Alphecca

"pastor at the quaker meeting house"

Did the reporter actually visit the town? cos he certainly failed to check his "facts": Quakers don't have any form of priesthood; they believe in "that of God in EVERY man", so will not accept ANYyone coming between them and God.

Keith, you are generally correct. However, the Friends Church, i.e. Quakers, that my family grew up in here in Kansas had a traditional pastor/church board organization as do all the others in the Mid America Yearly Meeting that covers NE, KS, TX and OK. I also have friends/family in Oregon of similar background. Friends University in Wichita, KS is the locus of learning for this Yearly Meeting. What does all this mean? There are different kinds of Quakers, from East-coast war protesters to middle America farmers, ranchers and businessmen. They have a similar heritage but they aren't the same people by a stretch. I'd guess that the church in this article is of the latter group.

Thanks Roland, I can see the confusion.

The way I read the quote, it gave the impression of a formal position, rather than one of the members of the meeting who volountarily did admin work for the meeting.

Although not on any list as a Friend, I'm still occasionally involved, and I can imagine the fuss if anyone put themselves forward as a "spokesperson" on anything other than a personal and individual basis.

Of the friends I have known, there was a full spectrum from touchy feely paternalists, to out and out individualist anarchists, but heaven forbid someone trying to "speak for"...

They each had their own opinion.

Pacifists depend on nonpacifists among them to protect them, it has always been so. That's why Wm. Penn sought nonQuakers to help settle Pennsylvania; they needed defense forces.

No reason for mock moral superiority. The coattail riding is obvious.

I worked at a Quaker high school and would frequently make this point to the students there. Just a little dose of reality.

"Pacifists depend on nonpacifists among them to protect them, it has always been so."

Just ask the 16th Century Anabaptists.

OTOH, even a pacifist can earn the Medal of Honor, if he's brave enough:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Doss

"Pacifists depend on nonpacifists among them to protect them, it has always been so."

Not really. A true pacifist is prepared to face the consequences of their belief, to die rather than violate their conscience. That their interests and that of others, who are not pacifists, happen to coincide, or that another individual chooses to intervene and the pacifist is spared through someone elses choice isn't coattailing. It would be coattailing if the person were not perpared to face the consequences of their actions or lack thereof and demanded someone else intervene on their behalf. But I'd submit that that's not actually pacifism.

I have a great admiration for the Friends and like/respect their religious beliefs. Certainly they cannot be considered as coattailing if they are willing to face the consequences. But their belief in pacifism would only lead to total annihilation if _someone_ didn't protect them from that belief.

If you believe there is real evil in the world then there are only two options - have police and military to confront that evil or surrender totally. We can argue over what is right or wrong, which war is right or wrong, who we are protecting. But ultimately some form of force is necessary to stop those who are more than willing to use force to steal, rape, murder. If only a world could exist where pacifism was the rule. Unfortunately that is not the case except in fiction.

For now, and probably forever, the argument must be over where to draw the line and take a stand. The concept of never drawing a line and never taking that stand is just not viable.

To my Friend friends... you may not want my help but I plan to stand between you and evil - with a gun! I do not do it for you but for myself and I do not ask or expect that you be grateful.

Keith:

The pastor of the Greenleaf Friends church is a paid employee of the church. Most evangelical Friends meetings/churches have paid pastors, including those in the Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends, of which the Greenleaf congregation is a member.

These Friends retain part of the traditional Quaker view on this, in that they do not "ordain" their pastors as if they have some status higher than others. Instead, after a discernment process with a group of elders in the yearly meeting, they "record" the group's consensus that a person has been called into the pastoral ministry. No evangelical Friend would call this "priesthood" -- the formal term is "being released for full-time ministry."

As has been mentioned, Friends are a diverse group. Your experience in unprogrammed Friends only resonates in part with evangelical Friends, who are the majority of Friends world-wide.

