Long Live the Dunkers

"When we were first drawn together as a society, it had pleased God to enlighten our minds so far as to see that some doctrines, which were once esteemed truths, were errors, and that others, which we had esteemed errors, were real truths. From time to time, He has been pleased to afford us farther light, and our principles have been improving, and our errors diminishing. Now, we are not sure that we are arrived at the end of this progression, and at the perfection of spiritual or theological knowledge; and we fear that, if we should feel ourselves as if bound and confined by it, and perhaps be unwilling to receive further improvement, and our successors still more so, as conceiving what we their elders and founders had done to be something sacred, never to be departed from."

This quote, from a man named Michael Welfare, appears in Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, as he describes a discussion he had with Welfare, his good friend. Welfare, a founder of a religious sect called the Dunkers, complained that adherents of more mainstream religious groups were badmouthing the Dunkers, accusing them of outrageous beliefs that they did not actually hold. Franklin advised Welfare that if his group were to document their beliefs in writing, detractors could be more easily disproved. Welfare, however, responded with the above statement, arguing that they would not reify their beliefs by putting them on paper and thus making group members less likely to accept God's subsequent revelation. (The Dunkers were obviously quite attuned to their own potential for cognitive dissonance!) Neil Postman, in whose work, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, I read of Franklin and Welfare's conversation, summarizes Welfare's point like this: "Thou shalt not write down thy principles, lest thou be entrapped by them for all time" (p.31).

I wrote in the margin, "Therein lies the primary problem with bibliolatry." Bibliolatry--idolizing or worshipping the Bible--is a sin to which most Christians would deny their propensity, yet it seems to run rampant in Protestantism today, as many consider the Bible, and not the still-active voice of God, to be the most reliable source of divine revelation. Obviously, there is a Catch-22 at work here, as Christianity may have quickly died out (as did the Dunkers; thus an air of wistfulness should be read into my title) and we wouldn't be having this conversation at all, had there been no Bible to carry the stories of Jesus and Ancient Israel across the centuries. Nonetheless, how much more might we all experience God, how much more might our knowledge of God be "improved" by "farther light," as Welfare says, if we were open to God's ongoing revelation?

The United Church of Christ has embraced this idea in their recent PR campaign, "God is still speaking," symbolized by a giant comma on their billboards, mailings, and TV ads, but of course, we know how much most Christians value the input of this far-left end of Protestantism. In a recent conversation I had regarding Mormonism, and why some Christians regard the LDS church as a cult, rather than a sect of Christianity, my conversation partner said that one of the primary reasons is that Mormons claim to receive new revelations from God beyond what is written in the Bible. While part of the protest may be the content of some of these revelations, I suspect a large part is simply the recent date and nearby location of these revelations. Yes, God spoke thousands of years ago, over in the middle east, but not in the 19th and 20th centuries, and not in New York state! Such proximity seems strange to us, and we tend to doubt its authenticity, just as we doubt murderers who say God told them to do it, and homeless people who ask us to help finance their mission from God.

My senior seminar in college was on Hinduism and Buddhism--definitely not my area of primary interest--and each member of the class was assigned a faith community in the Greenville area to study, interview, and interact with. Mine was the Sathya Sai Baba group, a sect of Hinduism whose primary avatar, or incarnation of God, was a man named Sathya Sai Baba, whom they affectionately call "Swami." Swami was known for performing miracles, healing the sick, blessing the unfortunate, and having his photograph taken. Yes, Swami is a modern day figure, born in 1926, and still alive today. I admit, it was very odd to see photos on altars of this cheery, round-faced man in his orange tunic and foot-wide afro, and know that people believe him to be divine. It did, however, give me a new perspective on how first century Jews must have viewed Jesus. Here's this shabby, impious man, claiming to speak for God and show even the most devout Jews how to better relate to God? How dare people call him the Son of God?! That's crazy! Sure, God spoke to Abraham and Moses...but God doesn't reveal himself anymore! Not here! Not now!

Why are we so averse to the idea that God could be still speaking to us today? The Bible has made us equate divine revelation with booming voices from Heaven, burning bushes, earthquakes, thunder, lightening. What about that still, small voice? Doesn't that count? Doesn't the overwhelming feeling I had that my grandfather--who seemed in perfect health at the moment--would not live until my next trip home, and that I should hug him a bit tighter, count as a divine nudge? Why do we stifle God with the ball-gag of our own fear and arrogance, when we could all stand to know him more? The Dunkers had it right. Let's not bind ourselves so furiously to what we think we know, and be open to knowing more.

"How will they know unless we tell them?" the missionaries say.

And how will we know, unless God tells us?