Friday, February 12, 2010

The One True Church

How many millions of people throughout history have died on the altar of the " One True Church": The church or religion with the exclusive relationship with God, and where all others are cast into whatever passes for Hell or unpleasant eternity in that religion.  The Quakers as a group don't claim that kind of monopoly on God.  Because they believe that there is God in each of us, no one group of believers can ever have that type of lock on God where only certain wise men have the combination.  There are no priests in a Quaker Meeting, no one with the exclusive right and authority to translate God's words and wishes to the rest of us.  Of course that means that we are not spoon fed a specific set of beliefs, and so must work it out for ourselves, sitting in silence for an hour and sorting through the many thoughts we have, listening intently for what stands out when we have winnowed out the external and internal noise and distractions, have settled deeply into the silence and tried to find some basic truth about our conception of God, about ourselves and our beliefs, our loved ones, our Meeting, our community, our world.  We don't have the distractions of the more structured worship - no kneeling, standing, turning pages in the hymnal and prayer book, no program to follow, no public prayers to recite, no pausing to pass the collection plate or exchange greetings of peace.  No homily, no sermon.  Just our own thoughts in the silence.

In that silence, as far as I know, none of us ever comes to the conclusion that everyone who does not believe as we do must die, or must be tortured for a bit so that they see the light and make the necessary changes to convert to our way of thinking.  No prophet has ever arisen from a Quaker meeting to announce that the Quakers are the chosen people.  There is no Quaker Pope to announce that the Protestants cannot rightly be called a "church" because "they do not accept the theological notion of the Church in the Catholic sense and that they lack elements considered essential to the Catholic Church."  Quakers do not have holy books and holy men urging them to make war on the non-believers, to strike off their heads, or to pile them one on top of another in a heap and cast them into hell.  No Quaker has ever blown himself up in a public space in order to help God to move those darned non-believers off towards hell.  While sitting in silent expectation for the voice of God, those subjects just never seem to come up. 

I was not raised Quaker - not a "birthright" Quaker as they are called.  I was raised in the Episcopal church, was a choir boy, an altar boy, and then when I went away to college, I left my religion and my spirituality behind.  Only years later, after marrying and beginning to raise children, did I feel called to begin to fill the spiritual void in my life.  I still attend services from time to time in a beautiful old Episcopal Church, with all of the ornate accoutrements of that worship:  the stained glass windows, the wood carvings, the silver chalices, the choir and hymns.  When I travel, I am attracted to the old and the unusual churches that I find along the way, and will pick one to attend on a Sunday morning away from home, without regard to its denomination.  I read the holy books of all religions - wisdom is wisdom wherever you find it.  Not only do I think that is a good idea, but in my perfect world order, I would mandate it:  every person must be educated in the principal religions of the world and their history, and must be able to compare and contrast them, before being able to "choose" a particular religion (or none at all) to identify themselves with.  For me, religion should be the product of a thought process and a spiritual nurturing, and not the happenstance of birth and geography. 

When I return from my wanderings, no one in my home meeting ever suggests the need to put me on the rack, or lecture me or excommunicate me, or condemn me to death, because I choose to explore other religions, other churches, other forms of worship.  The Quakers are not committed to a lot of rigid theology.  There is no catechism to memorize, no saints to venerate, no feast days to observe.  The great Quaker theologians and writers have never wondered how many angels fit on the point of a pin or whether the soul has an actual weight.  When God is within each of us, this is who we listen to.  He does not tell us that we are the chosen few.  He does not call us to put to the sword the non-believers.  He does not condemn to a fiery eternity those fools who do not believe as we do.  He tells us instead to go forth and serve, to live simply, to be honest in our dealings, and to work for peace.