is impossible. Religion can never identify itself with a single political or social creed. Religion deals with the spiritual redemption of humankind, an eternal task essential in all periods of history & under all systems of political administration and economic organization.
Oppression, Ancient and Modern—Seldom or never has a church or a body politic been free from oppression. "Concentration camps," secret police, inquisitions, torture, gallows, the stake, the cross are neither German or Russian peculiarities. In the very midst of the 18th century capitalistic system, Marx & Lenin were allowed to develop, print & spread their ideas in opposition to that system. Perhaps never before did a ruling economic system accord such liberal treatment to its opponents. Under the capitalistic order political, social, religious freedom & tolerance were more highly developed than ever before. This freedom was greatest in the most capitalistic countries, Great Britain & the US. Never have religious groups suffered under a capitalistic regime as they suffer in the anti-capitalistic states.
Under competitive economic systems there is increased nationalism & world-wide antagonism of our gigantic national economies. Under dictatorships, community is always limited to one race or single class. How does one develop non-competitive society without sacrificing individual freedom? Pope Pius XI's Quadragesimo anno encyclical combined criticism of liberal Capitalism with warning against the state's omnipotent power. Is democracy of the masses possible without dictatorship by the masses? Belief in democracy doesn't mean belief in the masses' infallibility. How can Christians teach dangers of deifying masses or leaders when many shun the company of political sinners? Jesus & his 12 didn't seclude themselves from [such pople].
Security & Freedom—As Christians we must be alarmed that in the struggle for social security millions of people are ready to let go of freedom. In dictatorships security is available only to people who ready for total submission to the ruling political caste. The one who keeps faith with ones ideals must pay for it with economic insecurity, imprisonment, death or exile. How does one balance security & freedom in a political system? This is the most difficult question under any political system because it is more deeply rooted than any other in our material institutions & routine. An individual must have higher responsibilities than obedience to class, party or deified leader. Oppression & persecution have been practiced under many systems & in all nations. In nations, those which are victorious, prosperous, satisfied, with ample territories, produce a different government & economic system from those which are defeated, impoverished, dissatisfied, & confined within narrow boundaries.
Christian democracy must reject self-righteousness and self-complacency. The unprecedented power of modern dictatorships lies in their efficiency in oppression, persecution, and corrupting propaganda. Only with our technical instruments is a government able to control all aspects of public and private life over a large territory. It is incorrect and unwise to talk as if there were only a difference of degree between modern democracy and the totalitarian dictatorship; the cleavage between them is deep and impassable.
Criticism of Democracy—Criticism of democracy is as justifiable as is discontent with other human institutions. Democracy believes that human beings & institutions may develop to higher civilization only by a lot of individual liberty. Even in its army, democracy envisions only an instrument of the government [controlled by & made up] of democratic civilians. The soldier is the dictator's ideal; war is the highest manifestation of the moral strength of individual & nation. [There are only soldiers: of labor; of food production]; uniformed youth; mothers producing the greater armies of the future. The ruling philosophy excludes all intellectual & spiritual challenge [in order to pursue] class war, race war, or world revolution. During the war in Europe], not one political, pacifist, or religious group was able to work for peaceful change in social & international relations on the basis of equality. Quaker relief work has been possible only because these agencies have wisely limited activities to charity. In the dictatorships, a number of pacifists have already paid for their convictions with torture & death.
Not by chance but by logical consistency, the highest degree of religious liberty and the widest variety of denominations exist in the US. On the whole, religious tolerance in this country is worthy of democracy's spirit, and it could not have developed without political freedom. This should stimulate us to improve democracy by making Christians more Christians and democrats more democratic. Neither defense nor improvement of democracy will be possible from the basis of a negative and unproductive criticism. Democracy and Christianity have in common the conviction and the experience that real improvement requires slow growth. Historically speaking, liberty and a full larder go hand in hand; dictatorships look toward the democratic US for food stuffs.
Moral Growth is Slow—Democracy has never been a material issue alone, nor will it ever be. In 1647, Colonel Rainboro imagined groups varying in social standing, and demanded for the humblest the right to live his own life however difficult and troublesome it might be. That right and responsibility belong to everyone. Does a class society or a classless society help more toward the attainment of [self-expression and redemption]? It is doubtful whether a classless society offers more opportunity for individual self-realization than a society with many social groups and class differences. One may accept democracy or reject it, but one can't believe in the potential autonomy of all and still support political systems with super-classes, super-races, and the deification of one political philosophy and its leader. Is the contrast between democratic ideals and reality any greater than that between Christian ideal and action? Democracy's brotherhood of men and Christianity's Kingdom of God are very close together; we are no nearer to one than to the other.
All really great things in life grow slowly; this seems to be an unavoidable law in nature, ethics, [& democracy]. There are no short cuts to reason, understanding, justice, and love in the realm of human relations. Each generation of humankind can [safely] make only microscopic contributions to [humanity's] growth. History teaches us that premature actions are reactionary rather than progressive in their effect, creating national and international explosions no less evil than belated action.
[The rash and vainglorious actions of dictators can lead to military machines, conquest, racial fanaticism, class tyranny, and thinly disguised imperialism]. All too many authors have praised as dynamic progress what was merely the return to a primitiveness which we had believed to have been overcome forever. The essentials of Christian democracy are the striving for Truth & the good of individuals. Growing wisdom, vigilant patience, and courageous action are the trinity of democratic needs and [the basis of] spiritual growth.
Democracy is Young—Inequalities our forefathers accepted as unalterable are now violently opposed by millions. Mass movements organized for the purpose of embodying economic equality, social justice, and social security in the solid structure of government are not as yet a century old. 100 years ago, [social] evils were accepted with indifference by nearly everyone including most Christian churches. Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, and the US are still leading the world to in material and spiritual standards. Are we disappointed in democracy, or confused because of democratic life's complexity? It is very difficult to be great in a democracy, where the shortcomings of the most august leader must stand the harsh glare of public scrutiny.
In a democracy we must face life in all its contrasts of knowledge and ignorance, bravery and cowardice, tenderness and brutality, honesty and corruption. Democracy means eternal struggle between a multitude of interests, creeds, dreams. A democratic country never knows periods of rest, of settling down and enjoying the achievements of the past. Every generation will have believers in and prophets of a still better society, which will be proclaimed in the clear bright atmosphere of intellectual freedom.
It is the lack of revealing criticism which has deceived many well-meaning intellectuals and even political scientists into becoming supporters of Communism and Fascism. The present crisis of our civilization is caused by many forces: tremendous productive capacity; lack of purchasing power; lack of national and international cooperation; impoverishment of ethical and spiritual life; lack of audacity and imagination in [supporting democratic revolution]. The remaining democracies are certainly more highly developed than any totalitarian system in all fields of human endeavor, save one. A dictatorship is better able to prepare for total war unhampered by public criticism than is a democracy. [A dictatorship's staying power] in a long war remains open to question. The only recognizable achievement of dictatorships turns out to be their hindrance of all constructive work in all countries, dictatorship or democracy, [by preparing for and waging war].
Mental Impoverishment—There is a certain amount of truth to the theory that Germany and Italy turned to dictatorship and militarism as their only option as "have not" nations, but propaganda has exaggerated it greatly. Germany has never been a "have-not" nation, nor will Germany ever be. Her people have astonishing technical and scientific skill, discipline, order and thrift. The theory of the "haves" and "have-nots" is more sen-timental than realistic. "Have" and "have-not" labels makes us susceptible to imperialistic arguments. The existence of colonies would exclude the self-determination of the inhabitants of the colony. We must envision a worldwide federation of free people with equal rights to markets and raw materials.
The dictatorship's teaching is drill rather than education. Free research is abolished as well as free worship. The result is intellectual and spiritual indigence. Modern dictatorships often have to use or abuse [at least the appearance] of democratic methods. The same dictators who oppressed political religious and racial minorities at home demanded equal rights for their nations in international relations. Totalitarianism does not pay; the undercurrent of democratic resistance is too strong. In spite of gigantic efforts they have only increased poverty within the nations and fear among the nations.
How strong must the power of democracy be when 3 decades of wars, civil wars, persecutions, terrorism have been unable to crush it. Dictatorships pay reverence to the spirit of democracy, but they are not able to understand it. Vainly they try to realize the dream of happiness for all by force. Dictatorships will never achieve justice and peace. Their terrorizing corrupts all moral forces that work for peaceful evolution. Only in democracy are all free to compete with the dark forces which they have inherited from the past.
International Cooperation has Worked—People despair of international cooperation after only a short-lived attempt to create international machinery for peace. The League of Nations failed because it was neither democratic nor universal, being based on the dominance of the victorious over the defeated.The reluctance of the US to join deprived it of the most powerful and experienced of the democratic countries.
The League of Nations included 60 of 65 sovereign nations in existence. It created the World Court in 1920 at the Hague. This court stands as the 1st attempt to create world justice by law. One other success of the League was the Saar Territory's administration from 1920 to 1935. A legal & peaceful plebiscite was held in 1935; 90% of the mostly German population voted to rejoin the Fatherland. 5 notable failures of the League to resolve conflicts worldwide are standard material in all peace groups, while the League's peaceful solution of the Saar conflict isn't so widely used. The temptation to yield to negative criticism is strong even in Christian pacifist circles.
Doing Justice to the League of Nations—Frequent doubts about international democratic cooperation is based on the Disarmament Conference's failure to achieve its aim. An international peace technique is completely new and lacks experience with the momentous question of how to reduce armament without endangering national security. How can all people achieve permanent peace? When I worked on disarmament, the literature presented practically no technical answers to the technical questions. The first Disarmament Conference will find a successor which will lead us another step further along the road to world community. The building up of an effective democratic peace machine is not the work of one generation.
[Failure to see any of the League's successes led to the negative psychology that Hitler's war of revenge was inevitable]. Parts of this militaristic treaty and its astronomical reparations were altered by Germany's passive resistance and patient diplomatic negotiations. It is incorrect to claim that no concessions were made and that therefore peaceful change did not work. The peace treaty at Versailles was unjust and unwise, but [it led to some successes], and Europe was a paradise compared with its present state. Germany by abolishing the methods of international democracy deprived herself and the world of a unique opportunity. A disarmed democratic Germany in an armed world would have been strong support to all friends of peace, democracy, and Christianity. Such a Germany would have been better off than even a victorious Germany after this costly war.
Need to Influence the Masses—Christian democrats are thinking of living the spirit of community in small groups. They consider it impossible to permeate the existing large social units with a sense of brotherly solidarity. They may help individuals, but one may doubt they will ever influence larger section of society. Has Christianity a social and democratic message only for small units of seekers or is the gospel capable of influencing large social units and nations? The power of Jesus' language and the truth of his parables would have been impossible without his knowledge of people.
Democratic education may be prepared in small cells, but it must radiate into the minds of millions if it is to lead to action. The smallest economic units & individuals are drawn into mass organizations for the defense of their interest. Relations between government & citizens, employers & employees, can be reasonably adjusted & regulated only by well organized large units. Today an atomized, [totally individualistic society is unworkable. In a democracy the only way to influence mass organizations is to work in & through them. Are we wise to leave leadership to religiously indifferent people or enemies of religion & democratic rights? What can we do to spread the spirit of Christian democracy among governments, political parties, employers, workers?
Neither Slave nor Master—Abraham Lincoln said: "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy." Under Fascism, National Socialism and Communism, the individual exists for the sake of the nation or for the cause of the party. Christianity and democracy meet each other on the common ground of the worth and dignity of the individual. In accepting and using the democratic right of free organization we cannot refuse it to any social group. Free organization is just as important as free worship, free assembly, and free speech. The power of the organization resides in the solidarity of their members.
Sound democracy has always been based on economic independence of its citizens. Aristotle said: "Where some possess much, & others nothing, there may arise extreme democracy, or pure oligarchy; tyranny may grow out of either extreme ... it isn't so likely to grow out of a middle, nearly equal condition." [The recognition in the ancient & medieval world that some people weren't economically independent (e.g. slaves, women, industrial workers, farmhands, & serfs) made it consistent to grant democratic rights only to the economically independent.
In America, at least the opportunity existed for all citizens to achieve economic independence by acquiring property. The poor rank and file of the 1776 army, the small farmers, discontented laborers, and former indentured servants, fought for both liberty, property, just wages, and business ownership. The founders of the republic based their constitution on individual liberty and property, seeing these 2 as the basis of free citizenship. The founding fathers distrusted the collectivism of money power as much as the collectivism of propertyless masses. They wanted to protect material and spiritual freedom against majorities, whether of voters or of economic power. The fusion of ideals with economic material advantages made the American dream a reality and attracted innumerable disowned men from Europe and from Asia.
Contrasting Status—Valid education for Christian democracy is impossible if we gloss over the fact that gigantic private economic powers are threatening freedom by economic despotism. A conflict between massed property on one side and massed propertyless people on the other might well be fatal to our democracy. Massed property and massed proletariat work as destructive forces against a balanced material and spiritual democracy. Privileged classes fearing loss of power turn against others' democratic rights, while the unprivileged become hostile toward a system which they feel has done nothing for them.
Big businessmen may hold the opinion that certain labor activities are damaging the general economic status, but may find their own economic liberty lost under a dictatorship. On the other hand, in many countries large groups of workers helped destroy democracy by their propaganda of the proliteriat. Marx and Engels expected the middle class to be ruined and to join forces with labor against capital. Even ruined middle class people remained middle class in their thinking and did not want to be united with proliterians. They dash into the anti-democratic camp to escape communism; then all social groups end up losing their political and economic freedom. There is no rule by the masses, but simply the dictatorship of party militia and bureaucracy.
[The deep disintegration of Europe had more to do with class hatred & unrestrained materialism in social & international relations than with the Versailles Treaty]. We must overcome the social & spiritual disintegration out of which the treaty grew. We can't blame one treaty, or one country, one dictator, or one system alone. We have lost moral direction & are therefore unable to adjust our human relations to current material conditions. We must attack the total confusion with the total truth of Christian democracy [i.e. the best democracy has to offer].
It is obvious that the problems of democracy in the US are not basically different from those in Europe [between the 2 world wars]. Big employers & corporations distrust democratic development, especially taxation, social security, and the economy. Farmers and middle classes feel pinched and are afraid of losing their property by economic convulsions. The present political indifference of most American workers is a deplorable fact. Increasing participation of the workers in the public administration & increasing cooperation between management and workers require education in citizenship. [A citizen's responsibility means that employers are responsible to and for employees, and employees are responsible to and for the prosperity of the plant in which one earns one's living]. More rights means more responsibility; that is the moral law of democracy.
Inevitable Change—The personal attitudes of most Americans is democratic. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to propose a definition which would satisfy all those who believe in it. It is impossible for any government or political party to successfully picture a democratic utopia, for in a democracy there would never be unity in regard to such a dream. Democracy is eternal evolution, change, struggle. Democratic government will al-ways be a compromise between various interests and insights. Democratic government programs are bound to be more vague than those in dictatorships, but with longer lasting achievements.
The wars in Europe, Africa, and Asia already have visible economic and social consequences. Currencies break down; debts rise; the financial structure is upset. Foreign markets are lost through blockade and counter-blockade. Production is geared toward the destruction of other nations' wealth. The war will teach every child to trust in force and to crush their opponents. No country & no political system has escaped the [chaotic] cyclone. In the past 50 years there have been at least 25 major international conflagrations. No large country can claim to be free from responsibility for them. All people are involved.
Powerful & Undefeated—Democracy calls upon different social elements in every country to solve economic problems by cooperation of all the nation's social groups, & to solve international conflicts by international cooperation. The world must become a federation of free states, with free discussion & free decision-making. As long as the ideals of the rights, brotherhood [& sisterhood] of all live in us, Christian democracy isn't dead. The citizens of occupied Denmark have shown admirable moral resistance through their democratic spirit. The totalitarian aim has no appeal for free people. We should tolerate restrictions on civil rights only in time of national need, not as retreat from democracy's principles. Without faith in democracy we can not save or improve it.
Strong Leaders of Free Citizens—Democracy is compatible with strong leadership. No democracy can stand weak leadership for long. Democracy is lost without action, and action requires leadership. It is technically impossible and it ruins democracy to turn over every momentous decision to the nation's masses. Elected officials may show a more balanced judgment than millions of citizens swept away by propaganda & prejudice. We must be careful not to trust too much in plebiscites as such.
The US Presidency is an example of powerful leadership in a democracy. The President's powers here are broader than elsewhere. As the voice and symbol of national unity, he is leader of the greatest democratic federation. Weak Presidents have been intimidated by by so much power. They have not known how to use it. [Jefferson is admired, even though] he acted unconstitutionally in purchasing Louisiana. Andrew Jackson used dictatorial methods, yet history now sees him as the first leader of modern American mass democracy. Abraham Lincoln pushed his executive powers to the limit and beyond during the war to save the democratic federation. The results of restrictions and violations of the forms of democracy in national emergency depends on the [democratic] spirit which creates and controls such restrictions.
The Spreading of Facts/ The Call for Action—Many Americans doubt the wisdom of their government in Washington; very few question the strength and future of American democracy. The life of democracy rests with the rank and file of the citizens. When it loses their support democracy is doomed. The democratic way of life recognizes that one lives not by bread alone, but that one needs bread first to live on. Work is the first necessity; without work no consumption is possible. Fear of the term propaganda should not prevent us from spreading the facts about how democracy is responding to the citizens' interests. While democratic freedom grants the right to wide criticism it should also include the duty of doing justice to the existing administration. One-sided criticism is destructive and will result in democracy's collapse.
The program of modern Christian democracy includes: work for all; development of useful production; no monopolies; private emergency insurance; arbitration between social groups & nations; regional & world federation of nations; gradual disarmament & international police force; voluntary national & international cooperation; liberty for individual's growth; individual liberty combined with powerful, responsible leadership; new concept of moral statecraft; seeking national & international solidarity; stress Christianity's universal character.
Dictators' aims always include waste of material & human activities & they exclude cooperation of people with different ideals. In a dictatorship there can't be full use of all economic or spiritual productive forces. Most of the people who complain about party machines & their bosses haven't expended nearly the same amount of time, effort, & enthusiasm in trying to wipe out these machines as politicians & racketeers have given to building them. Aggressive energy is pitifully lacking in many religious groups today. When people loved justice more than peaceful acquiecence they have attacked corrupt politicians, and the machine have been defeated.
Religious denominations have a task in educating democracy which can't be tackled by other groups. The churches offer an opportunity for groups across all sorts of economic interests and social standing to meet on neutral ground. Nowhere else could the great moral issues of democracy be discussed better or more profoundly than in Christian denominations, with their goals that are similar to democracy.
Actually, every religion could make a vital contribution by teaching that democracy like every moral effort demands a hard heroic, patient struggle, that no democracy is better than its citizen as no church is better than its members, that each must conquer the war lord in one's own breast. No democracy, no religion lives & acts in its true spirit if it doesn't work for solidarity in the whole of human society. Religion without democracy will be enchained. Democracy without religion, without its deepest spiritual forces, will perish from dry rot. Are Christians ready not only to preach but to act, to teach, to write, to organize, to administer, to lead in politics?
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241. Quakers and the Use of Power (by Paul A. Lacey; 1982)
About the Author—Born in Philadelphia in 1934, Paul A. Lacey joined Philadelphia YM in 1953, having met Quakers through weekend work camps. He has been active in civil liberties, civil rights, & East-West relations. He is the Bain-Swiggett Professor of English Literature at Earlham. This essay began in celebration of Pendle Hill’s 50th Anniversary. To undertake such a process is to examine not only Pendle Hill but principles which have created the Religious Society of Friends and shaped institutions that give expression to what it believes.
“It is a challenge that exists in any age to build humanity & charity into an institution’s life & to reconcile the function of government with the exercise of love & friendship.” John Reader
I &II—What early Friends knew experimentally—Christ, Inward Teacher, inner joy, peace, & love, outer simplicity, equality, & harmony—we may know experimentally, directly, & in the fellowship of other seekers to-day. [Many] people are alienated from political, educational, & religious institutions which have greatest power over their lives. People are looking for alternatives to organizations & structures which fail to meet their needs. At the heart of Friends’ leadership crisis is a deep, unexamined ambivalence about exercising power. Unless we can come to greater clarity about the nature of authority, our institutions will continue to lose vitality & purpose.
Those whose power over us is decisive are anonymous, & therefore impossible to hold accountable, but we feel anonymous too. What are we to say when our government sets out to reduce government interference in citizens’ lives by destroying the Clean Air Act or Voting Rights Act? The events my students recalled as exerting a positive sense of hope for them were one President’s decision to withdraw from his re-election campaign and another’s resignation, i.e. falls from power.
Robert Nisbet writes: “Accompanying the decline of institutions and the decay of values in ages such as this one is the cultivation of [military] power … Such power exists in almost exact proportion to the decline of traditional social and moral authority.” Nisbet claims we are witnessing 2 revolts [against]: wealth, privilege, and power; “the central values of the political community as we have known them for 200 years. For some people, militarization [is seen] as a healthy expression of discipline and militancy.
The 2nd direction is that of anti-authoritarianism & libertarianism, what we now call “the counter-culture” or “alternative lifestyles,” which are attempts to increase a sense of personal efficacy. New institutions & new patterns are emerging as responses to the failures of larger & established institutions. The people [seeking alternatives] that I identify myself with are likely to assert that pluralistic approaches to truth must be accepted. [Some] seekers after wholeness are also refugees deeply wounded by dominant institutions. Some are working through the trauma of broken family-life. The wounded, the embittered, the deserted, the immature, the self-centered anti-authoritarian, who are also seekers, are found at every age & in every part of Quaker institutions.
III—We human beings, by our nature, create social forms to express ourselves & to serve the things we believe in. The [early] Society quickly developed an elaborate institutional net work, a complex of committee & organizations drawing on [existing] leadership skills. Quakers saw the development of such organization as ex-pressions of their Truth testimony, not as a falling away from inspiration. Howard Brinton [states] that because of the Light of Christ’s characteristics, a Quaker meeting or organization inspired by Quakerism ought to evidence relationship between people & behavior expressive of Community, Harmony, Equality, & Simplicity (CHES).
Institutions & organizations growing out of such a mix exist to serve the Kingdom of God in practical ways. Our institutions are attempts, expressions of error & frailty, meant to meet human needs, under obedience to God. They are also, inevitably, channels for the expression of leadership, authority & power. Quaker organizations must be organized to encourage growth, even if that only occurs slowly. CHES in their workings must develop social devices to use conflict effectively. [The Quaker business method is a social device for focusing the energy inherent in conflict, compromise, & reconciliation; it depends on Howard Brinton’s “agreeing upward”]. [In it], compromise is the product of dynamism and growth, and reconciliation increase the power available.
Roger Wilson wrote: “The sovereignty of God is understood to mean something for daily living.” [But not everything involved in everyday living is going to receive divine guidance. If a matter is essentially neutral in its meaning for the spiritual life, we will need to employ worldly meanings to resolve it]. Conflicts arise between: group leadings and individual leadings; accepted ways and new insights; prophetic vision and institutional stability. [The 4 elements of CHES often conflict with one another]. Quaker organizations must be self-reflective in order to learn how to “incorporate the spirit of compassions into the structure of an institution.” We cannot have the spirit of compassion incorporated into our structures without effective leadership.
IV—In a society experiencing a “twilight of authority,” where every form of organization is threatening to break apart under the strain of its own contradictions, the need is desperate for “alternative structures.” Quaker institutions’ profound crisis of authority has expressed itself as an incapacity to find or support leadership. Either no one will take the positions available, or those who are willing to try are unseasoned and get little chance to grow in their work. How do Quakers deal with issues of authority and power?
“Speak truth to power” is a powerful exhortation, but like many powerful phrases, it has become cliché we use to take the place of thought [besides being the name of a 1950’s AFSC pamphlet in response to the 2 unreflective Cold War antagonists]. It would seem to have been original to Milton Mayer, though in sound & attitude it feels like an authentic expression of early Quakerism. [In this Cold War allegory, Power stood in opposition to Truth]. Here subtle distinctions were sacrificed for emotional impact. [Power was bad; Truth was good].
The way we verbally [and actively challenge] institutionalized power suggests that we believe Truth and Power can never genuinely come together. We are experiencing a distrust of power so deep that the institutions which we have created to act as channels for our religious concerns frequently find themselves paralyzed and incapable of any action, because to act to exert power. When Friends in the PA of 1756 withdrew from government, besides from being a remarkable act of fidelity to principle, it was also: an assertion that obedience to truth and political power are inimical to one another; opting for powerful influence over direct responsible use of power; implying the irrelevance of our pacifist ethic. What was true in 1756 seems to be true today.
Our ambivalence toward the exercise of power has led to either mindless rebellion to every action or to people of power pretending to be powerless rather than face those assaults and the pain of responsibility. [When the strong in these situations use the weapons of the helpless, this is] what Sartre called “bad faith,” [like students claiming to have the same degree of powerlessness as slaves or “niggers.”
The essay written on this subject stands as a striking example of bad faith. For affluent, white, middle-class American college students to claim that they were “the new niggers” was to demonstrate an outrageous self-centeredness and profound insensitivity to what being a nigger means; others began to claim the same title. [The real oppression of truly powerless groups] was minimized or trivialized by the powerful, who appropriated their experience for the most self-serving of reasons. It is an attitude that reduces the complexity of authority relation-ships to the single one of slave and master [once an institution or its representative can be identified as an opponent]. It is as though the only working definition of power is error or evil, and the truth is [crystal] clear.
V—[In my class, I threw my book on the] floor & asked my students to imagine that it represented power to do whatever one wanted with college. [One student started to get up] & another student leaped from his chair, & stood on the book! He wouldn’t act affirmatively; he would block any action. Because we are fearful of power, we try to deny anyone has it. The newest student, the least seasoned staff member can exercise influence out of all proportion to one’s ability or experience simply by attacking the legitimacy of any disapproved action, [even actions taken long before they came to college]. During the worst years, the teacher’s competence, as expressed through booklists & assignments, became for the most alienated students an assertion of force over them.
Nor are boards and committees of control willing to bear the burden of leadership. There are often cases of the board, which had been very clear that it determined policy, presents itself as only advisory to this clumsy, insensitive administrator. That sort of undermining of leaders is neither new nor peculiar to Friends. [Now] we undermine our leaders with great frequency, and with terrible effect on them and our institutions.
[I have often imagined how it would be as the only Quaker, a pet Quaker in a non-Quaker college]. I could be independent at the small price of being powerless and irrelevant. Many Friends do not want to be the establishment. We prefer to perceive ourselves, and to be perceived, as alienated from authority and power, but well inside the sphere of [strong] influence. A Pendle Hill annual report from the mid-1970’s says, “We cannot afford to relearn the meaning and structure of Pendle Hill every year.” It is infinitely harder to relearn something if we begin by rejecting any validity for tradition or previous experience. Our institutions cannot survive if every feeling of disgruntlement is to be taken seriously as a challenge to the right of everyone to have made any decision in the past. Sometimes an individual has to get over, or outgrow, offended feelings.
Bad Faith flourishes where false analogies, false allegories and abstractions are used to avoid facing concrete realities. In a time of considerable turmoil at Pendle Hill, I had 2 Friends talking to me at length about the insensitivity and oppressive behavior of “the administration.” I asked them, “What do you gain in clarity by speaking of the administration, instead of talking about X and Y? It is better not to think too much about how they hurt, for then we must reflect on the weapons we use against them.
Eleanore Price Mather says of Pendle Hill’s change from a directorship to 5 departments & a clerk, that it eased the strain on the director, & “also removed the image of personal dominance which provoked resentment in many students.” Did the director actually dominate Pendle Hill in the recent past? What is actually is shown is an increasing polarization between “administration and anti-administration sympathies.” The title director suggests that someone has been delegated the authority to direct in some direction [after due reflection], not in others, and not in every direction. The symbol of authority is enough to provoke resentment in some people.
The Slave & Master allegory’s nature requires any director be challenged as an instrument of oppression. If one is given the authority of a title & responsibility, that can only be understood as applying raw force, & must be resisted. A style of anti-leader has arisen among Friends, one who despises all compromise, who blocks any group action, & who practices an earnest, inarticulate rhetoric to assert one’s moral authority over all institutions.
VI—The Apostle Paul writes of “varieties of gifts,” but the same spirit” in I Cor. 12: 4-8. The primitive church’s government was the model early Friends sought to follow. They confirmed people in their skills; people were encouraged & educated into appropriate use of gifts. [The meeting was] gathered & strengthened by obedience to the leading brought to it by an individual. This system doesn’t eliminate tension. At its best, it uses the energy in tension [in the process of] “agreeing upward,” i.e. agreeing with the most universal.” At its worst it dissipates energy & power, paralyzes action, & achieves only bland resolutions. If we want to use the Quaker system of leadership today, we must do so with full awareness of how our situation differs from early Quakerism.
Much of the argument for greater participation has been framed as an attack on the very notion of leaders and leadership. Thomas S. Brown writes: “Without divine guidance in our selection, we may appoint inauthentic leadership which easily becomes self-serving or ineffective. There are many kinds and many sources of authority, none of which is necessarily to be disparaged in itself. The person who has borne responsibility for a long time, or whose official position brings access to a lot of information, may also speak or act with “weight.”
Of course the greater authority comes from the Holy Spirit; discerning that authority can be difficult. Simply lacking other kinds of authority is not in itself very good evidence that one has the Spirit’s authority. Effective leadership comes from the marriage of vision with practical skills of organization and personal eloquence, along with a balance of other skills. People can move toward growth [in those skills they lack] if the loss of safety can be minimized or the promise of growth can be maximized. Skills develop where they are valued and respected. Where there is only suspicion and contempt, there will be no growth in leadership.
Friends as Leaders stresses developing leaders who are servant-leaders rather than wielders of power. Leadership is not a matter of being a servant or wielding power; it is learning to wield power as a servant. The alternative is to see it wielded by someone else, perhaps without responsibility for its effects. We need many kinds of leadership: planners; organizers; resource gatherers; project directors; speakers; clerks.
The clerk of a business meeting is preeminently a leader as servant. Informing a group of the direction they are taking is no small task, but neither is it very great leadership, for ultimately the clerk is impotent to influence action. It is an extremely important kind of leadership, but it is only one kind. Because we are so fearful of the exercise of power, we have tended to make the clerk the only acceptable model for Quaker leadership. We are evading the full responsibilities of power by choosing only the blandest form of leadership.
Servant-leaders can be effective only where idea of leading by serving is knit into the institution’s fabric; everyone part of that [institution must accept that principle]. Where fear for safety is great [& trust is small], growth is small. The servant-leader must lead: set goals; pick directions; channel energy; persuade; organize. David McClelland states the paradox: “To be effective leader, one must turn all so-called followers into leaders,” [which is beyond the clerk’s role]. Giving people the means, & encouragement to work for goals are enabling ministry or service which rests partly on transmitting enthusiasm & energy & translating them into power.
The servant leader serves only the truth from God. Do leadings bring greater harmony & justice into the life of the community or institution? Do leadings address issues clearly, accurately & sensitively? In a true allegory, everything which we see acted symbolically in the outer world reflects the experience within human souls, so we gain self-knowledge. In false allegory we project on others the fears, anxieties, & angers which can only be understood, resolved & turned into strengths when we acknowledge they originate within ourselves.
People, [“underlings”] & leaders, have been savaged by institutions, even by Quaker institutions. We have to learn to be free of idols of power and organization, as well as the idols of unreflective individualism and self-centeredness. If we want to throw our weight behind better alternative institutions, we must address the problem of developing and sustaining new leadership in the Religious Society of Friends. We have before us the work of reconciliation between the needs of individuals & the needs of social institutions. To understand our institutions, & therefore to understand more about ourselves, we must clear our mind of slogans & clichés which substitute for clear thought. John Reader writes: It is a challenge that exists in any age to build humanity & charity into an institution’s life & to reconcile the function of government with the exercise of love & friendship.”
241. Quakers and the Use of Power (by Paul A. Lacey; 1982)
About the Author—Born in Philadelphia in 1934, Paul A. Lacey joined Philadelphia YM in 1953, having met Quakers through weekend work camps. He has been active in civil liberties, civil rights, & East-West relations. He is the Bain-Swiggett Professor of English Literature at Earlham. This essay began in celebration of Pendle Hill’s 50th Anniversary. To undertake such a process is to examine not only Pendle Hill but principles which have created the Religious Society of Friends and shaped institutions that give expression to what it believes.
