I’ve been studying Margaret Fell’s Women’s Speaking Justified with other Seattle Friends in Bible study in recent months. In it, Margaret takes on the New Testament texts that appear to say that women shouldn’t preach or be in leadership positions in the church, esp. 1 Corinthians 14:35 which says “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says,” and 1 Timothy 2:11-12: “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.” Margaret’s main idea is that a closer look at those texts reveals that the writer is clearly addressing only those women who live “under the Law”, under the Old Covenant with God. Women who have entered into the New Covenant with God, says Margaret, are not bound by those old rules but are free to prophesy and teach.
Let’s spend a moment reviewing the covenant idea. The Hebrew Scriptures describe a series of covenants between God and representatives of humanity: Adam, Abraham, Moses etc. In these covenants, God promises good life and abundance in return for human commitment and worship. There are a number of laws governing human behavior (e.g ”Don’t eat fruit from that tree”, the Ten Commandments) and the covenants are typically sealed with a blood sacrifice (e.g. Isaac, “Pass Over” before fleeing Egypt in Exodus). Humans break every single covenant and suffer because of their disobedience (e.g. Adam and Eve are banished from Eden, God floods the earth and only Noah and his closest family and some animals survive). God forgives and starts anew with a new person and a new covenant. Repeat cycle until the birth of Jesus.
With the life and death of Jesus, the early Quakers believed that something entirely new happened. The New Covenant is sealed with the blood of Jesus, and this covers all sins in perpetuity and abolishes forever the need for any more blood sacrifices. All the old laws are done away with, such as pork being prohibited and women and men having different roles. With the New Covenant, Jesus restores humanity to the state that we were in before Adam and Eve fell. Christ ushers in “the last days” in which God says (Acts 2:17-18): “I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.”
The idea of the New Covenant is central to the early Quakers’ theology. The New Covenant is the justification they used to adopt the radical ideas of approaching God without intermediary, sacraments, and creeds. The New Covenant is the premise for all humans being of equal worth, it releases humans from swearing oaths, guarantees God’s forgiveness, etc. The established church was outraged at the religious liberties those early Quakers (and many other religious groups at the time) took.
Mainline Christians are still quite focused on the covenant idea, though they may have different theologies and practices regarding how a Christian enters into the covenant. Most Christians believe the covenant is established at baptism (some reaffirm or claim it more fully at confirmation). Communion, for most Christians, is a time when they symbolically re-enter the new covenant, repeating the words in Luke 22, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”
And now a multitude of questions break forth:
If we don’t practice outward communion or say those covenant-establishing words, how do we think covenant is established? By conviction/convincement? With what do we as modern-day Quakers seal the covenant, if not with water and/or wine?
Can we claim to have entered into a covenant if we’ve never thought much about the concept? Can we claim the freedoms of the new covenant if we don’t enter it in some outward or inward fashion?
Why do some modern Friends attach the New Covenant to belief in Jesus - the idea of the New Covenant is introduced in the Hebrew Scriptures (e.g. Jeremiah 31:31) and is done without attaching it to the Messiah. Many Jews believe that they have already entered into the new Covenant.
If Quakers believe we have entered into the New Covenant with its freedoms, what do we believe about people who haven’t entered the New Covenant – are their behaviors bound by the Old Covenant laws, so that women should be silent in church?
And if, as I imagine some might be inclined to do, one wants to ditch the New Covenant idea, how would you construct a Quaker theological foundation for equality, unmediated revelation, etc?
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December 12, 2010 at 8:08 pm
forrest curo
What I believe you need for a covenant with God… is God’s willingness and your capacity for faith. While a sacrifice was customary for sealing a divine/human deal in ancient times… The need for it was to invoke/strengthen that capacity for faith: If you’ve given up something you value for God (or a god, for that matter) you have affirmed your belief in the existence/power/goodwill of that being in the most concrete way possible. (Action in accord with a belief tends to strengthen that belief.)
But really, negotiating a deal with God– while it can, as in Abraham’s dickering over Sodom, express a beautiful intimacy & trust– is on another level a sign of distrust. We are God’s kin; why should we need to draw up a contract? What we truly need is to know God well enough to trust (Jesus’ description in the Sermon on the Mount may serve as an introduction– but really, when one comes to realize that God is present, it is evident that God has always been with us, leading us to this point, because God does send everyone the sun and rain (and love) they require) and to trust God to help bring us closer.
As early Friends found, a whole lot of concern over external requirements can fall away– when you can directly know God, to ask “What should I do about ___?”
December 13, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Susanne Kromberg
Forrest,
I agree with much of what you say, especially about giving up something of value as part of the covenant. Perhaps it needn’t be blood, but some other form of sacrifice? I often think that part of what sealed my relationship with my children is the unpleasant things I had to do for them. My relationship with my children is helped by the coos, giggles and hugs, but I think is truly sealed by the things that were hard to do: e.g the 3 am diaper changes when I was desperate for sleep. My love is deeper and more solid and unconditional because of the sacrifices I made.
