#The Quakers

[victusinveritas]

(Cartoon by Art Young, first published in The Masses in 1917 and later reprinted in Ammon Hennacy's autobiography.)

Can confirm. I grew up around liberation theologians (including Gustavo Gutierrez, the OG Liberation Theologian (of the modern movement, genuinely bummed by his death but he lived a rich full life), and it always irks me when folks immediately toss out All of Christianity. Dorothy Day was great (the Catholic Worker movement too). Ammon Hennacy would absolutely be on Tumblr and Tiktok yelling at people about the military-industrial complex and the prison-industrial complex and just complexes in general. Thomas Merton was a major Catholic voice against Vietnam (because it turns out bombing for peace was fucking ridiculous and he realized that fairly early on.). And it's definitely not just Catholics (just as a Catholic they tend to be where I gravitate towards). Like, the Quakers are just sound folks all around, never met one I couldn't get along with. Church of the Brethren folks offered to shelter my father during Vietnam (he refused because he was (and is) a Berrigan-ist ex-Jesuit who believed CO status was something to fight for, thankfully he didn't have to though), there are little lights everywhere.

Also here's some free reading on the subject of Christian Anarchism: Here's this.

And this. Ooh, and this on Anarchism and Liberation Theology.

And Ted Glick's Burglar for Peace free from the Internet Archive (buy it from PM Press or others, it's a good read on the Berrigan Bros and their fight for peace and Ted's a good guy by all reports.)

And the Ploughshares Movement. Direct Action is great (though sometimes not tactically the best idea, they've got spirit. Check out Hammered by the Irish if you want an uplifting Ploughshares-related read).

ppl on this site like. everything i hate is christianity, but christianity itself is leftist liberation theology

[victusinveritas]

What is this, 1671?

[shadyparade]

[glassfullofsass]

so. It's been a hot minute since I gave a shit about the bible as a "guiding" texting my life, and at least as long since I attended church services with any sort of regularity, but I was raised in the United Methodist Church which does tend to be one of the more liberal* denominations.

(*over the last decade, the denomination has formally split over the Issue of Gay Marriage.)

(I'm going to use "church" as a catchall for A Bunch of Christian Churches that I Feel Confident Grouping Together, lets say Protestants, which covers Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians and Evangelicals, among others)

There's plenty of nuance to dig into if you want to think about ordained ministers/divinity schools/Christian Educated Folk, but at the end of the day, church leaders follow the teachings they agree with, they find ministry programs that further their beliefs, and they stay on their chosen path.

Regular everyday congregation members are typically exposed to Teachings 1-3 times per week, depending on their dedication and the activeness of the church. (Some denominations certainly meet more often). These teachings fall into two (Very very broad) categories, services and bible studies.

Services have readings, sermons, prayers, and maybe music if your denomination is spicy enough.

Readings are literally just a layperson reading a text that has been selected for them.

Sermons usually involve a reference to the bible (maybe the parable of the sower, or the good Samaritan), and then the pastor's interpretation of it. (And usually his 15 minute illustration of that reference in a "real world" scenario that ends in a shitty joke.)

Bible studies do involve conversation and actual engagement with the text...but its usually a very select piece of text. It's from whatever version of the bible the specific church uses, or whoever is leading the study uses. The study may be lead by the pastor or some other Educated person, or just a layperson. I can't speak for every church, but as far as I remember, all the sunday school and vacation bible school and confirmation classes and youth group discussions I ever attended were not about challenging the text, or digging into it to discover how the teachings might be applied in today's world, they were about learning the story and "understanding" the "lesson". (The Prodigal son, the mustard seed, the one about the two guys that were given their master's coin and the one with more buried it and the one with less invested).

Now sometimes you might get an actual, good sink-your-teeth-in study that does really investigate whichever book. I'm not denying that those exist entirely.

I know Christian scholars exist. I know sacred reading practices have been practiced in Christian traditions. Even some protestants observe the teachings of the saints. There's a *booming* industry of Christian non-fiction where scholars do reach an audience that seeks to deepen their relationship with Christ.

