Stories and Values

Liberal Quakers pride ourselves on being universalists. At its best, universalism means recognising the value of many different religions and cultures – that no one tradition has a monopoly on spiritual truth or insight. This is certainly a vast improvement on the ‘exclusivist’ claim that there is only one ‘true religion’, and that all other churches, sects, religions or cultures are in error. This kind of thinking, which has contributed so much to discrediting Christianity and religion as a whole, was widespread in most Christian churches until the 1960s, and is still a characteristic feature of fundamentalist sects.

The form that universalism usually takes among Quakers is the elevation of universal values over particular religious stories. According to this approach, what is true or valuable in different religious traditions is not the culture-specific details of their stories, myths, images and characters, which are limited to particular times and places, and which all contradict each other. Instead, it is only the universal values they have in common which express anything of real significance. This appears to be the idea expressed, for example, by Karen Armstrong’s claim that compassion is the single, fundamental value at the core of all religions.

This attitude often leads modern Quakers to dismiss the Christian origins of the Quaker way as accidental and irrelevant to contemporary Quaker practice. According to this view, the Quaker movement happened to arise in the context of an exclusively Christian culture, which is why early Friends used Christian language, as the only vocabulary available to them at the time. In the modern context of a plural and increasingly secular culture, this language is no longer relevant for British Quakers as a whole. At most, it is a minority interest of a particular special interest group, those known as ‘Christian Quakers’.

As the Christian story has been gradually abandoned by liberal Quakers, it has been replaced by ‘Quaker values’ such as equality, social justice, simplicity and sustainability, which are now often regarded as the defining features of the Quaker way. By the ‘Christian story’ I do not mean abstract theological doctrines, but the Biblical narratives, characters and images which offer symbolic resources for illuminating human experience. These include parables and stories such as the good Samaritan and prodigal son, and Jesus’ birth, miraculous healings and betrayal in the garden of Gethsemane.  The Christian story also draws on the exuberant richness of imagery, myth and symbolism of the Hebrew scriptures – streams of living water, hills that shout for joy, and divine lovers with ‘eyes like doves’ and ‘kisses like the best wine’ (Song of Solomon 5:8, 7:9).

Stories like these can be read and interpreted from vastly different perspectives, as is evident from the enormous diversity of Christian theology and spirituality. The value of religious stories does not lie in literal belief, as if the Bible were just a set of factual propositions. In fact, the literal, fundamentalist approach to the Bible is a surprisingly recent modern invention. For most of Christian history, the Bible has been read as a source of guiding images, of symbolic glimpses into divine reality, rather than a collection of empirical facts. Instead of a literalist reading that is alien to the culture of the Bible itself, the Christian story can be understood as a collection of ‘true myths’ that continually generate new possibilities of meaning because they are anchored in experiential realities of the soul.

Religious stories, myths and images are not irrelevant details; they constitute an emotionally charged imaginative world. The stories of the Christian tradition enable an emotional identification with specific people, places and events that is often lacking from an intellectual commitment to abstract values. In the same way, the poetry of the Koran and the acts of Muhammad, or the life and teaching of Buddha, are irreplaceably precious to Muslims and Buddhists. These particular stories, words and images are not secondary to a real core of ‘fundamental values’; they are indispensable to the meaning of any religious tradition.

The kind of universalism that seeks to replace particular religious stories with universal values assumes a false position of objectivity, which presumes to judge and re-interpret every religious tradition according to its own assumptions. This is actually another form of ‘exclusivism’, which sees universalism itself as the only truly objective standpoint, and every storied religious tradition as merely a limited, culture-bound vehicle for the universal values that are discernible by the more enlightened universalist.

In mainstream British culture the Christian story has been hugely, and perhaps fatally, discredited by the historical crimes and failings of institutional Christianity. But until very recently Quakers have had a distinctive understanding of Christianity that rejects authoritarianism, dogma and collusion with violence, and uses the Bible to illuminate our own experience of spiritual reality. This Quaker Christian tradition is our unique contribution to the religious cultures of the world. By abandoning our own story in favour of abstract ethical principles we reduce the beauty and diversity of spiritual resources available to all people.

Commitment to a particular religious story does not mean dismissing all others. It is not uncommon to have emotional and spiritual roots in multiple religious stories, as Rhiannon Grant has recently explored in her work on ‘multiple religious belonging’ (article available to download here). By taking the diversity of religious stories seriously, we might allow ourselves to be challenged by the real differences between traditions, rather than insisting that they all conform to one set of values. This is a form of universalism that is genuinely open to a diversity of spiritual insights and experiences, and that recognises the unique contribution of each particular story, including our own unique Quaker Christian tradition.

What does the Christian story mean to you? Are particular religious stories or universal values more important for your Quaker practice?