The Friends Peace Testimony
as "Questing Beast" -- 4
4. The peace testimony is primarily for individuals.
My final observation is that we describe the peace testimony primarily in terms of
the requirements it places on individual Friends, rather than on
our monthly meetings or larger corporate bodies. All of my electronic respondents spoke
primarily as an "I" rather than as a "we." If they described peace
work with a group, it was generally not a Quaker group.
The individual nature of the e-mail messages might
have been expected, considering the medium of communication and the phrasing of the
question. Nonetheless, our books of discipline also stress individual rather than
corporate responsibility.
We do have a tradition of corporate peace work,
through the American friends Service Committee (AFSC), Quaker Peace and Service in the UK,
and other institutions, as well as through programs initiated by our monthly, quarterly
and yearly meetings. Our meetings lend their names and often money and service as
co-sponsors of any variety of peace-related projects.
Still, we seem to think and talk about the peace
testimony as if it belonged to individuals rather than to us as a body. Our corporate
witness is generally the work of individuals carrying out a "leading" in our
name: a leading that at worst we indulge; at best we encourage, sponsor, pay for, and give
oversight to. One of the prevailing complaints Friends have against the AFSC is that it no
longer provides easy access to service opportunities for individual FriendsCas if that
were the need this institution exists to serve.
The individual emphasis is an occasion for a delicate
balance. On one hand is the uncompromising language of our anti-war stance, frequently
reiterated in the same words that were used more than three centuries ago. On the other
hand is our respect for individual differences, our rejection of the notion of creed, and
our belief in continuing revelation and different leadings. Also, perhaps, our
unwillingness to place an onerous burden on one another weighs in as a factor. The
fragility of this balance is particularly notable in the disciplines of unprogrammed
Friends.
New York YM's F&P follows two analytical pages on
the peace testimony with this almost-apologetic paragraph:
"Everyone must, of course, be loyal to his own enlightened conscience and inward leading. Experience shows, however, that in proportion as conscience becomes sensitized and illumined through prayer and worship, men will be led toward ways of reconciliation and peace."
The new F&P of Britain Yearly Meeting, which devoted an entire 36-page chapter to the peace testimony--more than any other yearly meeting's discipline--explains:
"As a Society we have been faithful throughout in maintaining a corporate witness against all war and violence. However, in our personal lives we have continually to wrestle with the difficulty of finding ways to reconcile our faith with practical ways of living it out in the world. It is not surprising, therefore, that we have not always all reached the same conclusions when dealing with the daunting complexities and moral dilemmas of society and its government."
Pacific YM makes this difficulty a challenge to its members:
"Each Friend has the responsibility to seek and to live the full personal implications of the peace testimony. This is a spiritual challenge."
Several documents warn or perhaps comfort individuals about the price to be paid for adhering to the peace testimony. The 1972 Philadelphia F&P includes a statement that could even be read as discouraging of peacemaking efforts:
"We must make it clear that it is Christ and not ourselves that takes away the occasion of war and that, furthermore, bearing witness to the power of Christ may cause us suffering."
Out of New England YM, however, comes this reassurance in the form of a very leading query:
"When discouraged, do you remember that Jesus said, 'Peace is my parting gift to you, my own peace, such as the world cannot give. Set your troubled hearts at rest, and banish your fears'?"
So this questing beast, our
peace testimony, is many things to many people, a collection of parts grafted together
into something we think of as a single creature. I have asked myself whether I do the
peace testimony a service or a disservice by carving it up into this taxonomy of
components. It is clear to me that most individuals, as well as the corporate authors of
our books of discipline, have not made these distinctions. Restraint from war and
violence, public profession of peace, being peaceful and living peacefully, outward
peacemaking activity, and individual and corporate commitments flow together in their
statements as if they were a single animal.
Yet we stand accused--by voices both within and
without this Roundtable, and within and without the Society of Friends--of living our
peace testimony feebly. One respondent wrote, "Maybe the Peace Testimony has been
harder than some other testimonies to talk about because it is so closely linked to
political issues, and people like to avoid politics in order to avoid conflict and
maintain the myth that we are all one big, happy family."
I would hope that by doing a little dissection and
identifying the various tissues and organs, as I have only just begun to do, we might
begin to name what is most important to us, as a society and personally, to decide whether
to resolve or accept our different perspectives, and to get on with our essential
commitments.
Whence this beast--was it born or made?
Friends today have many ways of explaining why we have a peace testimony and where it comes from, including the two I mentioned in my introduction. I have been able to identify at least five categories of meaning that people describe as the source of their personal peace testimony. None of them is necessarily incompatible with any of the others, but they do show the very different ways we arrive at the same conclusion.
4. It derives logically from basic Quaker or Christian tenets.
The "that of God in everyone" syllogism, as well as other logical defenses were
the most common kind of response from individuals, but also appeared frequently in our corporate documents, perhaps most succinctly in the New Zealand peace statement:
"Our primary reason for this stand is our conviction that there is that of God in every one which makes each person too precious to damage or destroy."
"I could not reconcile 'Love they neighbor as thyself' with killing on orders in a war," one individual Friend responded. Another went further:
"To kill or harm another human being is not only killing or harming God, but it is also killing or harming that part of God which is in you."
Another respondent logically derived a somewhat pragmatic argument for the peace testimony out of the concept of continuing revelation.
"Occasionally, God may speak to us directly, and we may experience a moment of perfect apprehension. However, we are often like children at play when a parent speaks--we only hear part of the message . . . . God speaks through [others] and we realize that unless we listen to and care for one another, we could easily lose our way."
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