“It is a challenge that exists in any age to build humanity & charity into an institution’s life & to reconcile the function of government with the exercise of love & friendship.” John Reader
I &II—What early Friends knew experimentally—Christ, Inward Teacher, inner joy, peace, & love, outer simplicity, equality, & harmony—we may know experimentally, directly, & in the fellowship of other seekers to-day. [Many] people are alienated from political, educational, & religious institutions which have greatest power over their lives. People are looking for alternatives to organizations & structures which fail to meet their needs. At the heart of Friends’ leadership crisis is a deep, unexamined ambivalence about exercising power. Unless we can come to greater clarity about the nature of authority, our institutions will continue to lose vitality & purpose.
Those whose power over us is decisive are anonymous, & therefore impossible to hold accountable, but we feel anonymous too. What are we to say when our government sets out to reduce government interference in citizens’ lives by destroying the Clean Air Act or Voting Rights Act? The events my students recalled as exerting a positive sense of hope for them were one President’s decision to withdraw from his re-election campaign and another’s resignation, i.e. falls from power.
Robert Nisbet writes: “Accompanying the decline of institutions and the decay of values in ages such as this one is the cultivation of [military] power … Such power exists in almost exact proportion to the decline of traditional social and moral authority.” Nisbet claims we are witnessing 2 revolts [against]: wealth, privilege, and power; “the central values of the political community as we have known them for 200 years. For some people, militarization [is seen] as a healthy expression of discipline and militancy.
The 2nd direction is that of anti-authoritarianism & libertarianism, what we now call “the counter-culture” or “alternative lifestyles,” which are attempts to increase a sense of personal efficacy. New institutions & new patterns are emerging as responses to the failures of larger & established institutions. The people [seeking alternatives] that I identify myself with are likely to assert that pluralistic approaches to truth must be accepted. [Some] seekers after wholeness are also refugees deeply wounded by dominant institutions. Some are working through the trauma of broken family-life. The wounded, the embittered, the deserted, the immature, the self-centered anti-authoritarian, who are also seekers, are found at every age & in every part of Quaker institutions.
III—We human beings, by our nature, create social forms to express ourselves & to serve the things we believe in. The [early] Society quickly developed an elaborate institutional net work, a complex of committee & organizations drawing on [existing] leadership skills. Quakers saw the development of such organization as ex-pressions of their Truth testimony, not as a falling away from inspiration. Howard Brinton [states] that because of the Light of Christ’s characteristics, a Quaker meeting or organization inspired by Quakerism ought to evidence relationship between people & behavior expressive of Community, Harmony, Equality, & Simplicity (CHES).
Institutions & organizations growing out of such a mix exist to serve the Kingdom of God in practical ways. Our institutions are attempts, expressions of error & frailty, meant to meet human needs, under obedience to God. They are also, inevitably, channels for the expression of leadership, authority & power. Quaker organizations must be organized to encourage growth, even if that only occurs slowly. CHES in their workings must develop social devices to use conflict effectively. [The Quaker business method is a social device for focusing the energy inherent in conflict, compromise, & reconciliation; it depends on Howard Brinton’s “agreeing upward”]. [In it], compromise is the product of dynamism and growth, and reconciliation increase the power available.
Roger Wilson wrote: “The sovereignty of God is understood to mean something for daily living.” [But not everything involved in everyday living is going to receive divine guidance. If a matter is essentially neutral in its meaning for the spiritual life, we will need to employ worldly meanings to resolve it]. Conflicts arise between: group leadings and individual leadings; accepted ways and new insights; prophetic vision and institutional stability. [The 4 elements of CHES often conflict with one another]. Quaker organizations must be self-reflective in order to learn how to “incorporate the spirit of compassions into the structure of an institution.” We cannot have the spirit of compassion incorporated into our structures without effective leadership.
IV—In a society experiencing a “twilight of authority,” where every form of organization is threatening to break apart under the strain of its own contradictions, the need is desperate for “alternative structures.” Quaker institutions’ profound crisis of authority has expressed itself as an incapacity to find or support leadership. Either no one will take the positions available, or those who are willing to try are unseasoned and get little chance to grow in their work. How do Quakers deal with issues of authority and power?
“Speak truth to power” is a powerful exhortation, but like many powerful phrases, it has become cliché we use to take the place of thought [besides being the name of a 1950’s AFSC pamphlet in response to the 2 unreflective Cold War antagonists]. It would seem to have been original to Milton Mayer, though in sound & attitude it feels like an authentic expression of early Quakerism. [In this Cold War allegory, Power stood in opposition to Truth]. Here subtle distinctions were sacrificed for emotional impact. [Power was bad; Truth was good].
The way we verbally [and actively challenge] institutionalized power suggests that we believe Truth and Power can never genuinely come together. We are experiencing a distrust of power so deep that the institutions which we have created to act as channels for our religious concerns frequently find themselves paralyzed and incapable of any action, because to act to exert power. When Friends in the PA of 1756 withdrew from government, besides from being a remarkable act of fidelity to principle, it was also: an assertion that obedience to truth and political power are inimical to one another; opting for powerful influence over direct responsible use of power; implying the irrelevance of our pacifist ethic. What was true in 1756 seems to be true today.
Our ambivalence toward the exercise of power has led to either mindless rebellion to every action or to people of power pretending to be powerless rather than face those assaults and the pain of responsibility. [When the strong in these situations use the weapons of the helpless, this is] what Sartre called “bad faith,” [like students claiming to have the same degree of powerlessness as slaves or “niggers.”
The essay written on this subject stands as a striking example of bad faith. For affluent, white, middle-class American college students to claim that they were “the new niggers” was to demonstrate an outrageous self-centeredness and profound insensitivity to what being a nigger means; others began to claim the same title. [The real oppression of truly powerless groups] was minimized or trivialized by the powerful, who appropriated their experience for the most self-serving of reasons. It is an attitude that reduces the complexity of authority relation-ships to the single one of slave and master [once an institution or its representative can be identified as an opponent]. It is as though the only working definition of power is error or evil, and the truth is [crystal] clear.
V—[In my class, I threw my book on the] floor & asked my students to imagine that it represented power to do whatever one wanted with college. [One student started to get up] & another student leaped from his chair, & stood on the book! He wouldn’t act affirmatively; he would block any action. Because we are fearful of power, we try to deny anyone has it. The newest student, the least seasoned staff member can exercise influence out of all proportion to one’s ability or experience simply by attacking the legitimacy of any disapproved action, [even actions taken long before they came to college]. During the worst years, the teacher’s competence, as expressed through booklists & assignments, became for the most alienated students an assertion of force over them.
Nor are boards and committees of control willing to bear the burden of leadership. There are often cases of the board, which had been very clear that it determined policy, presents itself as only advisory to this clumsy, insensitive administrator. That sort of undermining of leaders is neither new nor peculiar to Friends. [Now] we undermine our leaders with great frequency, and with terrible effect on them and our institutions.
[I have often imagined how it would be as the only Quaker, a pet Quaker in a non-Quaker college]. I could be independent at the small price of being powerless and irrelevant. Many Friends do not want to be the establishment. We prefer to perceive ourselves, and to be perceived, as alienated from authority and power, but well inside the sphere of [strong] influence. A Pendle Hill annual report from the mid-1970’s says, “We cannot afford to relearn the meaning and structure of Pendle Hill every year.” It is infinitely harder to relearn something if we begin by rejecting any validity for tradition or previous experience. Our institutions cannot survive if every feeling of disgruntlement is to be taken seriously as a challenge to the right of everyone to have made any decision in the past. Sometimes an individual has to get over, or outgrow, offended feelings.
Bad Faith flourishes where false analogies, false allegories and abstractions are used to avoid facing concrete realities. In a time of considerable turmoil at Pendle Hill, I had 2 Friends talking to me at length about the insensitivity and oppressive behavior of “the administration.” I asked them, “What do you gain in clarity by speaking of the administration, instead of talking about X and Y? It is better not to think too much about how they hurt, for then we must reflect on the weapons we use against them.
Eleanore Price Mather says of Pendle Hill’s change from a directorship to 5 departments & a clerk, that it eased the strain on the director, & “also removed the image of personal dominance which provoked resentment in many students.” Did the director actually dominate Pendle Hill in the recent past? What is actually is shown is an increasing polarization between “administration and anti-administration sympathies.” The title director suggests that someone has been delegated the authority to direct in some direction [after due reflection], not in others, and not in every direction. The symbol of authority is enough to provoke resentment in some people.
The Slave & Master allegory’s nature requires any director be challenged as an instrument of oppression. If one is given the authority of a title & responsibility, that can only be understood as applying raw force, & must be resisted. A style of anti-leader has arisen among Friends, one who despises all compromise, who blocks any group action, & who practices an earnest, inarticulate rhetoric to assert one’s moral authority over all institutions.
VI—The Apostle Paul writes of “varieties of gifts,” but the same spirit” in I Cor. 12: 4-8. The primitive church’s government was the model early Friends sought to follow. They confirmed people in their skills; people were encouraged & educated into appropriate use of gifts. [The meeting was] gathered & strengthened by obedience to the leading brought to it by an individual. This system doesn’t eliminate tension. At its best, it uses the energy in tension [in the process of] “agreeing upward,” i.e. agreeing with the most universal.” At its worst it dissipates energy & power, paralyzes action, & achieves only bland resolutions. If we want to use the Quaker system of leadership today, we must do so with full awareness of how our situation differs from early Quakerism.
Much of the argument for greater participation has been framed as an attack on the very notion of leaders and leadership. Thomas S. Brown writes: “Without divine guidance in our selection, we may appoint inauthentic leadership which easily becomes self-serving or ineffective. There are many kinds and many sources of authority, none of which is necessarily to be disparaged in itself. The person who has borne responsibility for a long time, or whose official position brings access to a lot of information, may also speak or act with “weight.”
Of course the greater authority comes from the Holy Spirit; discerning that authority can be difficult. Simply lacking other kinds of authority is not in itself very good evidence that one has the Spirit’s authority. Effective leadership comes from the marriage of vision with practical skills of organization and personal eloquence, along with a balance of other skills. People can move toward growth [in those skills they lack] if the loss of safety can be minimized or the promise of growth can be maximized. Skills develop where they are valued and respected. Where there is only suspicion and contempt, there will be no growth in leadership.
Friends as Leaders stresses developing leaders who are servant-leaders rather than wielders of power. Leadership is not a matter of being a servant or wielding power; it is learning to wield power as a servant. The alternative is to see it wielded by someone else, perhaps without responsibility for its effects. We need many kinds of leadership: planners; organizers; resource gatherers; project directors; speakers; clerks.
The clerk of a business meeting is preeminently a leader as servant. Informing a group of the direction they are taking is no small task, but neither is it very great leadership, for ultimately the clerk is impotent to influence action. It is an extremely important kind of leadership, but it is only one kind. Because we are so fearful of the exercise of power, we have tended to make the clerk the only acceptable model for Quaker leadership. We are evading the full responsibilities of power by choosing only the blandest form of leadership.
Servant-leaders can be effective only where idea of leading by serving is knit into the institution’s fabric; everyone part of that [institution must accept that principle]. Where fear for safety is great [& trust is small], growth is small. The servant-leader must lead: set goals; pick directions; channel energy; persuade; organize. David McClelland states the paradox: “To be effective leader, one must turn all so-called followers into leaders,” [which is beyond the clerk’s role]. Giving people the means, & encouragement to work for goals are enabling ministry or service which rests partly on transmitting enthusiasm & energy & translating them into power.
The servant leader serves only the truth from God. Do leadings bring greater harmony & justice into the life of the community or institution? Do leadings address issues clearly, accurately & sensitively? In a true allegory, everything which we see acted symbolically in the outer world reflects the experience within human souls, so we gain self-knowledge. In false allegory we project on others the fears, anxieties, & angers which can only be understood, resolved & turned into strengths when we acknowledge they originate within ourselves.
People, [“underlings”] & leaders, have been savaged by institutions, even by Quaker institutions. We have to learn to be free of idols of power and organization, as well as the idols of unreflective individualism and self-centeredness. If we want to throw our weight behind better alternative institutions, we must address the problem of developing and sustaining new leadership in the Religious Society of Friends. We have before us the work of reconciliation between the needs of individuals & the needs of social institutions. To understand our institutions, & therefore to understand more about ourselves, we must clear our mind of slogans & clichés which substitute for clear thought. John Reader writes: It is a challenge that exists in any age to build humanity & charity into an institution’s life & to reconcile the function of government with the exercise of love & friendship.”
80. Toward Political Responsibility (by Cecil Eugene Hinshaw; 1954)
The Author—Cecil Hinshaw graduated from Friends University in Wichita, Kansas, attended the University of Denver, Illiff School of Theology and Harvard University. He taught at Friends University, and was dean and president at William Penn College in Oskaloosa, Iowa. After that he lectured for the American Friends Service Committee and the Fellowship of Reconciliation.
Pentecost only comes to those who dare to put into practice principles that are indissolubly related to the religious experience. If leadership that is able & wise & selfless appears ... to offer this synthesis of politics & ethics & religion, we will witness another historic upward surge of the human race. Cecil E. Hinshaw
“Retreat from Responsibility”—It is hard enough to consider our personal problems in the light of the insights we accept as authoritative for ourselves. Martin Buber observes: “It is terribly difficult to drive the ploughshare of the normative principle into the hard soil of political reality.” The interrelatedness of society’s component parts is the chief obstacle in attempting to apply principles to the social structure. Society’s complexity forces upon us compromises that tortures any sensitive soul.
There are surely many sensitive people who have quietly absented themselves from precinct politics and campaign struggles because of an uneasy conscience about such participation; they often naively believe that a change in administration would be sufficient to cure the trouble. [Those withdrawing from political life mostly] continue to assent to the principle of participation but find themselves unwilling to practice it. [In seeking] purity of life, they have left to others the responsibility for decisions involving compromises of principles.
The more sensitive & concerned among those who withdraw are put in the difficult position of living with compromises others make for them. It is maintained that only those who are separate from the government are in a position to render this service of criticism. Another part of the answer is that these people do much in labor & service for the nation, that they are the kind of people who strengthen the moral foundations of the country.
[But] those who have never exposed themselves to the problems of participation in political life may be no better qualified to give such judgment than unmarried people are to successfully do marriage counseling. A principle of alternation between participation and withdrawal allows for a necessary impartial evaluation of political struggles. Since few [detached] people in any generation qualify for saintliness it is hardly a justification of political inactivity on the part of most people. Our failure to unite political responsibility and ethical ideals has resulted in an attenuated, limited ethic. All of us have to live with and by some worldview that gathers up the pieces of our daily lives and weaves a pattern. We can do it, or others will do it for us.
“Moral ambiguities”—Any plea to accept political responsibility on an ethical basis must take account of practical realities to be faced. In spite of “moral ambiguities,” men and women throughout Quaker history have felt called to enter public life in a military, non-pacifist government. Generally the Society has supported these attempts to witness to these principles politically, but it has ever kept a watchful eye on such individuals lest they step over the bounds of Quaker testimony. [Quakers would] do well to consider the extent to which John Bright maintained loyalty to his Quaker principles & still gained the recognition of his fellow legislators. [But] there are times when even a person firmly committed to accepting political responsibility must decline to cooperate.
Those today who would do good [& be ethical], find themselves prisoners of the compounded evils of the past & present. For they have sought to combine democracy with despotism, they have tried to defend Christ with a sword. So the good they do is twisted and distorted by a culture that has become idolatrous and decadent.
“The Holy Experiment”—When political conditions seem hopeless, idealistic people tend to look elsewhere for a place to practice their principles. Quakers saw in PA a “Holy Experiment” where they could build a political structure to incorporate the values they despaired of achieving in England. While emigration may not be the answer for most of us now, there is a logic to it that history has sometimes supported.
William Penn & the Quakers who settled PA did not abdicate from political responsibility. In their successes & failures we may see the opportunities & dangers that must be faced. Penn said: “Because I have been exercised about the nature & end of governing among men, it is reasonable that I should endeavor to establish a just & righteous one in this province, that others may take example by it.
[PA’s] power was limited by the Crown’s authority, [but the largely Quaker PA assembly effectively resisted it until 1744]. [By 1755], it became apparent that nothing but the Quaker’s exclusion from the Assembly would satisfy the English authorities. Not all took the London YM’s advice to withdraw from the Assembly; enough did so that any semblance of Quaker control ended in 1756. The “Holy Experiment” broke up because of outside pressure. Quakers were able to guide the young colony without recourse to arms for a long time through a period when tensions between colonies, settlers, and the Indians were pronounced.
Today there is no escape from the long arms of planes & the reaching tentacles of radio & television. In an age when distance is so little of a barrier, it is not hard to foresee that the very success of a new & isolated settlement, success both in material matters and in spiritual achievements, will bring the world hurrying to its door, destroying the essence of its victory. How do we relate responsibly to the political structure of our world?
“Between 2 worlds”—To believe that the new world is no longer “powerless yet to be born,” to have faith that a new age is dawning, to see the dim outline of a new society under God—this is the vision we are called to translate into reality. [The indisputable & historical] fact is that new cultures & societies have been born. Men have dared believed God called them to build nations never before realized. Success is not measured in terms of an original blue print’s fulfillment. It is judged by the release of new energy that frees men for majestic, breath-taking enterprises. It is in times of man’s greatest need & hunger that new ideas & new faith come to millions.
Realizing that men will always fail to understand & practice all of God’s will for them in any given age, we mustn't make the mistake of thinking we can build a Utopia, perfect & flawless. [Nor] can we be excused from following some light because we haven't seen infinite truth’s blinding perfection. A new world’s birth pangs can already be seen in the strength of the gathering storm & in the rising might of colored people everywhere.
Overshadowing all of these movements, will be the abandonment of military power as an international policy instrument. Atomic & hydrogen weapons have made war a monstrously stupid anachronism utterly incapable of achieving legitimate goals of national policy. [Having no alternative to war] there is a deep psychological need that requires people to choose error in preference to a vacuum. To be politically responsible & relevant now means, above all else, to solve this ancient problem of war that has now become a chess game of annihilation. It means to solve it with the men who today obey the commands to shoulder arms and with munitions workers.
“What is man?” If we would seek to transform society, we must see man as he is. Criticism has been leveled against the “Utopian” or “perfectionist.” [Critics] insist that the belief that anyone can live out such a life it itself pretentious pride and therefore sinful. And even if one accepts the cross for one’s self, one has no right to accept it for others in the nation. The neo-orthodox conception of human nature is that it is inescapably and naturally sinful. Evil is inescapably present in each choice.
We mustn't make the mistake of denying this conception’s validity altogether. Neo-orthodox critics are in error when they make a naïve belief in the human’s innate goodness the basis of all pacifism. The early Quaker saw human nature’s sinfulness, “an ocean of darkness.” They believed that God had implanted a principle or spirit in every man’s soul that could produce redemption here & now that was complete. God’ power was great enough to mean also a life here on earth that was one with the life hereafter in quality & nature. Such a view of pacifism shifts discussion to the extent to which divine power transforms & converts all into saintly persons.
The beginning of the peace testimony for the early Friends was in the simple belief that man is called to a way of life that leaves no room for the passions and hatreds and actions that war involved. The belief that God has planted a divine in all, later brought Friends to recognition of the sacredness of life. Quakerism as a way of life is the primary foundation historically of our pacifism. Quakerism is essentially a pragmatic functional approach to life, and mysticism is the means of providing the insights and power to fulfill the ethical urge.
George Fox’s dim view of unredeemed human nature allows for no Utopian view of the world. Men must be dealt with as sinful, but also in the light of faith that their heritage is a present life of purity. Kenneth Boulding said of corporate sin: “… men as representatives of a group are much less moral than as selfish individuals. Men will do evil [for their particular group] with a single-mindedness that they would never achieve as individuals.” Our vision of a new world must never blind us to the fact that even good men are caught up in the magnetism of corporate sin and held by a power of attraction difficult even for psychologists to explain.
“To thine own self be true”—Our hope is to develop better means of minimizing and controlling humankind’s sinful nature; this will be a task worthy of the saintly people who must be the heart and core of a new world. [But we look for no new] world where conflicts will cease to exist. Some means must be found for waging the struggle. A foundation of integrity is more important ultimately than the content of a particular choice. [The key is obedience to conscience]. Those who believe they should fight actually should do so as long as they have political responsibility for the nation. Robert Barclay’s Apology says: “We shall not say, that [a just] war is altogether unlawful to them … the present confessors of the Christian name, who are yet in the mixture, and not in the patient suffering spirit.” For those who are not able to use love and non-violence in resisting evil, conscience will require them to use the weaker and poorer methods of violence.
“The nature & use of force”—Even when we have done the best we can in making choices, we may find a use of force inescapable in the discharging obligations. Emil Brunner writes: “By force of compulsion the individual State gains respect from other states & by force of compulsion it maintains its unity over against the opposing will of individuals.” Quaker traditions clearly denies that compulsion & sin are necessarily the same.
Whether such action is sinful or not depends on its purpose & the spirit in which it is done; this also applies to psychological compulsion. It must be admitted that compulsion, even under proper conditions, may be the wrong course so far as what results from it. Violence is never moral for it involves harm to the person against whom it is used. Compulsion doesn't properly involve injury. It is doubtful Jesus used any violence against any- one when he cleansed the temple, it is rather clearly a case of compulsion. God is a God of both justice & love.
The true Christian can engage in the complexities of political, socio-economic life & do so without involving one’s self necessarily in sin. Daniel Day Williams stated: “The conflict of powers, of interests, of life with life can & does function constructively in the growth & good of life.” It is of greatest importance that we distinguish between what is possible & difficult, and that which is impossible. Those who have tried to combine a perfectionist religious motive with the [chaos] of practical life have often found it a most humbling experience.
In a nation with non-violent defense a police force would certainly be necessary for peaceful functions and for providing protection from the criminal element. A responsible government must provide protection for those who cannot protect themselves non-violently. There is probably no way to avoid as a last resort reliance upon an armed force unless non-violent resistance techniques could be adapted to the work of policemen.
It would be necessary for some of that element in society which still believed in the validity of using violence to serve in the police force until a non-violent alternative could be developed. This in no way justifies an [traditional] international police force, [since] police action is against individuals only to bring them to court in a framework of accepted law. A nation could democratically enact and implement a policy of non-violent resistance as a national defense program [and still have a police force to protect its citizens on a personal basis.
“The moral equivalent of war”—On the level of international relations, [there is] the problem of providing a moral equivalent for military warfare. We must meet exponents of military defense on the more difficult questions of practical results; our program must work better than the way of violent warfare [and it must be a pragmatic pacifism]. Reinhold Neibuhr writes: “A pragmatic pacifism does not claim the ‘law of the Cross’ as its inspiration … the ideal of the Cross has been violated from the beginning.”
[The evidence of the Gospels speaks of Jesus as] one who was concerned with practical success even while he was loving his enemies perfectly. This is not to say that Jesus calculated success as a probability, but it is to say that he considered it a possibility and was working toward it. The cross only becomes meaningful when it is set against the background of a frustrated plan and hope.
[In looking at the currently used method] of violence and war, against which pragmatic pacifism is set as a method, and how it is working in achieving the goals it shares, [we see that] it is not working well at all. Reinhold Niebuhr writes: “While a balance between the great powers may be the actual consequences of the present polices, it quite easy to foreshadow the doom of such a system.” This is the measuring stick against which a pacifist political program must be judged.
A relative success is all we seek, without guarantee of success, or even assurance of possible success; this fact must never be forgotten. If a person or a society is disciplined enough to use non-violence, there are few who will question its practicality or its superiority to violence. Reinhold Niebuhr writes: “Pacifism is a necessary influence in every society because social violence is a great evil & ought to be [mitigated with social imagination & intelligence] if at all possible.” He also wrote: “Nonviolence protects the agent against the resentments which violent conflict always creates in both parties to a conflict, by enduring more suffering than it causes.”
This means that we have to detail a plan and method by which a nation could be organized for a successful Gandhian defense, & demonstrate with proper logic & with some evidence that a nation can actually hope to defend its essential values by this means. We don't ask for or expect a national non-violent defense program unless & until the nation is adequately prepared practically & spiritually for such action. Until then we have neither the right nor the obligation to call for abandonment of military defense. [Presently], pacifism has political relevance as a future possibility only. We have the right to work against a military program in 3 ways in the right to: conscientious objection and calling others to the same; oppose military proposals with political aims; advocate and persuade others of the truth of our position, to prepare for a future time of following our program
“Stumbling blocks”—Could the people of this or any major nation, be persuaded to accept a pragmatic, pacifist, political program? The alternative of military defense is becoming increasingly impossible and immoral and necessity forces men to consider new solutions to old problems. Most people have never given this program much consideration and study, for they have never had the opportunity to do so. To expect a negative response would be to make a judgment based upon no evidence. Assuming a people incapable of choosing a practical and moral political program over impractical and immoral hydrogen warfare is to assert that ordinary people cannot be expected to govern themselves properly, that democracy is an illusion.
The problem isn't as simple as merely convincing people intellectually that Gandhi is wiser than the generals. This political change requires also a monumental religious & moral renaissance. No laws can substitute for a moral & religious life which gives laws birth & makes their application practical. The fact of the matter is that these 2 aspects of life belong together & cannot proceed apart from each other. Pentecost only comes to those who dare to put into practice principles indissolubly related to the religious experience. If leadership that is able & wise & selfless appears in our time to offer this synthesis of politics & ethics & religion, we will witness another of those historic upward surges of the human race. The most pressing task now for all is to deal realistically with the social problems of our time in the context of a world freed from the curse of violent warfare.
76. McCarthyism: The Seed is in us (by James E. Bristol; 1954)
THE AUTHOR—James Bristol joined the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) staff early in 1947. He was Director of 2 AFSC International Service Seminars in this country (Summers '47 & '48). From 1943-1947 he was active in: Fellowship of Reconciliation; National Council Against Conscription; Philadelphia Council for Conscientious Objectors. He was pastor or co-pastor of 2 churches. He served at AFSC World Affair Camps for high schoolers and adults. James is now Director of Community Peace Education Program, AFSC.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE—James Bristol's manuscript was completed late Sunday night March 7, 1954, 2 Days before Edward Murrow's courageous TV broadcast ["A Report on Joseph R. McCarthy"] which made such an impact [all] across the US & Europe. Murrow closed with [in part]: We can't defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. And [the] fault isn't really his. Cassius was right: "The fault, dear Brutus, isn't in our stars but in ourselves." People from differing backgrounds have expressed the same convictions with [a] prophetic voice.
[Introduction]/ The Seeds were There—Generally, one defines the terms that one is going to use. But in the US and around the world millions know immediately what is meant by the term "McCarthyism." This is a tragically significant and an ominous commentary on our times. Those who [see] a Communist conspiracy wresting control [of the US government] from American citizens are willing to surrender many carefully won freedoms and to limit liberty to speak, think, teach, & assemble in order to save ourselves from the creeping menace of Communism. Joseph McCarthy's name has become associated with a ruthless anti-Communist campaign. On February 9 in Wheeling, WV, McCarthy announced he had a list of 205 persons in the State Department known to be members of the Communist Party. McCarthy is unscrupulous in his methods, diabolically clever in twisting the "facts" with no regard for truth, and uses techniques usually associated with totalitarian regimes.
There is a repressive trend in America today. It existed before McCarthy, but he brought it into sharp focus. The seeds were there, McCarthy simply broadcasted the seed. This pamphlet is being written when the headlines are screaming their loudest about the McCarthy-Secretary of the Army Stevens controversy. The attitudes, developments, & trends dealt with here [are typical of the majority of the present US generation].
[I had the opportunity to view McCarthyism] from a distance, in some small sense as a person looking at it from the outside, [in this case from England]. I found English people deeply concerned and aghast at what was going on in the US. I found myself even more horrified at what was happening [than I was before leaving the US]. British and US students believe that a partly distorted picture of Senator McCarthy's and his followers' activities is being employed by the Communists to sap the prestige and influence of the US in Britain and on the Continent. Even without Communist urging, McCarthyism rampant in America would still do us untold damage.
There is a bonafide "grassroots" reaction against McCarthyism of both depth & vigor. The situation in the US is better than most Englishmen think. They are on the whole unaware of that "other America" which gains little prominence in any foreign or domestic press, & which is determined to maintain traditional freedoms. We become hypnotized too easily by the incredible episodes that claim the headlines in the daily press, [& fail to recognize that there is a resistance] against the present pressures to conform. But the situation is actually worse than the English think, because McCarthy isn't the source of all the present hysteria, restrictions, and limitations. He is not directly responsible for [the extreme censorship] in Indiana, San Antonio, and New York City.
Patterns of Totalitarianism [A pattern of totalitarianism is increasingly evident in California]. Their statutes require all religious, educational & charitable organizations to sign a loyalty statement or lose tax exempt status. Orange Grove Friends Meeting, 1st Unitarian (L. A.), & 2 AFSC offices are refusing to sign loyalty statements. The AFSC offices are submitting alternate declarations which state reasons for not signing & misgivings about loyalty oaths. Other churches were troubled by the requirements, but were going to comply. Liberal professors from the area report that they & students no longer spoke out & that honest discussion is on the decline.
Dr. Robert Hutchins of Chicago University writes: "Education is impossible in many parts of the US today because free inquiry and free discussion are impossible ... The teachers of many subjects can't teach without risking their jobs, [or] in many states [can't teach unless] they take special oaths that they have not been disloyal ... Competence or professional skill will not protect the teacher ... A school board ... will fire a teacher for insubordination if one refuses to answer a question ... [The 5th Amendment] will not save a teacher's job ... [Refusal] to answer the questions of any government authority will compel [resignation] ... Issues can't be omitted from education, except through falsity, distortion or concealment ... [Presenting] only one side ... is indoctrination ... to become passive subjects of a police state." Teachers are afraid of controversial issues and community pressure. People are condemned solely because they appear before investigating committees, regardless of the hearing's outcome; [sometimes they are punished for being subpoenaed to appear].
A school required a 3-year old girl to sign a statement that she hadn't been disloyal to state or national government for 5 years. The little girl couldn't write & the parent wouldn't sign for her. The school required that the little girl sign the statement in 2 years when she was 5. The mother refused to give even the appearance of going along. Elsewhere we find people opposed to restrictive measures but unwilling to take a stand [& suffer the consequences]. [There is compliance, acceptance of unacceptable totalitarian measures]. We hear a great deal about the menace of "creeping socialism," but it is the trend toward a conformist state that is the real threat today; [the trend has become a rapid one].
The Guilt in Us—Tragically, other people, other forces & interests move in the same direction as McCarthy. They create the atmosphere in which he thrives; each one augments the other. We all share in the guilt of McCarthyism; all contribute to the growing strength of the repressive tide sweeping the country. Many of us are militantly anti-Communist & add fuel to the flames of McCarthyism [even as we work to quench them]. In England, the Communist Party is losing ground steadily & isn't represented in the House of Commons. The average Englishman regards Communists as humans who meet openly & regularly; they are included on discussion panels.
Western Europeans have suffered more from fascism than communism. To them, communists are not plotters, but individuals encountered daily who vote for a recognized political party. Our own fear of Communism is time and again accentuated by the absence of face-to-face contact with Communists. Even those who may be vigorously opposed to McCarthy's methods are quick to assert that they are weeding Communists out in a better way. Ridding professions and public institutions of Communists is a democratic objective [when done correctly].
By & large Americans vie with each other in being anti-Communist. On every hand, organizations [& both political parties] are trying to outdo one another in their antipathy to Communism & in the actions taken against any who have embraced or do embrace the doctrine. McCarthy keeps constantly playing on anti-Communist sentiment. [If the President takes issue with McCarthy's treatment of an Army general, McCarthy will deflect] the issue to safe, firmly anti-Communist ground. Even when the President is explicit about the issue being addressed, McCarthy can keep beating anti-Communist drums in the [current] atmosphere created by many of us, [an atmosphere that leads to rocks through a family's window and a flood of epithets. We, in the very process of trying to defend democracy, by ridding it of communism entirely, have surrendered it, and are well on our way to becoming a Fascist state with its proscribed group that has no civil liberties or rights. If one group is deprived of its freedom, all citizens have suffered the same loss.
The mere fact that teachers are Communists, or simply fellow-travelers, disqualifies them, even though political beliefs may have no conceivable connection with their responsibilities. English people expressed the opinion that what was happening in the US today was similar to what transpired as Hitler tightened his hold upon the German people. The loyalty oath in the US is like the "Heil Hitler" of Nazi Germany. The English think that the US is further down the road to totalitarianiam than we realize. Most of us are contributing to the growth of McCarthyism through our involvement in the fear that is everywhere about us until we can't help but be influenced by it ourselves. An Englishwoman was shocked at the fear [she witnessed in a liberal who made a provocative statement and then] looked furtively over his shoulder. [Hesitating to seek wisdom from someone under a cloud of questionable, hysterical suspicion] makes more certain the spread of McCarthyism by our own weak-ness and timidity. It is due to our confusion, distrust, lack of confidence and inner vacillation created in our midst by the fear of the world we live in. Why was McCarthyism so rampant in "the land of the free" today?
