Status
Available
Call number
Collections
Publication
Pendle Hill (2005), Pamphlet
ISBN
0875743773 / 9780875743776
Local notes
Pendle Hill Pamphlet 377
Other editions
Description
Quaker spiritual authority lies not in belief systems and in creeds, but in the direct communion between individuals and the Divine Spirit. The pamphlet’s author asserts that Friends too often hold Quaker testimonies as ideals, as ends in themselves, rather than as fruits of the Spirit. Without spiritual grounding, testimonies become creeds.
User reviews
LibraryThing member QuakerReviews
This excellent pamphlet explains clearly, gracefully, and wisely the original and current Quaker witness against creeds. Please note that this does not mean that you get to believe anything you want. Griswold lays out the earliest Quakers' experience of faith as direct experience of communion with
He explains the reasons for the witness against creeds, that include that creeds contribute to a false sense of self, and thus can lead away from the genuine direct experience of the divine. Creeds can screen us, make us blind to the spiritual reality that we experience. Creeds lead us to judge others rashly while we are blind to our own faulty thinking. Reality is something to be aware of, not to be believed. This important Quaker witness arises from a subtle but powerful awareness of spiritual reality.
Show More
the divine Teacher, involving giving up one's own concepts, beliefs, desires, expectations, hatreds, etc., and then the ways in which creeds have crept back into Quakerism. He explains the reasons for the witness against creeds, that include that creeds contribute to a false sense of self, and thus can lead away from the genuine direct experience of the divine. Creeds can screen us, make us blind to the spiritual reality that we experience. Creeds lead us to judge others rashly while we are blind to our own faulty thinking. Reality is something to be aware of, not to be believed. This important Quaker witness arises from a subtle but powerful awareness of spiritual reality.
Show Less
Similar in this library
Faith and practice : a book of Christian discipline by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.,
Christianity and the inner life : twenty-first century reflections on the words of early Friends by Margery Post Abbott
Friends for 300 years : beliefs and practice of the Society of Friends since George Fox started the Quaker movement by Howard H. Brinton
The messenger that goes before : reading Margaret Fell for spiritual nurture by Michael Lawrence Birkel
Inward light and the new creation : a theological meditation upon the center and circumference of Quakerism by R. Melvin Keiser
The Journal of George Fox, etc. [Revised by Norman Penney. A reduced photographic reprint of the edition of 1924, with a revised bibliography.] by George Fox
Call number
CP 377/1