These quotes, with the exception of Seldon Smith’s Pendle Hill Pamphlet and Emily Provance’s materials, all come from sources that preceded or were published around the time of Lloyd Lee Wilson’s book A Quaker Vision of Gospel Order and before the term “Covenant Community” began circulating among Friends. For some, Covenant Community is a community living in Gospel Order. The way I understand them, these quotes are talking about Covenant Community without using those words.]
One of the places where Friends found the Bible expressed their experience of union–and the value they placed on unity–was in the Letter to the Ephesians, sometimes called the “Gospel of Peace”.
Treat one another charitably, in complete selflessness, gentleness and patience. Do all you can to preserve the unity of the Spirit through the peace that binds you together. There is one body and one Spirit–just as you were called into one hope when you were called. There is one Savior, one faith, one baptism, one God and Creator of all, who is over all, who works through all and is within all. -Ephesians 4:2-6
This passage is probably the most succinct statement of–and exhortation to–the Pauline sense of the mystical nature of unity in spiritual community. It names behaviors, virtues and practices that, paradoxically, are the fruit of unity and are required to enter into unity in the Spirit–as well as to preserve it. This was one of the New Testament passages on church order that formed Friends’ sense of how they were called to be together.
But arriving at a sense-of-the-meeting requires a search for common ground of another kind, as well. Creative solutions require a safe space, and the beginning of that is some kind of shared touchpoint, a home base from which we can explore many paths forward. For believers, that common ground is the certainty that all participants are starting with some concept of divinity, even while acknowledging that it is not exactly (or sometimes not remotely) the same concept for any two of them. The knowledge that everyone is at least attempting some form of communion with a divine Other creates that shared, safe space. From this solid foundation, we can entertain the most fanciful proposals, bear with the most frivolous objections, nurture the frailest of notions, and know that each of them, far from being a waste of time, is a chance for reflection, for insight into one another, and for a strengthening of our communal bonds. In fact, a deeply divided Friends group, when it does reach unity, may find itself strengthened, and its common ground expanded, by the experience.
The nontheist, of course, cannot with integrity share that same common ground, since it is based on a God concept. But as noted, I believe the unifying principle is not actually all of us believing in the same thing (we don’t), but all of us attempting to reach beyond ourselves, our egos, our personal goals, and our pride. If focusing on some Other can quiet my ego, the vast potential of the mind beneath it–with all its power, creativity, and chaos–has a chance to surface, however fractionally and briefly. In my experience, the nature of that Other is unimportant. True, the moment may be fleeting, but when multiplied by everyone in the room, the result is a kind of secular communion, with its basis not in religious tradition but in care for the unity of the organization. I believe this is common ground that can truly be shared by all.
In recent years the term “Gospel Order” has begun to come back into use as a way of explaining the organizing principle which governs Quaker life and which sustains and gives power to Quaker community. We believe that a modern meeting which actively seeks to live in what George Fox called Gospel Order will find that spiritual gifts and callings begin almost inevitably to develop among its members. What is this Gospel Order , to which George Fox so often encouraged early Friends? When he used the word “Gospel” in this way, it meant the “Power of God.” Thus, living in Gospel Order means living in the power of God, in the organizing and harmonizing power of God. Dozens of times in his Journal, Fox wrote “The Power of God was over all.” He and early Friends saw this as a power which can be felt and experienced and which can bring forth the rods and the organizational arrangements which are appropriate in a given situation.
