Cosmic Christ Consciousness

By H. Wayne Williams

I.

"I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father, but through me." (John 14:6)

These words have bludgeoned worthy
souls with violence to exclude.
Jesus postures only Love and mercy;
God's eternal Wisdom ever flows to include.

The dying grandpa's Buddhist altar
is entrusted to his Christian heir.
"Ancestor worship's not in the Psalter!"
Invoke Wisdom, not spiritual warfare.

"The true light that illumines all
has come into the world!" (John 1:9)

Cosmic Christ redeems and rests
with Wisdom in the Father's breast.

Selah.

II.

When absolute egotism
violates interfaith discourse,
sexism, classism, and racism
are brutal powers errantly in force!

Christians seek converts around the globe.
The Hindus view this with disdain.
Apostle Paul was no xenophobe.
Wisdom is the sacred of the profane.

"Jesus, pure servility,
suffered for all humanity!" (Phil. 2:6-7)

Cosmic Christ redeems and rests
with Wisdom in the Father's breast.

Selah.

III.

Swear off confessional fascism!
God's truth speaks cross-culturally.
Embrace confessional universalism!
After all, Who reconciles the stars?

As Christians we profess through Him
to know the God of all genealogy,
not our neighbor's faith to bedim.
Enshrined theology is idolatry.

"The Logos truly lived among us.
We saw Wisdom's graceful glory as
the one and only Father's Son." (John 1:14)

Cosmic Christ redeems and rests
with Wisdom in the Father's breast.

Selah.

"God don't pick favorites; every reverent and righteous nation belongs." (Acts 10:34)

Wayne is a current MDiv student at Earlham School of Religion. He is a member of Brooklyn Monthly Meeting, New York Yearly Meeting.

Report from New York Yearly Meeting 2011

By Wayne Williams


Being both a member of New York Yearly Meeting (Brooklyn) and a student at ESR, I was invited by the school to attend the 316th Session of our Yearly Meeting this summer at Silver Bay, NY.  While there, I provided a presence for ESR and had the opportunity to meet and engage with Friends, old and new.  When asked to submit an article about my experience for ESR’s blog, Learning and Leading, I said that I would.  Why has it taken me so long to respond?  Only recently did I discern the reason for my delayed response - I have something to say that I don’t want to say.  New York Yearly Meeting needs prayer for its future.


Christopher Sammond, NYYM General Secretary, reported a 50% loss of membership in the past 56 years.  Today’s membership is 8% less than what it was 10 years ago.  Only 32 of 53 Meetings mention new attenders in their State of the Meeting Report, and some meetings conclude that they do not have the energy to do outreach.  Many Meetings are in danger of being laid down because, as Christopher Sammond reports, “We are nearing the time when we may not have the necessary critical mass to do the work of outreach necessary to preserve many of our meetings.”  Christopher suggested that this steep downward trend could be averted only with a change in current behaviors.  He called us to carry this concern when decisions are made regarding resource allocation and programming.


Christopher spoke on the topic of agency, “the person or thing through which power is exerted or an end is achieved.”  He defined it as “the innate capacity to effect change.”  I would agree with Christopher’s assessment that we underestimate our ability to be change agents.  Often, the discrepancy between where we are and where God wants us to be can produce overwhelming feelings: inadequacy and apathy are two common responses.  However, he spoke of certain Meetings that were finding renewal and strength in unity.  However, he encouraged Friends to support individuals “on fire with commitment.  A Friend with gifts in forming community, with gifts in witness, or with gifts of spiritual depth can act like a seed crystal, inspiring those around that person to join in creating a more vibrant meeting.”  Having made over 150 visits to worship groups and meetings over the past seven years, these are the qualities he observed in Friends’ responsible for bringing fresh fire to meetings.


I’m not an expert on agency, but my belief is that the Living Christ is “that person or thing through which power is exerted or an end is achieved.”  Some Friends do not welcome such a perspective in NYYM.  The growth and spread of Quakerism in the 17th and 18th centuries was undoubtedly due to those agents of Christ.  Women and men who were filled with the same fire and commitment Christopher Sammond has observed in contemporary Friends over the years.  