When I 1st caught sight of Warwick Castle, with its massive walls and great moat, I thought, "This is 1954 all over again. It is America, trying by the accumulation of great and massive strength to keep the enemy outside the wall." [We have prosperity and heritages to protect]. We constantly feel that if we can only get a few more soldiers, a few weapons up on the battlements we will be safe. But 10 more soldiers become 10 more worries that one of them may be a Communist, and [that one will infect the other 9].
We stockpile atomic and hydrogen bombs in order to hold the enemy at bay. We amass a huge air force and army to hold the enemy at bay. How can we be sure of the loyalty of our armed forces, scientists, government employees, institutional employees, and teachers? Thus it is that the country's whole interior becomes honeycombed with secret passages [like a Warwick Castle], and every facet of American life develops its "eyes and ears": loyalty checks; investigations; loyalty oaths. And with it all the insecurity mounts. Fear and suspicion have indeed become a deadly and corroding influence. It is only those who are willing to lose and spend their lives for others who find peace and confidence and are purged of fear. How is the prosperity and affluence we seek the forces that are driving us headlong in our present hysteria? Great wealth breeds fear, and fear breeds suspicion and distrust—the fertile soil in which McCarthyism flourishes. We must go deeper than a civil liberties campaign if we are to alter the climate which encourages McCarthyism today.
What is Needed—We must stop being motivated by our fears; we must begin to base our actions on what we know to be right. Our gaze is to be focused upon human beings in need, and our drive and energy are to come from the wellsprings of compassion within our hearts. There must be an end to efforts, however sincerely meant, to "contain" Communism and "restrain" McCarthyism. The sort of all-out defense effort of the military program to contain Communism to which the US is committed results in the restriction of civil liberties. The very existence of the Army, increased in size as it is now is because of the threat of a Communist enemy, with the resulting growth in fear, serves greatly to strengthen McCarthy's hand.
We shall be very great fools to allow mass poverty, segregation, and exploitive, colonial tyranny to continue untouched, providing as they do the most fertile sort of seed bed for the growth of a vigorous Communist movement. [Curing these ills with] programs properly motivated and implemented by concerned people out of compassionate concern for others will make the soil barren for the seeds of Communism. We are as convinced that McCarthyism would wither and die as we are that Communism would not thrive in a free and unfettered atmosphere where physical and material needs of all were being met. We stand resolutely for the right of every person to speak freely and of every group to meet and speak with freedom. We create a climate that encourages the most honest and forthright criticism of both foreign and domestic government policy; where all opinions and points of view are openly expressed, truth will ultimately prevail.
Needed: More Courage—One of the great demands of the day is that we display some courage for a change, that we stop cringing and worrying about what people will say of us and start to live resolutely as free people should, to "practice liberty, [and therefore] possess it." We should not work with or cooperate with Communism or McCarthy. We should speak our convictions openly and forthrightly without 1st disavowing Communist connections or sympathies, even though our thoughts may sometimes parallel those of Communists.
It behooves us to remember that there is "that of God" in Communists and McCarthy too. It may be buried rather deep, but we know a divine spark is there. Nothing is more important as we face these twin threats of totalitarianism than that we demonstrate all that which is God within us. We must avoid contributing, however unconsciously, to the atmosphere of McCarthyism, or conducting a witch hunt in reverse against it.
A Creative Approach—"Standing fast in liberty" means forthright resistance to today's conforming pressures & may involve us in civil disobedience [in the midst] of restrictive measures & atmospheres. [In Gandhi's case], civil disobedience was a profoundly creative instrument whereby a goal was achieved without armed strife & hatred of violent revolution & change. [In our case], civil disobedience would be refusal to sign loyalty oaths & statements by individuals & groups, & refusal to appear before investigating committees or testify at one.
A. J. Muste [announced his tax refusal and protested the Senate's overwhelming vote to continue the work of McCarthy's "investigation" of "subversives" when he wrote]: "The whole business of the state investigating ... [people's politics and making employment] dependent on passing test of political orthodoxy and 'reliability' ... is utterly undemocratic ... and is practicing the techniques of dictatorship. It is subverting and undermining democratic institutions. It is threatening to tear our society apart [with] ... distrust and suspicion ... It is surely a patriotic thing to refuse to volunteer taxes for such subversive purposes."
A German Protestant minister [talked of his struggles with divided loyalties between religious conscience and regime, and then said: "I wonder how soon the time will come when you in America will have to make grave decisions? Those who would ready themselves for a campaign of non-violent opposition to tyranny must train rigorously and undergo rigid discipline. And not just conscientious objectors, but also other men and wo-men who see in non-violent methods an effective way to combat tyranny.
Procrastination: A Snare and a Delusion—The time to oppose tyranny is now, or at the very 1st point where it touches our lives. [Wait too long and one either] never resists at all or does it so far down the line that the resistance is not effective in stopping the onrush of dictatorship. Biding one's time guarantees the triumphal advent. It is a wrong approach to ignore little resistable evil in favor of resisting strong, entrenched, irresistible evil. Martin Niemoller, a German Lutheran pastor said that when the Nazis attacked Communists and Jews, he did nothing, because he was neither; when the Nazis attacked the Evangelical Church, it was too late.
We postpone joining in resisting any evil great or small at the penalty of losing the battle altogether. The fact that some believe profoundly in life's affirmative aspects and see creative possibilities of society leads them to take action opposing the destructive and anti-social. May we resist every evil "ism" and tyranny [and support the free exchange of ideas]. Thus only may we be free to see and follow the Light. Thus only can we ever "stand fast in liberty," which often required a sacrifice by the freedom-loving people who have gone before us. Albert Einstein wrote: "A large part of history is replete with the struggle for human rights, an eternal struggle in which final victory can never be won. But to tire in that struggle would mean the ruin of society.
SPECTATOR PAPERS by Norman J. Whitney—Dear Friends: At intervals this winter I have read and sometimes reread the passages on oaths in the first 2 volumes of the Braithwaite histories. [Later, I was asked to interpret the basis of Quaker concern for intellectual liberty. It seems to me that we who, under a sense of "divine compulsion," say no to the military demands of the state, ought to be no less sensitive at other points where the state confronts the conscience of the free [person].
8000 Quakers were in prison at one time in 17th century England. The testimony against oaths was perhaps the one by which Friends were best known in their first period. The basis of refusal to take or administer oaths was the familiar New Testament command and the insistence on a single standard of truth-telling. Friends' proven devotion to freedom of religious opinion (even for Roman Catholics) suggests they resisted on conscientious grounds attempts to restrict that freedom. [That oaths] have shifted from religion to politics is a comment on our times but does not affect the principle involved.
An "open-ended" faith requires that one must always be free to seek new revelations of the Light & to act on them. A university can't do its vital job if what is novel, original, & unconventional may be punished as being immoral, pernicious, or wickedly unorthodox. Any academic community [lacking freedom] will degenerate into a mere finishing school for mediocrities unless members of it feel free to think new thoughts and say new things.
Howard M. Jones writes: "In denying the rights of professors to appeal to the 5th Amendment, college boards and presidents substitute their official consciences for the private conscience of the witness ... [it] puts a premium on the informer and penalizes [one] who does not believe it right to endanger the fortunes of others ... It would be absurd to say that a person may protect ones self if one is guilty but not if one is innocent ... The Federal Courts may not comment on the failure of the accused to testify."
Growth occurs best in the atmosphere of community where mutual trust and confidence prevail. [We must risk exposure of the mind, if we still believe that freedom is better for [all], for the whole open structure of the American community; better than some form of repression." Such a community is destroyed by "witch hunting." Freedom of thought necessarily means the freedom to think bad thoughts as well as good."
Free [persons] are not the creature of the state; the state is ones creation. Alexander Hamilton said that such oaths "invert the order of things" and instead of forcing the state to prove to prove guilt oblige the citizen to establish ones innocence. Robert M. Hutchins said: The policy of repression cannot be justly enforced, because it is impossible to tell precisely what people are thinking; they have to be judged by their acts."
Braithwaite's history states about Quakers: "The world was right in regarding them as very real enemies to much in the existing order of things ... Many turned Quakers, because the Quakers kept their meetings openly and went to prison for it cheerfully ... Their noblest contribution lay in the constancy and character of their protest against the invasion of the state of the conscience of the Christian ... When the law could not be obeyed, the Quaker suffered its consequences without evasion, resistance, [or violence]." William Penn wrote: "He that feareth truth needs not swear, because he will not lie ... and he that doth not fear untruth, what is his oath worth? ... To take an oath would gratify distrust and humor jealousies ... How is it possible for men to recover that ancient confidence that good men reposed in one another, if some don't lead the way?"
119. Stand fast in liberty (by James E. Bristol; 1961)
About the Author—James E. Bristol (1912-1992) was an international Peace Worker who started as a Lutheran Minister. He spent 40 years on the board of the Central Committee of Conscientious Objectors. 1947-1977 he worked on the AFSC staff, at the Quaker information Center in Calcutta and later in Zambia. In retirement in 1977, he worked with AFSC's Community Peace Education Program & with Youth Militarism. This pamphlet, addresses the relationship between Friends testimonies and McCarthyism.
Resurgent McCarthyism—I have never been persuaded that more than the “excesses” [of McCarthyism] lie behind us. McCarthyism is grounded in a conviction that in the face of exceptional threats to our way of life we cannot be squeamish about the measures we employ to defend ourselves. Although McCarthy is dead, McCarthyism still flourishes and moves on apace. In the winter of 1960-61 the House of Representatives voted 416 to 6 to continue the House Un-American Activities Committee, [not because so few were against the committee, but because a vote against the Committee was “a vote for Communism”].
The Committee put out the controversial film, “Operation Abolition,” dealing with demonstrations against the Committee during San Francisco hearings in 1960. Neither the picture nor the commentary gives any firm evidence of Communist direction or control of most of the demonstrators, as charged by committee members. The film, [with all its misinformation] has been shown in schools, colleges, and churches, service clubs, and other organizations around the country. Those who criticize the Committee are either shrugged off or persecuted as “Communist dupes.” We cease to think of [those labeled “Communists] as human beings in need of jobs, food and shelter. Investigating committees cast their blight far and wide, relying upon each community they visit to ostracize and penalize the people they call up to testify, regardless of the outcome of the hearing.
An atmosphere of suspicion & fear is strengthened by groups like the John Birch Society. [It is compiling] “the most complete and accurate files in America on leading comsymps, Socialists, and liberals.” The fear of Communism has led to a fear of social change and of people who question the status quo. The Christian Anti-Communism Crusade holds schools and conducts lectures nationally, publicizing its activities and distributing its literature widely. Under the impact of the anti-Communist movement some self-righteously patriotic groups have gone so far as to threaten the well-being of individuals and families who champion any other point of view.
[The Supreme Court ruled in June 1961] that: 1. The Communist Party must register all of its officers and members with the Justice Department; 2. Active Communist Party membership is a Federal crime if the individual is aware of the party’s subversive goals. The dissenting Justice Douglas declared that in reality the decision outlawed ideas and thoughts. In the case of both Raphael Konigsberg and George Anastaplo the 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court upheld refusal of admission to the bar for failure to answer questions about Communism. The dissenting Justice Black said: “To force the Bar to become a group of thoroughly orthodox, time-serving, government-fearing individuals is to humiliate and degrade it. But that is the present trend . . . in almost every walk of life. Too many men are being driven to become government-fearing and time-serving. . . This trend must be halted if we are to keep faith with the Founders of our Nation and pass on to future generation of Americans the great heritage of freedom which the Founders sacrificed so much to leave to us.”
The Blame is Ours—To a greater extent than many of us realize, we all share in the guilt of McCarthyism, and all contribute to the growing repression that is sweeping the country. The stark fact of the matter is that once we agree that to rid all walks of life of Communists is a democratic goal, we have, in the very process of trying to defend our democracy, surrendered it. We are then well on the way to becoming a totalitarian state. . . Once a group has been deprived of its freedom, all citizens have in reality suffered the same loss.
A decade ago [1950] the loyalty oath was a new phenomenon in American life. Loyalty oaths are now a permanent part of the state apparatus. Those who could not in good conscience take the oath have long since lost their jobs. There is a great deal of compliance with measures with which people are not in agreement; they want to keep their jobs.
Why is it that many of us fall victim to the hysteria of our generation & are finally persuaded that we must abandon much of precious liberty and adopt a fair measure of the tyrant’s mode of operation in order to prevent the seizure of power in America by a subversive tyranny? It is a fact of human psychology that the more certain people are that they alone are right, the more frightened they become to listen to another’s convictions, [and the more extreme measures they take to avoid exposure to a hostile and critical point of view].
The Castle Psychology—I approached Warwick castle, & found [myself] inside castle walls. [I thought:] “This is not far away & long ago at all. This is today ... It is America, trying by accumulation of great & massive strength to keep the enemy outside the wall.” Always a few more [men] are needed [on the wall]; [but] one of these men may be a Communist. Our fear feeds upon our fear, until we find that our external defenses have made us feel less secure. And the whole interior of the country becomes honeycombed with secret passages; every facet of American life develops its own “eyes and ears” [i.e. loyalty checks and oaths, legislative investigations].
Walter Millis wrote: “[The] technical ability to massacre . . . millions of non-combatants [brutalizes] foreign policy, which must inevitably brutalize and poison internal life as well.” Fear and suspicion have a deadly and corroding influence, and there is only one escape from them. Only those willing to lose and spend their lives for others find peace and confidence and are purged of fear. Should we be surprised if the no-God materialism which permeates American life today moves us in the same direction [as Communism]? We must go deeper than a civil liberties campaign if we are to alter the climate which encourages McCarthyism.
What is Needed—What we need is a program, a movement based on what we believe in rather than the things to which we are opposed. [We must stop “containing” Communism and “restraining” McCarthyism]. We must focus our gaze only upon human beings in need. Under the impact of the Cuban defeat [i.e. Bay of Pigs], there was talk urging the [need] of using the devil’s tactics to defeat the devil. [Even President Kennedy urged the press to use restrained and possibly deceptive news reporting]. The price for preserving our freedom is to renounce military might to defend us against our enemies.
[If we do renounce military might], we shall be very great fools to allow poverty, segregation, & economic exploitation to continue unremedied, for these provide [fertile soil] for the growth of a vigorous Communist movement. [Relief of these problems done] because of our compassionate concern for others—are the steps that will make the soil barren for the seeds of Communism. Reverend Raymond T. Bosler said that Communism exists because: 1. Christians haven't recognized the Gospel’s social implications; 2. Christians are nationalistic, not internationally minded; 3. wealthy Christian states haven't shared; 4. wealthy “Catholic” landowners have refused to share their wealth with the poor living around them; 5. Christians have failed to see Christ in the Negro, the Chinese, the Mexican. I am convinced that McCarthyism & Communism alike will wither & die in a free, unfettered atmosphere where the physical & material needs of all are being met. To defend the rights of every person means that we uphold the rights of Communists & fellow-travelers and of the John Birch Society alike.
Lay Hold on Courage—To practice liberty doesn't mean to ignore our fundamental disagreement with Communists & their aims. We can speak our convictions openly without being extremely concerned to avoid “questionable” people. When we practice liberty we remember there is “that of God” in the Communists, & the Klu Klux Clanner, the white racist, & the House Un-American Activities Committee. For many of us, the greater problem will be to “answer that of God in every one,” [through our words and actions of] love, peace, freedom and brotherhood. It is extremely difficult to be smeared and not to smear back, but here as in other matters we are called to love our enemies and to “stand fast in the liberty” our religious experience has blessed us with.
“Standing fast in liberty” means forthright resistance to pressures for conformity, [perhaps in the form of] civil disobedience. The commitment that equips a person to form part of the hard core of such a resistance movement doesn't come easily or without cost. Such a movement in this country would take the form of refusal to sign loyalty oaths and loyalty statements. It could require violating laws and a prison sentence. [A German minister concluded his remarks about choosing between religious conscience and the regime in power] with: “I wonder how soon the time will come when you in America will have to make that same grave decision.”
One learns to resist enslavement by resisting every encroachment upon freedom at the very first point where it touches one’s life. [To paraphrase an old adage]: “Never put off until tomorrow what you can resist today.” Procrastination [in resisting] ensures the eventual enslavement of the very people who today stress the necessity to bide one’s time. There are times when the most positive and creative action one can take is what appears on the surface to be negative. May we resist every outreach of tyranny that would deprive anyone of genuine freedom. Thus only can we ever “stand fast in the liberty” which has been [over and over again] bought at great price by freedom-loving peoples who have gone before us.
431. Revelation and Revolution: Answering the Call to Radical Faithfulness (by Steve Chase; 2014)
About the Author—Steve Chase assumed the education director position at Pendle Hill in 2014, after 12 years as founding director of Antioch's program in Advocacy for Social Justice & Sustainability. In [his efforts to be] a community activist, Steve has sought to answer the spiritual call he experienced as a teenager in the Religious Society of Friends. Steve is co-author of the book Building Beloved Communities: A Transition Town Primer for People of Faith. This pamphlet goes back to a talk Steve gave at the 2012 PH Young Adult Friends Conference, which he later entitled "Revelation & Revolution: Quaker Activism as a Path Toward Faithfulness."
[Introduction]—When I was a teenager, my dad took me backpacking for several days in Yosemite National Park. Another awestruck backpacker showed up at Vogelsang High Sierra Camp, & we talked late into the night. Our new companion asked me what I wanted to be. I replied, "A nonviolent revolutionary ... because I'm a Quaker." For me, the connection between Quakers & nonviolent revolution was self-evident. I liked how the book, Revolution: A Quaker Prescription for a Sick Society, built on Martin Luther King's (MLK) 1967 call for us to engage in "a radical revolution of values."
The founders of A Quaker Action Group (AQAG) were my inspiring, living "patterns & examples" of faithfulness. They started AQAG in 1966, with creative & daring nonviolent direct action to oppose the US [role] in Vietnam. [They later broadened their scope in the] "hope to catalyze a movement for a new society ... in concert with other change movements." The "Kingdom of God" teaching meant fostering another way of life that leaves behind a love of justice, solidarity, & unity with neighbors & nature. Almost a few decades later I founded the Advocacy for Social Justice & Sustainability program "to create a sustainable society that embodies respect ... for life's community, [ecology], social-economic justice, democracy, non-violence & peace." Being a nonviolent revolutionary has been a joyful part of my spiritual practice for over 4 decades through both good times and bad.
A Little More History—Many Quaker historians say this radical vision of faithfulness goes all the way back to the beginning of the Quaker movement. Gerard Guiton, in The Early Quakers and the "Kingdom of God": Peace, Testimony, and Revolution, documents how 17th century Quakers claimed the "rediscovery" of "Jesus' central & 'pure doctrine' of the Kingdom of God ... " In response to this radical revelation of their role in the unfolding of God's just & compassionate ways, early Quakers risked repression to promote a "spiritual revolution with social & political consequences. They were waging a non-violent "Lamb's War," a visionary and persistent effort "designed to turn the world upside down by placing the Jesus Way ... at the very heart of life."
Guiton claims that "the early Quakers are little understood among present-day Friends," and not often followed as powerful patterns and examples by today's Quaker. Rosemary Moore points out that divergence from a radical faith and practice began "in the course of a few years ... and it was not long before the weight of Quaker opinion came down on side of solid respectability." While the spirit of Quaker faith and practice has been crucified many times, it has also been resurrected many times as a rising flame emerging from still glowing embers, [in the guise of] John Woolman, Lucretia Mott, and the founders of AQAG. [Most recently] we see this rising flame in the recent Kabarak Call for Peace and Ecojustice.
The Call from Kenya—This Call is a Quaker faith & practice statement from the 6th World Conference of Friends held in April 2012 in Kenya. Among 850 Quakers, the question was asked: "What is God calling us to do & be now?" The following statement, in spite of difficulties and momentary antagonisms, was approved in a nearly unanimous "sense of the meeting" decision. [Excerpts follow] "[They witnessed to health & climate disasters], "wars & rumors of war, job loss, inequality, violence. We fear our neighbors. We waste our children's heritage. These are driven by dominant economic systems—by greed not need, by worship of the market, by Mammon & Caesar. Is this how Jesus showed us to live?"
"... We are called to work for the peaceable Kingdom of God on the whole earth, in right sharing with all people." We are called to see what love can do, [to follow the Scripture's admonitions in the treatment of our neighbor]. We are called to teach our children right relationship and harmony with each other [and the world]. We are called to do justice to all and walk humbly with our God, to cooperate lovingly with those who share our hopes for the earth's future. We are called to be patterns and examples in a 21st century campaign for peace & ecojustice. We dedicate ourselves to building the peace that passeth all understanding, to the repair of the world, opening our lives to the Light to guide us in each small step."
The Call from Louisiana—I have personally seen such faith in action while leading a field studies trip to Louisiana with 12 students. Besides [showing the realities of corporate power, regulatory agencies, pollution, public health, & racism, I wanted the students to get to know some tough creative people who have resisted these powerful forces & won some real community victories between Baton Rouge & New Orleans, known as "Chemical Corridor" or "Cancer Alley." Louisiana produces roughly 25% of domestically produced petrochemicals from 150 plants in Cancer Alley, yet is the 2nd poorest state, with the worst national public health record.
Margie Richard, a retired school-teacher who used to lived in Diamond, Louisiana led a community rebellion in Diamond, to make sure the Shell Oil Company paid every homeowner [not just whites] enough to move. She pointed to the spot where a 17-year-old boy mowing the lawn, died in a fireball from a chemical plant explosion. Shell offered the boy's mother $500 for her son's death if the mother would sign away her right to sue the company. Shell voluntarily offered a buyout deal to white residents of Diamond, but not to African Americans.
She became a community organizer & started pressuring Shell to buy out all the neighbors in Diamond. She built an alliance with Greenpeace & the Sierra Club. Her community bought a few shares of Shell stock & sent her to Europe to Shell's shareholders meeting. Margie poured glasses of Diamond well water for the directors & encouraged them to drink it if they thought it was safe. Shell finally offered enough money for everyone's homes so all could move. Margie said, "Aw honey, if Jesus can die on the cross for me, I can damn well take care of the babies in my community."
The Kingdom as Beloved Community—I completely resonated with Margie's radical Christian faithfulness in that moment. We both recognized each other as God intoxicated, Creation-loving, Bible-studying, Jesus-following activists. We had disagreements about particulars, & theology. Yet we also shared a common prophetic spiritual tradition that inspires us to engage in a nonviolent revolution of values within our communities.
Many "who share our hopes for the future of the earth" aren't comfortable expressing long range visions using the biblical language of the "kingdom of God." I have been able to find common ground with my students by using MLK's "beloved community." During the mid-1980's in the African American neighborhood in Seattle, they understood that it is a big problem that most "students from high school know little about MLK & the civil & human rights movements. This neighborhood got the city council to agree to their proposal. The organizers of this campaign had a celebration in a local baptist church.
Vincent Harding, a radical Mennonite, and longtime associate of MLK focused his talk on King's long-range vision of building the beloved community. Harding described how King's vision of the beloved community held an inclusive appeal for secular people seeking to help form a "more perfect union" as talked about in the U. S. Constitution. Whether we see ourselves as secular or religious people, we should all learn to work together to continue King's nonviolent revolution of values in our personal, professional, and public lives. Harding believed that the fundamental challenge we face in our society today is changing the road we travel from the Empire Way (the street's old name) to MLK Way, from imperial life to the beloved community that King dreamed of and worked so hard to advance.
I ask my students if this story comes anywhere close to capturing the spirit of what they most hope to accomplish as well-trained activists and organizers working for social justice and sustainability. I get the same quick "Yes"—even though the room is usually filled with atheists or folks who identify as "spiritual, not religious." They resonate with King's vision's of the beloved community, which they feel poetically captures the spirit of their own calling. All of the local Daughters of the American Revolution chapter want to live in a socially just, ecologically sustainable, and spiritually fulfilling community. There is a latent goodwill all around us that we can work with, even if it is muted by denial, distraction, and despair.
Needed: "Transformed Nonconformists—My mother & I watched news coverage of the civil rights movement, particularly the Birmingham, Alabama demonstrations, when I was 8. My mom said, "Stevie, these are God's people. I want you to be like them when you grow up." She took me to a "black" beach at Lake Story, & refused to go when a policeman told her to go to the other beach to "keep the peace." My mother's white privilege protected her in a way that wouldn't have applied to a black mother refusing to leave a "white" beach.
Perhaps this is why I resonate with MLK's gospel message of "creative maladjustment." Certain nonconformist actions shake things up and make new things possible. They create openings and places where God's Spirit can come into this world right here and right now. King said: "You who are in the field of psychology have given us a great word. It is the word "maladjusted." It is good ... that destructive maladjustment should be eradicated. But ... we all recognize that there are some things in our society and world to which ... we must always be maladjusted to if we are to be people of good will. We must never adjust to [:] racial discrimination ... racial segregation ... religious bigotry ... transferring resources from poor to rich ... militarism and violence."
King argued that it is actually pathological for any person to become well adjusted to a world of injustice. Psychologists should find ways to help ordinary citizens to deepen their capacity for creative maladjustment. King also wrote: "This hour in history needs a dedicated circle of transformed nonconformists ... The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority." [Paul said it a slightly different way in Romans 12:2].
King also makes clear that this is an issue of psychological wellbeing and spiritual faithfulness. Over time, the mainstream Christian church has become "so entrenched in wealth and prestige that it began to dilute the strong demands of the gospel and conform to the ways of the world." The biblical story of Samuel is another good example. The federated tribes of Israel are growing tired of living without a human monarchy; they want a human kingdom just like everyone else. In the story, God views this course as a sinful folly doomed to create very negative consequences for the people and land of Israel. Yet God seems to believe that these people might learn something from their social experiment with kings and earthly empires.
Hebrew scriptures, texts of the Jesus movement, and Islamic scriptures repeatedly depict God as experimenting over the millennia with various ways to educate us in the ways of beloved community—sometimes veering off into exasperation and punishment, at other times [using] compassion, forgiveness, and guidance. God is often pictured as seeking to reach us and teach us, sending [holy men and women] to [teach] the Way, the Truth, and the Life—as well as embedding in our hearts the spirit as our Inward Teacher.
Most modern Quakers probably feel the pull of the beloved community, but continue to miss the mark to varying degrees. King believed, "We need to recapture the gospel glow of early Christians, who ... refused to shape their witness according to the mundane patterns of the world." I took great inspiration from reading the many stories of the creative maladjustment of early Quakers, [who refused any recognition] of the hierarchical privileges of social class. They also refused to pay tithes to the state church, swear oaths in British courts. They were frequently convicted of heresy and blasphemy, their property was often seized, and some were tortured or died in prison. Early Quakers had to face some of their deepest fears, become willing to appear foolish in the eyes of others, and learn to take action in alignment with their deepest faith commitments.
The Journey to Creative Maladjustment—In 2008, Friends General Conference (FGC) Gathering honored MLK's 1958 keynote address to the FGC Gathering. MLK is one of the most powerful patterns and examples of faithfulness through social activism—but perhaps not in the way most of us think. In reality, King's journey to social activism is really a testament to the power of "fearful faithfulness." Charles Marsh notes: "MLK arrived in Mongomery, AL in late summer 1954 with his eye set on denominational fame and fortune. His ambitions were: solid church program; nice house; magazine writing; adjunct teaching.
Racism and social justice were "back burner" concerns for King. Marsh reports, the members of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church "shared a hope for a future without Jim Crow, but they were not going to be the ones to ignite the fires of dissent." If it had been left to King's initiative, the Montgomery Bus Boycott would never have happened. E. D. Nixon, on the other hand, bailed Rosa Parks out of jail. Both of them started phoning people. Nixon phoned King among others. King said, " ... Let me think about it awhile ... "
The 1st discussion of it was at King's church. King had doubts that boycotts were ethical or moral. He began to sway other ministers to his side, until Nixon challenged the ministers to stand up like grown men against segregation. To save face, King agreed to a long-term boycott. Nixon nominated King president of the new Montgomery Improvement Association; he was elected & had to give the main address in 20 minutes. King wrote: "I was now almost overcome, obsessed by a feeling of inadequacy ... I turned to God in prayer ... asking God to restore my balance and to be with me in a time when I needed [divine] guidance"; his speech was electrifying.
Serving as the leader of the Montgomery Boycott for the next 13 months changed King. By watching 42,000 poor and working-class black folks stay organized and do without public transportation for over a year, King discovered the hidden capacity of ordinary people to resist oppression and move toward freedom together. He experienced the power of mass nonviolent direct action campaigns to win real victories; he also discovered what kind of leader he wanted to be. We do not have to attain perfect spiritual wisdom or confidence before we become active. We just have to get started building the beloved community right here, right now. It is an invitation to take up the cross of fearful faithfulness.
Seeking "Spiritual" Way Out?/ Renewed Vision of Faith—Paul Rogat Loeb writes: "Whatever the issue, whatever the approach, we never feel we have enough knowledge or standing. [We fear error & being mistaken for a hypocrite]." Waiting for perfection in social activism has never once led to a successful social movement—or real faithfulness. Ordinary people create effective social movements only when they surrender themselves to the power of fearful faithfulness, even if it involves insecure pride or some other form of spiritual immaturity. MLK grew in faithfulness & increasingly opened himself up to a life of active civic engagement in the service of the beloved community. King didn't wait on either inner peace or spiritual maturity before becoming active. Instead, King grew in his faith & experienced deep personal transformation in the midst of working with imperfect people, including himself, as part of his fearful, faithful, activism on behalf of the beloved community.
There is in the anthology Working for Peace: A Handbook of Practical Psychology & Other Tools, a piece by Christina Michaelson, a clinical psychologist, which seems to advocate "spiritual avoidance" of public life. In many ways, Michaelson is "creatively maladjusted" & supports peace activist work, & claims that this work can be made more effective, & more soul satisfying, if activists cultivate meditation, nature experiences, counseling, worship & prayer. I am grateful for the blessing of a spiritual reawakening in my mid-40's. Michaelson writes: "Your peace work in the world should begin with cultivating an inner state of peacefulness & then you truly can offer peace to others ... If you want to see peace in the world, then you must 'be' peace in the world."
Michaelson also argues that both outward activism & inward spiritual growth [are involved in] faithfulness. Both of these elements feed off each other in creative & reciprocal ways. There are multiple pathways available to us for fostering the peaceable kingdom in partnership with God. Depending on our spiritual gifts and leadings we can choose: direct service; election campaigning, lobbying, advocacy, organizing, nonviolent resistance; civil disobedience; building alternative institutions and new cultural practices. If more of us adopt a more balanced approach, Friends will be in a much better position to grow spiritually & respond to the Spirit's call for faithful social action. D. Elton Trueblood notes, "The great significance of the central Quaker idea is that it avoids damaging separation [of these elements] by uniting, bonding, the inner & outer aspects of our faith."
Will we answer the call to faithfully embody God's divine love & power in our personal, professional, & public lives? Will we stay lost in denial, despair, & distraction? MLK offered this prophetic challenge: "If we don't act we shall be dragged down the long dark, shameful corridors of time reserved for those who have power without compassion, might without morality, strength without sight. Let us rededicate ourselves to the long & bitter struggle for a new world ... The choice is ours, [surrender or solidarity] & though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of history." We can make the choice to rejoin the Lamb's War [of our early Quaker ancestors] and become ever more faithful nonviolent revolutionaries in service to the beloved community. Let us join together and joyfully see what love can do.
Queries—What does "creative maladjustment" mean to you? What are some situation today to which Quakers should not be "adjusted"? How can Quakers support each other in faithful activism? What does it mean to renew your mind as opposed to conforming to this world? Why is this transformation important for discerning God's will? Do you agree that we must achieve inward peace before we can work effectively for outward peace? Why or why not? How do you seek to be a faithful activist? How does your meeting express and promote the "beloved community"?
1. Cooperation and Coercion as Methods of Social Change (by Vincent D. Nicholson; 1934)
About the Author—Vincent D. Nicholson (1890-1945) attended Earlham College & took a B. Laws from Harvard (1916). In 1917, he became American Friends Service Committee's (AFSC) 1st executive secretary; he focused on relief during the First World War. His own induction into the US Army cut this work short. After the war, he did European relief work. He was AFSC peace secretary during the '20s. His Pendle Hill class report published as "Cooperation & Coercion as Methods of Social Change," became the 1st Pendle Hill pamphlet. Vincent Nicholson wrote this pamphlet while working with the AFSC work camp in Westmoreland, PA.
