What does it mean to be a radical Christian?
The early Quakers were without any doubt “Christian” in their basic orientation. They came out of the Christian tradition and saw themselves as being the “true Christians” amongst all the many church-goers of their day who “professed” to be Christian but were not practicing the religion of Jesus.
For the early Quakers, being Christian meant following Jesus and living according to his teachings and example. The early Quakers saw themselves very much like the early Christians of the first few centuries AD, before Christianity became mainstreamed by the Roman empire and lost its radical edge. Like the early Christians, Quakers were egalitarian, communal, pacifist, committed to living faithfully, honestly, fairly. They rejected and challenged everything in the society around them that did not live up to those ideals, and that of course got them into a lot of trouble with the church and political authorities of their day.
Following Jesus
For radical Christian Quakers, Christianity is about following Jesus, nothing more and nothing less. To follow Jesus is to live our lives in accordance with his teachings and how he lived his life. Radical Christian Quakers, like many other Christians, ask themselves, “What would Jesus do?” And for answers to that question, they might turn to a “red letter” edition of the Bible, which highlights the words of Jesus in red.
Today, we have more understanding of how the Bible was written and put together than did our ancestors. With the help of biblical scholars from the Jesus Seminar, we are able to discern the actual voice of Jesus in a way our ancestors could not. Radical Christian Quakers might therefore turn to the “critical red letter” edition of the Bible for a better understanding of what Jesus might have actually said, as opposed to what later generations of Christians thought he should have said.
At the end of the day, our understanding of Jesus and his message does not come from the Bible only, but from our Quaker discernment process: listening to God speaking directly to us, and triangulating that with what we hear from others as well as with what we read in the Bible (and in other religious texts).
Believing in Jesus
For many Christians, believing in Jesus means believing that certain propositions about Jesus are true, for instance that Jesus was a man but also God, that he is the Son of God, that his mother was a virgin, that he died but rose from the dead, that by his death and resurrection all Christians are saved from sin, and so on.
For radical Christian Quakers, believing in Jesus means believing in the things that Jesus stands for and in his life as an example for us all to live by. This kind of belief is not about what what we think in our heads might be true about Jesus. It is a commitment coming from our heart to love this person, to follow him, to make his example the centre of our lives and our being.