Pages tagged "Quaker education"

Dear Friends: Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to refine and summarize some of my thinking as it pertains to the concepts of convergent Friends, remix, and renewing faith traditions. I worked to distill down some of the ideas that I think are most important, and I have put them together in an eBook to share with Friends. This book is complete with lots of pictures and illustrations that add to the reading experience. I wanted to share this book with all of you, to make it as accessible as possible, so it is free to download as an eBook or PDF.

My smartphone bristles with news every day. I mostly ignore it, knowing the news items trend toward the sensational and quirky, not balanced reporting. But recently, the words “Toxic Positivity” appeared as a headline, and that got me to thinking.

The attitude of the Society of Friends towards education has been determined by their belief in the Inner Light. Holding as they do that there is something of the divine in every [person], they have regarded education (in the broadest sense) as the developing of the Divine Seed, or the fanning into a flame of that Divine Spark . . . To Friends, therefore, education is an intensely religious thing; it means the training and development of the spiritual life, the liberating of the Divine that is within us.

Religious education, it seems to me, is on the wrong track if it assumes that religion is something that must be drilled into people. It is on the right track if it recognizes that the source of religion is within us as a native endowment, and that the function of education is to call this endowment forth, supply it with the nourishment it needs in order to grow, and guide it in ways that promote maturing.