[Introduction]—Cooperation & Coercion don't stand in complete contrast either philosophically or politically. They involve very different theories in human nature, social conduct, & group action. Every employment of coercion, however, affects public opinion far beyond the parties & issues immediately involved. Modern communication spreads the violent group action contagion quickly & widely. Nonviolent actions catch on in a less obvious but equally real fashion. Men who are ready at any time to be governed by the spirit of antagonism aren't fit instruments of any cooperative method. Half-hearted coercion or persuasion can't succeed. Will differences & conflicts be creative or devastating in their effect? Coercion perpetuates in man's spirit an element that is destructive of the good life. Here we outline certain issues & suggest certain criteria & moral judgment.
Definitions—"Cooperation" means those processes of education & persuasion in which conflict resolution is sought by the free-willing assent of both parties. "Coercion" means those processes by which one party seeks to subject the others to outward compliance without free-willing assent. It is important to remember that moral opposition to war is more than opposition to killing; it is also opposition to setting people against one another in antagonism & hate. Many forms of mass coercion, [such as an industrial strike], partake of war's moral nature, even though they may stop short of its terrible consequences. It is doubtful whether the analogy of a community coercing individuals through civil & criminal law can be carried into the realm of nations coercing other nations.
Classification/ Criteria of Moral Judgment—Internationally, coercion includes war, embargoes, & discriminatory trade policies. Cooperation includes arbitration, mediation, conciliation, conferences & educating world opinion. The policy of non-recognition, although coercive in character, would seem to chiefly be moral suasion. For the underprivileged group in the industrial field, the coercive methods available are strikes, boycott, & armed revolution. Cooperation includes trade agreements, democratizing & seeking common interest. Political power can be cooperative when based on public opinion, or coercive when based on police & militia.
2 individuals or group of individuals may hold opposing moral convictions with equal honesty. And beneath a seeming success may lie the seeds of future difficulties which render the achievement temporary or illusory. The realm of morals is identified with a regard for the general interest. A moral judgment of any social action is concerned with its ultimate effect rather than with its immediate objective. 2 methods of approach to social change are political expediency and Jesus' approach.
The political social reformer's conduct must be adjusted to those around him. Importance to him isn't in eternity's sweep, but the seeming demands of his times; something discernible must happen in his own lifetime. [For one using] Jesus' approach, social progress toward an increasing well-being for all depended on having more individuals whose inner life is in harmony with God's purpose. The "rich young ruler" & "Good Samaritan" parables are concerned with being in harmony with the law of love, & personal response to an evil situation.
John Woolman 1st sought to make his own conduct consistent with his ideals; he then felt free to urge these ideals on others; e.g. opposition to slavery & economic inequality. Tolstoy was concerned with his involvement & responsibility in the evil in existing social institutions & practices & sought to help underprivileged folk of cities & country. Tolstoy shared Jesus' view on more people being in harmony with, in his case, moral law. Each person is morally bound to act out such moral insight as is afforded them. An individual best serves one's fellow when one seeks to contribute to one's group in counsel & in conduct, his highest ideals of human relationship.
Moral Intuition as an Instrument of Knowledge—Politicians and social reformers are in danger of losing the clarity of their moral insight in the dust of their activity. In the choice between the pragmatic and intuitive approaches to truth, there is no method by which one can demonstrate the superior validity of either. Social progress toward the good life might move more surely if "practical people" would dare to credit more highly and listen more closely to the inner voice of moral guidance. As a definitive, reliable instrument of cognition, the intuitive process has much to commend it. The intuitionist is dealing with the realm of his own inner life. One has a synthesis of knowledge born of the whole of one's past experience.
If one is religious, this process becomes communication with a divine purpose directing one toward good; apprehension of good isn't a rational process. Many intuitive, religious persons have a sincere conviction that force & coercion are necessary. A belief in cooperation has grown out of an intuitive sense that it is right, despite majority belief to the contrary. Society suffers mostly from a poverty of moral insight. If one has intuitive sense that a coercive policy is out of harmony with the good life, one should trust this intuition. Coercion's results in the modern world aren't so impressive as to invalidate a belief in the rightness of cooperation.
Persuasion & Coercion have the Same Objective—One of the chief objections to war is the historical fact that it is usually inconclusive. Each successive war tends to perpetuate the psychology of war in public opinion. The same is true of other coercive methods even though they fall short of war's horrors. English & US labor history indicates that most strikes have been unsuccessful in attaining an agreement with some promise of permanence. If there is temporary success, it is upset as soon as general economic conditions shifted the balance of power. In the recent Aberle Mill strike in Philadelphia, there was no progress toward solution until there was a murder. Although only 1 life was taken, & an agreement affecting hundreds of lives was achieved, there is an intuitive feeling that the moral universe suffered a blow which no social achievement could compensate for.
Advocates of the use of force in order to oust oppressors from power assume that the oppressed, when victorious will use their power for the social good; neither history, nor psychology, support such a thesis. Persuasion advocates must face the fact that the holders of unjust privilege have seldom relinquished their position voluntarily. The main problem is the discovery of social change methods which offer successful and stable results. The goal of all conflict is an agreement guaranteed in stability by a willing spirit of agreement. The end and the means must be harmonious and appropriate to each other. [There is inevitable] futility in attempting to produce a state of goodwill by methods of ill-will.
[Queries]—What methods of adjusting group conflict seem to offer a stable solution? Are the cost of certain effective, coercive methods too high in terms of moral values? What new techniques of per-suasion will dramatize the issue and produce a sense of emergency resulting in action.
2. A Religious Solution to the Social Problem (by Howard H. Brinton; 1934) About the Author—Howard & Anna Brinton arrived at Pendle Hill in the summer of 1936 with a solid background of academic achievement at the colleges of Mills & Earlham, & became co-directors of a new sort of education enterprise, a Quaker fusion of school and community. They retired in the 1950s & lived on campus as Directors Emeriti. Anna died in 1969; Howard continues to serve by lecturing, writing, and simply being.
PREFACE [to 2nd Printing in 1945]—The following essay was 1st published in 1934. Elation produced by wartime prosperity seems, at 1st sight very different from the gloom of the Depression [Years]. Prosperity based on [massive] destruction of the world’s resources is artificial & dangerous. Europe’s social illness is also attacking us. The individualistic atomization of society is balanced by authoritarianism & mass-mindedness both in economics & politics. Tribalistic nationalism is taking the place of Christianity as an object of loyalty.
Man will always sink lower or rise higher than the humanistic level of rationalized self-interest. The level above the human can be [reached] by a religiously centered community life [through] an invading Light & Power from above. One must become either a social organism’s cell or a social mechanism’s cog, soulless & controlled from without. Wherever Divine Light enkindled within man’s heart shines there is no darkness.
For the purpose of this undertaking I approached our problem from the original point of view of the Society of Friends, which in many ways resembled early Christianity. What is the remedy for excessive individualism that will respect the hard-won rights of the individual? The paradoxical nature of this statement suggests that the solution may be a religious one, for religion feeds on paradox, and is at its highest and most creative stage, the one solvent for excessive individualism which enhances the respect for individual personality. Religion provides the power [to] reform our social order, not the tools or blueprints.
INTRODUCTION—Howard Brinton wrote: “Humanity has progressed much further scientifically than it has socially … The scientist had better lock up his laboratory until the ‘visionary’ peace propagandist and the ‘dangerous’ economic reformer teach humanity cooperation and self-control.” [Howard Brinton found the means of achieving cooperation and self-control] in the obscure writings of Jacob Boehme (1575-1624). And in the history of Quakerism Howard Brinton found evidence of the effectiveness of the Divine Light Within in producing peace and unity both in the individual and the group.
The essay now reprinted was his inaugural address when the author became acting director of Pendle Hill (PH) in 1934. PH is pictured as overcoming self-centered individualism & attaining unity through worship & economic life. Catholic philosophers Dawson & Maritain & the psychological analysis of social disease by Gerald Heard furnished valuable support & supplements to his own conclusions. PH Publications Committee.
The Primitive Christian Solution—In both early Quakerism and early Christianity religious groups were formed whose individual members were fused together as fire fuses metals, by a living infusion of the Spirit. After Pentecost a permeative bond held together every Christian community from Jerusalem to Rome. In the early Christian meeting for worship, the Spirit exercised the same function that soul exercises in the body; it united and coordinated the units of which the whole was composed. Man is saved through the Spirit of Christ inspiring and unifying the Church, not through an external historical transaction. A greater Life unites him with Itself and with one’s [companions]. It creates new life in one and new life in the group.
The Middle Ages Church’s central doctrine held that man is saved in and through a Christian Society which is the Body of Christ; this doctrine became mechanized, and only a shadow remained of the early belief. There is no more dynamic or effectual means of social integration than that which we call religious. The individuality of each part was not thereby canceled out; rather it was lifted up into something higher, through which the essential purpose of each individual was discovered and fulfilled.
The Early Quaker Solution—Quakers gave up baptism as an unnecessary external addition to an inner spiritual reality; the Lord’s supper was celebrated wholly in silent communion. There was no bond but the Spirit, no creed but that which came fresh & upwelling from the Eternal Fountain of Truth. There was in early Quakerism a large degree of economic interdependence. The Quaker's Inward Light doctrine has sometimes been interpreted as an extreme form of religious individualism, [others assuming it to be Protestantism’s extreme left wing].
There is indeed a Reformation Group in England which followed this, but it was the Ranters. [Ranters left the Quaker fellowship when meeting for business governments were set up]; this was the Wilkinson-Story separation of 1676. The Society of Friends took the position that the source of guidance was the “sense of the meeting,” a communal light. The individual view may be simply fragmentary and incomplete rather than in error. The Quaker method is group thinking where God is present in the group. There is no domination of majority over a minority. If a good degree of unity is not reached, no action is taken. Unity comes as an integration in which the parts are transmuted into something more complete than any part could become by itself. A group arriving at a higher unity generates a spiritual energy which becomes available for practical use.
The History of the Social Problem—In the Graeco-Roman culture, society lost all inner cohesion and could only be held together by the dictatorial policy of a Caesar. Religion [lapsed] into a skeptical, pantheistic philosophy, or into world-denying mysticism. Religiously integrated groups of Christians offered to the world a new way of life. The visible Church became the kingdom of God on earth, and united in itself philosophy, theology, science, art, politics, and language education.
But the Church reached its zenith and decayed. The Protestantism of the the 16th & 17th centuries abolished the Church as the means of salvation, & substituted an individual relation between man & God. The great humanists of the Renaissance [rediscovered] the brilliant age of classical antiquity when man had used his matchless individual reason to discover truth, goodness, & beauty. There grew up a doctrine that progress is inevitable.
In the 19th century, “liberalism” meant to be willing to give to every one the right to advance one’s own opinions whatever they might be; this shed new light on many questions. Yet liberalism is an incomplete and one-sided philosophy of life; in defending the rights of the parts it tends to forget the rights of the whole. Protestantism [still] venerated the superhuman, but banished it to Bible times or to a future state.
[Also in this century] science succeeded in reducing the world of matter to swarms of molecules & atoms, each going its individual way regardless of any spirit of the whole; [economics & politics followed the same path of individualism]. In all human endeavor, the process of atomization continued. Science declared that man has no freedom of will, but is the helpless victim of blind mechanical forces; instead of a fallen angel he is a risen animal; his mind is a mere bundle of reflexes, & all emotions result from one’s glands & their chemical compounds. [After WWI’s] terrific jolt to faith, one thing yet remains: a faith in the inevitability of scientific progress. If it could not make life significant, it can at least make life comfortable.
Modern humanists don’t seem to realize that one can raise one’s self above the animal only by laying hold upon that which is higher than one’s self. One can’t lift one’s self spiritually any more than one can lift one’s self physically. 3 centuries ago humans began to lose faith in the super-human. Little did they know that this loss of faith in the super-human would cause them to lose faith in the human too. [Can we forget our troublesome pretensions & indulge in a healthy, sincere sensuality]? The sensuality of the modern man is a deliberate, self-conscious sensuality, not self-forgetful animal naturalness. [In portraying sensuality, the movies present, in more senses than one], a 2-dimensional world with no depth. There are 3 important remedies for excessive individualism which recognize the nature of the problem: autocracy; world denunciation; religiously integrated group.
The 1st Solution: Autocracy—When people have lost faith in themselves they tend to seek refuge in a strong man. Over-individualized people can be forced to cooperate by the power of the state. The line of retreat to a mechanical level is exhibited also in the growth of extreme nationalism. Extreme individualism in nations is as intolerable as extreme individualism in persons.
The 2nd Solution: World Renunciation—When confidence of success is lost, the pain of individuality and inadequacy is assuaged by complete surrender to that which is above and beyond the world. This solution was particularly widespread at the time when the Graeco-Roman civilization was crumbling into individual atoms. In Buddhism, the isolated soul by ceasing to exist as isolated, enters the nameless peace of Nirvana.
There must be some area of calm into which the wearied soul may withdraw for renewal of strength. There must be some quiet time of worship when life’s course is reset by pilot stars. It is only when such a period of refreshment becomes the only goal that religion is a method of escape. [On the other hand], the life which is wholly this-worldly is often like a stream which runs dry because it is not renew by a source beyond itself.
The 3rd Solution: The Religiously Integrated Group—In this type of release from over-individualism we find a balance between world-affirmation and world renunciation. [In ideal operation], these groups neither suppress by authority nor eliminate by retirement. In uniting with the spirit of the group one rises to a super-individual organic level. [Here “organic” is a binding together of a group by love and friendship]. The cementing force is not only love of one another. It is also the love of God. The group looks to that which is above them all yet in them all; they look to the spirit that unites from above. Such a synthesis of the vertically directed love of God and the horizontally directed love of man is called the Greek of the New Testament agape. I John 1:5,7 says: “God is light and in God there is no darkness at all. If we walk in the light as God is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus God’s Son cleanses us from all sin.”
The individualistic interpretation of the atonement, as set forth in most Protestant creeds, is of little help, but primitive Christianity didn't put its central emphasis on individual salvation. It provided social gospel for social need. Primitive Christianity symbolized the power [“the tie that binds”] in the common meal partaken of in memory of the Last Supper. [In Moses’ covenant ritual, half the blood is sprinkled over the altar, which represents Jehovah. The other half is sprinkled over the people with the words, “behold the blood of the covenant.”
Blood represented “life.” To unite Jehovah & Israel, a 3rd living creature needed to be sacrificed in order that its life, shared by the other 2, may unite them into a single life. It is natural that Jesus should think of his blood as “new covenant's blood,” creating living bond between man & God. This is “at-one-ment,” the Christian faith's central doctrine. Among early Quakers it was Christ within, who was the Spirit within the individual, & within the group as a living whole who bridged the gap between separate individuals & a larger whole of life.
This method of religion coming into the world as a power which creates social unity has a long history. At a time when the old Greek deities were no longer intellectually accepted, Greek statesmen advocated their continued worship as a means of unifying the city-state. The disintegrating force of commerce mixed up men from widely scattered places, & the 1st age of individualism set in around the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. The religions of that time appeared to offer some solvent for an excess of individuality. Sin was estrangement, loneliness, separation. Salvation is closing of the gap between the isolated life and a higher life, an at-one-ment with deity.
There is one remedy which aids the isolated human atom to endure existence. The other associations that exist are held together by a horizontal relation between human individuals. In religious worship the horizontal bonds are supplemented by vertical bonds leading up to a higher Being. All can be united by falling into the same pit or they can be united by climbing by various paths to the same mountain top.
Social progress is a child both of this world and of a higher world. Each world is sterile without the other. In the great creative periods, it is only the fertile union of both worlds which can bring about a new birth on a higher level of existence. Protestantism has evolved no religious method or theory for fusing the 2. Long ago Catholicism effected a practical synthesis of nature and super-nature which satisfied the Middle Aged mind, but which contains so much obsolete baggage that it cannot lead in social or theoretical advance without making serious concessions to modernism. Modern Judaism, scattered about as it is over the face of the earth, has little opportunity to revive the ancient Holy Community of the Old Testament.
Quakerism and the Ideal Community—Quakerism combines a mystical approach to God and a social relation to our fellows. In the silence we strive to create a sensitivity to the Divine Presence by removing selfish, individual desires. We find that the partition which separates God and human also separates humans from each other. Once more [in worship] the Spirit which has brooded over chaos from the beginning has spoken the creative word and chaotic human atoms are reborn into the unity of a higher life. [The key is] “treating one another as those that believed and felt God present.”
The group that has thus found God has solved the social problem within itself. None of its members henceforth face the world alone as individuals. If the group is to resemble the highest type of living things it must like them, modify its environment. Differences are adjusted by a process of integration in which no individual is submerged but in which every viewpoint finds some place or exerts some influence in the final achievement. The same spirit will be aroused in the hearts of others; it will grow by contagion. [The risk is that] a person in this kind of social order [suffers] the violence of those who are not within it.
This Quaker method’s general application has hardly begun. Newton was Fox's contemporary, but Newton increased while Fox decreased. As science developed, man’s faith in ability to control his destiny grew & faith in a religion which looked to superhuman help correspondingly lessened. [Now] the greatest scientists of today have turned to philosophy & have discovered that older mechanistic conceptions describe only a shadow world.
An age of collectivism is apparently dawning. Will the dawning age of collectivism be based on external authority to meet a purely economic or political need or will it be a genuine culture based on Spirit which guides us from within? In both early Christianity and the present time there is the same excess of individualism, and an effort to establish a collectivism based on authority. [Rapid, violent change seemed the only remedy to the situation in early Christianity and the present time].
The early Christians didn't wait for revolution. They set up a new social order in their own religious communities. That the Church later compromised with the state & adopted some of its methods doesn't detract from its great achievement in offering a real solution to the excessive individualism problem. The world today awaits for the same ministrations that early Christian communities offered to their times' needs. We must have a "social cement" which binds from within so the unity formed is living. It is in our power, if we wait patiently for real growth, to build up small bits of the kingdom here & there, wherever a group become united & lifted up by the “Presence in the midst.” [Fullness of strength will be found] in an upreaching self-forgetful mind which unites & creates; in a mystical insight which senses the upward pull of Divine power & the frail tendrils of lonely human lives reaching out for support [& Communion]. This was the earliest human search; it will also be the last.
78. Can Quakerism Speak to the Times (by John Henry Hobart; 1954)
[About the Author]—John H. Hobart (1902-1988) was born in London, England, and graduated from the Saffron Walden Friends School and the University of London. In 1924 he moved to Canada, where he founded the Montreal Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. He served as director of Pendle Hill from 1954 to 1956 and as dean in 1962; while director, he wrote this pamphlet. He addressed the importance of continuing revelation and keeping Quakerism responsive to a changing society.
“Retreat from Responsibility”—It is hard enough to consider our personal problems in the light of the insights we accept as authoritative for ourselves. Martin Buber observes: “It is terribly difficult to drive the ploughshare of the normative principle into the hard soil of political reality.” The interrelatedness of society’s component parts is the chief obstacle in attempting to apply principles to the social structure. Society’s complexity forces upon us compromises that tortures any sensitive soul.
There are surely many sensitive people who have quietly absented themselves from precinct politics and campaign struggles because of an uneasy conscience about such participation; they often naively believe that a change in administration would be sufficient to cure the trouble. [Those withdrawing from political life mostly] continue to assent to the principle of participation but find themselves unwilling to practice it. [In seeking] purity of life, they have left to others the responsibility for decisions involving compromises of principles.
The more sensitive & concerned among those who withdraw are put in the difficult position of living with compromises others make for them. It is maintained that only those who are separate from the government are in a position to render this service of criticism. Another part of the answer is that these people do much in labor & service for the nation, that they are the kind of people who strengthen the moral foundations of the country.
[But] those who have never exposed themselves to the problems of participation in political life may be no better qualified to give such judgment than unmarried people are to successfully do marriage counseling. A principle of alternation between participation and withdrawal allows for a necessary impartial evaluation of political struggles. Since few [detached] people in any generation qualify for saintliness it is hardly a justification of political inactivity on the part of most people. Our failure to unite political responsibility and ethical ideals has resulted in an attenuated, limited ethic. All of us have to live with and by some worldview that gathers up the pieces of our daily lives and weaves a pattern. We can do it, or others will do it for us.
“Moral ambiguities”—Any plea to accept political responsibility on an ethical basis must take account of practical realities to be faced. In spite of “moral ambiguities,” men and women throughout Quaker history have felt called to enter public life in a military, non-pacifist government. Generally the Society has supported these attempts to witness to these principles politically, but it has ever kept a watchful eye on such individuals lest they step over the bounds of Quaker testimony. [Quakers would] do well to consider the extent to which John Bright maintained loyalty to his Quaker principles & still gained the recognition of his fellow legislators. [But] there are times when even a person firmly committed to accepting political responsibility must decline to cooperate.
Those today who would do good [& be ethical], find themselves prisoners of the compounded evils of the past & present. For they have sought to combine democracy with despotism, they have tried to defend Christ with a sword. So the good they do is twisted and distorted by a culture that has become idolatrous and decadent.
“The Holy Experiment”—When political conditions seem hopeless, idealistic people tend to look elsewhere for a place to practice their principles. Quakers saw in PA a “Holy Experiment” where they could build a political structure to incorporate the values they despaired of achieving in England. While emigration may not be the answer for most of us now, there is a logic to it that history has sometimes supported.
William Penn & the Quakers who settled PA did not abdicate from political responsibility. In their successes & failures we may see the opportunities & dangers that must be faced. Penn said: “Because I have been exercised about the nature & end of governing among men, it is reasonable that I should endeavor to establish a just & righteous one in this province, that others may take example by it.
[PA’s] power was limited by the Crown’s authority, [but the largely Quaker PA assembly effectively resisted it until 1744]. [By 1755], it became apparent that nothing but the Quaker’s exclusion from the Assembly would satisfy the English authorities. Not all took the London YM’s advice to withdraw from the Assembly; enough did so that any semblance of Quaker control ended in 1756. The “Holy Experiment” broke up because of outside pressure. Quakers were able to guide the young colony without recourse to arms for a long time through a period when tensions between colonies, settlers, and the Indians were pronounced.
Today there is no escape from the long arms of planes & the reaching tentacles of radio & television. In an age when distance is so little of a barrier, it is not hard to foresee that the very success of a new & isolated settlement, success both in material matters and in spiritual achievements, will bring the world hurrying to its door, destroying the essence of its victory. How do we relate responsibly to the political structure of our world?
“Between 2 worlds”—To believe that the new world is no longer “powerless yet to be born,” to have faith that a new age is dawning, to see the dim outline of a new society under God—this is the vision we are called to translate into reality. [The indisputable & historical] fact is that new cultures & societies have been born. Men have dared believed God called them to build nations never before realized. Success is not measured in terms of an original blue print’s fulfillment. It is judged by the release of new energy that frees men for majestic, breath-taking enterprises. It is in times of man’s greatest need & hunger that new ideas & new faith come to millions.
Realizing that men will always fail to understand & practice all of God’s will for them in any given age, we mustn't make the mistake of thinking we can build a Utopia, perfect & flawless. [Nor] can we be excused from following some light because we haven't seen infinite truth’s blinding perfection. A new world’s birth pangs can already be seen in the strength of the gathering storm & in the rising might of colored people everywhere.
Overshadowing all of these movements, will be the abandonment of military power as an international policy instrument. Atomic & hydrogen weapons have made war a monstrously stupid anachronism utterly incapable of achieving legitimate goals of national policy. [Having no alternative to war] there is a deep psychological need that requires people to choose error in preference to a vacuum. To be politically responsible & relevant now means, above all else, to solve this ancient problem of war that has now become a chess game of annihilation. It means to solve it with the men who today obey the commands to shoulder arms and with munitions workers.
“What is man?” If we would seek to transform society, we must see man as he is. Criticism has been leveled against the “Utopian” or “perfectionist.” [Critics] insist that the belief that anyone can live out such a life it itself pretentious pride and therefore sinful. And even if one accepts the cross for one’s self, one has no right to accept it for others in the nation. The neo-orthodox conception of human nature is that it is inescapably and naturally sinful. Evil is inescapably present in each choice.
We mustn't make the mistake of denying this conception’s validity altogether. Neo-orthodox critics are in error when they make a naïve belief in the human’s innate goodness the basis of all pacifism. The early Quaker saw human nature’s sinfulness, “an ocean of darkness.” They believed that God had implanted a principle or spirit in every man’s soul that could produce redemption here & now that was complete. God’ power was great enough to mean also a life here on earth that was one with the life hereafter in quality & nature. Such a view of pacifism shifts discussion to the extent to which divine power transforms & converts all into saintly persons.
The beginning of the peace testimony for the early Friends was in the simple belief that man is called to a way of life that leaves no room for the passions and hatreds and actions that war involved. The belief that God has planted a divine in all, later brought Friends to recognition of the sacredness of life. Quakerism as a way of life is the primary foundation historically of our pacifism. Quakerism is essentially a pragmatic functional approach to life, and mysticism is the means of providing the insights and power to fulfill the ethical urge.
George Fox’s dim view of unredeemed human nature allows for no Utopian view of the world. Men must be dealt with as sinful, but also in the light of faith that their heritage is a present life of purity. Kenneth Boulding said of corporate sin: “… men as representatives of a group are much less moral than as selfish individuals. Men will do evil [for their particular group] with a single-mindedness that they would never achieve as individuals.” Our vision of a new world must never blind us to the fact that even good men are caught up in the magnetism of corporate sin and held by a power of attraction difficult even for psychologists to explain.
“To thine own self be true”—Our hope is to develop better means of minimizing and controlling humankind’s sinful nature; this will be a task worthy of the saintly people who must be the heart and core of a new world. [But we look for no new] world where conflicts will cease to exist. Some means must be found for waging the struggle. A foundation of integrity is more important ultimately than the content of a particular choice. [The key is obedience to conscience]. Those who believe they should fight actually should do so as long as they have political responsibility for the nation. Robert Barclay’s Apology says: “We shall not say, that [a just] war is altogether unlawful to them … the present confessors of the Christian name, who are yet in the mixture, and not in the patient suffering spirit.” For those who are not able to use love and non-violence in resisting evil, conscience will require them to use the weaker and poorer methods of violence.
“The nature & use of force”—Even when we have done the best we can in making choices, we may find a use of force inescapable in the discharging obligations. Emil Brunner writes: “By force of compulsion the individual State gains respect from other states & by force of compulsion it maintains its unity over against the opposing will of individuals.” Quaker traditions clearly denies that compulsion & sin are necessarily the same.
Whether such action is sinful or not depends on its purpose & the spirit in which it is done; this also applies to psychological compulsion. It must be admitted that compulsion, even under proper conditions, may be the wrong course so far as what results from it. Violence is never moral for it involves harm to the person against whom it is used. Compulsion doesn't properly involve injury. It is doubtful Jesus used any violence against any- one when he cleansed the temple, it is rather clearly a case of compulsion. God is a God of both justice & love.
The true Christian can engage in the complexities of political, socio-economic life & do so without involving one’s self necessarily in sin. Daniel Day Williams stated: “The conflict of powers, of interests, of life with life can & does function constructively in the growth & good of life.” It is of greatest importance that we distinguish between what is possible & difficult, and that which is impossible. Those who have tried to combine a perfectionist religious motive with the [chaos] of practical life have often found it a most humbling experience.
In a nation with non-violent defense a police force would certainly be necessary for peaceful functions and for providing protection from the criminal element. A responsible government must provide protection for those who cannot protect themselves non-violently. There is probably no way to avoid as a last resort reliance upon an armed force unless non-violent resistance techniques could be adapted to the work of policemen.
It would be necessary for some of that element in society which still believed in the validity of using violence to serve in the police force until a non-violent alternative could be developed. This in no way justifies an [traditional] international police force, [since] police action is against individuals only to bring them to court in a framework of accepted law. A nation could democratically enact and implement a policy of non-violent resistance as a national defense program [and still have a police force to protect its citizens on a personal basis.
“The moral equivalent of war”—On the level of international relations, [there is] the problem of providing a moral equivalent for military warfare. We must meet exponents of military defense on the more difficult questions of practical results; our program must work better than the way of violent warfare [and it must be a pragmatic pacifism]. Reinhold Neibuhr writes: “A pragmatic pacifism does not claim the ‘law of the Cross’ as its inspiration … the ideal of the Cross has been violated from the beginning.”
[The evidence of the Gospels speaks of Jesus as] one who was concerned with practical success even while he was loving his enemies perfectly. This is not to say that Jesus calculated success as a probability, but it is to say that he considered it a possibility and was working toward it. The cross only becomes meaningful when it is set against the background of a frustrated plan and hope.
[In looking at the currently used method] of violence and war, against which pragmatic pacifism is set as a method, and how it is working in achieving the goals it shares, [we see that] it is not working well at all. Reinhold Niebuhr writes: “While a balance between the great powers may be the actual consequences of the present polices, it quite easy to foreshadow the doom of such a system.” This is the measuring stick against which a pacifist political program must be judged.
A relative success is all we seek, without guarantee of success, or even assurance of possible success; this fact must never be forgotten. If a person or a society is disciplined enough to use non-violence, there are few who will question its practicality or its superiority to violence. Reinhold Niebuhr writes: “Pacifism is a necessary influence in every society because social violence is a great evil & ought to be [mitigated with social imagination & intelligence] if at all possible.” He also wrote: “Nonviolence protects the agent against the resentments which violent conflict always creates in both parties to a conflict, by enduring more suffering than it causes.”
This means that we have to detail a plan and method by which a nation could be organized for a successful Gandhian defense, & demonstrate with proper logic & with some evidence that a nation can actually hope to defend its essential values by this means. We don't ask for or expect a national non-violent defense program unless & until the nation is adequately prepared practically & spiritually for such action. Until then we have neither the right nor the obligation to call for abandonment of military defense. [Presently], pacifism has political relevance as a future possibility only. We have the right to work against a military program in 3 ways in the right to: conscientious objection and calling others to the same; oppose military proposals with political aims; advocate and persuade others of the truth of our position, to prepare for a future time of following our program
“Stumbling blocks”—Could the people of this or any major nation, be persuaded to accept a pragmatic, pacifist, political program? The alternative of military defense is becoming increasingly impossible and immoral and necessity forces men to consider new solutions to old problems. Most people have never given this program much consideration and study, for they have never had the opportunity to do so. To expect a negative response would be to make a judgment based upon no evidence. Assuming a people incapable of choosing a practical and moral political program over impractical and immoral hydrogen warfare is to assert that ordinary people cannot be expected to govern themselves properly, that democracy is an illusion.
The problem isn't as simple as merely convincing people intellectually that Gandhi is wiser than the generals. This political change requires also a monumental religious & moral renaissance. No laws can substitute for a moral & religious life which gives laws birth & makes their application practical. The fact of the matter is that these 2 aspects of life belong together & cannot proceed apart from each other. Pentecost only comes to those who dare to put into practice principles indissolubly related to the religious experience. If leadership that is able & wise & selfless appears in our time to offer this synthesis of politics & ethics & religion, we will witness another of those historic upward surges of the human race. The most pressing task now for all is to deal realistically with the social problems of our time in the context of a world freed from the curse of violent warfare.
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76. McCarthyism: The Seed is in us (by James E. Bristol; 1954)
THE AUTHOR—James Bristol joined the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) staff early in 1947. He was Director of 2 AFSC International Service Seminars in this country (Summers '47 & '48). From 1943-1947 he was active in: Fellowship of Reconciliation; National Council Against Conscription; Philadelphia Council for Conscientious Objectors. He was pastor or co-pastor of 2 churches. He served at AFSC World Affair Camps for high schoolers and adults. James is now Director of Community Peace Education Program, AFSC.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE—James Bristol's manuscript was completed late Sunday night March 7, 1954, 2 Days before Edward Murrow's courageous TV broadcast ["A Report on Joseph R. McCarthy"] which made such an impact [all] across the US & Europe. Murrow closed with [in part]: We can't defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. And [the] fault isn't really his. Cassius was right: "The fault, dear Brutus, isn't in our stars but in ourselves." People from differing backgrounds have expressed the same convictions with [a] prophetic voice.
[Introduction]/ The Seeds were There—Generally, one defines the terms that one is going to use. But in the US and around the world millions know immediately what is meant by the term "McCarthyism." This is a tragically significant and an ominous commentary on our times. Those who [see] a Communist conspiracy wresting control [of the US government] from American citizens are willing to surrender many carefully won freedoms and to limit liberty to speak, think, teach, & assemble in order to save ourselves from the creeping menace of Communism. Joseph McCarthy's name has become associated with a ruthless anti-Communist campaign. On February 9 in Wheeling, WV, McCarthy announced he had a list of 205 persons in the State Department known to be members of the Communist Party. McCarthy is unscrupulous in his methods, diabolically clever in twisting the "facts" with no regard for truth, and uses techniques usually associated with totalitarian regimes.