But. The Everyday Layperson isn't expected to challenge the text. It is the word of god. To question it would be sacralidge. Interpretation is for those Wiser and More Holy to pronounce.

The teachings and sermons and passages are all chosen by Important People that the congregation looks up to, and those people sure as fuck have an agenda.

Those sacred reading practices I know about? I didn't learn Lectio Divina or Sacred Imagination in youth group. I learned them from a podcast hosted by divinity school students.

Even if your average layperson decides to Read Their Bible, they likely don't have the tools or the community support to interpret it in a meaningful way.

There is, also, this pervasive teaching that underlies the Christian belief...that if everyone were just "saved" then all would be well. If everyone accepted Jesus into their life, then that would solve our problems. That Christianity is the one true way and we know best and we are the blessed and all others are to suffer for not bowing to the truth.

I'm getting low on spoons, so I'll just wrap up with this-

Particularly with American Christianity, you have a legacy of the faith being used as a tool of assimilation and being claimed as an indicator or righteousness and superiority.

There exists a pattern where access to the source material and the ability to understand it is reserved for those who "deserve" it.

This is the faith that literally stripped passages from its sacred text in order to better master the enslaved people who had been indoctrinated into it.

Americans have not rooted out our indoctrination to the White Supremacist Social Order and American Christians are the natural conclusion to a religion that worships itself more than its god.

Since posting that "how many mass graves and extinct cultures" post last month, I've had multiple Christians in the notes whining that there isn't a "specific instruction of belief that Christianity needs to wipe out every other religion in the world" in Christianity's teachings, and that it's all just The Church/King James/etc.

And every time, I point to the literal text of the passages of The Great Commission.

And nearly every time, that shuts them up; the only time it didn't, it was to engage in some disgusting semantical goalpost moving.

But it's like...

Why do Christians not know the content of their own texts? Is your faith really so tribalistic and totemic around the concept of "Jesus" that you all don't bother to actually read the religious texts?

It feels like it must be--I've heard of too many instances of Christians walking out of readings of The Sermon On The Mount because they think it's "liberal nonsense" and the like, but I just find it baffling and more than a little sad that I, a Jew, apparently knows the New Testament's text better than the people who swear by it and ostensibly believe and follow it.

[corpyburd]

Glad everyone is getting so much joy from early Quaker names! Looking forward to seeing any future pets/children/bands/drag acts named after stuff on this list.

[wisteria-lodge]

In defense of T'Pau and her unusual grammar:

So in "Amok Time," (right before Spock goes into heat) we meet T'Pau, this grand high elder of Vulcan who is officiating Spock's wedding/fight to the death.

She has a very specific way of talking. Some examples:

"Thee names these outworlders friends. How does thee pledge their behavior?" "If thee wishes to depart, thee may leave now." "Are thee Vulcan or are thee human? "I grieve with thee."

If this is supposed to sound archaic and Shakespearean... then it's just completely wrong. "Thee" is not even slightly conjugated. If you're using thee/thou/thy correctly, that first sentence should be:

"Thou name'st these outworlders friends. How dost thou pledge?"

BUT my point is, I don't think this is supposed to read as "archaic" (also, if that were the case, wouldn't the universal translator just kinda auto-update the vocab?)

What is actually going on is Quaker Plain Speech.

Thee/Thou/Thy used to be English's set of informal pronouns, which you used for close friends and social inferiors. The Quakers came over to America in the 1600s, and were very into the idea of simplicity and equality for religious reasons. No titles, "Friend" as the default address, etc. They also artificially got rid of You/Your/Yours, English's *formal* pronouns, because they were what you used for talking to a social superior, and they were trying to get away from that sort of thing.

Skip forward like a hundred years. Language changes. Standard English drops Thee/Thou/Thy completely. The Quakers KEEP the pronouns, but the usage simplifies. Now they basically just have "Thee," and use it for everything, and don't conjugate the verbs around it in any special way. "In the eighteenth century, "thou hast" disappeared, along with the associated second-person verb forms, and the otherwise strange "thee is" became normal "plain speech."

