A not-so-friendly Friends minister admits what it really means when people repeat the mindless, empty, and logic-challenged refrain: "I'm not into organized religion":
Glad we cleared that up.
He also says:
Glad we cleared that up.
I have a "notion" that Anne Rice isn't "going it alone," but that she has had it with institutions that have replaced the Real Spirit of Christ with trappings of power and privilege and the heavy yoke of a creedalism that burdens one generation with the often discredited truth of previous ones. And if she is anything like the many students with whom I work and learn - who would describe themselves as deeply spiritual but not religious in the conventional sense - then she is in good company. Let's just hope they don't join together, form a "Church," and develop a dogma that, itself, will one day run counter to the fresh springs of the Spirit of Christ.Interpretation: We really dislike the Catholic Church.
Glad we cleared that up.
He also says:
Nonconformist and radical reform traditions such as Friends have sought in their beginnings to bypass the accretions of the ages and return to "basic Christianity," the faith of the first disciples - what some would call "Gospel Christianity." The trouble is, the Christian scriptures themselves, describing the nature of that earliest form of the faith, are already products of the development of a "Church," of a set of dogmas and practices that developed in the decades after Jesus walked the earth. Quakers have historically sought to address this problem by appealing to the "Spirit of Christ" directly. Without creed, an ordained clergy, or a ritual other than centered, expectant waiting on the Spirit of Christ in worship, Friends appeal to their Inward Teacher, the Real Presence within, to Jesus Christ in all offices of prophet, priest, redeemer, saviour, and Lord.So...the "non-organized religion" (so to speak) of Quakerism (1) has a "tradition," (2) possesses a set of dogmas and doctrines especially aimed at denouncing dogmas and doctrines, (3) touts a historical lineage of thought and teaching, and (4) holds to a creedless creed outlining adherence to belief in "the Spirit of Christ" and an "appeal to their Inward Teacher, the Real Presence within..."
Glad we cleared that up.