There is a repressive trend in America today. It existed before McCarthy, but he brought it into sharp focus. The seeds were there, McCarthy simply broadcasted the seed. This pamphlet is being written when the headlines are screaming their loudest about the McCarthy-Secretary of the Army Stevens controversy. The attitudes, developments, & trends dealt with here [are typical of the majority of the present US generation].
[I had the opportunity to view McCarthyism] from a distance, in some small sense as a person looking at it from the outside, [in this case from England]. I found English people deeply concerned and aghast at what was going on in the US. I found myself even more horrified at what was happening [than I was before leaving the US]. British and US students believe that a partly distorted picture of Senator McCarthy's and his followers' activities is being employed by the Communists to sap the prestige and influence of the US in Britain and on the Continent. Even without Communist urging, McCarthyism rampant in America would still do us untold damage.
There is a bonafide "grassroots" reaction against McCarthyism of both depth & vigor. The situation in the US is better than most Englishmen think. They are on the whole unaware of that "other America" which gains little prominence in any foreign or domestic press, & which is determined to maintain traditional freedoms. We become hypnotized too easily by the incredible episodes that claim the headlines in the daily press, [& fail to recognize that there is a resistance] against the present pressures to conform. But the situation is actually worse than the English think, because McCarthy isn't the source of all the present hysteria, restrictions, and limitations. He is not directly responsible for [the extreme censorship] in Indiana, San Antonio, and New York City.
Patterns of Totalitarianism [A pattern of totalitarianism is increasingly evident in California]. Their statutes require all religious, educational & charitable organizations to sign a loyalty statement or lose tax exempt status. Orange Grove Friends Meeting, 1st Unitarian (L. A.), & 2 AFSC offices are refusing to sign loyalty statements. The AFSC offices are submitting alternate declarations which state reasons for not signing & misgivings about loyalty oaths. Other churches were troubled by the requirements, but were going to comply. Liberal professors from the area report that they & students no longer spoke out & that honest discussion is on the decline.
Dr. Robert Hutchins of Chicago University writes: "Education is impossible in many parts of the US today because free inquiry and free discussion are impossible ... The teachers of many subjects can't teach without risking their jobs, [or] in many states [can't teach unless] they take special oaths that they have not been disloyal ... Competence or professional skill will not protect the teacher ... A school board ... will fire a teacher for insubordination if one refuses to answer a question ... [The 5th Amendment] will not save a teacher's job ... [Refusal] to answer the questions of any government authority will compel [resignation] ... Issues can't be omitted from education, except through falsity, distortion or concealment ... [Presenting] only one side ... is indoctrination ... to become passive subjects of a police state." Teachers are afraid of controversial issues and community pressure. People are condemned solely because they appear before investigating committees, regardless of the hearing's outcome; [sometimes they are punished for being subpoenaed to appear].
A school required a 3-year old girl to sign a statement that she hadn't been disloyal to state or national government for 5 years. The little girl couldn't write & the parent wouldn't sign for her. The school required that the little girl sign the statement in 2 years when she was 5. The mother refused to give even the appearance of going along. Elsewhere we find people opposed to restrictive measures but unwilling to take a stand [& suffer the consequences]. [There is compliance, acceptance of unacceptable totalitarian measures]. We hear a great deal about the menace of "creeping socialism," but it is the trend toward a conformist state that is the real threat today; [the trend has become a rapid one].
The Guilt in Us—Tragically, other people, other forces & interests move in the same direction as McCarthy. They create the atmosphere in which he thrives; each one augments the other. We all share in the guilt of McCarthyism; all contribute to the growing strength of the repressive tide sweeping the country. Many of us are militantly anti-Communist & add fuel to the flames of McCarthyism [even as we work to quench them]. In England, the Communist Party is losing ground steadily & isn't represented in the House of Commons. The average Englishman regards Communists as humans who meet openly & regularly; they are included on discussion panels.
Western Europeans have suffered more from fascism than communism. To them, communists are not plotters, but individuals encountered daily who vote for a recognized political party. Our own fear of Communism is time and again accentuated by the absence of face-to-face contact with Communists. Even those who may be vigorously opposed to McCarthy's methods are quick to assert that they are weeding Communists out in a better way. Ridding professions and public institutions of Communists is a democratic objective [when done correctly].
By & large Americans vie with each other in being anti-Communist. On every hand, organizations [& both political parties] are trying to outdo one another in their antipathy to Communism & in the actions taken against any who have embraced or do embrace the doctrine. McCarthy keeps constantly playing on anti-Communist sentiment. [If the President takes issue with McCarthy's treatment of an Army general, McCarthy will deflect] the issue to safe, firmly anti-Communist ground. Even when the President is explicit about the issue being addressed, McCarthy can keep beating anti-Communist drums in the [current] atmosphere created by many of us, [an atmosphere that leads to rocks through a family's window and a flood of epithets. We, in the very process of trying to defend democracy, by ridding it of communism entirely, have surrendered it, and are well on our way to becoming a Fascist state with its proscribed group that has no civil liberties or rights. If one group is deprived of its freedom, all citizens have suffered the same loss.
The mere fact that teachers are Communists, or simply fellow-travelers, disqualifies them, even though political beliefs may have no conceivable connection with their responsibilities. English people expressed the opinion that what was happening in the US today was similar to what transpired as Hitler tightened his hold upon the German people. The loyalty oath in the US is like the "Heil Hitler" of Nazi Germany. The English think that the US is further down the road to totalitarianiam than we realize. Most of us are contributing to the growth of McCarthyism through our involvement in the fear that is everywhere about us until we can't help but be influenced by it ourselves. An Englishwoman was shocked at the fear [she witnessed in a liberal who made a provocative statement and then] looked furtively over his shoulder. [Hesitating to seek wisdom from someone under a cloud of questionable, hysterical suspicion] makes more certain the spread of McCarthyism by our own weak-ness and timidity. It is due to our confusion, distrust, lack of confidence and inner vacillation created in our midst by the fear of the world we live in. Why was McCarthyism so rampant in "the land of the free" today?
When I 1st caught sight of Warwick Castle, with its massive walls and great moat, I thought, "This is 1954 all over again. It is America, trying by the accumulation of great and massive strength to keep the enemy outside the wall." [We have prosperity and heritages to protect]. We constantly feel that if we can only get a few more soldiers, a few weapons up on the battlements we will be safe. But 10 more soldiers become 10 more worries that one of them may be a Communist, and [that one will infect the other 9].
We stockpile atomic and hydrogen bombs in order to hold the enemy at bay. We amass a huge air force and army to hold the enemy at bay. How can we be sure of the loyalty of our armed forces, scientists, government employees, institutional employees, and teachers? Thus it is that the country's whole interior becomes honeycombed with secret passages [like a Warwick Castle], and every facet of American life develops its "eyes and ears": loyalty checks; investigations; loyalty oaths. And with it all the insecurity mounts. Fear and suspicion have indeed become a deadly and corroding influence. It is only those who are willing to lose and spend their lives for others who find peace and confidence and are purged of fear. How is the prosperity and affluence we seek the forces that are driving us headlong in our present hysteria? Great wealth breeds fear, and fear breeds suspicion and distrust—the fertile soil in which McCarthyism flourishes. We must go deeper than a civil liberties campaign if we are to alter the climate which encourages McCarthyism today.
What is Needed—We must stop being motivated by our fears; we must begin to base our actions on what we know to be right. Our gaze is to be focused upon human beings in need, and our drive and energy are to come from the wellsprings of compassion within our hearts. There must be an end to efforts, however sincerely meant, to "contain" Communism and "restrain" McCarthyism. The sort of all-out defense effort of the military program to contain Communism to which the US is committed results in the restriction of civil liberties. The very existence of the Army, increased in size as it is now is because of the threat of a Communist enemy, with the resulting growth in fear, serves greatly to strengthen McCarthy's hand.
We shall be very great fools to allow mass poverty, segregation, and exploitive, colonial tyranny to continue untouched, providing as they do the most fertile sort of seed bed for the growth of a vigorous Communist movement. [Curing these ills with] programs properly motivated and implemented by concerned people out of compassionate concern for others will make the soil barren for the seeds of Communism. We are as convinced that McCarthyism would wither and die as we are that Communism would not thrive in a free and unfettered atmosphere where physical and material needs of all were being met. We stand resolutely for the right of every person to speak freely and of every group to meet and speak with freedom. We create a climate that encourages the most honest and forthright criticism of both foreign and domestic government policy; where all opinions and points of view are openly expressed, truth will ultimately prevail.
Needed: More Courage—One of the great demands of the day is that we display some courage for a change, that we stop cringing and worrying about what people will say of us and start to live resolutely as free people should, to "practice liberty, [and therefore] possess it." We should not work with or cooperate with Communism or McCarthy. We should speak our convictions openly and forthrightly without 1st disavowing Communist connections or sympathies, even though our thoughts may sometimes parallel those of Communists.
It behooves us to remember that there is "that of God" in Communists and McCarthy too. It may be buried rather deep, but we know a divine spark is there. Nothing is more important as we face these twin threats of totalitarianism than that we demonstrate all that which is God within us. We must avoid contributing, however unconsciously, to the atmosphere of McCarthyism, or conducting a witch hunt in reverse against it.
A Creative Approach—"Standing fast in liberty" means forthright resistance to today's conforming pressures & may involve us in civil disobedience [in the midst] of restrictive measures & atmospheres. [In Gandhi's case], civil disobedience was a profoundly creative instrument whereby a goal was achieved without armed strife & hatred of violent revolution & change. [In our case], civil disobedience would be refusal to sign loyalty oaths & statements by individuals & groups, & refusal to appear before investigating committees or testify at one.
A. J. Muste [announced his tax refusal and protested the Senate's overwhelming vote to continue the work of McCarthy's "investigation" of "subversives" when he wrote]: "The whole business of the state investigating ... [people's politics and making employment] dependent on passing test of political orthodoxy and 'reliability' ... is utterly undemocratic ... and is practicing the techniques of dictatorship. It is subverting and undermining democratic institutions. It is threatening to tear our society apart [with] ... distrust and suspicion ... It is surely a patriotic thing to refuse to volunteer taxes for such subversive purposes."
A German Protestant minister [talked of his struggles with divided loyalties between religious conscience and regime, and then said: "I wonder how soon the time will come when you in America will have to make grave decisions? Those who would ready themselves for a campaign of non-violent opposition to tyranny must train rigorously and undergo rigid discipline. And not just conscientious objectors, but also other men and wo-men who see in non-violent methods an effective way to combat tyranny.
Procrastination: A Snare and a Delusion—The time to oppose tyranny is now, or at the very 1st point where it touches our lives. [Wait too long and one either] never resists at all or does it so far down the line that the resistance is not effective in stopping the onrush of dictatorship. Biding one's time guarantees the triumphal advent. It is a wrong approach to ignore little resistable evil in favor of resisting strong, entrenched, irresistible evil. Martin Niemoller, a German Lutheran pastor said that when the Nazis attacked Communists and Jews, he did nothing, because he was neither; when the Nazis attacked the Evangelical Church, it was too late.
We postpone joining in resisting any evil great or small at the penalty of losing the battle altogether. The fact that some believe profoundly in life's affirmative aspects and see creative possibilities of society leads them to take action opposing the destructive and anti-social. May we resist every evil "ism" and tyranny [and support the free exchange of ideas]. Thus only may we be free to see and follow the Light. Thus only can we ever "stand fast in liberty," which often required a sacrifice by the freedom-loving people who have gone before us. Albert Einstein wrote: "A large part of history is replete with the struggle for human rights, an eternal struggle in which final victory can never be won. But to tire in that struggle would mean the ruin of society.
SPECTATOR PAPERS by Norman J. Whitney—Dear Friends: At intervals this winter I have read and sometimes reread the passages on oaths in the first 2 volumes of the Braithwaite histories. [Later, I was asked to interpret the basis of Quaker concern for intellectual liberty. It seems to me that we who, under a sense of "divine compulsion," say no to the military demands of the state, ought to be no less sensitive at other points where the state confronts the conscience of the free [person].
8000 Quakers were in prison at one time in 17th century England. The testimony against oaths was perhaps the one by which Friends were best known in their first period. The basis of refusal to take or administer oaths was the familiar New Testament command and the insistence on a single standard of truth-telling. Friends' proven devotion to freedom of religious opinion (even for Roman Catholics) suggests they resisted on conscientious grounds attempts to restrict that freedom. [That oaths] have shifted from religion to politics is a comment on our times but does not affect the principle involved.
An "open-ended" faith requires that one must always be free to seek new revelations of the Light & to act on them. A university can't do its vital job if what is novel, original, & unconventional may be punished as being immoral, pernicious, or wickedly unorthodox. Any academic community [lacking freedom] will degenerate into a mere finishing school for mediocrities unless members of it feel free to think new thoughts and say new things.
Howard M. Jones writes: "In denying the rights of professors to appeal to the 5th Amendment, college boards and presidents substitute their official consciences for the private conscience of the witness ... [it] puts a premium on the informer and penalizes [one] who does not believe it right to endanger the fortunes of others ... It would be absurd to say that a person may protect ones self if one is guilty but not if one is innocent ... The Federal Courts may not comment on the failure of the accused to testify."
Growth occurs best in the atmosphere of community where mutual trust and confidence prevail. [We must risk exposure of the mind, if we still believe that freedom is better for [all], for the whole open structure of the American community; better than some form of repression." Such a community is destroyed by "witch hunting." Freedom of thought necessarily means the freedom to think bad thoughts as well as good."
Free [persons] are not the creature of the state; the state is ones creation. Alexander Hamilton said that such oaths "invert the order of things" and instead of forcing the state to prove to prove guilt oblige the citizen to establish ones innocence. Robert M. Hutchins said: The policy of repression cannot be justly enforced, because it is impossible to tell precisely what people are thinking; they have to be judged by their acts."
Braithwaite's history states about Quakers: "The world was right in regarding them as very real enemies to much in the existing order of things ... Many turned Quakers, because the Quakers kept their meetings openly and went to prison for it cheerfully ... Their noblest contribution lay in the constancy and character of their protest against the invasion of the state of the conscience of the Christian ... When the law could not be obeyed, the Quaker suffered its consequences without evasion, resistance, [or violence]." William Penn wrote: "He that feareth truth needs not swear, because he will not lie ... and he that doth not fear untruth, what is his oath worth? ... To take an oath would gratify distrust and humor jealousies ... How is it possible for men to recover that ancient confidence that good men reposed in one another, if some don't lead the way?"
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119. Stand fast in liberty (by James E. Bristol; 1961)
About the Author—James E. Bristol (1912-1992) was an international Peace Worker who started as a Lutheran Minister. He spent 40 years on the board of the Central Committee of Conscientious Objectors. 1947-1977 he worked on the AFSC staff, at the Quaker information Center in Calcutta and later in Zambia. In retirement in 1977, he worked with AFSC's Community Peace Education Program & with Youth Militarism. This pamphlet, addresses the relationship between Friends testimonies and McCarthyism.
Resurgent McCarthyism—I have never been persuaded that more than the “excesses” [of McCarthyism] lie behind us. McCarthyism is grounded in a conviction that in the face of exceptional threats to our way of life we cannot be squeamish about the measures we employ to defend ourselves. Although McCarthy is dead, McCarthyism still flourishes and moves on apace. In the winter of 1960-61 the House of Representatives voted 416 to 6 to continue the House Un-American Activities Committee, [not because so few were against the committee, but because a vote against the Committee was “a vote for Communism”].
The Committee put out the controversial film, “Operation Abolition,” dealing with demonstrations against the Committee during San Francisco hearings in 1960. Neither the picture nor the commentary gives any firm evidence of Communist direction or control of most of the demonstrators, as charged by committee members. The film, [with all its misinformation] has been shown in schools, colleges, and churches, service clubs, and other organizations around the country. Those who criticize the Committee are either shrugged off or persecuted as “Communist dupes.” We cease to think of [those labeled “Communists] as human beings in need of jobs, food and shelter. Investigating committees cast their blight far and wide, relying upon each community they visit to ostracize and penalize the people they call up to testify, regardless of the outcome of the hearing.
An atmosphere of suspicion & fear is strengthened by groups like the John Birch Society. [It is compiling] “the most complete and accurate files in America on leading comsymps, Socialists, and liberals.” The fear of Communism has led to a fear of social change and of people who question the status quo. The Christian Anti-Communism Crusade holds schools and conducts lectures nationally, publicizing its activities and distributing its literature widely. Under the impact of the anti-Communist movement some self-righteously patriotic groups have gone so far as to threaten the well-being of individuals and families who champion any other point of view.
[The Supreme Court ruled in June 1961] that: 1. The Communist Party must register all of its officers and members with the Justice Department; 2. Active Communist Party membership is a Federal crime if the individual is aware of the party’s subversive goals. The dissenting Justice Douglas declared that in reality the decision outlawed ideas and thoughts. In the case of both Raphael Konigsberg and George Anastaplo the 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court upheld refusal of admission to the bar for failure to answer questions about Communism. The dissenting Justice Black said: “To force the Bar to become a group of thoroughly orthodox, time-serving, government-fearing individuals is to humiliate and degrade it. But that is the present trend . . . in almost every walk of life. Too many men are being driven to become government-fearing and time-serving. . . This trend must be halted if we are to keep faith with the Founders of our Nation and pass on to future generation of Americans the great heritage of freedom which the Founders sacrificed so much to leave to us.”
The Blame is Ours—To a greater extent than many of us realize, we all share in the guilt of McCarthyism, and all contribute to the growing repression that is sweeping the country. The stark fact of the matter is that once we agree that to rid all walks of life of Communists is a democratic goal, we have, in the very process of trying to defend our democracy, surrendered it. We are then well on the way to becoming a totalitarian state. . . Once a group has been deprived of its freedom, all citizens have in reality suffered the same loss.
A decade ago [1950] the loyalty oath was a new phenomenon in American life. Loyalty oaths are now a permanent part of the state apparatus. Those who could not in good conscience take the oath have long since lost their jobs. There is a great deal of compliance with measures with which people are not in agreement; they want to keep their jobs.
Why is it that many of us fall victim to the hysteria of our generation & are finally persuaded that we must abandon much of precious liberty and adopt a fair measure of the tyrant’s mode of operation in order to prevent the seizure of power in America by a subversive tyranny? It is a fact of human psychology that the more certain people are that they alone are right, the more frightened they become to listen to another’s convictions, [and the more extreme measures they take to avoid exposure to a hostile and critical point of view].
The Castle Psychology—I approached Warwick castle, & found [myself] inside castle walls. [I thought:] “This is not far away & long ago at all. This is today ... It is America, trying by accumulation of great & massive strength to keep the enemy outside the wall.” Always a few more [men] are needed [on the wall]; [but] one of these men may be a Communist. Our fear feeds upon our fear, until we find that our external defenses have made us feel less secure. And the whole interior of the country becomes honeycombed with secret passages; every facet of American life develops its own “eyes and ears” [i.e. loyalty checks and oaths, legislative investigations].
Walter Millis wrote: “[The] technical ability to massacre . . . millions of non-combatants [brutalizes] foreign policy, which must inevitably brutalize and poison internal life as well.” Fear and suspicion have a deadly and corroding influence, and there is only one escape from them. Only those willing to lose and spend their lives for others find peace and confidence and are purged of fear. Should we be surprised if the no-God materialism which permeates American life today moves us in the same direction [as Communism]? We must go deeper than a civil liberties campaign if we are to alter the climate which encourages McCarthyism.
What is Needed—What we need is a program, a movement based on what we believe in rather than the things to which we are opposed. [We must stop “containing” Communism and “restraining” McCarthyism]. We must focus our gaze only upon human beings in need. Under the impact of the Cuban defeat [i.e. Bay of Pigs], there was talk urging the [need] of using the devil’s tactics to defeat the devil. [Even President Kennedy urged the press to use restrained and possibly deceptive news reporting]. The price for preserving our freedom is to renounce military might to defend us against our enemies.
[If we do renounce military might], we shall be very great fools to allow poverty, segregation, & economic exploitation to continue unremedied, for these provide [fertile soil] for the growth of a vigorous Communist movement. [Relief of these problems done] because of our compassionate concern for others—are the steps that will make the soil barren for the seeds of Communism. Reverend Raymond T. Bosler said that Communism exists because: 1. Christians haven't recognized the Gospel’s social implications; 2. Christians are nationalistic, not internationally minded; 3. wealthy Christian states haven't shared; 4. wealthy “Catholic” landowners have refused to share their wealth with the poor living around them; 5. Christians have failed to see Christ in the Negro, the Chinese, the Mexican. I am convinced that McCarthyism & Communism alike will wither & die in a free, unfettered atmosphere where the physical & material needs of all are being met. To defend the rights of every person means that we uphold the rights of Communists & fellow-travelers and of the John Birch Society alike.
Lay Hold on Courage—To practice liberty doesn't mean to ignore our fundamental disagreement with Communists & their aims. We can speak our convictions openly without being extremely concerned to avoid “questionable” people. When we practice liberty we remember there is “that of God” in the Communists, & the Klu Klux Clanner, the white racist, & the House Un-American Activities Committee. For many of us, the greater problem will be to “answer that of God in every one,” [through our words and actions of] love, peace, freedom and brotherhood. It is extremely difficult to be smeared and not to smear back, but here as in other matters we are called to love our enemies and to “stand fast in the liberty” our religious experience has blessed us with.
“Standing fast in liberty” means forthright resistance to pressures for conformity, [perhaps in the form of] civil disobedience. The commitment that equips a person to form part of the hard core of such a resistance movement doesn't come easily or without cost. Such a movement in this country would take the form of refusal to sign loyalty oaths and loyalty statements. It could require violating laws and a prison sentence. [A German minister concluded his remarks about choosing between religious conscience and the regime in power] with: “I wonder how soon the time will come when you in America will have to make that same grave decision.”
One learns to resist enslavement by resisting every encroachment upon freedom at the very first point where it touches one’s life. [To paraphrase an old adage]: “Never put off until tomorrow what you can resist today.” Procrastination [in resisting] ensures the eventual enslavement of the very people who today stress the necessity to bide one’s time. There are times when the most positive and creative action one can take is what appears on the surface to be negative. May we resist every outreach of tyranny that would deprive anyone of genuine freedom. Thus only can we ever “stand fast in the liberty” which has been [over and over again] bought at great price by freedom-loving peoples who have gone before us.
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SOCIAL ACTIVISM (5)
About the Author—Steve Chase assumed the education director position at Pendle Hill in 2014, after 12 years as founding director of Antioch's program in Advocacy for Social Justice & Sustainability. In [his efforts to be] a community activist, Steve has sought to answer the spiritual call he experienced as a teenager in the Religious Society of Friends. Steve is co-author of the book Building Beloved Communities: A Transition Town Primer for People of Faith. This pamphlet goes back to a talk Steve gave at the 2012 PH Young Adult Friends Conference, which he later entitled "Revelation & Revolution: Quaker Activism as a Path Toward Faithfulness."
[Introduction]—When I was a teenager, my dad took me backpacking for several days in Yosemite National Park. Another awestruck backpacker showed up at Vogelsang High Sierra Camp, & we talked late into the night. Our new companion asked me what I wanted to be. I replied, "A nonviolent revolutionary ... because I'm a Quaker." For me, the connection between Quakers & nonviolent revolution was self-evident. I liked how the book, Revolution: A Quaker Prescription for a Sick Society, built on Martin Luther King's (MLK) 1967 call for us to engage in "a radical revolution of values."
The founders of A Quaker Action Group (AQAG) were my inspiring, living "patterns & examples" of faithfulness. They started AQAG in 1966, with creative & daring nonviolent direct action to oppose the US [role] in Vietnam. [They later broadened their scope in the] "hope to catalyze a movement for a new society ... in concert with other change movements." The "Kingdom of God" teaching meant fostering another way of life that leaves behind a love of justice, solidarity, & unity with neighbors & nature. Almost a few decades later I founded the Advocacy for Social Justice & Sustainability program "to create a sustainable society that embodies respect ... for life's community, [ecology], social-economic justice, democracy, non-violence & peace." Being a nonviolent revolutionary has been a joyful part of my spiritual practice for over 4 decades through both good times and bad.
A Little More History—Many Quaker historians say this radical vision of faithfulness goes all the way back to the beginning of the Quaker movement. Gerard Guiton, in The Early Quakers and the "Kingdom of God": Peace, Testimony, and Revolution, documents how 17th century Quakers claimed the "rediscovery" of "Jesus' central & 'pure doctrine' of the Kingdom of God ... " In response to this radical revelation of their role in the unfolding of God's just & compassionate ways, early Quakers risked repression to promote a "spiritual revolution with social & political consequences. They were waging a non-violent "Lamb's War," a visionary and persistent effort "designed to turn the world upside down by placing the Jesus Way ... at the very heart of life."
Guiton claims that "the early Quakers are little understood among present-day Friends," and not often followed as powerful patterns and examples by today's Quaker. Rosemary Moore points out that divergence from a radical faith and practice began "in the course of a few years ... and it was not long before the weight of Quaker opinion came down on side of solid respectability." While the spirit of Quaker faith and practice has been crucified many times, it has also been resurrected many times as a rising flame emerging from still glowing embers, [in the guise of] John Woolman, Lucretia Mott, and the founders of AQAG. [Most recently] we see this rising flame in the recent Kabarak Call for Peace and Ecojustice.
The Call from Kenya—This Call is a Quaker faith & practice statement from the 6th World Conference of Friends held in April 2012 in Kenya. Among 850 Quakers, the question was asked: "What is God calling us to do & be now?" The following statement, in spite of difficulties and momentary antagonisms, was approved in a nearly unanimous "sense of the meeting" decision. [Excerpts follow] "[They witnessed to health & climate disasters], "wars & rumors of war, job loss, inequality, violence. We fear our neighbors. We waste our children's heritage. These are driven by dominant economic systems—by greed not need, by worship of the market, by Mammon & Caesar. Is this how Jesus showed us to live?"
"... We are called to work for the peaceable Kingdom of God on the whole earth, in right sharing with all people." We are called to see what love can do, [to follow the Scripture's admonitions in the treatment of our neighbor]. We are called to teach our children right relationship and harmony with each other [and the world]. We are called to do justice to all and walk humbly with our God, to cooperate lovingly with those who share our hopes for the earth's future. We are called to be patterns and examples in a 21st century campaign for peace & ecojustice. We dedicate ourselves to building the peace that passeth all understanding, to the repair of the world, opening our lives to the Light to guide us in each small step."
The Call from Louisiana—I have personally seen such faith in action while leading a field studies trip to Louisiana with 12 students. Besides [showing the realities of corporate power, regulatory agencies, pollution, public health, & racism, I wanted the students to get to know some tough creative people who have resisted these powerful forces & won some real community victories between Baton Rouge & New Orleans, known as "Chemical Corridor" or "Cancer Alley." Louisiana produces roughly 25% of domestically produced petrochemicals from 150 plants in Cancer Alley, yet is the 2nd poorest state, with the worst national public health record.
Margie Richard, a retired school-teacher who used to lived in Diamond, Louisiana led a community rebellion in Diamond, to make sure the Shell Oil Company paid every homeowner [not just whites] enough to move. She pointed to the spot where a 17-year-old boy mowing the lawn, died in a fireball from a chemical plant explosion. Shell offered the boy's mother $500 for her son's death if the mother would sign away her right to sue the company. Shell voluntarily offered a buyout deal to white residents of Diamond, but not to African Americans.
She became a community organizer & started pressuring Shell to buy out all the neighbors in Diamond. She built an alliance with Greenpeace & the Sierra Club. Her community bought a few shares of Shell stock & sent her to Europe to Shell's shareholders meeting. Margie poured glasses of Diamond well water for the directors & encouraged them to drink it if they thought it was safe. Shell finally offered enough money for everyone's homes so all could move. Margie said, "Aw honey, if Jesus can die on the cross for me, I can damn well take care of the babies in my community."
The Kingdom as Beloved Community—I completely resonated with Margie's radical Christian faithfulness in that moment. We both recognized each other as God intoxicated, Creation-loving, Bible-studying, Jesus-following activists. We had disagreements about particulars, & theology. Yet we also shared a common prophetic spiritual tradition that inspires us to engage in a nonviolent revolution of values within our communities.
Many "who share our hopes for the future of the earth" aren't comfortable expressing long range visions using the biblical language of the "kingdom of God." I have been able to find common ground with my students by using MLK's "beloved community." During the mid-1980's in the African American neighborhood in Seattle, they understood that it is a big problem that most "students from high school know little about MLK & the civil & human rights movements. This neighborhood got the city council to agree to their proposal. The organizers of this campaign had a celebration in a local baptist church.
Vincent Harding, a radical Mennonite, and longtime associate of MLK focused his talk on King's long-range vision of building the beloved community. Harding described how King's vision of the beloved community held an inclusive appeal for secular people seeking to help form a "more perfect union" as talked about in the U. S. Constitution. Whether we see ourselves as secular or religious people, we should all learn to work together to continue King's nonviolent revolution of values in our personal, professional, and public lives. Harding believed that the fundamental challenge we face in our society today is changing the road we travel from the Empire Way (the street's old name) to MLK Way, from imperial life to the beloved community that King dreamed of and worked so hard to advance.
I ask my students if this story comes anywhere close to capturing the spirit of what they most hope to accomplish as well-trained activists and organizers working for social justice and sustainability. I get the same quick "Yes"—even though the room is usually filled with atheists or folks who identify as "spiritual, not religious." They resonate with King's vision's of the beloved community, which they feel poetically captures the spirit of their own calling. All of the local Daughters of the American Revolution chapter want to live in a socially just, ecologically sustainable, and spiritually fulfilling community. There is a latent goodwill all around us that we can work with, even if it is muted by denial, distraction, and despair.
Needed: "Transformed Nonconformists—My mother & I watched news coverage of the civil rights movement, particularly the Birmingham, Alabama demonstrations, when I was 8. My mom said, "Stevie, these are God's people. I want you to be like them when you grow up." She took me to a "black" beach at Lake Story, & refused to go when a policeman told her to go to the other beach to "keep the peace." My mother's white privilege protected her in a way that wouldn't have applied to a black mother refusing to leave a "white" beach.
Perhaps this is why I resonate with MLK's gospel message of "creative maladjustment." Certain nonconformist actions shake things up and make new things possible. They create openings and places where God's Spirit can come into this world right here and right now. King said: "You who are in the field of psychology have given us a great word. It is the word "maladjusted." It is good ... that destructive maladjustment should be eradicated. But ... we all recognize that there are some things in our society and world to which ... we must always be maladjusted to if we are to be people of good will. We must never adjust to [:] racial discrimination ... racial segregation ... religious bigotry ... transferring resources from poor to rich ... militarism and violence."
King argued that it is actually pathological for any person to become well adjusted to a world of injustice. Psychologists should find ways to help ordinary citizens to deepen their capacity for creative maladjustment. King also wrote: "This hour in history needs a dedicated circle of transformed nonconformists ... The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority." [Paul said it a slightly different way in Romans 12:2].
King also makes clear that this is an issue of psychological wellbeing and spiritual faithfulness. Over time, the mainstream Christian church has become "so entrenched in wealth and prestige that it began to dilute the strong demands of the gospel and conform to the ways of the world." The biblical story of Samuel is another good example. The federated tribes of Israel are growing tired of living without a human monarchy; they want a human kingdom just like everyone else. In the story, God views this course as a sinful folly doomed to create very negative consequences for the people and land of Israel. Yet God seems to believe that these people might learn something from their social experiment with kings and earthly empires.
Hebrew scriptures, texts of the Jesus movement, and Islamic scriptures repeatedly depict God as experimenting over the millennia with various ways to educate us in the ways of beloved community—sometimes veering off into exasperation and punishment, at other times [using] compassion, forgiveness, and guidance. God is often pictured as seeking to reach us and teach us, sending [holy men and women] to [teach] the Way, the Truth, and the Life—as well as embedding in our hearts the spirit as our Inward Teacher.
Most modern Quakers probably feel the pull of the beloved community, but continue to miss the mark to varying degrees. King believed, "We need to recapture the gospel glow of early Christians, who ... refused to shape their witness according to the mundane patterns of the world." I took great inspiration from reading the many stories of the creative maladjustment of early Quakers, [who refused any recognition] of the hierarchical privileges of social class. They also refused to pay tithes to the state church, swear oaths in British courts. They were frequently convicted of heresy and blasphemy, their property was often seized, and some were tortured or died in prison. Early Quakers had to face some of their deepest fears, become willing to appear foolish in the eyes of others, and learn to take action in alignment with their deepest faith commitments.
