Kristen's testimony slides

1. Friends Testimonies
Quaker Faith in Action

2.  What is Quaker Testimony?
 Where Do They Come From?
 Where Do They Go?
 Some Current Issues of Testimony
in North America

3. Testimony
 commonly considered to be a statement,
either of faith or of fact (as in a court of law)
 Quaker testimony is not written, but is
written about

4. Values in action

5. “Be patterns, be examples in all countries,
places, islands, nations, wherever you come,
that your carriage and life may preach among
all sorts of people and to them; then you will
come to walk cheerfully over the world,
answering that of God in everyone”
” George Fox 1656

7. “To live sacramentally is to make
thousands of little daily decisions”
Jonathan Dale 2002

8. Core values endure, but action will
evolve to match the times and
circumstances

9. Where do the testimonies
come from?
All testimony flows from the notion of “that of God”
in all people
 Peace
 Truth and Integrity
 Equality
 Simplicity

10. individual concerns
discernment and testing
corporate witness
testimony

11. Testimonies Over Time
 Among Friends, some different forms and
expressions of testimony have arisen, but all flow
back in some way to the core values
 Historical examples:
 plain speech and dress
 hat honor
 Contemporary examples: refusal to use titles,
careful use of language, choosing to live and
participate in a mixed neighborhood

12. In North America
(and elsewhere)
 growing conversation about the environment and
Earth care
 Is this an adjustment to existing testimonies to make
more explicit our obligation to all of creation?
 Does it matter?

13. Some Current Issues
of Testimony
in North America

14. Peace
Absolute pacifism vs. duty to protect

15. Simplicity
 Is it unQuakerly to earn a good salary?
 Guilt and pressure

16. Immigration

17. Testimonies are a “tool, not a rule”
Framework and language of testimonies
give us a tool to examine ourselves and
communities and choose a way forward

18. Quite a challenge
 Impossible standards?
 Or the start of a journey?

19. Quakerism is “a voyage of spiritual discovery
undertaken with friends, which is reflected in
turn in their journeys. They offer a faith based
on personal experience”
Geoffrey Durham 2010