Living in this power, this Gospel Order, means taking our eyes off of ourselves; it means taking our attention off of our meeting and its problems and its wonderful people long enough to rest in and trust in the transcendent and over-arching Reality of a God who is also very immanent and very present in each of us. Living in Gospel Order involves a constant readiness to listen for –and respond to–the slightest hint of Divine guidance. Fox also said that living in Gospel Order requires that we live continually in the Cross. For some modern Friends this phrase “Living in the Cross” needs demythologizing, or de-jargonizing-and it’s worth the effort! This expression could partly be translated by the Buddhist term “non-attachment” or by Douglas Steere’s “Being present where you are” or Thich Nhat Hahn’s “mindfulness” or by Gerald May’s explication of the word “contemplative..” When we have experienced even a little of the mind-expanding Presence of God, each of us can be given a remarkable ability to Live in the Cross, not in a grim sacrificial slave-live way, but in the glorious freedom of one who has been given the power to see deep into the heart of reality. In this stage of consciousness we can become able to see the consequences of our thoughts and emotions and actions in a new way. Put simply, Living in the Cross is the continual choosing, moment by moment, of whatever brings life rather than death. This state of expanded consciousness gives us the ability to watch the rise of a thought up from the deep well of consciousness and to discover where it comes from and where it could lead. Living in the Cross does involve painful self-discovery as we persevere in this we discover how much of our emotions, our words, our actions are just reactions–not to reality, but to our limited perception of reality! Thus, Living in the Cross gives us the painful power to see our inward reality so that we have to deal with our pride and fear and prejudice and loneliness and lust for power. But Living in the Cross, the Power of God, Gospel Order gives us the inward space to discern more and more surely how to respond to any situation in the Spirit and Power of Jesus. And with that discernment comes the power to let go of deeply ingrained reaction patterns. Because we now see the world with new eyes, so we are also given the grace to act in a new and quiet and healing way. Living in Gospel Order and in the Cross does not mean that our meetings will be afraid of conflict and healthy disagreement, for healthy disagreement is often an important first step in the process of discernment. However, Living in the Cross should enable individuals and our meetings to grow beyond mere contentiousness and reactive anger and backbiting and stubbornness, as well as beyond timidity.
Out of this Gospel Order, this living in the Cross, true community can arise. It arises as we experience our mystical unity as one body composed of many different people. When we experience Gospel Order and Living in the Cross, our intense individualism is softened, but we do not become dull copies of one another-instead, with the decrease of individualism can come a rich increase in the unique individuality of each person. Then, as we no longer need to defend the turf of our own ego, we can turn our attention to what the Spirit wants to do in and through our meeting. At that point, watch out! Gifts will begin to appear among the members. When gifts and callings begin to occur, then Gospel Order and Living in the Cross become all the more important, because in their beginning, gifts and callings may come across as jarring or in poor taste, so that tender, supportive eldering is absolutely vital to the fruition of such gifts. If Gospel Order and Living in the Cross are truly present, those with the new gifts and callings will become “humbly teachable” as Samuel Bownas said long ago of what he described as “infant ministers,” and those who are called as elders and mentors will become infinitely patient and tender and strong, like a nursing mother or father.
One evening many years ago during the weekly meeting of a worship-fellowship group in the Ann Arbor (Mich.) Meeting, after months of talking about “building the Kingdom right here,” I looked around at the faces in the circle and thought, “This is impossible! What a motley crew we are!” I was overwhelmed with the sense of what a grab-bag of people we were, how ordinary, how collectively petty–folks just not up to the magnitude of what we were talking about. There was no Kingdom materials here. God needed something better than us.
Then came the blinding realization that this was all there was–us humans. If God was willing to make do, we had better be willing to make do, too. Not a very startling revelation when I put it down this way 40 or so years later, but it struck me with such force at the time that I can still relive that experience, see that circle of faces in my mind’s eye, God’s “ordinaries,” and feel my rebelliousness that there was nothing better.
That divine rebelliousness in each of us surges up periodically as we look at ourselves, our meetings, the AFSC, our whole array of Quaker bodies. Always it comes down to the same basic reality; we are what there is. Over the years my sense of wonder that God can use the ridiculous creatures–us–has grown. I still rebel, but I also accept. I accept our limitations, the incredible diversity of Friends, and the pettiness with which we often express our differing interpretations of Quaker witness.