The Journey to Creative Maladjustment—In 2008, Friends General Conference (FGC) Gathering honored MLK's 1958 keynote address to the FGC Gathering. MLK is one of the most powerful patterns and examples of faithfulness through social activism—but perhaps not in the way most of us think. In reality, King's journey to social activism is really a testament to the power of "fearful faithfulness." Charles Marsh notes: "MLK arrived in Mongomery, AL in late summer 1954 with his eye set on denominational fame and fortune. His ambitions were: solid church program; nice house; magazine writing; adjunct teaching.
Racism and social justice were "back burner" concerns for King. Marsh reports, the members of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church "shared a hope for a future without Jim Crow, but they were not going to be the ones to ignite the fires of dissent." If it had been left to King's initiative, the Montgomery Bus Boycott would never have happened. E. D. Nixon, on the other hand, bailed Rosa Parks out of jail. Both of them started phoning people. Nixon phoned King among others. King said, " ... Let me think about it awhile ... "
The 1st discussion of it was at King's church. King had doubts that boycotts were ethical or moral. He began to sway other ministers to his side, until Nixon challenged the ministers to stand up like grown men against segregation. To save face, King agreed to a long-term boycott. Nixon nominated King president of the new Montgomery Improvement Association; he was elected & had to give the main address in 20 minutes. King wrote: "I was now almost overcome, obsessed by a feeling of inadequacy ... I turned to God in prayer ... asking God to restore my balance and to be with me in a time when I needed [divine] guidance"; his speech was electrifying.
Serving as the leader of the Montgomery Boycott for the next 13 months changed King. By watching 42,000 poor and working-class black folks stay organized and do without public transportation for over a year, King discovered the hidden capacity of ordinary people to resist oppression and move toward freedom together. He experienced the power of mass nonviolent direct action campaigns to win real victories; he also discovered what kind of leader he wanted to be. We do not have to attain perfect spiritual wisdom or confidence before we become active. We just have to get started building the beloved community right here, right now. It is an invitation to take up the cross of fearful faithfulness.
Seeking "Spiritual" Way Out?/ Renewed Vision of Faith—Paul Rogat Loeb writes: "Whatever the issue, whatever the approach, we never feel we have enough knowledge or standing. [We fear error & being mistaken for a hypocrite]." Waiting for perfection in social activism has never once led to a successful social movement—or real faithfulness. Ordinary people create effective social movements only when they surrender themselves to the power of fearful faithfulness, even if it involves insecure pride or some other form of spiritual immaturity. MLK grew in faithfulness & increasingly opened himself up to a life of active civic engagement in the service of the beloved community. King didn't wait on either inner peace or spiritual maturity before becoming active. Instead, King grew in his faith & experienced deep personal transformation in the midst of working with imperfect people, including himself, as part of his fearful, faithful, activism on behalf of the beloved community.
There is in the anthology Working for Peace: A Handbook of Practical Psychology & Other Tools, a piece by Christina Michaelson, a clinical psychologist, which seems to advocate "spiritual avoidance" of public life. In many ways, Michaelson is "creatively maladjusted" & supports peace activist work, & claims that this work can be made more effective, & more soul satisfying, if activists cultivate meditation, nature experiences, counseling, worship & prayer. I am grateful for the blessing of a spiritual reawakening in my mid-40's. Michaelson writes: "Your peace work in the world should begin with cultivating an inner state of peacefulness & then you truly can offer peace to others ... If you want to see peace in the world, then you must 'be' peace in the world."
Michaelson also argues that both outward activism & inward spiritual growth [are involved in] faithfulness. Both of these elements feed off each other in creative & reciprocal ways. There are multiple pathways available to us for fostering the peaceable kingdom in partnership with God. Depending on our spiritual gifts and leadings we can choose: direct service; election campaigning, lobbying, advocacy, organizing, nonviolent resistance; civil disobedience; building alternative institutions and new cultural practices. If more of us adopt a more balanced approach, Friends will be in a much better position to grow spiritually & respond to the Spirit's call for faithful social action. D. Elton Trueblood notes, "The great significance of the central Quaker idea is that it avoids damaging separation [of these elements] by uniting, bonding, the inner & outer aspects of our faith."
Will we answer the call to faithfully embody God's divine love & power in our personal, professional, & public lives? Will we stay lost in denial, despair, & distraction? MLK offered this prophetic challenge: "If we don't act we shall be dragged down the long dark, shameful corridors of time reserved for those who have power without compassion, might without morality, strength without sight. Let us rededicate ourselves to the long & bitter struggle for a new world ... The choice is ours, [surrender or solidarity] & though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of history." We can make the choice to rejoin the Lamb's War [of our early Quaker ancestors] and become ever more faithful nonviolent revolutionaries in service to the beloved community. Let us join together and joyfully see what love can do.
Queries—What does "creative maladjustment" mean to you? What are some situation today to which Quakers should not be "adjusted"? How can Quakers support each other in faithful activism? What does it mean to renew your mind as opposed to conforming to this world? Why is this transformation important for discerning God's will? Do you agree that we must achieve inward peace before we can work effectively for outward peace? Why or why not? How do you seek to be a faithful activist? How does your meeting express and promote the "beloved community"?
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1. Cooperation and Coercion as Methods of Social Change (by Vincent D. Nicholson; 1934)
About the Author—Vincent D. Nicholson (1890-1945) attended Earlham College & took a B. Laws from Harvard (1916). In 1917, he became American Friends Service Committee's (AFSC) 1st executive secretary; he focused on relief during the First World War. His own induction into the US Army cut this work short. After the war, he did European relief work. He was AFSC peace secretary during the '20s. His Pendle Hill class report published as "Cooperation & Coercion as Methods of Social Change," became the 1st Pendle Hill pamphlet. Vincent Nicholson wrote this pamphlet while working with the AFSC work camp in Westmoreland, PA.
[Introduction]—Cooperation & Coercion don't stand in complete contrast either philosophically or politically. They involve very different theories in human nature, social conduct, & group action. Every employment of coercion, however, affects public opinion far beyond the parties & issues immediately involved. Modern communication spreads the violent group action contagion quickly & widely. Nonviolent actions catch on in a less obvious but equally real fashion. Men who are ready at any time to be governed by the spirit of antagonism aren't fit instruments of any cooperative method. Half-hearted coercion or persuasion can't succeed. Will differences & conflicts be creative or devastating in their effect? Coercion perpetuates in man's spirit an element that is destructive of the good life. Here we outline certain issues & suggest certain criteria & moral judgment.
Definitions—"Cooperation" means those processes of education & persuasion in which conflict resolution is sought by the free-willing assent of both parties. "Coercion" means those processes by which one party seeks to subject the others to outward compliance without free-willing assent. It is important to remember that moral opposition to war is more than opposition to killing; it is also opposition to setting people against one another in antagonism & hate. Many forms of mass coercion, [such as an industrial strike], partake of war's moral nature, even though they may stop short of its terrible consequences. It is doubtful whether the analogy of a community coercing individuals through civil & criminal law can be carried into the realm of nations coercing other nations.
Classification/ Criteria of Moral Judgment—Internationally, coercion includes war, embargoes, & discriminatory trade policies. Cooperation includes arbitration, mediation, conciliation, conferences & educating world opinion. The policy of non-recognition, although coercive in character, would seem to chiefly be moral suasion. For the underprivileged group in the industrial field, the coercive methods available are strikes, boycott, & armed revolution. Cooperation includes trade agreements, democratizing & seeking common interest. Political power can be cooperative when based on public opinion, or coercive when based on police & militia.
2 individuals or group of individuals may hold opposing moral convictions with equal honesty. And beneath a seeming success may lie the seeds of future difficulties which render the achievement temporary or illusory. The realm of morals is identified with a regard for the general interest. A moral judgment of any social action is concerned with its ultimate effect rather than with its immediate objective. 2 methods of approach to social change are political expediency and Jesus' approach.
The political social reformer's conduct must be adjusted to those around him. Importance to him isn't in eternity's sweep, but the seeming demands of his times; something discernible must happen in his own lifetime. [For one using] Jesus' approach, social progress toward an increasing well-being for all depended on having more individuals whose inner life is in harmony with God's purpose. The "rich young ruler" & "Good Samaritan" parables are concerned with being in harmony with the law of love, & personal response to an evil situation.
John Woolman 1st sought to make his own conduct consistent with his ideals; he then felt free to urge these ideals on others; e.g. opposition to slavery & economic inequality. Tolstoy was concerned with his involvement & responsibility in the evil in existing social institutions & practices & sought to help underprivileged folk of cities & country. Tolstoy shared Jesus' view on more people being in harmony with, in his case, moral law. Each person is morally bound to act out such moral insight as is afforded them. An individual best serves one's fellow when one seeks to contribute to one's group in counsel & in conduct, his highest ideals of human relationship.
Moral Intuition as an Instrument of Knowledge—Politicians and social reformers are in danger of losing the clarity of their moral insight in the dust of their activity. In the choice between the pragmatic and intuitive approaches to truth, there is no method by which one can demonstrate the superior validity of either. Social progress toward the good life might move more surely if "practical people" would dare to credit more highly and listen more closely to the inner voice of moral guidance. As a definitive, reliable instrument of cognition, the intuitive process has much to commend it. The intuitionist is dealing with the realm of his own inner life. One has a synthesis of knowledge born of the whole of one's past experience.
If one is religious, this process becomes communication with a divine purpose directing one toward good; apprehension of good isn't a rational process. Many intuitive, religious persons have a sincere conviction that force & coercion are necessary. A belief in cooperation has grown out of an intuitive sense that it is right, despite majority belief to the contrary. Society suffers mostly from a poverty of moral insight. If one has intuitive sense that a coercive policy is out of harmony with the good life, one should trust this intuition. Coercion's results in the modern world aren't so impressive as to invalidate a belief in the rightness of cooperation.
Persuasion & Coercion have the Same Objective—One of the chief objections to war is the historical fact that it is usually inconclusive. Each successive war tends to perpetuate the psychology of war in public opinion. The same is true of other coercive methods even though they fall short of war's horrors. English & US labor history indicates that most strikes have been unsuccessful in attaining an agreement with some promise of permanence. If there is temporary success, it is upset as soon as general economic conditions shifted the balance of power. In the recent Aberle Mill strike in Philadelphia, there was no progress toward solution until there was a murder. Although only 1 life was taken, & an agreement affecting hundreds of lives was achieved, there is an intuitive feeling that the moral universe suffered a blow which no social achievement could compensate for.
Advocates of the use of force in order to oust oppressors from power assume that the oppressed, when victorious will use their power for the social good; neither history, nor psychology, support such a thesis. Persuasion advocates must face the fact that the holders of unjust privilege have seldom relinquished their position voluntarily. The main problem is the discovery of social change methods which offer successful and stable results. The goal of all conflict is an agreement guaranteed in stability by a willing spirit of agreement. The end and the means must be harmonious and appropriate to each other. [There is inevitable] futility in attempting to produce a state of goodwill by methods of ill-will.
[Queries]—What methods of adjusting group conflict seem to offer a stable solution? Are the cost of certain effective, coercive methods too high in terms of moral values? What new techniques of per-suasion will dramatize the issue and produce a sense of emergency resulting in action.
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2. A Religious Solution to the Social Problem (by Howard H. Brinton; 1934) About the Author—Howard & Anna Brinton arrived at Pendle Hill in the summer of 1936 with a solid background of academic achievement at the colleges of Mills & Earlham, & became co-directors of a new sort of education enterprise, a Quaker fusion of school and community. They retired in the 1950s & lived on campus as Directors Emeriti. Anna died in 1969; Howard continues to serve by lecturing, writing, and simply being.
PREFACE [to 2nd Printing in 1945]—The following essay was 1st published in 1934. Elation produced by wartime prosperity seems, at 1st sight very different from the gloom of the Depression [Years]. Prosperity based on [massive] destruction of the world’s resources is artificial & dangerous. Europe’s social illness is also attacking us. The individualistic atomization of society is balanced by authoritarianism & mass-mindedness both in economics & politics. Tribalistic nationalism is taking the place of Christianity as an object of loyalty.
Man will always sink lower or rise higher than the humanistic level of rationalized self-interest. The level above the human can be [reached] by a religiously centered community life [through] an invading Light & Power from above. One must become either a social organism’s cell or a social mechanism’s cog, soulless & controlled from without. Wherever Divine Light enkindled within man’s heart shines there is no darkness.
For the purpose of this undertaking I approached our problem from the original point of view of the Society of Friends, which in many ways resembled early Christianity. What is the remedy for excessive individualism that will respect the hard-won rights of the individual? The paradoxical nature of this statement suggests that the solution may be a religious one, for religion feeds on paradox, and is at its highest and most creative stage, the one solvent for excessive individualism which enhances the respect for individual personality. Religion provides the power [to] reform our social order, not the tools or blueprints.
INTRODUCTION—Howard Brinton wrote: “Humanity has progressed much further scientifically than it has socially … The scientist had better lock up his laboratory until the ‘visionary’ peace propagandist and the ‘dangerous’ economic reformer teach humanity cooperation and self-control.” [Howard Brinton found the means of achieving cooperation and self-control] in the obscure writings of Jacob Boehme (1575-1624). And in the history of Quakerism Howard Brinton found evidence of the effectiveness of the Divine Light Within in producing peace and unity both in the individual and the group.
The essay now reprinted was his inaugural address when the author became acting director of Pendle Hill (PH) in 1934. PH is pictured as overcoming self-centered individualism & attaining unity through worship & economic life. Catholic philosophers Dawson & Maritain & the psychological analysis of social disease by Gerald Heard furnished valuable support & supplements to his own conclusions. PH Publications Committee.
The Primitive Christian Solution—In both early Quakerism and early Christianity religious groups were formed whose individual members were fused together as fire fuses metals, by a living infusion of the Spirit. After Pentecost a permeative bond held together every Christian community from Jerusalem to Rome. In the early Christian meeting for worship, the Spirit exercised the same function that soul exercises in the body; it united and coordinated the units of which the whole was composed. Man is saved through the Spirit of Christ inspiring and unifying the Church, not through an external historical transaction. A greater Life unites him with Itself and with one’s [companions]. It creates new life in one and new life in the group.
The Middle Ages Church’s central doctrine held that man is saved in and through a Christian Society which is the Body of Christ; this doctrine became mechanized, and only a shadow remained of the early belief. There is no more dynamic or effectual means of social integration than that which we call religious. The individuality of each part was not thereby canceled out; rather it was lifted up into something higher, through which the essential purpose of each individual was discovered and fulfilled.
The Early Quaker Solution—Quakers gave up baptism as an unnecessary external addition to an inner spiritual reality; the Lord’s supper was celebrated wholly in silent communion. There was no bond but the Spirit, no creed but that which came fresh & upwelling from the Eternal Fountain of Truth. There was in early Quakerism a large degree of economic interdependence. The Quaker's Inward Light doctrine has sometimes been interpreted as an extreme form of religious individualism, [others assuming it to be Protestantism’s extreme left wing].
There is indeed a Reformation Group in England which followed this, but it was the Ranters. [Ranters left the Quaker fellowship when meeting for business governments were set up]; this was the Wilkinson-Story separation of 1676. The Society of Friends took the position that the source of guidance was the “sense of the meeting,” a communal light. The individual view may be simply fragmentary and incomplete rather than in error. The Quaker method is group thinking where God is present in the group. There is no domination of majority over a minority. If a good degree of unity is not reached, no action is taken. Unity comes as an integration in which the parts are transmuted into something more complete than any part could become by itself. A group arriving at a higher unity generates a spiritual energy which becomes available for practical use.
The History of the Social Problem—In the Graeco-Roman culture, society lost all inner cohesion and could only be held together by the dictatorial policy of a Caesar. Religion [lapsed] into a skeptical, pantheistic philosophy, or into world-denying mysticism. Religiously integrated groups of Christians offered to the world a new way of life. The visible Church became the kingdom of God on earth, and united in itself philosophy, theology, science, art, politics, and language education.
But the Church reached its zenith and decayed. The Protestantism of the the 16th & 17th centuries abolished the Church as the means of salvation, & substituted an individual relation between man & God. The great humanists of the Renaissance [rediscovered] the brilliant age of classical antiquity when man had used his matchless individual reason to discover truth, goodness, & beauty. There grew up a doctrine that progress is inevitable.
In the 19th century, “liberalism” meant to be willing to give to every one the right to advance one’s own opinions whatever they might be; this shed new light on many questions. Yet liberalism is an incomplete and one-sided philosophy of life; in defending the rights of the parts it tends to forget the rights of the whole. Protestantism [still] venerated the superhuman, but banished it to Bible times or to a future state.
[Also in this century] science succeeded in reducing the world of matter to swarms of molecules & atoms, each going its individual way regardless of any spirit of the whole; [economics & politics followed the same path of individualism]. In all human endeavor, the process of atomization continued. Science declared that man has no freedom of will, but is the helpless victim of blind mechanical forces; instead of a fallen angel he is a risen animal; his mind is a mere bundle of reflexes, & all emotions result from one’s glands & their chemical compounds. [After WWI’s] terrific jolt to faith, one thing yet remains: a faith in the inevitability of scientific progress. If it could not make life significant, it can at least make life comfortable.
Modern humanists don’t seem to realize that one can raise one’s self above the animal only by laying hold upon that which is higher than one’s self. One can’t lift one’s self spiritually any more than one can lift one’s self physically. 3 centuries ago humans began to lose faith in the super-human. Little did they know that this loss of faith in the super-human would cause them to lose faith in the human too. [Can we forget our troublesome pretensions & indulge in a healthy, sincere sensuality]? The sensuality of the modern man is a deliberate, self-conscious sensuality, not self-forgetful animal naturalness. [In portraying sensuality, the movies present, in more senses than one], a 2-dimensional world with no depth. There are 3 important remedies for excessive individualism which recognize the nature of the problem: autocracy; world denunciation; religiously integrated group.
The 1st Solution: Autocracy—When people have lost faith in themselves they tend to seek refuge in a strong man. Over-individualized people can be forced to cooperate by the power of the state. The line of retreat to a mechanical level is exhibited also in the growth of extreme nationalism. Extreme individualism in nations is as intolerable as extreme individualism in persons.
The 2nd Solution: World Renunciation—When confidence of success is lost, the pain of individuality and inadequacy is assuaged by complete surrender to that which is above and beyond the world. This solution was particularly widespread at the time when the Graeco-Roman civilization was crumbling into individual atoms. In Buddhism, the isolated soul by ceasing to exist as isolated, enters the nameless peace of Nirvana.
There must be some area of calm into which the wearied soul may withdraw for renewal of strength. There must be some quiet time of worship when life’s course is reset by pilot stars. It is only when such a period of refreshment becomes the only goal that religion is a method of escape. [On the other hand], the life which is wholly this-worldly is often like a stream which runs dry because it is not renew by a source beyond itself.
The 3rd Solution: The Religiously Integrated Group—In this type of release from over-individualism we find a balance between world-affirmation and world renunciation. [In ideal operation], these groups neither suppress by authority nor eliminate by retirement. In uniting with the spirit of the group one rises to a super-individual organic level. [Here “organic” is a binding together of a group by love and friendship]. The cementing force is not only love of one another. It is also the love of God. The group looks to that which is above them all yet in them all; they look to the spirit that unites from above. Such a synthesis of the vertically directed love of God and the horizontally directed love of man is called the Greek of the New Testament agape. I John 1:5,7 says: “God is light and in God there is no darkness at all. If we walk in the light as God is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus God’s Son cleanses us from all sin.”
The individualistic interpretation of the atonement, as set forth in most Protestant creeds, is of little help, but primitive Christianity didn't put its central emphasis on individual salvation. It provided social gospel for social need. Primitive Christianity symbolized the power [“the tie that binds”] in the common meal partaken of in memory of the Last Supper. [In Moses’ covenant ritual, half the blood is sprinkled over the altar, which represents Jehovah. The other half is sprinkled over the people with the words, “behold the blood of the covenant.”
Blood represented “life.” To unite Jehovah & Israel, a 3rd living creature needed to be sacrificed in order that its life, shared by the other 2, may unite them into a single life. It is natural that Jesus should think of his blood as “new covenant's blood,” creating living bond between man & God. This is “at-one-ment,” the Christian faith's central doctrine. Among early Quakers it was Christ within, who was the Spirit within the individual, & within the group as a living whole who bridged the gap between separate individuals & a larger whole of life.
This method of religion coming into the world as a power which creates social unity has a long history. At a time when the old Greek deities were no longer intellectually accepted, Greek statesmen advocated their continued worship as a means of unifying the city-state. The disintegrating force of commerce mixed up men from widely scattered places, & the 1st age of individualism set in around the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. The religions of that time appeared to offer some solvent for an excess of individuality. Sin was estrangement, loneliness, separation. Salvation is closing of the gap between the isolated life and a higher life, an at-one-ment with deity.
There is one remedy which aids the isolated human atom to endure existence. The other associations that exist are held together by a horizontal relation between human individuals. In religious worship the horizontal bonds are supplemented by vertical bonds leading up to a higher Being. All can be united by falling into the same pit or they can be united by climbing by various paths to the same mountain top.
Social progress is a child both of this world and of a higher world. Each world is sterile without the other. In the great creative periods, it is only the fertile union of both worlds which can bring about a new birth on a higher level of existence. Protestantism has evolved no religious method or theory for fusing the 2. Long ago Catholicism effected a practical synthesis of nature and super-nature which satisfied the Middle Aged mind, but which contains so much obsolete baggage that it cannot lead in social or theoretical advance without making serious concessions to modernism. Modern Judaism, scattered about as it is over the face of the earth, has little opportunity to revive the ancient Holy Community of the Old Testament.
Quakerism and the Ideal Community—Quakerism combines a mystical approach to God and a social relation to our fellows. In the silence we strive to create a sensitivity to the Divine Presence by removing selfish, individual desires. We find that the partition which separates God and human also separates humans from each other. Once more [in worship] the Spirit which has brooded over chaos from the beginning has spoken the creative word and chaotic human atoms are reborn into the unity of a higher life. [The key is] “treating one another as those that believed and felt God present.”
The group that has thus found God has solved the social problem within itself. None of its members henceforth face the world alone as individuals. If the group is to resemble the highest type of living things it must like them, modify its environment. Differences are adjusted by a process of integration in which no individual is submerged but in which every viewpoint finds some place or exerts some influence in the final achievement. The same spirit will be aroused in the hearts of others; it will grow by contagion. [The risk is that] a person in this kind of social order [suffers] the violence of those who are not within it.
This Quaker method’s general application has hardly begun. Newton was Fox's contemporary, but Newton increased while Fox decreased. As science developed, man’s faith in ability to control his destiny grew & faith in a religion which looked to superhuman help correspondingly lessened. [Now] the greatest scientists of today have turned to philosophy & have discovered that older mechanistic conceptions describe only a shadow world.
An age of collectivism is apparently dawning. Will the dawning age of collectivism be based on external authority to meet a purely economic or political need or will it be a genuine culture based on Spirit which guides us from within? In both early Christianity and the present time there is the same excess of individualism, and an effort to establish a collectivism based on authority. [Rapid, violent change seemed the only remedy to the situation in early Christianity and the present time].
The early Christians didn't wait for revolution. They set up a new social order in their own religious communities. That the Church later compromised with the state & adopted some of its methods doesn't detract from its great achievement in offering a real solution to the excessive individualism problem. The world today awaits for the same ministrations that early Christian communities offered to their times' needs. We must have a "social cement" which binds from within so the unity formed is living. It is in our power, if we wait patiently for real growth, to build up small bits of the kingdom here & there, wherever a group become united & lifted up by the “Presence in the midst.” [Fullness of strength will be found] in an upreaching self-forgetful mind which unites & creates; in a mystical insight which senses the upward pull of Divine power & the frail tendrils of lonely human lives reaching out for support [& Communion]. This was the earliest human search; it will also be the last.
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78. Can Quakerism Speak to the Times (by John Henry Hobart; 1954)
[About the Author]—John H. Hobart (1902-1988) was born in London, England, and graduated from the Saffron Walden Friends School and the University of London. In 1924 he moved to Canada, where he founded the Montreal Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. He served as director of Pendle Hill from 1954 to 1956 and as dean in 1962; while director, he wrote this pamphlet. He addressed the importance of continuing revelation and keeping Quakerism responsive to a changing society.
The worship of God is not a rule of safety: it is an adventure of the spirit, a flight after the unattainable. The death of religion comes with the repression of the high hope of adventure. ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD
Quakerism today lacks the force, power, & convincement, that carried it through its 1st century of oppressive, bitter persecution. What happened to the prophetic zeal & world vision of Quakerism's 1st century?
[Introduction]—People are interested in learning more about a faith that is able to demonstrate dedication to [impartial] relief work. We are better at doing the job in the right spirit than in explaining our basic philosophy and motivation. Relief workers have been asked, "Why do you do it?" and are told, "This is too good to keep to yourselves. Why don't you preach what you practice?" Presently, we may be accepting assignments because of our past reputation, rather than waiting for true concerns coming from worship and silence. How will the Society decide when to restrict its activities or deepen its spiritual life? Continuous revelation is basic to Friends' beliefs. Friends may not believe that their own experience [is] the same intensity as [early Friends or] the writers of Scripture, or that God reveals God's self as fully now as he did then. The words of thanks from those receiving God's preferential treatment are profuse, and they are certain of their unworthiness. Spiritual pride is [often] the besetting sin of those feeling specially chosen. The idea of [feeling] chosen has no more validity than the idea of a chosen people. Every individual has one's own particular gifts with which to serve God.
[God's Universal Grace & Availability; Quaker Response]—There is something of God's nature in everyone. Any relationship with God open to one is open to all, on the same terms & at all times. This theory has the most validity in light of my experience. We must prepare ourselves with patient diligence if we would [regularly] hear & understand God's voice. Humans are related to God through natural laws. We don't understand our relationship to God because we don't know how natural laws relate to God. Natural laws & spiritual laws are different aspects of the same world. Sometimes one stumbles upon a seemingly miraculous linking of these 2 aspects.
The doctrine of Christ within, or inner light must be construed in terms of personal responsibility & freedom of conscience for the individual. Quakerism is a religion of experience & a way of life. It is the process of verification of essential truths of Christianity in individual lives. Friends applied the test of experience to scripture. Personal verification of Biblical truth in individual experience is in itself a valuable religious exercise. Every individual has the responsibility to know God. We have verified universal & eternal truths in our own lives, & we invite you to test them yourselves. George Fox & early Friends proclaimed the inner light & followed it. Quaker way of life is expressed in Community, Harmony, Equality & Simplicity. We tend to express divine purpose produced from worship in a concern that these 4 qualities shall prevail in the world's life. When the service activities stray far from their roots in the Meeting for Worship, there is a corresponding loss of power & effectiveness.
[Quakerism: Early Christianity Revived]—The 1st Publishers of the Truth, as the early Friends called themselves, claimed that their faith was primitive Christianity revived. William Penn writes in defense of this claim: "[The Quakers] aren't bare hearsay or traditional Christians, but fresh & living witnesses: that have seen with their own eyes, & heard with their own ears, & have handled with their own hands, the Word of Life. Primitive Christianity approximated a priesthood of all believers and would not fight; these too were ideals of Friends.
The prophetic and the mystical seem to have been of almost equal importance in the development and growth of the Quaker movement. Extreme mysticism gravitates toward negativism, while extreme prophecy may become too positive and aggressive. Quietism (1725-1825) resulted from a slow, steady drift toward mysticism. The inevitable reaction resulted in a burst of Evangelicalism in the mid 1800's, which became rooted in the word rather than the spirit. Mysticism may vary all the way from a simple consciousness of the divine spirit or power, to a sense of deep union with God as the ultimate reality. Francis Howgill writes: "[We] came to know a place to stand in, and what to wait in, and the Lord appeared daily to us ... insomuch that we often said to one another ... "What, is the Kingdom of God come to be with men? ... We entered into the Covenant of Life with God."
Early Friends felt a prophetic call to witness in the world to God's will; it became for many their life's work. Mysticism gave Quakerism insights & remarkable fortitude; the prophetic strain gave it boundless drive & enthusiasm. Too much religion today is based on the fact that once there was faith, truth & prophetic message; it seeks no further. The truly prophetic states what is: it deals with the present, vital, immediate now. The mystic feels oneself taught of God & is jealous of any authority other than that of the "Light" in one's own soul. There is valuable discipline in corporate worship that renders us less liable to error. To what extent may the Society's individual member follow what one believes to be the leading of one's own conscience, when it is against the best judgment of the group? I don't believe that Friends have or can answer this question with any finality.
[Dealing with the Dissident Minority]—James Nayler's aberrant behavior caused a wide public scandal, & caused many leaders to waver in their trust of the individuals' inner light and to emphasize the judgment and authority of the majority. Isaac Penington felt that if everyone keeps to ones own measure of light, and thus recognizes ones limitations, there can be no disorder. If the inner discipline is there, no other authority is necessary. Friends have sometimes been unready to wait patiently for that unity coming "from the hand of God." Emphasis has been on external authority and discipline; there has been a weakening in the Society's spiritual life.
Early Friends had bitter experience with the extreme individualism of the Ranters who had joined Friends. Ranters were in complete revolt against authority & many had no experience in inner discipline. A system was set up that was largely authoritarian in temper. [Overseers or] elders were largely narrow in outlook & followed the Discipline to the letter. 25 years into the movement, Friends' chief zeal was to preserve inherited testimonies.
Barclay's "Apology for the True Christian Divinity" is "an explanation & vindication of [Quaker] principles & doctrines." His Apology was 1st written in Latin in 1676 when he was 28. Besides fine, inspiring thoughts, he fails to illumine the unique emphasis in Quakerism, due in part to the fact that no theology can give adequate expression to the life of the spirit. Barclay tried to lock up the new truth in the old system. Howard Brinton writes: "If Quakerism is to remain a vital religion it must come to terms with the thought of each succeeding epoch." Quakerism has been redefined by men like: John Wilhelm Rowntree; Rufus M. Jones; William C. Braithwaite; John William Graham; Jesse H. Holmes; Elbert Russell; Walter C. Woodward. Today we face a different task.
[Past Achievements]—The 20th century saw a new awakening among Friends, which found significant expression in 2 fresh ventures in this country: American Friends Service Committee (AFSC; 1917); and Wider Quaker Fellowship (WQF; 1936). Rufus M. Jones, the moving spirit in both these concerns, writes: "We are, all of us, dedicated to this task to which we have set our hands ... I hope we shall be able to keep ourselves free from prejudice while men are torn with bitterness and hate. We must be great in spirit if we are in any way to rectify the results of war." Where the Society of Friends has been able to forget itself and think [and act] in terms of the world's need, as in the AFSC, it has grown in spiritual strength and stature. The WQF's was to foster fellowship among people of goodwill in all faiths. Here individuals express unity with the outward concerns of Friends without surrendering their own mode of worship.
A Quakerism that is concerned only with preservation of inherited testimonies & recorded experiences of early Friends, is inadequate for the tasks now confronting our Society. There is a temptation to use, even an affection for traditional language, which may indicate lack of imagination. We need imagination in conveying religious insights more clearly to the 20th century's scientifically condition mind. Not until we have a quality of life comparable to that of early Friends can we be certain we have achieved a relationship to God similar to theirs.
The spiritual life in us is weak, too many of us are content with the rights and privileges that were dearly won for us in the past, and we don't address ourselves to correcting present evils. True concerns are the outward evidence of an inward spiritual condition. We must never yield to public opinion on an issue once we have taken a position based on inner conviction of what is right. Loving service to the body, mind and spirit of all, under-taken because of a sense of a divine call, has a unique quality.
[3 Spiritual Movements/ The Ecumenical Movement]—I will mention 3 instances of spiritual seeking for light, guidance, wisdom & growth, where there was sufficient individual concern to form groups & begin a corporate search. The movement originating in India is known as "The Fellowship of Friends of Truth." It grew out of conversation between Gandhi (Hindu) & Horace Alexander (Quaker). [The Fellowship states their basis as being]: "... alive to the urgent need in the world today of bringing together people of different faiths in a common endeavor to ... [seek] the way of truth & love ... The Fellowship invites people of all faiths to share ... the richness of their various religious traditions & experiences in this adventure of the spirit." John Woolman [18th century] writes: "There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and in different ages hath had different names. . . It is deep and inward, confined to no form of religion nor excluded from any, where the heart stands in perfect sincerity." All in whom this takes root & grows are brothers & sisters.
