Odd how two far-left publications are pushing a (frankly completely stupid and redundant) argument calling the 7 day week tyrannical and then pushing a system that is actually tyrannical. Imagine each year having the exact same days/dates. Every 14th would be a Thursday every year for eternity. This is the need to control every aspect of peoples lives. Well and of course the destruction of the Christian week per the Bible.
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Before I say Quakers sound based, can you give me an example of a "subdued" (term from article) holiday celebration? For instance, what would a birthday or Father's Day look like?
It sounds similar to my personal stance, but I don't have the backing of community or religion. I mostly think forcing responsibilities of festivities into interpersonal relationships is in bad taste, and that adults should have the strength to choose when they'd like to engage celebrations. To put another way, focusing on a holiday to express something (often gratitude) creates the implication that you should hold back from expressing that outside of the holiday. Maybe I just feel like doing something for someone - saying it's because the calendar told me to cheapens whatever I did.
Don't, cuz the majority of the Yearlys are really, really pro-BLM. Paradoxically, the "conservative" Quakers are the most radically progressive because of what "conservative" means in the context of the Friends. The Conservative Friends rejected the shift to evangelicalism (like having pastors and programmed worship) but because of it they're the MOST culturally progressive.
Yearly: Every Friends church participates in a larger "yearly" meeting. The specific yearly they participates in denoting their specific branch of the faith. In the US there are a couple dozen yearlys, roughly grouped into four basic camps. These are the Conservatives, the Evangelical Friends, the Friends United Meeting, and the Friends General Conference. I for example grew up with the Iowa Yearly (Conservative) but right now I don't attend meetings because Iowa Yearly is... pretty leftist and I don't have any other meeting options.
Yes, precisely.
Now, you'd be hard pressed to find quakers who are SO uptight about fun that they don't do kids birthdays. But, like, worthy events to gather for would be accomplishments: graduations and weddings for example. Also Easter. Easter and the concept of the resurrection is waaaaay more important than Christmas, because part of our thing is that god is among everyone.
Can you say more about this part? I thought the quakers had some amount of cultural isolation, but it sounds like you're saying that the lack of having the opportunity (or responsibility, perhaps) to touch base with their foundations is causing them to stray. Are you saying it's due to exposure from the broader culture which has a lot of bullshit in it? Or that they're naturally inclined towards such behavior even without outside interference?
Basically this.
The Quakers were the OG cultural progressives. The American Civil War was largely instigated by rabble rousers from the London Yearly Meeting that travelled America inciting abolitionists. The Civil War was a Quaker holy war, if such a thing could exist. It annihilated us; many enlisted (during the early "the union generals suck" phase; and worse, most of them fought under Grant). Those who didn't die were largely converted by the much more militant Methodist and Lutheran preachers that joined the Union army as Chaplains.
The Friends are by far the most pacifistic, egalitarian, idealistic, and utopianist branch of Christianity. We were egalitarian about race and gender for a couple hundred years before any other branches were.
To put this in perspective, Quakers were not welcome in Unitarian, Universalist, and Puritan colonies (Pennsylvania was very Quaker, everyone else was very NOT). They were so radical, the Massachusetts Bay Colony had a law that if a Quaker was caught in Massachusetts... on the first offense they'd be kicked out. Second offence they'd be whipped to the border. Third offense, death.
King Charles II ultimately had to send them an order demanding that they stop executing Quakers for visiting Boston. You can beat 'em, just stop killing them.