Rebecca Hein's Blog (36)

George Fox was plain-spoken and direct. He didn’t hesitate to use words like “wicked” and “evil.” In addition, he was a gadfly, pointing out to the magistrates that they told him to place his hand on the Bible and swear, when the Bible says “swear not at all.” (For a complete account of one of these episodes, see Fox Works, Vol. 2, p. 48)

Fox spent most of his life speaking truths that made others acutely uncomfortable. We read and…

In 1992, eight years after Mom died, my husband and I moved to Casper, Wyoming, where I’d grown up and where my widowed father still lived. By 1995, we had two children, and I often thought about how much Mom would have enjoyed her grandchildren.

But our move to Casper turned out to be lethal to my relationship with my father. If we’d lived elsewhere, possibly I wouldn't have noticed as much as I did. At 72, he still got his fun from…

Imagine bypassing an episode of excruciating emotional pain; not through your own efforts but by the foresight and wisdom of God. Ever since this occurred in my life, I’ve paused before every petitionary prayer, remembering that I don’t want to ask for something useless or worse.

It began in my childhood with my alcoholic father and enabler mother. To those not raised in a household ruled by an inexorable drug addiction, it’s difficult to…

Part Four, Selected beliefs

If there ever was a Bible-believing couple, it was Ernest and his wife. During the year I attended church with them, I observed how heavily they relied on the Bible, and how often they quoted favorite passages.

As I read the Bible myself, and also became attracted to the early Friends, Ernest and his wife’s constant Scripture quoting bothered me. But I couldn't put my finger…

Part Three, Stuck in sin

Ernest couldn't control his behavior. He became angry with his family, especially his 2-year-old son, and suffered regular bouts of regret and shame.

At church he came forward at almost every altar call I witnessed, wanting prayer for his most recent lapses. It was clearly an unbreakable cycle and, many years later I saw the tragedy of one of the basic doctrines of almost all…

Part Two, A revealing conversation

As part of settling into my new job, I had a few conversations with my supervisor about his faith and mine. Recently I’d been reading the Bible and was also attracted to the early Friends and their experience of hearing Jesus’ voice inwardly. In one of our discussions, I mentioned that I felt this was important.

“But you’ve got to watch that,” Ernest said. “Because what…

Part One, Attempting to save themselves

During one year of my life, as a young adult I attended church. I often went with my supervisor and his family to the Sunday morning service at the most Fundamentalist church in town. They also attended the Sunday evening service, the Wednesday evening service, and all the Bible studies. In addition, they held a family prayer service before breakfast, lunch, and supper.…

Years ago, I was steadily moving toward the Truth while still struggling to include other Christians in my world. I didn’t want to dismiss believers who didn’t agree with the early Quakers, so I kept attending church.

One Saturday evening, I participated in a singles group at a Charismatic church. There were about 15 of us. After we played volleyball and some board games, the youth pastor led us into an adjoining room, where we all sat…

One of the most absurd doctrines I’ve ever encountered is “positional sanctification.” A friend, supposedly a Christian, described it to me: We live in this world, as in a deep, narrow channel, with our sins. God looks down from above and does not see our sins but only the righteousness he has given us through Jesus.

This piece of fiction is blasphemous: God sees everything, and it’s beyond absurdity to contend that he doesn’t. When I heard…

Toward the end of my churchgoing days, while visiting friends I went to a worship service at their church. An enthusiastic pastor conducted the service, and I soon realized I was the only new person there.

This was easy to notice because she appeared to be directing everything she said to me. While speaking, she held my gaze and, when it was time for the altar call, she launched an all-out effort to get me to come…

An orchestra is just as likely as any other workplace to harbor gossips. In a conversation with Kathy, one of my casual friends, I mentioned that “I don’t set foot in any church unless God sends me there.”

I knew that Kathy’s good friend, Beryl, was an extremely churchy Baptist, and that Kathy would report what I’d said. That this had occurred became clear at the next rehearsal.

During our 15-minute…

In the days when I was attending a Fundamentalist church, I found that I couldn’t stand the pastor’s and members’ rigid convictions that only a person who believed certain specified doctrines could go to Heaven. In particular, I couldn’t stand this in reference to my mother.

She was an atheist ethnic Jew. When I became a Christian, this was hard for her, but she did let me tell her what God was doing for me.…

In the early 1980s, during the years I was reading the Bible, Fundamentalist Anita Bryant was shrilling against homosexuality all over the (radio) airwaves.

I noticed this because the Bible testifies that God requires righteousness across the board. Why, therefore, would any Protestant elevate one sin above another?

For decades this baffled me. Finally, after I’d noticed many other things about the…

Before I became a Christian, I met Janet at the office where we both worked. I was between my bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

Janet and I became friends and, since she lived close to the office, we frequently walked to her apartment for lunch. During that year, I’d been reading the Bible, and was encountering many passages I couldn't understand.

Exod. 4:21 begins the story of how God delivered the…

Gretchen was a college friend. All went well with our relationship until after that Meeting for Worship in the Name of Jesus. We’d both been Christians prior to that Meeting, and were accustomed to tell each other about our spiritual lives.

After that pivotal Meeting, I next stayed with my father at our family cabin in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Prior to this visit, I’d experienced unmistakable signs that my relationship with him was…

Introduction

In 1985, when I was 31 years old, I attended my first Quaker Meeting for Worship in the Name of Jesus. I’d been going to Quaker meetings for the past three years, but these were liberal meetings in which nobody agreed on who their teacher was.

In the Meeting for Worship in the Name of Jesus, I received a massive visitation of God’s love and power, and knew I was in the presence of Christ.…

The voice of Christ frees us from bondage to rules. Focusing on the immediate, direct teaching of our Shepherd simplifies our task, because all we need to do is wait for guidance. With God’s voice comes the power to obey, something a focus on rules, even the right rules, can never provide.

However, reading Scripture, especially the New Testament, can tempt us into focusing on Jesus’s precepts for living. This in turn siphons our…

We all need a refuge from stress and severe distraction; a retreat where we can withdraw for a time from life’s problems, so that when we return, they feel more manageable. This is God’s intent for the Sabbath.

Rest, in the Old Covenant, meant a special day when people were supposed to pause in their outward work. But how do we pause in our duel with the stresses of daily life?

The visitation of God, directly to the soul, in the person of Jesus Christ, is our…

The early Quaker experience shows that unity is possible among those who are listening to Christ. George Fox, founder of the Quaker movement in seventeenth century England, saw that God speaks to all with one voice, and therefore does not contradict himself.

When differing points of view on important matters emerged in a Quaker meeting, all present waited for God to show them who was right. Sometimes the task fell to one person to turn the whole group in the right direction,…

Almost all Christians incorporate the reciting of the Lord’s Prayer into their worship services. After all, Jesus said, “This is how you should pray,” before speaking the words every believer knows so well. (Matt. 6: 9-13 NIV)

However, the preceding passage in Matthew illustrates the reason the Lord’s Prayer is necessary: “[W]hen you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.” (Matt. 6:7) This admonition goes to…