The Prophet as Agent of God's Time

[A version of this was delivered as part of Barclay College's "Spiritual Emphasis Week"]

In the last post I discussed one way that time and eternity function in theology and in lives of faith in a direct experience of the indwelling Christ. These two posts address how a realizing eschatology changes the possibilities for spiritual transformation in the present, how God’s eternal promises are invading our lives at every moment, an apocalypse of the heart. Christ lives in us in His fullness. He dwells in our hearts in his completion, not as parceled out and obscured but as God’s revelation to the world. Christ resides in us as the crucified one, the resurrected one, and the glorified one. Christ is not only crucified, Christ is not only resurrected, Christ is not only glorified by the Father. The salvific and eschatological promises of the past and the future are directed incarnationally into every time and every moment.

Crucified, resurrected and glorified.

And the paradox of paradoxes is that Christ is all three eternally and dwells in us as this eternal presence. And according to Second Peter, we are “partakers” of this nature made incarnate in us (2 Peter 1:4).

What I want to say in this post is that the saints, the ministers, the faithful prophets of God, are those who see time for what it is. They are those who see the reality of time and are commissioned by God to proclaim the meaning of time and to embody the fullness of time. These are prophets. Prophets are those who can see God’s will and can call our brothers and sisters to a more living understanding of our place in God’s world, of our relationship to the fulfillment of God’s presence.

John Woolman (1720-1772) and the Apocalypse of the Heart

[A version of this message was given during Barclay College's Spiritual Emphasis Week]

In this post and the next one I want to mine theological resources from the Quaker tradition and interpret them for our day and age, for the spiritual power and hope God has called us to embody. I want to think about time, and the ways in which the future time of God’s fulfillment is already a present reality. Our faith traditions can be a teacher, an encourager, and a partner in our spiritual walk. My tradition, the Friends, have been that for me and have taught me ways for faithful living I have found meaningful. We look to the cloud of witnesses that have preceded us to relativize and deprioritize our self-obsessions and the the idols of our own day. We look to the past for perspective, to be educated in a different way of thinking, and to be shown the varieties of God’s mercy.

And for me, no one since the time of the bible has knocked me out of my self-absorption like the eighteenth century Quaker, John Woolman.

On Mercy, Commitment, and Being Right: John Woolman’s Way of Prophetic Non-Attachment

 

[[[This message was given at North Seattle Friends Church, 8/1/2015]]]

This is the Message from GOD, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your prayer. He says, "If you are ready to stick it out in this land, I will build you up and not drag you down, I will plant you and not pull you up like a weed. I feel deep compassion on account of the doom I have visited on you. You don’t have to fear the king of Babylon. Your fears are for nothing. I’m on your side, ready to save and deliver you from anything he might do. I’ll pour mercy on you. What’s more, he will show you mercy! He’ll let you come back to your very own land."
Jeremiah 42:9-12

Many of you know that I have a special (and some would say excessive) affection for people of faith in ages past; people who lived lives of absolute surrender to the voice of God, who walked against the tide of human opinion and, in so doing, became a foretaste of heaven on earth. And, most of all, I have a special admiration for an unassuming colonial American tailor named John Woolman.

The Theology of John Woolman, part 6 of 6

Woolman's Books and his Peers:  Constructing Theology, Maintaining Tradition

This post concludes our look at the theology of John Woolman. In the first post, I introduced Woolman and his historical and cultural context. In the second through fifth posts, I described the theological elements that animated his social witness. I argue that these components constitute an apocalyptic theology, a radical vision of Christ's governance of human affairs. These elements are: revelation, propheticism, eschatology, and perfection/judgment. This final post does two things:

1: Compare Woolman to some of his reform minded Friends, to see how similar he was to them.  My contention is that Woolman’s theology was different from many of his peers.  It was not oppositional to his peers, but it was different, and we don’t see the same type of this-worldly eschatology in them that we do in him.

2: Look at some of the books that were on Woolman’s bookshelf to see if we can find any clues as to the main influences on him.  He read in the early Quakers, he read mystical literature, he also read some apocalyptic literature.  My argument is that Woolman innovated on his Quaker tradition and the larger mystical tradition to construct a theology that was not a passive replication of any one source, but that was within the tradition of his readings while pieced together in a way that showed individuality and theological acumen.

The Theology of John Woolman, part 5 of 6

The Emergence of the “Government of Christ”: This-Worldly Perfection and Judgment

In the last post we looked at eschatology in relation to eighteenth century Quaker antislavery proponent, John Woolman’s, conception of time: one foot in the eschaton and one foot in historical time, so that he viewed himself as someone who brought God’s will to bear on the world of human affairs.