What sacrifices do I make to seal my relationship with God? And how do we as Friends assist one another in drawing deeper into covenant with God?
December 12, 2010 at 10:13 pm
David Hoffman
Dear Suzanne,
Thank you for this provocative and provound set of questions.
I have difficulty fitting my understanding of Quaker history and spirituality with New Covenant doctrine as I understood your presentation on them. It would be very helpful to know whether and how you share or disagree with my convictions and views.
I am not deeply read in early Quaker sources, and I don’t know what they said regarding covenants. Can you point me to some passages in founding Quakers’ writings, about covenants?
Do you mean that founding Quakers saw their new movement as a new covenant? Or do you mean that Jesus declared a new covenant, which founding Quakers believed they embraced in a manner more valid or authentic than other Christians had?
I consider myself a universalist, inclusive, Evangelical Christian. I worship with unprogrammed Quakers. I don’t understand the teaching that the blood sacrifice of Jesus atoned for human sins to have been a key founding Quaker teaching. That doctrine was araguably declared by Paul and other early Christians. It was given more and more centrality by later, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and founding Protestant theologians. Much evidence suggests this was a process of narrowing and modifying Jesus’ more universal and inclusive message, by church leaders who believed ideological conformity was inispensable to salvation.
One very objectionable aspect of New Covenant doctrine, to me, is that it excludes those from communion with God – and damns them — for not embracing an over-labored and dogmatic statement of belief.
Another is that it implies that Jews are not in true communion with God, unless they become Christian. I believe that a significant portion of Jewry shared many of the insights and values which Jesus taught, before during and after Jesus’s ministry, as their understanding of ultimate spiritual truth. Jews who, before or during Jesus’ time, did not share those infnitely compassionate insights and values, they don’t strike me as any more or less mistaken than the institutional Christian church leaders who came up with — and forcibly imposed — the ‘mainstream’ Pauline Christian theology which has come down to us as supposedly the only correct and saving interpretation of the teaching of Jesus and of the ancient Hebrew prophets.
Some of your questions seem to recognize that problem. At the same time your statement reprising New Covenant theology seems to embrace dominant Christian-church ‘New Covenant’ doctrine and theology, and attribute that docrine and theology to the founding and early Quakers.
I don’t see that version of New Covenant doctrine in Jesus’ own words. Instead something more universal, premised on compassion and a loving and grateful decision to serve God’s will.
How does this view coincide with, and/or differ from, yours?
David
December 13, 2010 at 10:04 pm
Susanne Kromberg
David,
You ask a lot of good questions, and I’ll try to answer at least some of them. You ask about my views and opinions and I can’t really tell you what my own views are: I am very perplexed by this issue. On the one hand, I am offended by the idea of different rules for people depending on their beliefs. At the same time, the New Covenant is so strongly a part of Quaker theology that I can’t very well continue to bypass it, though I have wanted to since I first encountered the concept at the Earlham School of Religion almost 20 years ago.
Where can you read more primary texts on the issue? I confess immediately to being more into applied theology than scholarly studies.
My interest is more in asking “what does this mean for me and the way I live my life?” I have never been a great reader of primary texts, and have always struggled to remember where exactly I read something. This is further complicated by the fact that Covenantal theology is so ingrained both in Biblical theology and early Quaker theology that it’s just a given. I can’t remember that much time was given to citing the evidence.
I can point you in the right direction if you want to go looking yourself, though I don’t have page numbers for you: George Fox’s Journal contains a lot of New Covenant theology in reports about his preaching. Margaret Fell’s Women’s Speaking Justified lays it out implicitly, but not explicitly. I’m pretty sure Barclay’s Apology addresses it. As a secondary text, Douglas Gwyn’s Apocalypse of the Word addresses it directly (p 104 onwards) but he doesn’t cite texts and passages. John Punshon talked about the new covenant repeatedly in his lectures, so I’m assuming his book, “Portrait in Grey”, goes into it in more detail.
Jesus does refer to his blood as the new covenant in Luke 22, but you’re right in saying that it’s not a major topic for him. It is a major topic for everyone who writes about him, though, esp in Hebrews, so it’s still worth paying attention to. You’re right, Quakers were never into blood and atonement very much, prefering instead to look at what was accomplished and what it means for how we live our lives in faithfulness to God.
Any scholars out there who have better primary texts to suggest to David?
August 5, 2011 at 4:21 am
mkivel
I come a bit late to this discussion, but I hope this offers some light or at least some new openings on biblical covenants and the Quaker Way in our own time.
First, there is the relational communing of God and individual which is at the heart of faith (in my universalist world-view, most faiths) and which is not limited or defined by “theology” – theology is the human attempt to capture and label what is ineffable. This communing via relationship is what the gathered meeting and the individual prayer behind the closed door are both about. And they are not, nor need be, exclusive to Friends – ask any Muslim, Jew, Buddhist….
Second, folks forget that the religion of the Old Testament is the religion of a people living in a land (or in exile from that land) where faith is also tied up with daily individual AND national existence. The covenant of the Old Testament is more “national” than individual. And it is a covenant of mutually obligatory doing, not believing or confessing.
