Simon Jenkins is correct to draw attention to the difficulty of understanding God and as evidenced in the Quakers thinking of dropping God from their “guidance to meetings” (The Quakers are right. We don’t need God, 4 May).
God, as a concept, is meaningless and as such cannot be constrained or defined within the limits of human discourse or understanding. Perhaps Wittgenstein was correct when he opined: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” Such would reflect the Quaker approach. However, the experience of the divine, that which is transcendent, can be real, and the evidence of increased attendance at cathedrals is indicative of uplifting liturgy, art and architecture which points to something beyond ourselves, even if beyond definition.
Unfortunately, Jenkins commits a not unfamiliar category error when he confuses selling with marketing. Selling is the art of persuading customers to purchase an existing product. Marketing is seeking to establish consumer wants and needs and then providing the appropriate product. Perhaps if the church were better at marketing rather than obsessed with selling, the idea of God might be more relevant to contemporary issues and concerns.
David Jennings
Canon theologian, Leicester cathedral
• Like Simon Jenkins, we too wait in anticipation to see what decision will be made by the Quaker yearly meeting this weekend, about whether to revise the Quaker book of faith and practice. For many younger Quakers, though, a potential rewrite is about more than just language, so much as a process through which we could become as inclusive as it is possible for a faith group to be. Quaker advice is to “respect that of God in everyone though it may be expressed in unfamiliar ways”. Through this weekend and the years that follow, that is what we are committed to do.
Jessica Hubbard-Bailey The Young Quaker Podcast, Gabriel Cabrera Young Friends General Meeting
• Jenkins says “the Quakers are right. We don’t need God”. It depends what you mean by God. I don’t need old-time religion, but I certainly need something to cure my soul. It would be interesting to hear what substitutes people can come up with to replace the G-word in George Fox’s most famous (and frequently misunderstood) aphorism, “that of God in everyone”.
Fr Alec Mitchell
Manchester
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