Today we are going to look at Woolman’s perfectionism and his views of divine judgment.
A theology of perfection and a theology of divine judgment are two beliefs that make us twenty-first century folks squirm in our seats a bit.  Why would concepts of perfection and judgment make us uneasy?
The concept of perfection brings with it fears of moral self-righteousness. It also makes us think of the infallibility that is associated with cults. When people claim perfection for themselves, they are usually abusing power in some way.

Similarly, theologies the feature divine judgment prominently are often little more than blaming others for their suffering. Moreover, retributive views of divine judgment strike us as arbitrary because people who rarely know God's specific will for their own lives claim to know God’s motivations in dealing with other people. When someone has a difficult time deciding where to go for lunch, but then claims to know God's mind  when a tragedy strikes another person or group, it seems phony.

The Theology of John Woolman, part 4 of 6

“On Earth as it is in Heaven”: John Woolman’s Apocalyptic Eschatology

The series of posts explores the theology of an eighteenth century Quaker minister, John Woolman. Woolman is most known as an antislavery proponent, but as we have seen his vision for the British Atlantic world was comprehensive and entailed the remaking of the world according to a radical vision of Christ's presence governing human affairs.

We have explored how he knew what he knew of God, his theology of revelation. We then explored how the inward, spiritual revelation led Woolman to outward socio-political embodiments, his propheticism. In this post, we will explore how the revelation of Christ's governance of all things was a revelation of ultimate human destiny, that is, his eschatology. Because eschatology is such an important and multifaceted part of Woolman's theology I have split it into two posts. This post deals with the nature of time and eternity, and how time impacts the life of faith. In the next post, I will explore two implications of Woolman's eschatology, his views of Christian perfection and impending judgment.

The Theology of John Woolman, part 3 of 6

The Colonial American Jeremiah: Woolman’s Prophetic Witness

In the last post, I explored how colonial American Quaker, John Woolman, came to spiritual knowledge. In other words, how did he know what he claimed to know of God's will? The answer to that question is to be found in an encounter with God that reshaped his understanding of reality and that dissolved physical/spiritual, temporal/eternal dichotomies.


In this post, I want to explore how the revelation Woolman received, which was spiritual and inward, made claims on human affairs and societal organization. In other words, I want to look at the way religious conviction can move beyond the predefined sphere of meaning we call "religion," and can shape all the venues that typically, and artificially, fragment human existence (i.e. political, spiritual, economic). The inward turns outward. I call this "propheticism," because the task of the prophet is to embody and pronounce the revelation she or he has received. This is what Woolman did, too.

The Theology of John Woolman, part 2 of 6

The “Principle that Proceeds from God”: Revelation, Conversion and Resignation

In the last post, I looked at some of the religious, economic and political events that influenced John Woolman's life and witness, and some of the key moments of his life. The next four posts will look at the core of Woolman's theology.

This post examines Woolman's theology of revelation (i.e. how did he know of God what he claimed to know?)
Post three explores Woolman's "propheticism," or, the claims of divine revelation on human affairs.
Post four takes up the question of "eschatology," or, how Woolman's views of human faithfulness were wrapped up in issues of human destiny and the fulfillment of divine promises.
Post five looks at the implications of Woolman's eschatology, namely that humans were capable of living in spiritual perfection such that their actions were consistent with God will. Moreover, Woolman believed God would judge humanity if they did not respond willingly to God's messages.
Post six examines Woolman's books and the influences that might have shaped his theology.

The Theology of John Woolman, part 1 of 6

The Life and Times of John Woolman (1720-1772)

The eighteenth century Quaker, John Woolman, is a personal hero of mine. He is most well known as an antislavery advocate, but his reforms go well beyond that. I did my Ph.D. research on Woolman, and have written a bit about him. One of the things I like to do is to think about Woolman's life with others, and think together about what implications his life has for our own. This series of blog posts is based on some talks on Woolman I've given at Reedwood Friends Church in Portland, OR, and North Seattle Friends Church in Seattle, WA.

My goal in these posts is to explore Woolman not only as a sensitive soul, not only as a social reformer, but as a theologian who had a coherent and comprehensive conviction of God's role in colonial American society. I hope that this series will help us to view Woolman in context, to let Woolman challenge us and make us uncomfortable. The highest honor we can give Woolman is to accept him as he was without trying to mold him into a figure who conforms to our modern sensibilities.