My heart grieves when I reflect on the reality that today, Christ-centered Friends at NYYM appear to be meeting like a special-interest group.  I worshiped with “Christ-centered Friends” in a separate bedroom on the second floor of the Inn.  Was there no other room in the Inn?  I understand that these Friends request to worship separately from the body.  Why?  One individual informed me that her vocal ministry had been silenced in the past because, “they don’t want hear about Jesus.”  Therefore, in order to share without fear of censorship or disapproval, “Christ-centered Friends” gather for worship to speak freely and in support of each other’s witness to the Foundation of our Society.  Apparently for some Friends, Jesus isn’t even welcome at the table.


Does it surprise me that when Christ is excluded from fellowship with His people that we witness a decline in membership?  No.  Fifty-six years ago, when NYYM had 50% more members, was there such a label as “Christ-centered Friends”?  I don’t know, but I think perhaps it’s time to examine if there is a correlation between our changing theology over the years, and the current state of our Yearly Meeting.  There is room for all at our Quaker table, but let us not forget from whose table we are given our Spiritual gifts.  


My theory is that perhaps some desire to limit God-talk or reject vocal ministry that calls upon the name of Jesus because they secretly fear the change that the Living Christ in our midst can lay claim to.  Personally, as a Christ-centered member of NYYM, I welcome that baptism. I pray God gives me the courage to witness to the miracles and healing that the Living Christ can perform, and wants to perform, for each of us.  Can we open our hearts and welcome in this Light?  It’s already here…waiting.  Please keep New York Yearly Meeting, her stewards and prophets in your prayers, and support our precious agents of Christ. 




Wayne is a current MDiv student at Earlham School of Religion. He is a member of Brooklyn Monthly Meeting, New York Yearly Meeting.

The Light of Christ: an Integrated Christology Embedded in Quaker Roots

By Wayne Williams

Maurice Creasy, a 20th century Quaker theologian, discusses the original Christological understanding of founding Friends as being able to hold the “particular and the universal, the historical and the mystical emphasis” of Jesus together in unity.  The salvific significance and power of Jesus concerned “the universal and divine light of Christ”.  He argues that the teaching of early Quakers regarding this Light was an understanding that had to do with the action of God, not man.  God showed Godself in Jesus, and what God showed IS in all men.  This Light is innate in everyone, and we all have access to Christ’s Light eternally.

Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age. (Matt 28:20 NLT)

Jesus’ recorded life in Scripture embodied love and compassion.  Through the Gospel narratives, Jesus exhorted and challenged others and the status quo.  Early Quakers believed the embodied expressions and witness of Jesus as being active and present at all times working in and through all persons everywhere.[1]

Salvation through Christ came not through mere possession of this personal Illumination.  Obedience to the discerned leadings of Christ was required to fulfill God’s purpose.  Early Quakers were concerned with an orthopraxy of ethics and action, not liturgy.  Though every person everywhere has access to this Light, few respond with the required action to manifest Jesus’ saving and transforming Power.  

Creasey writes that early Friends were observing in their contemporaries a lip-service glorification of Christ.  The established Church’s ignorance of Christ’s relation to Creation was evidenced “by an uncritical acceptance of social, political, economic, and military methods.”  Early Quakers also criticized the Church of putting a higher value on the “intellectual apprehension of doctrine” than a Spiritual transformation.  For founding Friends, belief in the Lordship of Christ implied transformation of the total individual through living through the promptings of Christ’s Spirit.

