A rebuttal to a pamphlet slandering Quakers:
“Oh! was here ever the like in any age seen, who professe Christ, live in so much Impudency, breathing of lyes and slanders, what an unsavoury smell is this, that comes from those, that calls themselves Christians, and Churches, but we see thy fruit, in thy paper, and thy smell is gone out into the Nation, and recorded thou art, and answered shall be to that in thy conscience, in the day of thy condemnation.”
“We stand at a perilous moment. Truth and integrity are being undermined to the extent that democracy itself is under threat, exactly when we need to work together. Many of those in power seem to act with impunity, disregarding facts and scientific findings. Respect for the judiciary is being undermined and trust in our institutions threatened.”
“How do we make use of our social media? Do we post content that not only conforms to our worldview, but to the higher standard of truthfulness? Today, when so many of our social interactions happen online and our public persona lives on social media, do we make every effort to post in integrity?”
“Quakers are also known as ‘seekers of truth’. How do we maintain that fundamental commitment to truth in an age of widespread online misinformation and disinformation?
…Quakerism was formed in an earlier era of unprecedented misinformation and disinformation, with often unreliable printed pamphlets widely available. Quaker testimony and practice and the distilled wisdom on which we can draw provide a very sound basis for combatting fake news.
We need to stay focussed on the still small voice of calm.”
“Corporate discernment of the will of God is a risky and imperfect proposition. In relying so extensively on the Holy Spirit, we make ourselves vulnerable to pitfalls and failures. However, far from being a weakness, such vulnerability is central to our understanding of the power of worship (and business) ‘in spirit and in truth.'”
“Because the evidence and experiences on which we act are usually conflicting and ambivalent, and because we are by nature vulnerable to our capacity for self-deception, discernment is often tentative and uncertain. We may not feel a great sense of having found the truth.”
“If we are loyal to the truth as we see it, and respond with our might in the ‘common’ situations in day-to-day living as we face them, the glow of the grace of God deepens and nurtures our faculties for insight and for recognition of the true worth of things and of men.”
“If you love the light, then you come to the light to be proved, and tried whether your works be wrought in God. But that which hates the light, turns from the light, and that shall be condemned by the light forever. And though you may turn from the light, where the unity is, and you may turn from the eternal truth; but from the witness of God in your consciences, (which he hath placed in you, which beareth witness for the living God,) you can never fly; that shall pursue you wherever you go.”
“When I feel the hard edge of judgment in my body and hear it in my words and thoughts, I am learning that I need to stop and softly bring my attention to my heart. I like to hold the image of one hand on my heart and one hand on the heart of the other. From this place of compassion, I seek to understand both of us and empower both of us to be in our truths, whatever that may be. I give myself permission to be changed/influenced by the other. I also give myself and the other permission to decide to back away or disengage if that serves Truth. If I decide to disengage, I will do it with loving kindness and not harshness.”
“Nothing does reason more right, than the coolness of those who offer it, for truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders, than from the arguments of its opposers.”
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