Prophetic Service: Roots of and New Directions for a Quaker Religious Practice Open Access
Repoley, Christina Amalia (2011)
Abstract
Prophetic Service: Roots of and New Directions for a Quaker Religious Practice
By Christina Amalia Repoley
Quaker Rufus Jones once said that the most important and distinctive calling of the Religious Society of Friends is our prophetic service. For many years Quakers engaged in direct service efforts which were explicitly Quaker in composition and self-understanding, particularly the work camps of the American Friends Service Committee. For generations, Quakers found these experiences of direct service to play a formative and transformative role in their lives. In the 1960s and 1970s, this work was nearly completely halted. This paper claims that the projects of direct service functioned as formative religious practices. This paper traces the development of Quaker Voluntary Service as a response to these issues and seeks to ground the work of this fledgling organization by exploring the role of prophetic service in the Quaker tradition. It explores the theological diversity among Friends and how work together across the branches of the schismatic Quaker family tree could help us to better understand what it means to be prophetic. It then briefly explores the history of the work camp programs of the American Friends Service Committee and offers a few explanations for why they ended, which point to important lessons for our efforts today. It then explores in more depth what is meant by the term "prophetic service," as opposed to secular service, which is grounded in a religious experience expressed communally. We best understand prophetic service as a vital religious practice which forms and transforms people into Quaker identity and into lives committed to peace and justice. Quaker Voluntary Service proposes to reclaim this foundational religious practice while reshaping it to meet the needs and longings of the present generations of Quakers, and looks to the future vitality of our faith.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
I.
Introduction………………………………………………………………………..1
II. Quaker Voluntary Service: Tracing a
Leading……………………………………5
III. Quaker Theological History: Our Fragmented Family Tree and Why
Cross-
Branch Work
Matters………………………………………………………...14
IV. History of Quaker Service: What Were the Work Camps and What
Happened to
Them?..............................................................................................................33
V. Prophetic Service: Practicing Presence and Embodying
Hope…………………..43
VI. Formation and Transformation: Prophetic Service as Religious
Practice………57
VII. Conclusion: Moving Forward in Prophetic
Service………………..…………...71
Appendix A: Epistle from the February 2009 Consultation on Quaker
Volunteer
Service…………………………………………………………………………...…...74
Appendix B: Quaker Voluntary Service Vision, Mission and
Values……………….77
Bibliography………………………………………………………………………....79
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