Which is EXACTLY how T'Pau talks.

(I found this scene from The Philadelphia Story (1940) where Jimmy Stewart walks into a Quaker library, and the joke is that the librarian talks to him in Plain Speech - "What is thee wish?" and he (confused) responds in Shakespearean English - "Dost thou have a washroom?")

So I think that when Theodore Sturgeon wrote "Amok Time" in 1967, T'Pau's style of speaking was meant to communicate not necessarily "old-fashioned" but more "religious/ceremonial" and maybe "isolated." Especially since he's from New England, the right spot to run into Plain Speech in the wild.

In-universe, I think that (because it's a very important occasion) T'Pau is speaking a hyper-simplified, hyper-logical ceremonial Vulcan dialect, which the universal translator is rendering as the most stripped-down and "plain" English style of speaking possible.

[mevvsan]

No cage needed. These crochet birdies are free to spread joy wherever they go! Handmade with love and plenty of fluff. Which one is your favorite?

Bird crochet patterns: available here Yarn: Epic by Yarn and Colors

[fenkizard]

WUH WUH WUH WILD KRATTS

I see nanday parakeets all the time and they r infodumpin about them

[todaysbird]

the quaker parrot, also known as the monk parrot, is a small species of parrot originating from subtropical and temperate regions of south america. despite their origins, they have become an invasive species throughout large portions of north america and europe; despite their popularity in aviculture, this has led to them being banned in some areas. their gregarious nature means they are happiest in groups, and their loud squawking is sometimes bothersome when they’re found near residences. they are known for building large stick nests that can rival the size of small cars; these apartment-like nests can house all the members of a flock, with each ‘family’ unit taking a separate section of the nest. unfortunately, they are fond of building these large nests on power lines, which has led to worse PR for these often charming parrots.

[pointandshooter]

Phillips Farm, Waterford, Virginia

photo: David Castenson

[theinwardlight]

Some of the descriptions of Christ found in early Quaker writings:

The Light. The Teacher. The Guide. The Lord. The Way. The Truth. The Life. The Seed. The Captain of Your Salvation. The Son. A Husband unto You. The Rock Most Sure. The Word. The Voice You Must Hear. The King. The Judge. The Lawgiver. King of Kings. Lord of Lords. Lord of Joy. Lord of Peace. Thy Teacher by His Spirit. The Wisdom of God. The Mediator. The Everlasting Covenant. The Everlasting Priest. A Hammer. A Sword. A Fire. Your Rest. The Head. The Pure, Living Spring. The Water which Washes. The Bread of Life. The Witness in Heaven. The Ingrafted Word. Your Crown and Life. Him from Whom All Your Help and Strength Comes. The Door. The Second Adam. The Preserver. The Sanctuary. Your Savior. The Pearl. The First and the Last. The Word with You in All Places. The Anointing in You to Teach You. The Bright and Morning Star.

[rejectingrepublicans]

[catt-deactivated20240918]

Idk who needs to hear this but you ARE a bad person for being Christian and you need to stop.

[chronically-chaotic-cryptid]

If you've ever wondering what it's like being a Quaker but specifically being a Quaker in my brain I have a moment about 2-3 times a day minimum where ill be doing something random and probably fun or quiet (or not, maybe it's really loud) and my thoughts and such will stop dead in their tracks and I will take a hard 180° and start to think about how there's this light inside every human that makes them inherently interesting and beautiful and equal and good, or how silence comes from all around us and the joy of just sitting in the sunlight of creation, or how people are some of the most beautiful things to ever exist and how grateful I am to get to experience us, or the importance and wonder of the natural world and all of creation and the necessity of fighting to protect it, or how queer people are holy and sacred in our own little ways or the injustices of the world and how oppressively horrible they are but also that that's why hope and fighting and seeing a better world is so important.

And on and on and on. And then I'll go back to like making brownies or doing maths homework or something.

[birdhism]

[gingerbredman1989]

Bing Image Creation