tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post4261139913861197126..comments2024-03-24T11:30:08.199-07:00Comments on Can you believe?: Thoughts on innocenceJohan Maurerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-88740502900812519572007-04-05T19:08:00.000-07:002007-04-05T19:08:00.000-07:00I don't always click on the blues clips, but I'm a...I don't always click on the blues clips, but I'm always glad when I do. I'll have to leave the theology for another day though.Robin M.https://www.blogger.com/profile/10336915224193704866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-4825916049664528012007-03-25T18:47:00.000-07:002007-03-25T18:47:00.000-07:00Richard, I agree with you on the Quaker "differenc...Richard, I agree with you on the Quaker "difference"--and it's in my comments, just not as prominently as Friends usually put it. Sometimes my self-appointed gadfly role leads me to emphasize the parts that Friends usually leave out, in my experience.<BR/><BR/>Here's what I said about sin in the <I>Historical Dictionary of the Friends (Quakers)</I>, ed. Margery Post Abbott, Mary Ellen Chijioke, Ben Pink Dandelion, John William Oliver, Jr. (all rights reserved, I'm sure):<BR/><BR/>SIN<BR/><BR/>Sin is disobedience to the known or knowable will of God.<BR/><BR/>The earliest Friends tended to agree with the Christian orthodoxy of their time that sin had originated with the disobedience of “our first parents,” Adam and Eve, by the evil intentions of Satan. George Fox said that sin came from transgression and disobedience, obeying the Serpent (in the Garden of Eden) rather than God. Robert Barclay carefully describes the implications of this original disobedience in his <I>Apology</I>, Proposition IV, Section II. All of us are direct descendants of Adam and Eve, thus we are like them in our natural propensity to disobey and our inability, in ourselves, to overcome this propensity. However, Adam and Eve sinned as the consequence of their disobedient acts, not by simply existing, and the same is true of their descendants: We may be weak and subject to temptation, but we are not sinful until we actually sin. In Barclay’s words, “... This seed [of disobedience, sown by the Serpent] is not imputed to infants, until by transgression they actually join themselves therewith....” (Prologue to Proposition IV.)<BR/><BR/>This “functional” way of thinking about sin had enormous consequences for Friends. First of all, it integrated naturally into Friends’ understanding of the power of Jesus Christ and led to the doctrine of PERFECTION [another entry in that dictionary]. If sin were a matter of disobedience rather than our essential nature, then freedom from sin required gaining the power to understand God’s will and be obedient to it. Friends saw that power as coming from the light of Jesus Christ. “With the light you come to know the Messias, your Saviour, to save you from your sin ... this light ... shews you your evil deeds, and evil ways, when God is not in all your thoughts, when your heart revolteth.” (Fox, <I>Works</I>, 4:73.)<BR/><BR/>(The assertion that Christ has the power to enable his followers to overcome sin was a terrible scandal to other Christians at the time Friends arose. Fox and Barclay accused other Christian leaders of seeking to keep their followers in their sinful states, in the Devil’s custody, denying the full power of the Savior.)<BR/><BR/>Secondly, Friends’ emphasis on actual behavior rather than a theoretical state of depravity or innocence helps explain why there was very little systematic thinking about sin in Friends theology since the first generation, or in the development of Friends’ books of Christian discipline or faith and practice. Friends do not deny their own sinful ways; as Howard Brinton revealed in his study of Quaker journals, most autobiographies regretfully note a period of frivolity or “bad company,” before Quakerly sobriety sets in. However, among most Friends past and present, progress toward freedom from sin is (assuming genuine faith and a desire for holiness) a matter of practicing obedience in worship, study, personal relationships and service. Likewise, books of faith and practice from the earliest to the latest do not emphasize sin so much as evidence of disunity or threats to the reputation of Friends arising from actual behavior, to be lovingly confronted in various disciplinary processes.<BR/><BR/>Robert Barclay, <I>An Apology for the True Christian Divinity....</I> Philadelphia, Friends Book Store, 1908.<BR/><BR/>Benson, Lewis, <I>Notes on George Fox</I> (2 volumes). Privately published, 1981.<BR/><BR/>Howard Brinton, <I>Quaker Journals: Varieties of Religious Experiences among Friends.</I> Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill Publications, 1972.<BR/><BR/>Also see:<BR/><BR/>Quaker Hill Conference Center and Earlham School of Religion, <I>Friends Consultation on Overcoming Sin and Evil </I>(conference papers). Richmond, Indiana: Quaker Hill Conference Center 1988.<BR/><BR/>Wilmer A. Cooper, <I>A Living Faith.</I> Richmond, Indiana: Friends United Press, 1990 (especially pp. 55-64.)<BR/>- - - - - - - - - <BR/><BR/>Paul, there are some amazingly similar monastic stories from the Christian monastic tradition. (Am I trying to one-up the Buddhists? :-)) And of course it was Paul who said that the letter kills but the Spirit gives life, which in a way agrees with your point that idolatry is the underlying problem.Johan Maurerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-76619787082042496212007-03-25T06:50:00.000-07:002007-03-25T06:50:00.000-07:00There's a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon where Calvin ask...There's a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon where Calvin asks Hobbes, "Do you think babies are born sinful? That they come into the world as sinners?" Hobbes replies, "No, I just think they're quick studies."<BR/><BR/>I agree with Hobbes, and I think so would Barclay. "All have sinned. . ." isn't a statement about nature, but a fact, a diagnosis, as you put it, not a condemnation.<BR/><BR/>But what is it that makes us such quick studies? I think it relates to the temptation that Adam and Eve sucumbed to. They didn't eat the fruit because the serpent said it was delicious, but because "it will make you like God, knowing good and evil." That was the name of the tree, after all. <BR/><BR/>So idoltry is the fundamental sin -- trying to be "like God" instead as we are created. Everything else flows from that.<BR/><BR/>I've long thought that Zen Buddhism captures the sense of innocence regained better than most Christian commentary. There's one particular story I love of the master and student who come across a woman standing on the bank of a river. The master offers to carry her across on his back, despite the rule that monks should have nothing to do with women. He lets her off on the other side, and he and the student continue walking.<BR/><BR/>But the student is fuming. How could his master betray the tradition like this? After some miles, the master asks him what is wrong. The student says, "You carried that woman across the river in violation of every teaching we've been given. What's wrong with you?" To which the master replied, "I set her down on the other side; it sounds like you're still carrying her."Paul Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03483071863453025925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-67242755993297033192007-03-24T18:40:00.000-07:002007-03-24T18:40:00.000-07:00First a comment on the dream. Our children are in...First a comment on the dream. Our children are in danger and you are worried about it and see complacency among the adults who are also in danger. Doesn't that describe the world we are living in? Meanwhile you are right to note that in the dream you are acting in a guilty way. You see yourself as not doing what you ought to be doing. Sounds like there must be some leading you are not following and it concerns saving the children. If I'm right the leading will keep bugging you until you get it. <BR/><BR/>A second comment. I don't think it's the whole story to just mention that Barclay believes that our nature is fallen and we are saved through grace without also mentioning what is different about early Friends theology. They held to an uncompromising doctrine of human perfectibility. There was to be no pleading for sin and making excuses for compromise with the world or with Christian principles. So youre suggestion that they believed we were all sinners needs the qualification that they also believed we could become perfect and shouldn't make excuses for not being perfect.RichardMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08564152237574253857noreply@blogger.com