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Convergent Friends:
Passing on the Faith in the Postmodern World

By C. Wess Daniels

My wife and I made the unlikely move from non-denominational backgrounds to the aged narrative of Quakerism. Under the tutelage of certain professors at Malone College in Canton, Ohio, we found that what we had been experiencing spiritually and where we were moving theologically had long been called Quakerism (I later learned that many people of our generation are deeply interested in several of the major tenets of Quakerism).

What started causing disquiet in me came after I was assigned to read Walter William’s The Rich Heritage of Quakerism for part of my recording process with the Evangelical Friends Church. As I read, I fell in love with the whole of the Quaker narrative. I loved the characters, the theology, their quirkiness, their vital spirituality and their strange “peculiarities.” Their ideas about non-violence, non-use of ceremonial rites, women in leadership, justice and equality, simplicity, ecclesiology, truth telling, the light of Christ—all grabbed me as authentic and passionate expressions of faith such as I have rarely known.

An obvious disconnect became apparent—there is little continuity between what early Quakers did and their 19th and 20th century counterparts. Questions arose: Where have all the Quakers gone? And why does my Evangelical Friends church look little like the Quakerism I read about in Rich Heritage?

The Enlightenment and Quakerism
In the 19th and 20th century there was a severing of orthopraxis (right-practices) and orthodoxy (right-teaching). I discovered, generally speaking, on the one hand there are Quakers with unprogrammed meetings, active non-violent testimony and social involvement, but have an unorthodox Christology (Jesus is at best a great moral teacher). On the other hand are Quakers who understand Christianity through an evangelical lens, but look nothing like what Fox and Barclay envisioned.

There are many reasons why the different groups are so far from where Quakers started, but much is due to modernity’s influence in and through the culture. After all, enlightenment thought did at least two harmful things to the church. First, it was anti-tradition. The enlightenment was in part characterized by people’s minds being freed or “enlightened” from the authority of the medieval church. Second, was its foundation in authority—there is one irrefutable authority in the modern world: science.

The church, taking its cues from the culture, made its irrefutable authority either the inerrant bible (evangelicalism) or experience (liberalism). It’s interesting to realize that from the 1830s on Quakerism can be categorized in terms of its foundation— those who put authority in the Bible and those who put authority in a divine experience. This is vastly different from the earlier form of Quakerism that held both in equal tension with one another.

Although modernity was no friend to the Quakers, postmodernity may prove to be a culture better suited for Quakerism. I’d argue that Quakers (and Anabaptists) are more prepared to thrive in postmodernity, partly because of the structure put in place by early Quakers and partly because of what is happening in other parts of the church.

Emerging Currents of the Church
When I think about “passing on the faith” one question that goes through my mind is, “how are other churches doing well at this?” If we put our fingers on the Spirit’s pulse, we find groups of Christians who are doing well at carefully seeking to live out faith in today’s culture. One group doing this has come to be known as “the emerging church.” The emerging church is as elusive as the postmodern context from which it is birthed, but is considered to be the first purely postmodern church. This is because it takes seriously both orthopraxy and orthodoxy and is breaking down the dichotomies of authority and faith formed in the Enlightenment-influenced church.

As we consider what our faith looks like in today’s world, we should look at the emerging church for cues on where the Spirit may be leading. Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger interviewed these churches in Britain and the United States. In Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures,* they detailed three main characteristics common among emerging communities.

First, emerging churches seek to radically identify with Jesus. It’s important to move away from modern dualisms about the mind and body, where belief in Jesus tends to only concern the mind. Bolger says, “Jesus’ whole life, including his words, establish what we mean by the way of Jesus, and it is this ‘way’ that has greatly influenced the Emerging Church.” In other words everything done, every ethic lived must be rooted in Jesus’ way of life. Identifying with Jesus’ way of life helps faith communities discover meaningful practices that are Jesus-like and radically loving, counter-cultural and subversive.

Second, emerging churches focus on transforming secular space. This is nothing new to Quakers—it builds on the idea that all of life is sacred; the church does not have the corner market on the sacred. Emerging churches try to break the divide between secular and the sacred in various ways, focusing on the “immanence of God while maintaining a commitment to God’s transcendence.” (Bolger, p. 69) The emerging church’s determination to break down the secular-sacred divide is helping people who have always felt like (or treated) as outsiders in the church find their place.

The last core characteristic found in the emerging church is living as community. The practice of “peoplehood” where church is seen as a group of people, not a place or an institution, is undercutting many of the modern presumptions about church, and helping to get back to a more Jesus-like ecclesiology. Emerging churches do this by not meeting in “church” buildings, but in clubs, bars, venues, homes, warehouses and other spaces that naturally fit their community. They look to be the church all week long by meeting together to serve their local community, spending time together watching movies, going to concerts, living in the same neighborhoods—whatever helps them to worship God and serve others as a lifestyle. Some groups do not even meet for organized worship at all, but get their fellowship, worship and service through other more organic means.

Convergent Friends as Postmodern Quakers
If we as Quakers are going to have a faith to pass on to coming generations, we must embrace both the Christian faith and practice of our ancestors and the fresh movements of the Spirit. This is no easy task, but there is a yearning for a fresh and radical faith like my wife and I discovered in college. My hope is that the Friends Church not only passes on the richest parts of its heritage but also shares the greater story of Christ’s love with the world.

There are a growing number of Friends who are looking to the Christian roots of Quakerism and its peculiar practices, while taking seriously the radical differences the postmodern world presents and adapting our practices accordingly. This group can be understood as conservative Friends and emergent-minded people coming together to rethink our tradition and help it overcome its identity crisis. Many are calling themselves Convergent Friends, a named coined by San Francisco Quaker Robin Mohr. (http://robinmsf.blogspot.com) People from each of the major branches in Quakerism are trying to be Christians who are Quakers in the postmodern world.

There is a great excitement among these “Convergent Friends” and those who are like-minded. The excitement is not over the fact there is a new group of Friends, but that there is a group of people who are in love with early Quakerism, Jesus and the Bible, following the Spirit and sharing God’s love with the world today. Convergent Friends hold both the Bible and experience in high regard, and reject the modern dichotomy between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. In order to do this we must focus on transforming our practices.

One important practice we Quakers must participate in is a continual retelling of both the Christian (through the Bible and church history) and Quaker narrative (through journals, history books, etc.). The retelling of these stories helps heal and reshape the disparaging identity we now bear. Sharing stories must turn into learning and transformation if we are to pass our tradition onward, but for many of our churches we must start with the sharing before transformation will take place.

Other older practices help embody our values of simplicity, peace, the sacredness of all life and egalitarianism. Some of these practices are open meetings, frugality, queries, silence and advocacy for the marginalized. Some practices that have become self-centered must be dropped because they draw us away from Christianity and are too inward so we no longer engage the culture.

If we are to create a truly fresh theology for today we need to form new practices that challenge the values and powers of our world. This involves learning from other traditions and includes participating in emerging church-like practices that have done well at contextualizing faith. But most importantly, Convergent Friends must focus on following the Spirit of the Living Christ, loving the world, offering their bodies in peace and sharing all things with those in need.

We should not be worried that the memory of Quakerism will die. Our legacy is too rich for that, but we must be concerned that we will have too little of God to offer a world that is hungry for Gospel Order.

*See Gibbs and Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures, Grand Rapids, Baker Books: 2005.

C. Wess Daniels, an Ohio native, is a graduate of Malone College and Fuller Seminary. In the fall he will begin his PhD, focusing on Quaker theology and practices in postmodern culture. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Emily.