I’m excited to be presenting a paper at the Quaker Theological Discussion Group on Saturday 2 December 2023 at 8–10am PST / 11am–1pm EST / 4–6pm GMT. This event is online and free to attend. Do join me!
My paper is called “Whiteness and the roots of the Quaker Universalist discourse.” Here’s a short summary of what I’ll be presenting:
The dominant theology of Liberal Quakerism in Britain today is arguably post-Christian pluralism, with the “formless” nature of Quaker silence interpreted as an a-theological space. The publications of the Quaker Universalist Group (QUG) from 1979 onwards have contributed to this theological shift, with their “statement of principle” being included in the book of discipline of Britain Yearly Meeting in 1994. When George Fox is seen through a pluralist lens he becomes a torchbearer of a perennial mysticism clothed in the Christian language of his time. In the words of proto-universalist author Gerald Hibbert, “Fox, like all men, was to some extent limited by the conditions of his time… Our horizon has widened… and without any conceit we can say we understand his message better than he did himself.” My presentation will argue that although the universalist position claims to have discovered an essential religious truth that is distinct from culture, the universalist position is itself a cultural construction, one that is rooted in whiteness. I will explore the roots of the Quaker universalist discourse, suggesting that it draws on and echoes the 19th-century Orientalist discourse on the “mystic East” and the distinction between essentially spiritual “Aryan” and irredeemably cultural “Semitic” religion. My presentation suggests that Quaker universalism must reckon with the colonial roots of their discourse and therefore reassess their approach to George Fox.
The theme for the conference is “Tradition & Transformation: Quakerism 400 Years After the Birth of George Fox.” I’ll be presenting alongside Emma Condori on “Bolivian Indigenous Quakerism,” Rhiannon Grant on “Theological Diversity as Growth and Foundation,” and Robert J. Wafula on “New forms of orientation for the 21 century Africa Quaker movement.”
On Friday 1 December there’ll be another panel at the same time bringing together Alice Elliott-Sowaal and Diego Navarro on “Why We Need to Return to Practices that Can Move Us Beyond Inadvertent Somatic Individualism,” Barbara Birch on “Throwing out the Baby,” George Busolo Lukalo on “Worship Tradition and Transformation Among Kenyan Friends,” and Welling Hall on “Insights into Quaker Silence from Otto, Thurman, and Panikkar.”
You can find more information about the event here: https://qtdg.org/2023/11/08/register-now-for-qtdg-2023-tradition-transformation/. There is a Facebook post about the event here: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=891683772738790&set=a.536586951581809
It is free to attend, and you can register for the event here: https://forms.gle/2bYyUT6rMTbuqD478
Jolly Quaker 