Those who so knew Christ themselves to have been delivered not only from penalty of sin but also from its power.  They found themselves, moreover, gathered into a community in which were to be known, not merely as a doctrine or an idea, but in reality and in daily life, both the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings and the power of Christ’s resurrection.[2]

Creasey seems to lament the loss of the original vision that Friends had.  This was an integrated understanding to the saving purpose of Christ.  He argues that the once united interworking concept of Christ embraced the particular and universal, historical and mystical, that these emphases among Friends have become polarized, divided, and in some circles even faded out of view.  It is the component elements’ relationship to one another that gives our comprehension weight and depth.  Our once integrated and comprehensive Christology was a keystone to our Society’s original unity and subsequent growth.  To discuss today our Society’s diverse Christologies (or lack thereof) can occasion division or even offense.  This is saddening, given the fact that Christ once stood as a unifying ideology among our own founding visionaries.  The time is ripe to reconsider our corporate vision of Jesus in relation to our current need for transforming the uncritical social, economic, political, and ethical powers and principalities at work in today’s world.

---

[1] Creasey, Maurice. Christ in Early Quakerism, (Philadelphia: The Tract Association of Friends, undated).
[2] Creasey, Maurice. Christ in Early Quakerism, (Philadelphia: The Tract Association of Friends, undated).

Wayne is a current MDiv student at Earlham School of Religion. He is a member of Brooklyn Monthly Meeting, New York Yearly Meeting.

Joerg Rieger, in the Flesh and on the Page

By Wayne Williams
It’s really quite revolutionary what he’s asking us to consider. Rieger’s book, Remember the Poor, develops the liberation theology of Gustavo Gutiérrez while holding hands with Jacques Lacan’s philosophy of the “other” and Frederick Herzog’s theologically impassioned social justice work in Latin America. To consider and elevate the poor by entering their world and giving them an authoritative voice requires us to reframe our privileged, empirical Christian worldview dramatically. Rieger’s Willson Lectures at ESR were grounded in his expert theological, Scriptural, philosophical, and ethical understanding of the problems contemporary Christians face to authentically carrying out Christ’s Gospel of good news for the poor. The problems are unequalled poverty in the face of capitalism’s ‘victory’, how to encounter the marginalized ‘other’, issues with questioning and relocating authority, and the need for the distribution of power. These manifold challenges can feel insurmountable to even a cock-eyed optimist like myself. Rieger was our theological tour guide into the Reality of the brokenness amidst our own Christian Empire. Aren’t we disgusted when the blinders come off? So when is the revolution?
The life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth was the revolution. Or has Jesus’ own Life and praxis been diminished by a converted empire’s insatiable need for power and authority? Unfortunately, Christ’s Gospel ministry to the impoverished, the diseased, and the sinners in His 1st century world has largely been subsumed by our Judeo-Roman-Christian Empire over the past two millennia. Empire has bigger priorities than care of the sick and suffering. The institutions of our inherited culture value authority, wealth, power, and dominion. What would Jesus say about all this?
Rieger’s message resonates at the crux of Christ’s Gospel and Empire. He debunks Empire’s blind economic doctrines, citing the ‘prosperity gospel’ as a prime example of religion intersecting economics with a blind faith in ‘the big ideas.’ Rieger asks if those who blindly accept religious doctrine are more likely to accept economic principles on blind faith as well.
The gap between rich and poor gets wider all the time. The disparity is unconscionable. Rieger argues that our Empire wants us to believe there is only one way to solve this problem. If God is always envisioned at the top, then we correlate that the privileged and powerful embody God’s character. Rieger invites us to look at those on the underside to understand what is really going on. What if God were at work not from the top but from the bottom of society? After all, none of the rights gained for women or minorities were given by a benevolent leader. They were hard fought from a grass roots movement.
Rieger argues for the common good. He cites Apostle Paul, “an injury to one is an injury to all,” as having solid bottom up logic. Rieger believes that the common good can be built from the bottom up. He articulates the challenges that this paradigm shift presents in a new vision of justice for the poor. There is enough to go around. The re/distribution of wealth, along with a re-evaluation of the role and value of labor and production are necessary. Rieger proposes the “good news for the poor” involves production, organization, and honoring creativity to the benefit of all. New economic models and alternatives are already at work.
Wayne is a current MDiv student at Earlham School of Religion. He is a member of Brooklyn Monthly Meeting, New York Yearly Meeting.