Why I am a Quaker

I grew up in a Christian military family. In my early childhood, we attended Presbyterian churches whenever we could (my maternal grandfather was a Presbyterian minister). As a teenager, I attended charismatic evangelical and Pentecostal Holiness churches. (Quite a switch!) I went to Oral Roberts University for my undergrad degree and soaked up every religious experience I could.

While in college and in the years afterward, I became disheartened with what I experienced in my religious community. My chosen profession (journalism), my political leanings, and my personal choices drew disapproval. And, I felt that my faith community discouraged my curiosity about God and my desire to explore ideas about faith beyond the church doctrine. Eventually, I stopped attending church.

But in my heart, part of me wanted to know God. I wanted faith to be simple. I wanted to explore the questions and ideas I still wondered about.

Fifteen years later, in Spring 2007, I was having dinner with friends in Boston. After a few glasses of wine, our conversation turned to religion. I mentioned to my friends how I wished faith could just be simple and uncomplicated, yet rich and fulfilling. I laughed about how a Belief-O-Matic quiz I took at BeliefNet.com told me I fit the profile of a liberal Quaker. I had no idea what a Quaker was. And then, one of my friends said, "You know, I went to a Quaker school. I think it might be what you're looking for." And for the next half hour or so, I listened as he talked about the Religious Society of Friends.

When I returned home to Alabama, I found that the Birmingham Friends Meeting house was within walking distance of my home. I attended meetings. At first, my mind flitted everywhere during the silent worship hour. (I still catch my mind wandering sometimes.) But, after several meetings, I found the silent worship refreshing. Sharing that quiet space, that expectant listening to God together in a room of Friends gathered as equals, nourished my spiritual confidence. I felt I could sense God... and I felt I'd found a place where I could begin to explore, freely, all the questions and ideas that I'd been carrying around in my being for so long. I became a Quaker in 2008, after attending Birmingham Friends meetings for about a year.

Here are other reasons why I chose to join the Society of Friends:

* My personal faith experience, and my personal relationship with God, is valid and important. People in the faith traditions I came from were always questioning my own personal faith and that of others. Everyone had to be put through a checklist. "Are you saved? Saved, sanctified, filled with Holy Ghost and baptized?" I do believe there was some genuine concern for my soul when someone asked that question. But often, I felt people measuring themselves against me... almost like two children stretching up on their tiptoes as they measure which one of them is tallest. Eventually, I found this culture made me second-guess myself. "Am I as spiritual as she is? What am I missing? What do I have to do to be as holy as he is?" Getting caught up in this kind of thinking was an awful diversion: I found it so easy to dwell on how spiritually inadequate I felt that I lost sight of my own journey in faith.

Quakers hold that faith is experiential. The most important element to my faith is my own experience with the Divine, and not a checklist, a sacrament, or a creed written by someone else.

* There are no middlemen between God and me. Since George Fox began his radical movement, Quakers have always held that people do not need a go-between to facilitate their relationship with God. Fox taught that "Christ has come to teach his people himself," and many Friends write about trusting the Inward Teacher or the Inward Light as they pursue a deeper spiritual life. In unprogrammed meetings, there is no one to deliver a sermon. No one claims to have the message I need to hear for the week. Instead, I am there, in the silence, seeking wisdom and truth and inspiration together in a room full of other seekers. Sometimes I get the sense of a strong feeling of unity and support from my fellow Friends in the silence... as if, together, we've helped each other find what we were each searching for that day.

* Quakers can find inspiration beyond the Bible. After one of the first meetings I attended, one Friend came to me and explained how liberal Quakers believe that the Bible is not the final source of divine guidance. "We believe you can find inspiration anywhere... in Buddhism, or Hinduism, or even in a book or a song or a movie," she said. The concept is continuing revelation - that God continues to speak to us. Her words were the beginning of my liberation. While the Bible will always be foundational for me, I gradually felt free to explore the questions and ideas about faith without feeling as if I were doing something forbidden. Soon, I was listening to Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn in my iPod, watching Joseph Campbell DVDs, and reading about feminist theology, the teachings of the Dalai Lama, and books like The Tao of Pooh.

* The core beliefs are simple. They provide a guide to living, and room to grow. Quakers do not believe in oaths, creeds, or doctrines. We do have common core beliefs called Testimonies -- these are principles that most shape our actions and demonstrate our faith to the rest of the world. The testimonies are simplicity, peace, integrity / truth, community, and equality (the word - spice - is a good mnemonic device). Like some Quakers, I also try to observe the emerging testimony of environmental stewardship. Though many other churches have classes to teach prospective or new members their doctrine, among Friends, it's up to me to seek and follow Divine leadings about how I should interpret the testimonies and incorporate them into my daily life. When I first read about the testimonies, I found that they described how I had already tried to live my life and how I aspired to live. I can't tell you how refreshing it was to me to be able to follow the Truth inside me, instead of trying to fit myself into someone else's dogma. For me, these simple testimonies are core principles that I could immediately grasp and carry with me daily. I can not claim to practice them perfectly on any day, but I try to let them drive my actions, and it is settling to me to have these Testimonies as my foundation for living.

* Equality is more than lip service. Of all the testimonies, this one speaks to me the most, and I feel it's the core principal that drives how Quakers interact with everyone around them. I grew up being taught by my father (who isn't a Quaker) that everyone is equal. I remember him telling me, when I was young, that I would grow up and live in a different world than the one he grew up in as the black son of a sharecropper. He taught his three daughters that we couldn't hate others based on race or nationality, because we'd be hating ourselves. (In addition to being black, about half of my extended family on the paternal side is white; we also have Cherokee and Portuguese heritage.) Our travels as a military family helped me to see and live that equality--I found friends everywhere I went, of different races and nationalities. My father never let us believe for a moment that we couldn't do something because we are female or because we are black. He taught us to respect people, and judge them by who they are as individuals; not by their race, or gender, or nationality, or even their faith.

In my previous faith communities, though I had and still have many friends who showed nothing but love, I also experienced blatant racism and misogyny. The perpetrators often used the Bible to support their actions. Of course, this exists in other faith communities in our country and around the world. Yet, it still troubles and astonishes me that in the 21st century, a culture of some type of hegemony is still acceptable in church!

I have found among Friends people who sincerely believe that there is something Divine, something of God, in each person - child or senior; black, white, Asian, Latino, or Arab; Christian, Jew or Muslim; male or female. And there is genuine respect for the humanity of everyone and for that of God within them.

* I am not just warming a pew; I am part of a community that needs my involvement. Some faith communities cut themselves off from their most valuable resources - the people. I have been in places where I was not considered - spiritual or holy - enough to contribute; and certainly I have been in places where female contributions are limited. Not so among Friends. From the silent hour of worship where we gather as a community seeking the Divine, to the Quaker manner of making decisions by consensus, and to social efforts in our own city or through larger groups like the American Friends Service Committee and the Friends Committee on National Legislation, I have become a needed part of a whole. In a way, being part of a community like this has encouraged me in my faith, too: I have a responsibility to seek God and to contribute even to the silent, gathered meeting.

If you were to ever catch me in conversation, I think I would have even other reasons to tell you why I have become a Quaker. To me, it is rubber-meets-the-road faith: There is no pastor to do my praying, seeking, studying, and charitable work for me. Most importantly, I am at peace with my faith - I seek the Divine around me, and I do  not find myself struggling to fit myself into a doctrine that just does not feel quite right. For me, being a Quaker is a faith journey that I am pleased to walk every day.

Shaun Chavis

December 2008