Think that you have got a wonderful idea. I would that we could go that route here in St. Paul, Minnesota, As I think, the time in the not too distant furture, the local, and state police forces, will be overburdened with crime in the cities, the general populace will have to fend for themsevels. For protecting their person and goods. A hand gun, 357 and or a 44 cal and 45 cal and a good deer rifle, Something that will reach out and take down, and keep him/her down, will be necessary for each household. That and the knowledge to be able to use the weapons. Both not only the head of the household.

Anybody good with statistics?

California CCW issuance, by county, 1992-2005
http://ag.ca.gov/firearms/forms/pdf/ccwissuances2005.pdf

Just as not all Quaker Meetings are silent, not all Quakers are pacifists. I'm a birth right Quaker but am not, nor have I ever been a pacifist. I called myself a "non-aggressionist" until I discovered "Jacksonian" which fits better.

There's an old story that's been passed down through my family about a Quaker who discovered a burglar in his house in the middle of the night. Standing at the head of the stairs, armed with a shotgun, he called out: "Friend, I would not hurt thee for the world. But I'm about to shoot where thee is standing!"

"'Scuse me, Preacher, but don't the Good Book have some mighty specific things to say about killin' people?"

"Indeed it does, son. Mighty specific. It is, however, a little more forgiving on the subject of kneecaps."
-- Firefly

I appreciate the fact that the ordinance didn't actually specify Gulf Coast refugees as a particular cause for alarm. Generally, in most of the civilized world, refugees are not automatically assumed to be appropriate targets. Normally one waits to see if refugees are also rapists, robbers, and general ne'er-do-wells before hauling out the firepower to enforce law 'n order.

But it is unfortunate that the sponsor had to feed his apparent xenophobia to the press. It could be a bit of a setback in our long-term campaign to convince our friends and neighbors and legislators that gun owners are not rabid paranoiacs.

I really don't believe that it was fear of refugees from the Big Easy which brought about the ordnance ordinance, but a recognition that the Fed and State "Authorities" are hamfisted dingbats in a time of crisis who argue first among each other what to do before doing anything, and incapable of providing for the defense of citizens.

With 300 million people,the bulk crammed into Cities and Ghettos,the American People are essentially on their own and must provide for their own defense..The Police are incapable of protecting the public.[They come after the crime has been committed..]..How the People provide for their own defense is up to them..Being armed is nothing more than having an equalizer..If someone challenges you,showing a Gun or better yet,shooting to kill,the message gets out that you are not to be messed with...

Got to say the idea of "Evangelical Friends" is something of a shock to someone who thought that prosletysing was something they never did (even if their pacifist founder George Fox was a fearsome preacher, even a judge in court trying Fox admitted that he was intimidated by Fox' bearing and rhetoric).

As to Quakers "coat tailing" there is a joke about an old Quaker farmer, who was tryng to milk a particularly awkward cow, that insisted on kicking him and knocking his pail over. When ever this happened, he would pick himself and his pail up and say:

"I will not strike thee"

Eventually, even the old man lost his rag, and as he picked himself up, bruised, sore and covered in shit, he said;

"I will not strike thee. But on the third day next (next Tuesday) I will sell thee to **** ******, and he shall whip the hide off thee".

seriously though, after the second world war, many quakers had a crisis of conceince when Hitler's death camps were made public, and, Gandhi, who I beleive was influenced by the Quakers, is said to have admitted that his campaign of peaceful protest against the British Colonial authorities in India, only worked because there was humanity there to appeal to. It would not have worked against an out and out Psychopathic regime such as Stalin's Russia, Hitler's Germany, Imperial Japan or Mao's China.

As to Pacifists facing the consequences, I gather that the Jehova's Witnesses sent to death camps in Nazi Germany, continued to tend to the needs of the other inmates, despite knowing what their fate was going to be. while it did nothing active to end the situation, we can hope it bit home on any guards with a conceince.