I note Jesus gives over Torah saying it is not those who cry out Lord! Lord! he will recognize but those who do the will of his Father as well as his specification of the two great commandments of Torah – not believing or confessing but doing – are the seal of true faithfulness.
And what we hear in the final verses of the second chapter of Hosea, “I will betroth you to Me forever/I will betroth you to me in righteousness, justice, lovingkindness, and compassion/mercy/I betroth you to Me in the fullness of faith, and you will know Me (Adonai)” (my own translation) – note it is not in believing but in the continuous imperfect doing of living God is encountered, is known….perhaps this speaks to a continuing growing covenant?
Third, most Christians ignore the Apocrypha in examining Scripture for a covenantal basis for their faith which, in my opinion, is a huge mistake. The shift from a national to an individual orientation in faith didn’t happen overnight in Israel with the arrival of Jesus: reading the Apocrypha will help set the stage for understanding the context of Jesus times and teachings and help set the stage for Pauline theology and a theology of new covenant.
Fourth, I note that baptism in water was eschewed (nice word, eh? smile) by the early Quakers as a Jewish ceremony believing it was related to the mikveh. And I can appreciate why they might also put aside a communion with bread and wine again for its potential association with the Jewish seder meal. Considering that Jews were clearly non-Christian and had/have rejected Christ as Lord and Savior it would be reasonable to set aside ritual distinctives that conflate the two faiths. What is less clear is why they did not adopt the clearly Jesus-initiated ritual (See the Gospel of John) of bathing the feet of one’s neighbors as a ritual of welcome and fellowship.
Do today’s Quakers need a covenantal theology? I suppose it does keep more than a few faculty at Earlham in jobs and publishers in business, not to mention provide fodder for some ripping good chats and blogs. For myself, I think that individual relationship with God is primary and the rest is great conversational fodder and not much beyond that…thoughts?
December 14, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Susanne Kromberg
You ask, “Do you mean that founding Quakers saw their new movement as a new covenant? Or do you mean that Jesus declared a new covenant, which founding Quakers believed they embraced in a manner more valid or authentic than other Christians had?”
No, the early Quakers didn’t see their movement as a new covenant, nor did Jesus declare a new covenant . Instead, Jesus IS the new covenant. Early Quakers believed that Jesus (his life, death and resurrection) does away with the need for the previous kinds of covenants that require written laws governing human behavior and need to be sealed in blood.
December 19, 2010 at 2:59 pm
Susanne Kromberg
http://www.esr.earlham.edu/dqc/
This is the site for anyone with an interest in early Quaker writings. It has a search function, so you can look for the use of a particular word.
December 13, 2010 at 10:09 pm
Tom Smith
Trying to be very brief and concise so I will not explain much of what I say. The explanation would be quite extensive.
The “Covenant” of Friends seems to be a “blood” sacrifice. That is where blood signifies life. It is in believing in the power and presence of a “new” life tat can be experienced through the power and presence of the Spirit/Love/Presence of “Christ” that has “come to teach his people himself.” My understanding of “teach” is a personal direct interaction. My understanding of “Christ” is the Spirit/Love/Presence that is “that of God” which is accessible to everyone regardless of the name used. MY own personal belie is that the words attributed to Jesus in the New Testament come the closest to “speaking to my condition” and therefore I identify as a “Christian,” but anyone who “hears” and obeys the commandments of Love can and does enter the covenant of Life.
December 16, 2010 at 10:47 am
broschultz
Galatians 3:28 supports Margaret Fells position. Furthermore Hebrews 8:8 through 9 discusses the new covenant. It’s interesting that Paul equates the “covenant” to a Will because a Will doesn’t require anything of the beneficiaries except to receive the bequest. They can reject it by taking affirmative action but otherwise they just have to sit back and accept it. Paul makes the point that the Will becomes effective upon the death of the testator. I believe praying and meditating through the scriptures in point will allow the Holy Spirit to open them and find the truth in them each of us needs. anything more is just an opinion.
December 19, 2010 at 8:47 am
Liz Opp
It’s posts like these that make me interested in and give me access to Scripture, so thanks for taking the time to write it.
As to the question of “What do we sacrifice, as Friends today, to seal the Covenant with God,” what rises for me is that we sacrifice our own will, our ego, our pride. We must become low and meek if we are to be faithful servants of the Spirit. In this way, I unite with what Tom says, and with what you refer to, about giving over our life to God, to endure the struggle, to show up for all sorts of “dirty diaper duty.”
Blessings,
Liz Opp, The Good Raised Up
January 14, 2011 at 7:31 am
Rod Pharris
I concur whole-heartedly about the “New Covenant” being central to Friends. To me, what is critical (to Fox et al) about the New Covenant is the “New” part of it. It is not according to the old covenant, which was a covenant of types, figures and shadows, but it is radically new. It is a covenant of substance (The Bread of Life). When I look upon Penrose’s “Presence in the Midst”, I see a group of people faithfully gathered to draw upon that Presence, that Bread, and exercising that covenant.