Transition as Normative: British Quakerism as Liquid Religion

Abstract

This article presents a consideration of the ways in which current Quaker belief and practice exemplify the condition identified by Zygmunt Bauman as liquid modernity. After a brief overview of Bauman’s thesis, we describe recent patterns of believing within British Quakerism within its socio-cultural context. While belief has been cast as marginal by scholars of this group, with the creation of habitus centred on behavioural codes or values narratives among participants, the way of believing within British Quakerism has rather unusual significance. An ortho-credence of ‘perhapsness’ maintains an approach to believing that is forever ‘towards’, with any truth considered to be solely personal, partial or provisional. From a rationalist liberal faith position, British Quakers have become cautious about theological truth claims that appear final or complete. They accept the principle of continuing revelation, a progressivist theology in which transition becomes sociologically normative. While wider Christianity may be in transition, British Quakers see perpetual modulation (liquifaction) of belief and practice as both logical and faithful.

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Peter Collins

Dr. Peter J. Collins is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Durham University, UK. His research interests include religion, historical anthropology, space and place, and narrative theory. He has carried out fieldwork among British and Kenyan Quakers, local government employees in the North of England, and Chaplaincies in acute hospitals of the British National Health Service. He has published widely on topics related to Quakerism, for example, The Quaker Condition (co-edited with Pink Dandelion). Pink Dandelion is Professor of Quaker Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. He directs the work of the Centre for Postgraduate Quaker Studies at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre and at the University of Birmingham. He edits Quaker Studies and the Edwin Mellen series in Quaker Studies. He has published widely on Quakerism, including The Quakers: A Very Short Introduction in 2008 (Oxford UP) and, with Jackie Leach Scully, Good and Evil: Quaker Perspectives in 2007 (Ashgate). CORRESPONDENCE: Dr. Peter Collins, Department of Anthropology, Durham University, Dawson Building, Science Site, Durham DH1 3LE, UK.