"The Friends Spiritual Healing Fellowship" started in England circa 1938. The belief that mental and spiritual states could cause physical illness, is too hastily dismissed as superstition. The Fellowship meets together in prayer, and for study and discussion. The experience gained will be invaluable to them as individuals and for the community's understanding of spiritual potentialities.
"The Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology" had its origin at the World Conference of Friends at Swarthmore College, 1937. They meet in an annual conference and exchange visits with the British Guild of Pastoral Psychology and the Seekers Association of British Friends. These 3 groups have contributed significantly to the spiritual development of many individual seekers; that is where progress must always begin. One of the first evidences of any true spiritual awakening is a concern for others. The peril lurking in such movements is that they may cut themselves off from the main stream of Quaker thought and degenerate into mere cults.
We are also challenged by the Ecumenical movement among Protestant churches and similar movements. Whether we become the leaven or are lost in the mass of a broad movement depends upon how strongly the life of the spirit now moves in our midst. I hope for a Protestant movement that rises to a nobler vision through a deeper understanding of light and love and truth. The faith Jesus inherited was too exclusive, so he enlarged it. The church that is built around his name has never quite grasped the inclusiveness of his gospel.
[Essential Core of Quakerism]—No development of religious thought will be taken seriously that doesn't take into account the current century's scientific findings & technological progress. [Both findings & progress] open the way for insights into the inner & outer human world. Quakerism, being without creed or dogma, is free to examine new light with an open mind & accept what can add conviction to the religious thought of our time.
The spiritual & psychological needs of any generation [aren't] identical with those of preceding generations. It is important that Quakerism preserve its freedom of doctrinal expression. Tolerance towards diverse beliefs should be our goal, rather than a unity of beliefs. Many views of 1st century Friends are untenable, & are probably as unessential to Quakerism as are other additions to it during intervening years. What constitutes Quakerism's [essential], central core? What is the best way to interpret it to the modern world? The early Quaker movement's purpose was to spread & promote a new way of life. Fox, Barclay, Penn, Nayler & Woolman, [along with many anonymous, "ordinary" Quakers], demonstrated that way. ["Famous Quakers"] aren't authorities, but examples. Our task isn't to rewrite the books of famous Quakers in modern language, it is to relive their experience with an attitude similar to theirs, & make it our own. We mustn't make Quakerism into a comfortable & respectable mode of living which conforms to social mores & makes no radical demands upon the individual.
The mystical & prophetic strains of early Quakerism were both elements of firsthand experience, which Friends declared to be open to all. A person attended the Meeting for Worship & found nourishment for the soul, perhaps even [a strong sense] of the presence of God. Robert Barclay writes: "... As I gave way to a [great] secret power [of meetings], I found evil in me weakening, & good lifted up. Thus it was that I was knit into them ... & I hungered more and more for the increase of this power and life until I could feel myself perfectly redeemed."
The Meeting for Worship is at the very heart of our Quaker faith & the Society's life blood. It is the right discipline by which the individual may free one's self from cares that beset the mind, & allow light to break in upon ones consciousness. We need to increase our powers of spiritual perception, knowledge, & wisdom in interpreting what little light we may already have. How can an all-inclusive gathering of people like we have glimpsed in our service work become our message of messianic importance? The truths of Quakerism have Christian & universal implications & it is important to enlarge both. Only when we have enlarged our Christian concepts to their fullest [potential] will we realize the true universal nature of our message [& our best self].
[A Christian, Universal and Modern Faith]—Early Friends recognized that the seed of God was often dormant and unsuspected, but that it would grow and blossom when awakened and exposed to the "Light" of direct revelation and biblical experience. Our faith is Christian historically and in practice. How can a religious faith be Christian, universal, and modern? Most churches offer a manmade aspect of Christianity that is essentially based on opinions about and early interpretations by others of his purposes and the meaning of his life; Jesus' own interpretation of religion and his way of life are purely incidental. Embodied in the organized church are the teachings of Jesus, often obscured and sometimes grossly distorted. "Essential" theological concepts of Christianity have been a divisive influence among Christians for many hundreds of years. They won't suddenly become a unifying force in the world.
Quakerism's self-description of "primitive Christianity revived" was correct; primitive Christianity was closer to Jesus' teachings & example than 17th century England's established church. Quakers discovered in themselves a spiritual power they often called "Inward Christ." Others, many outside Christianity, also discovered this power & have given it different names. Early Friends believed this "inner light" was in every human being.
"Inward Christ" & "historical Jesus" aren't interchangeable terms. The historical Jesus was the master, the great teacher & example; the inward Christ is the power to know & act. Jesus saw that human relationship with God is based upon conduct rather than belief; conduct can only be demonstrated in a way of life. We may be sure that the deepest religious experience springs only from very consistent belief & conduct. What are God's purposes as they relate to humankind's future? With our materialistic thinking & transient sensual pleasures, we haven't consciously entered the strong spiritual stream of eternal life. Our integrity with the past is sealed within our inheritance; our integrity with the future is of our own forging. Humankind is a single entity, & our human destiny involves the whole of humankind. Our human systems' great fault is their exclusiveness. Nothing less than the discovery of their spiritual bonds can bring the world's peoples into harmony. Only by firmly embracing [& living] the message ourselves can we suggest that in Christianity is to be found the ground for universal faith.
We need to make an affirmation about the faith we now hold; to examine it in the light of our past and to test its validity against the needs of the present. Quakerism is a Christlike way of life, growing out of an inward and immediate revelation of the divine spirit. We are led to believe that every human being has the spiritual capacity to relate to God, spirit to spirit. "I know that my redeemer liveth in me," is a great affirmation of faith. Both in the individual and in human society, the good is struggling to be born into the world. Our way of life remains the only true measure of our faith. Only by trying to meet the wider need shall we satisfy the spiritual hunger in ourselves. If Jesus is to be our inspiration, then may the "inward light" become a power within us, and shine out from our lives as we find the way and witness into the truth. We need the prophetic answer for our times that we may go forward, confident in our direction, knowing that we have at last placed our hand into the hand of God; God is leading us even as God did the [people] of old.
270. The Sanctuary Church (by Jim Corbett; 1986)
About the Author—Born in Wyoming in 1933, Jim Corbett ranched in Arizona during much of his adult life. [His other occupations involved working on the range & information about it]. After learning of Central American refugees’ need for protection from federal officials, he began guiding them through southern borderlands & put together a refugee relay network; he was a defendant in Arizona sanctuary trial. This pamphlet was a Philadelphia YM address & was expanded to deal with sanctuary as part of what [really being] the church is.
If we give up our position of privilege, [we can only find] a place to stand with the dispossessed and serve the Peaceable Kingdom in a special kind of community that dedicates itself to such service… a catholic church that is a people rather than creed or rite [or one culture]. Jim Corbett
“The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious, and devout souls of the world are everywhere of one religion; when death has taken off the mask, they will know one another, though the divers liveries they wear here make them strangers.” William Penn
All causes to which life must be sacrificed are among Moloch’s many names. He delights most in sacrifices that give him the name of a good cause… We cannot serve justice if we become hypnotized by the state’s use of violence, as though its force were the ultimate power. Jim Corbett
[Introduction]—[ I used to be] struck with the Mexican cathedrals’ obsession with agonies of the cross. But as I struggled to cope emotionally with having become a peripheral witness to the Salvadoran people’s crucifixion, a suspicion grew the Cross opens a way beyond breakdown. Providing sanctuary for Central American refugees is gathering [faiths back together] into a church that’s more nearly catholic than ever before. [It brings together refugee, rabbi, & Catholic priest in providing sanctuary]. History & common language offer no better term than “church’ for people who covenant to serve the Kingdom. I address you about the ways our practice of sanctuary is bringing us together & about the tasks ahead as the sanctuary church faces the security state.
[“Sanctuary” and “Church”]—“Sanctuary” refers to protective community with people whose basic human rights are being violated by government officials. The public practice of sanctuary holds the state accountable for its violations of human rights. In the Arizona sanctuary trial’s wake, faith communities in the US will provide sanctuary for refugees whose rights are violated by government officials. That some people risk being treated as criminals in order to save refugees is just a matter of basic human decency. That government disapproval makes the observance of minimal standards of human decency a major church issue indicates how urgently it needs to free itself from its 17 centuries of Constantinian captivity of the church as the government’s servant.
[Central to] liberation is the early Quaker understanding of church to be the catholic community of human beings who in obedience to the light dedicate themselves to serving the Kingdom. William Penn states: “The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious, & devout souls of the world are everywhere of one religion; when death has taken off the mask, they will know one another, though the divers liveries they wear here make them strangers.”
Dom Helder Camara, Bishop of Recife, calls Covenant communities “Abrahamic communities.” He also includes atheist humanists, encourages them to “translate what I say into your language … if you think selfish-ness is narrow and choking, if you hunger for truth, justice, and love, you can and should go with us.” In 1968 at Medellin, Columbia, the Latin American bishops [switched their role from] serving the established powers to answer the requirement of the Gospel to serve and empower the poor.
In Anglo America, this choice means sharing our privileges with the poor and persecuted and turning to-wards a radically different ground of empowerment. Sanctuary is the communion that unites and empowers us in spirit and truth. Renewal in the Catholic Church involves local communities assuming powers and initiatives formerly restricted to clergy. Quakers, [on the other hand], need to overcome our tendency to fragment the corporate guidance we receive in a gathered meeting into issues of individual conscience.
The Quaker meeting usually aspires to be fully engaged while remaining radically unassimililated. As a faith practice, sanctuary brings back into focus our community’s covenant to serve Peaceable Kingdom. Asking “what can we do [as a community]?” opens the way for each individual offering to be incorporated into a cathedral of love and service that our life as a people builds for the Kingdom in human history. Sanctuary is a perennial task for any people that covenants to serve the Peaceable Kingdom. Through the corporate practice of love and service we are to enter into the full community with the violated that heals humanity into one body.
[Sanctuary in Church-State relations]—Sanctuary has to do with church-state relations. It presupposes that the church has come to occupy an institutional place with society that permits it to limit and even challenge the state’s use of violence. The church-state fashion by the Reformation [and nationalism] left little room for sanctuary [or the integration of kingdoms and principalities]. The dismantling of the transnational church and subordination of the church to the nation state was a guiding objective of the Reformation.
The state’s ability to enforce its will, when put to the test, rests on the use of police powers, but this serves to stimulate rather than crush noncompliance when used against the community practice of a society’s formative religious insights. The [emerging] church aspires to be the kind of worldwide catholic community that opens the way toward peace & justice in the relations among racial economic & national groups. Constructive involvement with the nations’ legal systems as both an initiator and an advocate for human rights, is one of the keys.
[Because of the] covenant to do justice through community cohesion rather than state coercion, the church has unequaled power to mobilize itself as a communion that transcends national boundaries. When police power is used to coerce cooperation from a recalcitrant society, it is soon forced either to concede its impotence or else to transmute into a military force making war on the citizenry.
Hypnotized by the modern state’s destructive powers, we often ignore our own empowerment and choose instead to be moralizing bystanders. If life on earth is now jeopardized by the absence of an international rule of law, active responsibility for the essential primary task at hand must assumed by the church rather than the state. The local community agency is now of unprecedented importance as the church builds the social order that is a prerequisite for developing the rule law among nations. Sanctuary is demonstrating how international morality can take root in local community practice. Meeting and knowing Central Americans personally, we also come to care deeply about what is happening in Central America. At this point in the development of law among nations, the church is the institution that can incorporate into community practice international law that mandates civil initiative to maintain human rights in the face of governmental violations. The church is building a foundation that brings individual actions into a sustained community task through its congregational practice of sanctuary.
[Defending Human Rights]—The defense of human rights by the sanctuary church is faith-based & worship-initiated. Our country was founded on the premise that a society’s constituent individuals & communities retain primary responsibility for protecting human rights. “Civil disobedience,” or more accurately civil initiative is individuals’ or communities’ exercise of their legally established duty to protect the victims of government officials violations of fundamental rights. Justice Robert H. Jackson stated at the beginning of the Nuremberg Tribunal that: “[The] principle of personal liability is a necessary as well as a logical one if International Law is to render real help to the maintenance of peace.” Implementing the Nuremberg mandate is the task of civil initiative. The sanctuary movement is building the institutional foundations to fulfill this task. Civil initiative that incorporates recognized rights into community norms & legal practice is peacemaking in its quintessential form, & is the most practicable way for us to cultivate the growth of a peacemaking international order.
Many of the strategies of civil disobedience that have been devised to topple unjust laws are counter-productive in civil initiatives to protect good laws; they undercut the very statutes and treaties we wish to protect. Any resistance to state-enforced injustice must complement rather than cancel the community’s constructive task.
[Defending Good Laws/Accountability]—Sanctuary for Central American refugees defends good laws that US government officials are violating. A 9th Circuit Court Judge found that the INS “engages in widespread illegality, so wide-spread that it is not a matter of individual misconduct but a broad systematic process.” Among the good laws are the UN refugee Protocol and the 1980 Refugee Act that implemented the Protocol. [Key to the Protocol] is the prohibition against expulsion or return of refugees to any country in which they would face persecution.” [A key difference is that between] refugees and illegal immigrants. [The legal system’s treatment of sanctuary cases is such that] the government is unlikely to hold itself accountable for human rights violations. Jurors rarely realize that they have the power and responsibility to shield the community whenever the judicial system is subverted to serve injustice, nor are they likely to learn this in court.
Few Salvadorans and Guatemalans make it through Mexico without suffering some form of violence or extortion, usually by authorities. Most countries that signed the protocol recognize most Central American seeking asylum are refugees, and have outreach programs, sometimes even to rescue them from INS prisons in the US. Nothing in the law permits the US government to return refugees to persecution if they have resided in or crossed other countries and their economic needs do not alter their status as refugees.
The sanctuary network’s screening, placement & protection of Central American refugees is an emergency alternative to the INS. Our responsibility for protecting the persecuted must be balanced by our accountability to the legal order. [There are 7 characteristics of civil initiative: nonviolent (neither seizing police power or resisting arrest); truthfulness (open and subject to public examination); catholic (victim’s ideology and political usefulness is irrelevant); dialogical (joint seeking of solution that does not compromise human rights); germane (actions are not primarily symbolic or expressive); volunteer-based (community responsibility without creating non-government bureaucracy); community-based (outreaching and outlasting individual acts of conscience).
[From “Just War” to “Just Revolution”]—The “just war” doctrines designed to convert the Christian church to service of empire are equally relevant to justification of revolutionary warfare. Whether war is waged by the state or revolutionaries, the idea is to assault your adversary’s life & liberties until he is either destroyed or else submits to your will. Political parties struggling to gain & maintain power are unreliable advocates of human rights. How radically unassimilated from the rule of violence must the church become to go free from its [“service to empire”]? It cannot serve as a sanctuary for human rights while supporting any warfare.
Prophetic faith has long elicited complaints from government officials who think religion should observe an otherworldly lack of concern for justice; the prophetic faith rejects any separation of “political” from “religious” concerns. Is the practice of sanctuary by Covenant communities “political?” Protective community with the violated limits the state’s exercise of coercive political power. It counters state’s power of domination with community cohesion, not by seizing control of state powers. The church is neither pseudo-state nor political party.
The communities’ practice of Covenant faith shakes the very foundation of politics. Its vitality depends on sanctuary’s being genuine communion, not on its being a serious contender for political power. The [emerging] church’s faith in communion contrasts with the faith in violence shown by state and revolutionaries. It seeks to establish new liberties rather than new states. The network of sanctuary communities rejects the politicized treatment of refugees by bureaucrats and revolutionaries alike. How are we to work with those whose dedication to winning the good war entails using us as medics in their crusade?
Each sanctuary’s response, whether restricted by government or revolution, is woven into the full spectrum of responses required to assure that all refugees’ rights will be protected. The sanctuary network’s refusal to politicize its response to refugees seems as counter-revolutionary to one side as it seems insurrectionary to the other. Sanctuaries have their own decision-making procedures; most are part of an established denominational network, & the networks are intertwined. The sanctuary church is thus highly resistant to centralization & takeover.
In responding to refugees according to their needs rather than political alignments or usefulness, sanctuary network’s response will vary according to refugees’ national origin. The Nicaraguan refugee situation called for a letter to the INS Office of Refugee Asylum & Parole insisting that the government abide by its obligation under international law not to return deserters, draft resisters, or war victims to a “gross violator of human rights.” Providers of sanctuary services in Arizona were already helping Nicaraguan draft evaders reach an INS office where they could apply asylum. If they were captured first & could not make bail, they were sometimes imprisoned, pressured, and “disappeared.” [Since] the US government supports any Nicaraguan who wishes to speak out about Sandinista violations of human rights, Nicaraguans have no current need for public sanctuary protection to allow them to speak truth to power. The forms of sanctuary services for Salvadorans & Guatemalans are changing rapidly as conditions & needs change that prevailed when sanctuary for Central Americans began.
[Educating State and Local Governments]—Even individuals who belong to no sanctuary-providing community can help build a sanctuary society by educating city, county, & state officials to refuse to collaborate with INS violations of refugee rights. Whenever state & local governments collaborate in the capture & deportation of Salvadoran & Guatemalan refugees, their law enforcement agencies hold the gun for them to raped, robbed, & violated. Governor Toney Anaya proclaimed New Mexico to be a “State of Sanctuary” & emphasized that “the sanctuary movement isn’t fighting against unjust laws; it is fighting for the observance of just laws.” Our country is now at a point in its history at which it must choose between Anaya’s way [or a more brutal way].
Few local & state government officials are aware that they are fully responsible for complying with international human rights & humanitarian laws regarding persons within their jurisdiction. Sanctuary-providing communities should also clarify with local officials the policies their agencies will follow concerning refugees who are receiving sanctuary services. Communities not having hidden refugees now are likely to host them soon, so all local governments should be prepared.
[Congregational Pre-conceptions/Government Pacification/Conclusion]—Many congregations initiate their sanctuary deliberations with limiting preconceptions about the form sanctuary should take the facilities resources it requires. Questions about the kinds of sanctuary services to provide & when to provide them should be determined. No faith community is so small & poor that it could not stand by to help relay refugees who are passing through. No faith community is so remote that it could not participate with others in sponsoring sanctuary volunteer services on the border or in refugee settlement areas. Above all, there is a need for the sanctuary network to prepare now for the long-term refugee producing crises being instituted in Latin America.
The US government has developed pacification as the master link for its 3rd World counterinsurgency strategies [i.e. driving out noncombatants, which are the guerillas’ grassroots support]. [It is a strategy that] creates an enormous number of refugees. “Low intensity warfare” (private funding and mercenaries) is meant to reduce reliance on Congressional budgeting and oversight, forced recruitment of refugees, and development of torture technology. If refugee rights are respected in the US, military pacification won’t work in Latin America.
Pacification is becoming America’s moral analogue to the Nazi death camps. Revolutionary comandantes oppose refuge options that undermine strategies & deplete troops. If armed struggle is the solution, most refugees are deserters. All causes to which life must be sacrificed are among Moloch’s many names. He delights most in sacrifices that give him the name of a good cause. Partisans who say that sanctuary must be political rather than apolitically humanitarian mean that sanctuary services should be extended only to those among the oppressed who serve the cause of the oppressed, according to correct political analysis. Moloch’s correct political analyses are also legion. We cannot serve justice if we become hypnotized by the state’s use of violence, as though its force were the ultimate power. Gathering in attentive stillness, we hear ourselves being called to become a people that covenants to do justice & love kindness, the Kingdom may come on earth, in our lives, & during our days.
445. Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions? Quaker Zionist Rethinks Palestinian Rights (by Steve Chase; 2017)
Quakerism today lacks the force, power, & convincement, that carried it through its 1st century of oppressive, bitter persecution. What happened to the prophetic zeal & world vision of Quakerism's 1st century?
[Introduction]—People are interested in learning more about a faith that is able to demonstrate dedication to [impartial] relief work. We are better at doing the job in the right spirit than in explaining our basic philosophy and motivation. Relief workers have been asked, "Why do you do it?" and are told, "This is too good to keep to yourselves. Why don't you preach what you practice?" Presently, we may be accepting assignments because of our past reputation, rather than waiting for true concerns coming from worship and silence. How will the Society decide when to restrict its activities or deepen its spiritual life? Continuous revelation is basic to Friends' beliefs. Friends may not believe that their own experience [is] the same intensity as [early Friends or] the writers of Scripture, or that God reveals God's self as fully now as he did then. The words of thanks from those receiving God's preferential treatment are profuse, and they are certain of their unworthiness. Spiritual pride is [often] the besetting sin of those feeling specially chosen. The idea of [feeling] chosen has no more validity than the idea of a chosen people. Every individual has one's own particular gifts with which to serve God.
[God's Universal Grace & Availability; Quaker Response]—There is something of God's nature in everyone. Any relationship with God open to one is open to all, on the same terms & at all times. This theory has the most validity in light of my experience. We must prepare ourselves with patient diligence if we would [regularly] hear & understand God's voice. Humans are related to God through natural laws. We don't understand our relationship to God because we don't know how natural laws relate to God. Natural laws & spiritual laws are different aspects of the same world. Sometimes one stumbles upon a seemingly miraculous linking of these 2 aspects.
The doctrine of Christ within, or inner light must be construed in terms of personal responsibility & freedom of conscience for the individual. Quakerism is a religion of experience & a way of life. It is the process of verification of essential truths of Christianity in individual lives. Friends applied the test of experience to scripture. Personal verification of Biblical truth in individual experience is in itself a valuable religious exercise. Every individual has the responsibility to know God. We have verified universal & eternal truths in our own lives, & we invite you to test them yourselves. George Fox & early Friends proclaimed the inner light & followed it. Quaker way of life is expressed in Community, Harmony, Equality & Simplicity. We tend to express divine purpose produced from worship in a concern that these 4 qualities shall prevail in the world's life. When the service activities stray far from their roots in the Meeting for Worship, there is a corresponding loss of power & effectiveness.
[Quakerism: Early Christianity Revived]—The 1st Publishers of the Truth, as the early Friends called themselves, claimed that their faith was primitive Christianity revived. William Penn writes in defense of this claim: "[The Quakers] aren't bare hearsay or traditional Christians, but fresh & living witnesses: that have seen with their own eyes, & heard with their own ears, & have handled with their own hands, the Word of Life. Primitive Christianity approximated a priesthood of all believers and would not fight; these too were ideals of Friends.
The prophetic and the mystical seem to have been of almost equal importance in the development and growth of the Quaker movement. Extreme mysticism gravitates toward negativism, while extreme prophecy may become too positive and aggressive. Quietism (1725-1825) resulted from a slow, steady drift toward mysticism. The inevitable reaction resulted in a burst of Evangelicalism in the mid 1800's, which became rooted in the word rather than the spirit. Mysticism may vary all the way from a simple consciousness of the divine spirit or power, to a sense of deep union with God as the ultimate reality. Francis Howgill writes: "[We] came to know a place to stand in, and what to wait in, and the Lord appeared daily to us ... insomuch that we often said to one another ... "What, is the Kingdom of God come to be with men? ... We entered into the Covenant of Life with God."
Early Friends felt a prophetic call to witness in the world to God's will; it became for many their life's work. Mysticism gave Quakerism insights & remarkable fortitude; the prophetic strain gave it boundless drive & enthusiasm. Too much religion today is based on the fact that once there was faith, truth & prophetic message; it seeks no further. The truly prophetic states what is: it deals with the present, vital, immediate now. The mystic feels oneself taught of God & is jealous of any authority other than that of the "Light" in one's own soul. There is valuable discipline in corporate worship that renders us less liable to error. To what extent may the Society's individual member follow what one believes to be the leading of one's own conscience, when it is against the best judgment of the group? I don't believe that Friends have or can answer this question with any finality.
[Dealing with the Dissident Minority]—James Nayler's aberrant behavior caused a wide public scandal, & caused many leaders to waver in their trust of the individuals' inner light and to emphasize the judgment and authority of the majority. Isaac Penington felt that if everyone keeps to ones own measure of light, and thus recognizes ones limitations, there can be no disorder. If the inner discipline is there, no other authority is necessary. Friends have sometimes been unready to wait patiently for that unity coming "from the hand of God." Emphasis has been on external authority and discipline; there has been a weakening in the Society's spiritual life.
Early Friends had bitter experience with the extreme individualism of the Ranters who had joined Friends. Ranters were in complete revolt against authority & many had no experience in inner discipline. A system was set up that was largely authoritarian in temper. [Overseers or] elders were largely narrow in outlook & followed the Discipline to the letter. 25 years into the movement, Friends' chief zeal was to preserve inherited testimonies.
Barclay's "Apology for the True Christian Divinity" is "an explanation & vindication of [Quaker] principles & doctrines." His Apology was 1st written in Latin in 1676 when he was 28. Besides fine, inspiring thoughts, he fails to illumine the unique emphasis in Quakerism, due in part to the fact that no theology can give adequate expression to the life of the spirit. Barclay tried to lock up the new truth in the old system. Howard Brinton writes: "If Quakerism is to remain a vital religion it must come to terms with the thought of each succeeding epoch." Quakerism has been redefined by men like: John Wilhelm Rowntree; Rufus M. Jones; William C. Braithwaite; John William Graham; Jesse H. Holmes; Elbert Russell; Walter C. Woodward. Today we face a different task.
[Past Achievements]—The 20th century saw a new awakening among Friends, which found significant expression in 2 fresh ventures in this country: American Friends Service Committee (AFSC; 1917); and Wider Quaker Fellowship (WQF; 1936). Rufus M. Jones, the moving spirit in both these concerns, writes: "We are, all of us, dedicated to this task to which we have set our hands ... I hope we shall be able to keep ourselves free from prejudice while men are torn with bitterness and hate. We must be great in spirit if we are in any way to rectify the results of war." Where the Society of Friends has been able to forget itself and think [and act] in terms of the world's need, as in the AFSC, it has grown in spiritual strength and stature. The WQF's was to foster fellowship among people of goodwill in all faiths. Here individuals express unity with the outward concerns of Friends without surrendering their own mode of worship.
A Quakerism that is concerned only with preservation of inherited testimonies & recorded experiences of early Friends, is inadequate for the tasks now confronting our Society. There is a temptation to use, even an affection for traditional language, which may indicate lack of imagination. We need imagination in conveying religious insights more clearly to the 20th century's scientifically condition mind. Not until we have a quality of life comparable to that of early Friends can we be certain we have achieved a relationship to God similar to theirs.
The spiritual life in us is weak, too many of us are content with the rights and privileges that were dearly won for us in the past, and we don't address ourselves to correcting present evils. True concerns are the outward evidence of an inward spiritual condition. We must never yield to public opinion on an issue once we have taken a position based on inner conviction of what is right. Loving service to the body, mind and spirit of all, under-taken because of a sense of a divine call, has a unique quality.
[3 Spiritual Movements/ The Ecumenical Movement]—I will mention 3 instances of spiritual seeking for light, guidance, wisdom & growth, where there was sufficient individual concern to form groups & begin a corporate search. The movement originating in India is known as "The Fellowship of Friends of Truth." It grew out of conversation between Gandhi (Hindu) & Horace Alexander (Quaker). [The Fellowship states their basis as being]: "... alive to the urgent need in the world today of bringing together people of different faiths in a common endeavor to ... [seek] the way of truth & love ... The Fellowship invites people of all faiths to share ... the richness of their various religious traditions & experiences in this adventure of the spirit." John Woolman [18th century] writes: "There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and in different ages hath had different names. . . It is deep and inward, confined to no form of religion nor excluded from any, where the heart stands in perfect sincerity." All in whom this takes root & grows are brothers & sisters.
"The Friends Spiritual Healing Fellowship" started in England circa 1938. The belief that mental and spiritual states could cause physical illness, is too hastily dismissed as superstition. The Fellowship meets together in prayer, and for study and discussion. The experience gained will be invaluable to them as individuals and for the community's understanding of spiritual potentialities.
"The Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology" had its origin at the World Conference of Friends at Swarthmore College, 1937. They meet in an annual conference and exchange visits with the British Guild of Pastoral Psychology and the Seekers Association of British Friends. These 3 groups have contributed significantly to the spiritual development of many individual seekers; that is where progress must always begin. One of the first evidences of any true spiritual awakening is a concern for others. The peril lurking in such movements is that they may cut themselves off from the main stream of Quaker thought and degenerate into mere cults.
We are also challenged by the Ecumenical movement among Protestant churches and similar movements. Whether we become the leaven or are lost in the mass of a broad movement depends upon how strongly the life of the spirit now moves in our midst. I hope for a Protestant movement that rises to a nobler vision through a deeper understanding of light and love and truth. The faith Jesus inherited was too exclusive, so he enlarged it. The church that is built around his name has never quite grasped the inclusiveness of his gospel.
[Essential Core of Quakerism]—No development of religious thought will be taken seriously that doesn't take into account the current century's scientific findings & technological progress. [Both findings & progress] open the way for insights into the inner & outer human world. Quakerism, being without creed or dogma, is free to examine new light with an open mind & accept what can add conviction to the religious thought of our time.
The spiritual & psychological needs of any generation [aren't] identical with those of preceding generations. It is important that Quakerism preserve its freedom of doctrinal expression. Tolerance towards diverse beliefs should be our goal, rather than a unity of beliefs. Many views of 1st century Friends are untenable, & are probably as unessential to Quakerism as are other additions to it during intervening years. What constitutes Quakerism's [essential], central core? What is the best way to interpret it to the modern world? The early Quaker movement's purpose was to spread & promote a new way of life. Fox, Barclay, Penn, Nayler & Woolman, [along with many anonymous, "ordinary" Quakers], demonstrated that way. ["Famous Quakers"] aren't authorities, but examples. Our task isn't to rewrite the books of famous Quakers in modern language, it is to relive their experience with an attitude similar to theirs, & make it our own. We mustn't make Quakerism into a comfortable & respectable mode of living which conforms to social mores & makes no radical demands upon the individual.
The mystical & prophetic strains of early Quakerism were both elements of firsthand experience, which Friends declared to be open to all. A person attended the Meeting for Worship & found nourishment for the soul, perhaps even [a strong sense] of the presence of God. Robert Barclay writes: "... As I gave way to a [great] secret power [of meetings], I found evil in me weakening, & good lifted up. Thus it was that I was knit into them ... & I hungered more and more for the increase of this power and life until I could feel myself perfectly redeemed."
The Meeting for Worship is at the very heart of our Quaker faith & the Society's life blood. It is the right discipline by which the individual may free one's self from cares that beset the mind, & allow light to break in upon ones consciousness. We need to increase our powers of spiritual perception, knowledge, & wisdom in interpreting what little light we may already have. How can an all-inclusive gathering of people like we have glimpsed in our service work become our message of messianic importance? The truths of Quakerism have Christian & universal implications & it is important to enlarge both. Only when we have enlarged our Christian concepts to their fullest [potential] will we realize the true universal nature of our message [& our best self].
[A Christian, Universal and Modern Faith]—Early Friends recognized that the seed of God was often dormant and unsuspected, but that it would grow and blossom when awakened and exposed to the "Light" of direct revelation and biblical experience. Our faith is Christian historically and in practice. How can a religious faith be Christian, universal, and modern? Most churches offer a manmade aspect of Christianity that is essentially based on opinions about and early interpretations by others of his purposes and the meaning of his life; Jesus' own interpretation of religion and his way of life are purely incidental. Embodied in the organized church are the teachings of Jesus, often obscured and sometimes grossly distorted. "Essential" theological concepts of Christianity have been a divisive influence among Christians for many hundreds of years. They won't suddenly become a unifying force in the world.
Quakerism's self-description of "primitive Christianity revived" was correct; primitive Christianity was closer to Jesus' teachings & example than 17th century England's established church. Quakers discovered in themselves a spiritual power they often called "Inward Christ." Others, many outside Christianity, also discovered this power & have given it different names. Early Friends believed this "inner light" was in every human being.
"Inward Christ" & "historical Jesus" aren't interchangeable terms. The historical Jesus was the master, the great teacher & example; the inward Christ is the power to know & act. Jesus saw that human relationship with God is based upon conduct rather than belief; conduct can only be demonstrated in a way of life. We may be sure that the deepest religious experience springs only from very consistent belief & conduct. What are God's purposes as they relate to humankind's future? With our materialistic thinking & transient sensual pleasures, we haven't consciously entered the strong spiritual stream of eternal life. Our integrity with the past is sealed within our inheritance; our integrity with the future is of our own forging. Humankind is a single entity, & our human destiny involves the whole of humankind. Our human systems' great fault is their exclusiveness. Nothing less than the discovery of their spiritual bonds can bring the world's peoples into harmony. Only by firmly embracing [& living] the message ourselves can we suggest that in Christianity is to be found the ground for universal faith.
