Category Archives: Quaker Theology

Remember the earlier question about Quakers as a gathered or called people? Robert Barclay presents one of the early expressions of that idea.

Barclay then makes a subtle pun on a hoary Catholic Latin dictum; “extra ecclesiam, nullas salus,” which meant, “outside the [Roman Catholic] church, there is no salvation”:

“Aside from this Church there can be no salvation, because this Church and its denomination comprehend all, regardless of what nation, kindred, tongue or people they may be, who have become obedient to the holy light and testimony of God in their hearts.”

The extent to which Barclay is turning this exclusivist notion on its head quickly becomes clear, in the truly radical passage which follows:

“Although they may be outwardly unknown to and distant from those who profess Christ and Christianity in words and have the benefit of the scriptures, yet they have become sanctified by their obedience and cleansed from the evil of their ways. For this is the universal or catholic spirit….”

In a sense, all Barclay has done is change the first letter of the term “catholic church”, from a capital “C”, designating a specific church (such as the Roman Catholic) to lower case, referring to something generic, something beyond or before specific denominational churches; but in this simple typographical change there is a world of difference.

To get a sense of the magnitude of this shift, simply compare Barclay’s conclusion with more exclusive views of the church.

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Interfaith conversation: sounds warm & fuzzy, right?
In reality, though, beyond the Brother/Sisterhood week banquets, it can be pretty tough.
For instance, how would YOU handle these real situations that came up in one such interfaith program?
Rebecca Mays, at the American Academy of Religion, 2015.
–a Muslim young man from a rural island whose hadith lineage would not allow him to enter the sanctuary of a Christian church if a cross stood in the sanctuary (but they were scheduled to visit such a church);
— a young Buddhist scholar from Myanmar (Burma) who argued that the Rohingyah young woman in the group should not call herself by that name as that ethnic group as such has never existed in his country (the Myanmar government has been accused of genocide involving Rohingyah); or
— a Muslim young woman who could not room with our one transgendered participant.

All these and many more such challenges have been faced by Rebecca Mays, a Philadelphia area Friend who has been Director of the Dialogue Institute at Temple University since 2012.
And in the new issue of “Quaker Theology,” she describes how she faced these complex encounters.

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