We need to make an affirmation about the faith we now hold; to examine it in the light of our past and to test its validity against the needs of the present. Quakerism is a Christlike way of life, growing out of an inward and immediate revelation of the divine spirit. We are led to believe that every human being has the spiritual capacity to relate to God, spirit to spirit. "I know that my redeemer liveth in me," is a great affirmation of faith. Both in the individual and in human society, the good is struggling to be born into the world. Our way of life remains the only true measure of our faith. Only by trying to meet the wider need shall we satisfy the spiritual hunger in ourselves. If Jesus is to be our inspiration, then may the "inward light" become a power within us, and shine out from our lives as we find the way and witness into the truth. We need the prophetic answer for our times that we may go forward, confident in our direction, knowing that we have at last placed our hand into the hand of God; God is leading us even as God did the [people] of old.
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270. The Sanctuary Church (by Jim Corbett; 1986)
About the Author—Born in Wyoming in 1933, Jim Corbett ranched in Arizona during much of his adult life. [His other occupations involved working on the range & information about it]. After learning of Central American refugees’ need for protection from federal officials, he began guiding them through southern borderlands & put together a refugee relay network; he was a defendant in Arizona sanctuary trial. This pamphlet was a Philadelphia YM address & was expanded to deal with sanctuary as part of what [really being] the church is.
If we give up our position of privilege, [we can only find] a place to stand with the dispossessed and serve the Peaceable Kingdom in a special kind of community that dedicates itself to such service… a catholic church that is a people rather than creed or rite [or one culture]. Jim Corbett
“The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious, and devout souls of the world are everywhere of one religion; when death has taken off the mask, they will know one another, though the divers liveries they wear here make them strangers.” William Penn
All causes to which life must be sacrificed are among Moloch’s many names. He delights most in sacrifices that give him the name of a good cause… We cannot serve justice if we become hypnotized by the state’s use of violence, as though its force were the ultimate power. Jim Corbett
[Introduction]—[ I used to be] struck with the Mexican cathedrals’ obsession with agonies of the cross. But as I struggled to cope emotionally with having become a peripheral witness to the Salvadoran people’s crucifixion, a suspicion grew the Cross opens a way beyond breakdown. Providing sanctuary for Central American refugees is gathering [faiths back together] into a church that’s more nearly catholic than ever before. [It brings together refugee, rabbi, & Catholic priest in providing sanctuary]. History & common language offer no better term than “church’ for people who covenant to serve the Kingdom. I address you about the ways our practice of sanctuary is bringing us together & about the tasks ahead as the sanctuary church faces the security state.
[“Sanctuary” and “Church”]—“Sanctuary” refers to protective community with people whose basic human rights are being violated by government officials. The public practice of sanctuary holds the state accountable for its violations of human rights. In the Arizona sanctuary trial’s wake, faith communities in the US will provide sanctuary for refugees whose rights are violated by government officials. That some people risk being treated as criminals in order to save refugees is just a matter of basic human decency. That government disapproval makes the observance of minimal standards of human decency a major church issue indicates how urgently it needs to free itself from its 17 centuries of Constantinian captivity of the church as the government’s servant.
[Central to] liberation is the early Quaker understanding of church to be the catholic community of human beings who in obedience to the light dedicate themselves to serving the Kingdom. William Penn states: “The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious, & devout souls of the world are everywhere of one religion; when death has taken off the mask, they will know one another, though the divers liveries they wear here make them strangers.”
Dom Helder Camara, Bishop of Recife, calls Covenant communities “Abrahamic communities.” He also includes atheist humanists, encourages them to “translate what I say into your language … if you think selfish-ness is narrow and choking, if you hunger for truth, justice, and love, you can and should go with us.” In 1968 at Medellin, Columbia, the Latin American bishops [switched their role from] serving the established powers to answer the requirement of the Gospel to serve and empower the poor.
In Anglo America, this choice means sharing our privileges with the poor and persecuted and turning to-wards a radically different ground of empowerment. Sanctuary is the communion that unites and empowers us in spirit and truth. Renewal in the Catholic Church involves local communities assuming powers and initiatives formerly restricted to clergy. Quakers, [on the other hand], need to overcome our tendency to fragment the corporate guidance we receive in a gathered meeting into issues of individual conscience.
The Quaker meeting usually aspires to be fully engaged while remaining radically unassimililated. As a faith practice, sanctuary brings back into focus our community’s covenant to serve Peaceable Kingdom. Asking “what can we do [as a community]?” opens the way for each individual offering to be incorporated into a cathedral of love and service that our life as a people builds for the Kingdom in human history. Sanctuary is a perennial task for any people that covenants to serve the Peaceable Kingdom. Through the corporate practice of love and service we are to enter into the full community with the violated that heals humanity into one body.
[Sanctuary in Church-State relations]—Sanctuary has to do with church-state relations. It presupposes that the church has come to occupy an institutional place with society that permits it to limit and even challenge the state’s use of violence. The church-state fashion by the Reformation [and nationalism] left little room for sanctuary [or the integration of kingdoms and principalities]. The dismantling of the transnational church and subordination of the church to the nation state was a guiding objective of the Reformation.
The state’s ability to enforce its will, when put to the test, rests on the use of police powers, but this serves to stimulate rather than crush noncompliance when used against the community practice of a society’s formative religious insights. The [emerging] church aspires to be the kind of worldwide catholic community that opens the way toward peace & justice in the relations among racial economic & national groups. Constructive involvement with the nations’ legal systems as both an initiator and an advocate for human rights, is one of the keys.
[Because of the] covenant to do justice through community cohesion rather than state coercion, the church has unequaled power to mobilize itself as a communion that transcends national boundaries. When police power is used to coerce cooperation from a recalcitrant society, it is soon forced either to concede its impotence or else to transmute into a military force making war on the citizenry.
Hypnotized by the modern state’s destructive powers, we often ignore our own empowerment and choose instead to be moralizing bystanders. If life on earth is now jeopardized by the absence of an international rule of law, active responsibility for the essential primary task at hand must assumed by the church rather than the state. The local community agency is now of unprecedented importance as the church builds the social order that is a prerequisite for developing the rule law among nations. Sanctuary is demonstrating how international morality can take root in local community practice. Meeting and knowing Central Americans personally, we also come to care deeply about what is happening in Central America. At this point in the development of law among nations, the church is the institution that can incorporate into community practice international law that mandates civil initiative to maintain human rights in the face of governmental violations. The church is building a foundation that brings individual actions into a sustained community task through its congregational practice of sanctuary.
[Defending Human Rights]—The defense of human rights by the sanctuary church is faith-based & worship-initiated. Our country was founded on the premise that a society’s constituent individuals & communities retain primary responsibility for protecting human rights. “Civil disobedience,” or more accurately civil initiative is individuals’ or communities’ exercise of their legally established duty to protect the victims of government officials violations of fundamental rights. Justice Robert H. Jackson stated at the beginning of the Nuremberg Tribunal that: “[The] principle of personal liability is a necessary as well as a logical one if International Law is to render real help to the maintenance of peace.” Implementing the Nuremberg mandate is the task of civil initiative. The sanctuary movement is building the institutional foundations to fulfill this task. Civil initiative that incorporates recognized rights into community norms & legal practice is peacemaking in its quintessential form, & is the most practicable way for us to cultivate the growth of a peacemaking international order.
Many of the strategies of civil disobedience that have been devised to topple unjust laws are counter-productive in civil initiatives to protect good laws; they undercut the very statutes and treaties we wish to protect. Any resistance to state-enforced injustice must complement rather than cancel the community’s constructive task.
[Defending Good Laws/Accountability]—Sanctuary for Central American refugees defends good laws that US government officials are violating. A 9th Circuit Court Judge found that the INS “engages in widespread illegality, so wide-spread that it is not a matter of individual misconduct but a broad systematic process.” Among the good laws are the UN refugee Protocol and the 1980 Refugee Act that implemented the Protocol. [Key to the Protocol] is the prohibition against expulsion or return of refugees to any country in which they would face persecution.” [A key difference is that between] refugees and illegal immigrants. [The legal system’s treatment of sanctuary cases is such that] the government is unlikely to hold itself accountable for human rights violations. Jurors rarely realize that they have the power and responsibility to shield the community whenever the judicial system is subverted to serve injustice, nor are they likely to learn this in court.
Few Salvadorans and Guatemalans make it through Mexico without suffering some form of violence or extortion, usually by authorities. Most countries that signed the protocol recognize most Central American seeking asylum are refugees, and have outreach programs, sometimes even to rescue them from INS prisons in the US. Nothing in the law permits the US government to return refugees to persecution if they have resided in or crossed other countries and their economic needs do not alter their status as refugees.
The sanctuary network’s screening, placement & protection of Central American refugees is an emergency alternative to the INS. Our responsibility for protecting the persecuted must be balanced by our accountability to the legal order. [There are 7 characteristics of civil initiative: nonviolent (neither seizing police power or resisting arrest); truthfulness (open and subject to public examination); catholic (victim’s ideology and political usefulness is irrelevant); dialogical (joint seeking of solution that does not compromise human rights); germane (actions are not primarily symbolic or expressive); volunteer-based (community responsibility without creating non-government bureaucracy); community-based (outreaching and outlasting individual acts of conscience).
[From “Just War” to “Just Revolution”]—The “just war” doctrines designed to convert the Christian church to service of empire are equally relevant to justification of revolutionary warfare. Whether war is waged by the state or revolutionaries, the idea is to assault your adversary’s life & liberties until he is either destroyed or else submits to your will. Political parties struggling to gain & maintain power are unreliable advocates of human rights. How radically unassimilated from the rule of violence must the church become to go free from its [“service to empire”]? It cannot serve as a sanctuary for human rights while supporting any warfare.
Prophetic faith has long elicited complaints from government officials who think religion should observe an otherworldly lack of concern for justice; the prophetic faith rejects any separation of “political” from “religious” concerns. Is the practice of sanctuary by Covenant communities “political?” Protective community with the violated limits the state’s exercise of coercive political power. It counters state’s power of domination with community cohesion, not by seizing control of state powers. The church is neither pseudo-state nor political party.
The communities’ practice of Covenant faith shakes the very foundation of politics. Its vitality depends on sanctuary’s being genuine communion, not on its being a serious contender for political power. The [emerging] church’s faith in communion contrasts with the faith in violence shown by state and revolutionaries. It seeks to establish new liberties rather than new states. The network of sanctuary communities rejects the politicized treatment of refugees by bureaucrats and revolutionaries alike. How are we to work with those whose dedication to winning the good war entails using us as medics in their crusade?
Each sanctuary’s response, whether restricted by government or revolution, is woven into the full spectrum of responses required to assure that all refugees’ rights will be protected. The sanctuary network’s refusal to politicize its response to refugees seems as counter-revolutionary to one side as it seems insurrectionary to the other. Sanctuaries have their own decision-making procedures; most are part of an established denominational network, & the networks are intertwined. The sanctuary church is thus highly resistant to centralization & takeover.
In responding to refugees according to their needs rather than political alignments or usefulness, sanctuary network’s response will vary according to refugees’ national origin. The Nicaraguan refugee situation called for a letter to the INS Office of Refugee Asylum & Parole insisting that the government abide by its obligation under international law not to return deserters, draft resisters, or war victims to a “gross violator of human rights.” Providers of sanctuary services in Arizona were already helping Nicaraguan draft evaders reach an INS office where they could apply asylum. If they were captured first & could not make bail, they were sometimes imprisoned, pressured, and “disappeared.” [Since] the US government supports any Nicaraguan who wishes to speak out about Sandinista violations of human rights, Nicaraguans have no current need for public sanctuary protection to allow them to speak truth to power. The forms of sanctuary services for Salvadorans & Guatemalans are changing rapidly as conditions & needs change that prevailed when sanctuary for Central Americans began.
[Educating State and Local Governments]—Even individuals who belong to no sanctuary-providing community can help build a sanctuary society by educating city, county, & state officials to refuse to collaborate with INS violations of refugee rights. Whenever state & local governments collaborate in the capture & deportation of Salvadoran & Guatemalan refugees, their law enforcement agencies hold the gun for them to raped, robbed, & violated. Governor Toney Anaya proclaimed New Mexico to be a “State of Sanctuary” & emphasized that “the sanctuary movement isn’t fighting against unjust laws; it is fighting for the observance of just laws.” Our country is now at a point in its history at which it must choose between Anaya’s way [or a more brutal way].
Few local & state government officials are aware that they are fully responsible for complying with international human rights & humanitarian laws regarding persons within their jurisdiction. Sanctuary-providing communities should also clarify with local officials the policies their agencies will follow concerning refugees who are receiving sanctuary services. Communities not having hidden refugees now are likely to host them soon, so all local governments should be prepared.
[Congregational Pre-conceptions/Government Pacification/Conclusion]—Many congregations initiate their sanctuary deliberations with limiting preconceptions about the form sanctuary should take the facilities resources it requires. Questions about the kinds of sanctuary services to provide & when to provide them should be determined. No faith community is so small & poor that it could not stand by to help relay refugees who are passing through. No faith community is so remote that it could not participate with others in sponsoring sanctuary volunteer services on the border or in refugee settlement areas. Above all, there is a need for the sanctuary network to prepare now for the long-term refugee producing crises being instituted in Latin America.
The US government has developed pacification as the master link for its 3rd World counterinsurgency strategies [i.e. driving out noncombatants, which are the guerillas’ grassroots support]. [It is a strategy that] creates an enormous number of refugees. “Low intensity warfare” (private funding and mercenaries) is meant to reduce reliance on Congressional budgeting and oversight, forced recruitment of refugees, and development of torture technology. If refugee rights are respected in the US, military pacification won’t work in Latin America.
Pacification is becoming America’s moral analogue to the Nazi death camps. Revolutionary comandantes oppose refuge options that undermine strategies & deplete troops. If armed struggle is the solution, most refugees are deserters. All causes to which life must be sacrificed are among Moloch’s many names. He delights most in sacrifices that give him the name of a good cause. Partisans who say that sanctuary must be political rather than apolitically humanitarian mean that sanctuary services should be extended only to those among the oppressed who serve the cause of the oppressed, according to correct political analysis. Moloch’s correct political analyses are also legion. We cannot serve justice if we become hypnotized by the state’s use of violence, as though its force were the ultimate power. Gathering in attentive stillness, we hear ourselves being called to become a people that covenants to do justice & love kindness, the Kingdom may come on earth, in our lives, & during our days.
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445. Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions? Quaker Zionist Rethinks Palestinian Rights (by Steve Chase; 2017)
About the Author/ Pamphlet—Steve Chase is a long-time Quaker educator, activist, and writer. He wrote Pendle Hill Pamphlet #431, Revelation & Revolution: Answering the Call to Radical Faithfulness. He was Education Director & the 1st Online Education Coordinator at Pendle Hill. He is a member of the Quaker Palestine Israel Network. 2 sections of this pamphlet were adapted from previously published pieces: "Remembering a Forgotten Zionist Vision for Peace," in Friends Journal (April 2011), and "Is there Still Hope for Peace Between Israel and Palestine?" (Nonviolent Change, Winter 2011).
[Introduction]—Every year,A Palestinian Quaker friend of mine goes back to Palestine to visit his family at Christmas. Recently, he was detained, strip-searched, jailed, interrogated, deported, & banned from returning; he was labeled a "security threat" to the State of Israel. My friend is an activist who supports efforts to secure peace, security and human rights for all the residents of Israel/ Palestine. [The interrogators focused on] his participation in the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
An influential Quaker activist named Bayard Rustin, regularly denounced the idea that Israel was "racist, facist, imperialistic, and the like." He rejected any connection between Israeli policy and South Africa's apartheid system. He saw Arabs as violent, anti-Semitic, would-be oppressors Israel and Jews. Rustin had an "historic and deep sense of solidarity with the Jewish people," and viewed "Israel as a progressive and democratic society." Who should I stand with now—my old Quaker activist hero or my Palestinian Quaker activist friend?
The Education of a Quaker Zionist—I was an ardent Zionist as a gentle, Quaker kid. I saw Zionism as a just response to anti-Semitism & the Holocaust. I learned of concentration camps & mass extermination of 11 million people, (6 million Jews). I also learned there was little safety from intense cruelty & evil, except what we create by peace & work. My mother told me how 1,000's of Danish Gentiles, & the Danish king, rebelled & engaged in a courageous act by publicly wearing Star of David armbands on their sleeves alongside their Jews. I recently learned this story is an "urban legend"; actually, the Danish king threatened the Nazis with that nonviolent civil resistance if they tried to implement an armband decree; this "legend" was powerful. Many Bible stories aren't likely to be factual, but they offer deep, spiritual truths. The Danish story's truth is that people can be evil & cruel, but they can also be kind, just, & brave. We can choose to be the latter. Anything less is cowardice & complicity with oppression & injustice. For the teenage me as for Bayard Rustin, the State of Israel seemed like a real-life fulfillment of social justice principles so admirably embodied in prophetic Jewish tradition.
Later, I started to hear criticism of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) wasn't a believable critic. I was angered & didn't accept the UN resolution in support of the PLO. [I saw many of its supporters as racist, autocratic, & unjust]. [How can countries with imperfect, questionable records on racism, oppression, & injustice, effectively criticize another country's treatment of minorities]? The 1st crack in my [biased] view of Zionism began in my 20's; it widened in my 30's & 40's. Jewish friends coming back from Israel gave conflicted, disturbing reports, especially of right-leaning politics, militarism & human rights violations. Many Zionists, especially in Occupied Territories, were very racist toward Palestinians.
Around 2001, a Jewish friend gave me The Other Israel, a thick anthology of dissident Israeli & Jewish voices speaking against Israel's oppression of Palestinians. Shulamit Aloni, an ex-Israeli Knesset member writes: "Whoever claims Jewish settlements are Israel's catastrophe from a security & economic standpoint is ... a patriot. Whoever says this government commits crimes against humanity is ... honest & humane." How has heartfelt "support for Israel" become reduced to "uncritical endorsement of repressive measures used to enforce occupation of the West Bank & Gaza Strip?" What is the US's part in enabling oppression in Palestine?
New England YM's Faith & Practice states: [In] God's Kingdom on earth. Let us strengthen kinship with all. Let us ... [make] efforts to build social order free of violence & oppression, in which no one's development is thwarted by poverty & lack of health care, education, or freedom. Friends are advised to minister to those in need, but also seek to know the facts & causes of social & economic ills & to work for the removal of those ills.
Zionism through New Eyes: History—At its beginning in the late 1800's, Zionism sprang from Theodor Herzl's personal dream [to provide an escape from] European anti-Semitism, by resettling "millions of Jews in their Biblical homeland ... now home to another people." It was initially opposed by rabbis & Jewish leaders; by 1897 thousands of European Jews settled in Palestine; the 1st Zionist Congress was held in Europe. The need for post-Nazi/ Holocaust/ War Jews to find a way to feel safe & protected from anti-Semitism became a compelling issue. Zionism seemed a key element in reviving Jewish pride & culture after a horrendous genocidal trauma.
Martin Buber writes: "From the beginning, modern Zionism contained 2 [utterly] opposed tendencies." On one side were "Territorial" Zionists. From Zionism's earliest days, there were significant problems with how European Jewish settlers treated indigenous Palestinians. Zionist Ahad Ha'am reported that European Zionists "[thought] of Arabs as desert savages, donkey-like people that neither sees nor comprehends anything going on." In 1929, Vincent Sheean, a pro-Zionist American journalist reported on Jewish settlers. Noam Chomsky writes: [Sheean] found that Jewish settlers "had contempt [for Arabs] as 'uncivilized' ... whom some of them referred to as 'Red Indians' or 'savages,' & [stereotyped them as] 'doing anything for money ... Those indigenous people were 'mere squatters for 13 centuries' ... [The Arabs could be gotten out] by purchase, persuasions & pressure."
Some of the early Zionist colonist were astute enough not to be too public about their long-term territorial and economic objectives and avoided showing overt hostility toward Palestinians. Theodor Herzl wrote: "We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries while denying it employment in our country ... [This must be done] discreetly and circumspectly."
The Israeli Historian Edward Said argues: "[However much] Zionism served ... the ends of Jewish tradition, saved the Jews as a people from homelessness and anti-Semitism, and restored them to nationhood, Zionism also collaborated with those aspects of the dominant Western culture in which it institutionally lived, making it possible for Europeans to view non-Europeans as inferior, marginal, and irrelevant." Territorial Zionists worked hard to encourage Europeans to colonize Palestine and then create a well-armed, ethnocentric Jewish state that would conquer, according to Said, "as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinian in it as feasible."
[Zionism through New Eyes: Spiritual Zionism]—Racist, colonial-settler perspectives weren't the only Zionist views. On the spectrum's other end were Zionists like Martin Buber & Judah Magnes, & organizations like Brit Shalom & Ihud. They supported immigration of at-risk Jews & of Jews seeking to renew a spiritual center for Judaism. Spiritual Zionism's core vision was a new state/ community whose citizens would include: new immigrants & refugees; indigenous Muslim, Christians, [pre-Zionist Jews] & Palestinians (i.e. a bi-national State of Palestine) before Zionists started immigrating in large numbers. It didn't require a Jewish majority. Buber foresaw war & the loss of Judaism's soul in creating a Jewish state or in displacing Palestinians. Zionism's creation of a State "is one of nationalism's cruder forms; it recognizes no master above national interests."
The Territorial Zionist movement built up the Jewish State of Israel through Great Power imperial support, permanently dispossessed 750,000 Palestinians of land, homes & businesses, & conquered & annexed most of the territory the UN designated as a Palestinian State. In 1937, David Ben-Gurion said: "The Arabs have to go; one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war ... The country is theirs ... they inhabit it ... we want to take away... their country [& move in] ... Only a state with at least 80% Jews is a viable, stable state."
"Plan Dalet" was a detailed military strategy for the ethnic cleansing of most Palestinians in captured territory; it was implemented in 1948. Later, there was rapid expansion of Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestinian Territories, & violent repression of Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, & East Jerusalem. These actions were deemed illegal by the International Court & major human rights organizations. Israel [ranks 100th in population] & 11th in military power, with over a 100 nuclear weapons; it is the world's 8th largest arms dealer. Israel's lack-luster participation in peace talks, & militaristic policy toward Arab neighbors are consistent with longstanding Territorial Zionist strategy. Institutional & legal restrictions have made Israeli Palestinians 2nd-class citizens.
The Territorial Zionist vision is involved in building a "Separation Wall" annexing Palestinian land without adding Palestinians. Arnon Soffer, the Wall's creator, focused on the "Arab demographic threat." He states Israel's official goal wasn't peace & justice, but to guarantee "a Zionist-Jewish state with an overwhelming Jewish majority." Territorial Zionism seeks to achieve its goals by oppressing Palestinians & expropriating lands & resources. A Jewish friend said: "The previous suffering of oppressed people ... doesn't justify ... them [visiting] violence & injustices on another people..." Bayard Rustin was wrong about Israel/ Palestine's realities & dynamics.
The Persistence of Israeli Domination—Chris McGreal, Mideast correspondent for the Guardian, wrote about the economic, military, ideological, and diplomatic bonds between the State of Israel and apartheid South Africa. He wrote, "Many Israelis recoil at the suggestion of a parallel because stabs at the heart of Israeli individual and national self-image ... Some staunch defenders of Israel ... say that to discuss Israel in an apartheid con-text is one step short of comparing Israel to Nazi Germany." [Conscientious] Zionists are resistant to thinking of themselves as racists, violent settler-colonists, or oppressors of native Palestinians.
Many Zionists have come up with several moral justifications for oppressive action against Palestinians; their very existence poses a threat to a [nearly pure] Jewish state. The most delusional moral justification used was that [there was no such thing as indigenous Palestinians, assumed in] one of the earliest Zionist slogans: "A Land without a People for a People Without a Land. Another is to call all who oppose Israel's oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian people "anti-Semitic," [be they Palestinian or critics on the world stage].
Much of anti-Jewish sentiment that exists among Palestinians has some different historical roots than European anti-Semitism. It has been worsened by loss of life, liberty, & property at the hands of the Zionist settlers 1st & then Israel. This trauma has limited Palestinian's strategic wisdom & exaggerated the moral & practical value of armed struggle & reprisals. Mustafa Barghouti says, "Through decades of occupation & dispossession, 90% of the Palestinian struggle has been nonviolent ... the vast majority of Palestinians support this method. The violent minority & the Israeli government seem locked into a rigid pattern of military occupation, state terrorism, internal discrimination, & illegal settlements on the dominant side, while the subordinated side is locked into vengeful firing of rockets & deploying suicide bombers in crowded public places behind "enemy" lines.
Breaking the Impasse—Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta wrote Refusing to Be Enemies: Palestinian & Israeli Nonviolent Resistance to Israel Occupation, (2010). Over 100 Palestinians & Israelis interviewed have moved away from practicing or supporting violence. Kaufman-Lacusta listens carefully to Palestinians & acknowledges their many important experiments in nonviolent resistance. Palestinian activists she interviewed are highly critical of the Territorial Zionist movement's goals & successes from direct experience, & are easily able to understand what is hard for many Israelis, Jews, & Zionists to acknowledge. A new generation of Israeli historian has begun challenging many myths of Israel's founding & its ongoing treatment of the Palestinians. An increasing number of Palestinian activists are building on pioneering work of earlier Palestinians in questioning or rejecting armed struggle against the people and Israel, & experimenting with a wide variety of nonviolent alternatives.
Many Palestinians feel all of us are made in God's image; to harm this image is wrong. There is also the [realization] by Palestinian activists that armed struggle like other national liberation movements hasn't worked for Palestinians. They see the need for different resistance strategies to stop Israeli dispossession, occupation, & discrimination, & how violence undermines their moral position in the eyes of the world. Nonviolence & solidarity work better to undermine national & international support of denying Palestinian human rights & self-determination. A more sophisticated nonviolent resistance strategy that might achieve real self-determination.
Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan's Why Civil Resistance Works analyzes campaigns against repressive regimes. Nonviolent campaigns were nearly twice as likely to achieve partial or full success as violence is. Ghassan Andoni, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement, saw the history and effectiveness of civil-based resistance in India, South Africa, the Civil Rights Movement in the US, and the potential in the Palestinian massive and mainly nonviolent resistance that started in 1987 and managed to turn the mighty Israel forces to useless. He saw how community-based nonviolent resistance panicked the Israeli occupation forces.
[Pamphlet author cites examples of the effectiveness of the 1st Entifada's nonviolent direct action tactics], "the sector of anti-occupation Israelis," [& the ineffectiveness of indiscriminate bombing]. Ali Jedda, a former guerrilla fighter with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, now holds a vision where both Israelis & Palestinians "can live together in real peace & equality" after the occupation is ended & a viable democratic state of Palestine is established alongside Israel. It isn't surprising that Israeli Jewish activists have little stomach for any more violence directed against their people after thousands of years of Anti-Semitism & the Holocaust. These Israelis have been able to break away from the racist, settler colonialist consensus of Territorial Zionism.
Taking a Closer Look at the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions Movement (BDS)—Yonaton Shapira explains that once you know something's wrong, "There is another stage one to go through of 'What do I need to do?" Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom notes, "I'm interested in fostering a livable situation, [where] colonialist domination, structural domination has to give way to [a Jewish/ Palestinian] partnership." I want to do anything I can to help Israel & Palestinian activists create just peace in Israel/ Palestine." Maxine Kaufman writes: "Several interviewees of Refusing to be Enemies emphasized BDS's importance... It was [perhaps] ... the most important form of support for internationals to take up ... [Palestinian & Israeli interviewees] alike agreed with this viewpoint."
Omar Barghouti writes about BDS: "On July 9, 2005, ... Palestinian civil society issued the Call for BDS against Israel until it fully complies with its obligation under international law ... People of conscience in the international community have 'historically shouldered the moral responsibility to fight injustice, [as in South Africa ... [They are called to] impose broad boycotts & implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those used in apartheid South Africa." BDS's specific goals are: ending occupation & colonization of all Arab Lands occupied in 1967; dismantling the Wall; recognizing fundamental Arab-Palestinian citizens' rights in Israel; respecting, protecting, & promoting Palestinian refugees' right to return, as stipulated in UN Resolution 194. These address all sectors of the Palestine community, doesn't take a position on the 1- or 2-state solution, & creates the "on the ground" conditions to promote a just long-term settlement, regardless of which solution is used.
Mustafa Barghouti writes: Instead of allowing ourselves to become divided prematurely over whether to go for the 1- or 2-state solution, let us unify behind the common aim required to achieve: [planning] a strategy to fight occupation, apartheid, and racial discrimination." Nonviolent civil resistance is the best method of struggle moving forward. The largest Palestinian political factions have too often been addicted to the armed model of resisting the occupation. They ignore troubling moral and legal questions raised by indiscriminate forms of resistance that fail to achieve concrete and sustainable results.
Omar Barghouti writes: "Any violent ... strategy of resistance must be ... critically reassessed and transformed into a progressive action program ... More than 170 Palestinian civil society groups ... and grassroots organizations" have endorsed the Call; it is beginning to win support worldwide. There is nothing Anti-Semitic about promoting equal rights for Palestinians. Barghouti writes: "True fighters for peace ... support our 3 fundamental rights: return of Palestinian refugees; full equality for Palestinian citizens; ending occupation and colonial rule. Any group that supports any part of BDS are also our partners. The United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian Church USA have voted at their conventions to support key elements of the BDS campaign.
What About Friends?—Quaker Palestinian Israeli Network (QPIN), AFSC, & some monthly & yearly meetings have approved minutes supporting the BDS campaign. [Continuing their early tradition of serving as] "a prophetic minority" working for positive social change, Quakers also have a long history of being deeply engaged in the struggle for human rights, peace, democracy, and reconciliation in Israel/ Palestine. Friends could be a bigger blessing if it helped reframe the struggle for Palestinian rights into an international campaign focused on motivating the US and Israel to comply with international law, and support universal human rights for Palestinians and Israeli Jews. QPIN takes "a moral stand against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory ... and will participate in public boycott actions and encourage all Quakers to join us in renouncing complicity."
As a longtime Quaker Zionist, this hasn't been an easy or quick journey for me to spend time listening to Palestinian voices of resistance, & to become more active in a BDS campaign. I suspect other Friends confront challenges similar to mine & have similar illusions to question when they turn their attention to the needed liberation of Israel/ Palestine from violence & injustice. This includes making changes to US foreign & military policy. We already know that people of faith can start on this journey of liberation & make the road by walking it.
It took time for Martin Luther King to embrace nonviolent economic direct action. [He had doubts about how ethical & Christian the bus boycott was, & wondered if immoral means could justify moral ends]. King ultimately rejected this reasoning as timid & unfaithful to Jesus' prophetic Jewish wisdom. [He came to see] boycotts, divestment, & sanctions as moral means of social change that hold hope for reconciliation [& new community]. Rereading King's "Letter from Birmingham City Jail," where he defended leading mass nonviolent action campaigns to achieve social justice, helped me see that I was missing the mark & needed to repent & change. I have joined QPIN, served on its political education committee, researched BDS, & written this pamphlet.
Mai Zaru, a 20-year old Palestinian Quaker, told the story of her 13th birthday in Ramallah, when she was threatened by Israeli tanks, & soldiers entering her home with guns pointed at her family. As they shared birth-day cake afterwards, Mai's sister blurted out, "I hate Israelis!" Mai's mother quietly & firmly replied, "No, there will be no hate in this house." Mai's grandmother, Jean Zaru, writes: "We must work to find nonviolent ways of overcoming political, social, economic, ecological & religious violence & to [join all those] committed to fighting [dark] forces. In order to hope for justice & peace, we must work for peace." Dali Baum & Merav Amir urge us all to move "beyond public education, protest, & symbolic actions to using collective power & leverage ... to put effective pressure on Israel, to practice noncooperation & to target ongoing support for the Israeli regime." Taking this next step is a powerful, faithful application of what my mother taught me so many years ago.
Queries—How do you see Friends being faithful to the call "to help establish God's Kingdom on earth?" How do past injustices as experienced by a person, a community, or a people perpetuate themselves? What is the religious basis for nonviolent Palestinian struggle as you understand it? What nonviolent movement for social change have you participated in [describe it]? What is your response to nonviolent use of boycott, divestment, and sanctions; if discomfort, why? How can caring people from the US and other countries nonviolently bring about positive change? What has your experience with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement in Israel been like?
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