This time, Quaker academic Christy Randazzo joins us as a guest. They’ve studied all sorts of aspects of Quakerism, and this time we’re dealing with Quaker hybrids. Especially in the liberal Quaker world, you’ll find all sorts of Quaker hybrids. Some have cute names, like Quaker Pagans calling themselves “Quagans” and Quaker Catholics being “Quatholics.”
We talk about various Quaker hybrids we’ve heard of. Mostly Christy talks. They talk about how Quakerism is really flexible, and people can easily bring in bits of whatever their previous tradition was. Three particular Catholic practices that show up are mentioned. Except, well, one of those Catholic practices is actually Buddhist. And we hear about Ham Seok-heon, a Korean Quaker who found the overlaps in Quakerism, Buddhism, and other ideas brought by Japanese colonists in Japan. From this, he created a Korean version of Quakerism.
We also ponder (a little) what practices or beliefs in other religions could be incompatible with liberal Quakerism.
References
* Face to Face by T Vail Palmer Jr
* Lectio Divina
* Ignatian Contemplation (or “imaginative prayer”)
* Ham Seok-heon
Transcript
Speaker 2: Welcome to Quaker Faith and Podcast, where we will explore traditional Quaker beliefs and a variety of Quaker beliefs found today.
Mackenzie: Welcome back to Quaker Faith and Podcast. This time it’s me, Mackenzie, and I’ve got a guest, Christy Randazzo. Christy is someone who I met through Micah and friends with Jesus. They were in Philadelphia, and it turns out that they are also a nerd about Quaker stuff.
Christy: Well, I guess you could say nerd. That seems to be putting it a bit boldly. I’m an academic, I guess, by training. I was a youth minister for a long time in the Episcopal church, and then I got the Quaker bug and was convinced. By that point I decided I wanted to get involved in studying theology more seriously, I guess.
Christy: I got a master’s in Theology, then I got a masters in Reconciliation and Peace Theology. And then I just finished up my doctorate from the University of Birmingham in Quaker Theology and wrote my dissertation and have published in, I don’t know, anything that anybody wants me to publish in I’ve been like, sure, why not? I’ll write on that topic. There just aren’t that many academically trained Quaker Theologians out there. We are the few the proud and you know, the active, shall we speak, because someone’s got to write this stuff. So. Yeah.
Mackenzie: And I still haven’t actually gotten a chance to read your whole thesis, although you did let me see one chapter. Well, edit one chapter. So we talked about this time we wanted to chat about hybrid Quaker stuff, or hyphenated Quakers, although I think we were also giggling about the creative names that exist instead of using hyphens like Quackens.
Christy: Yes. Quaker pagans. There’s also Quathiests, for Quaker atheists or non theists. Let’s see, I’ve heard, Quatholics, for Quaker Catholics, Quanglicans for Quaker Anglicans, there are a great number of those of which I guess I would kind of suit one of them. At that point you sort of reach the level of the ridiculous. There isn’t really one for Quaker Jewish because Quwish doesn’t really sound good. Quaker Buddhist, Quaddhist doesn’t really work so it sort of falls apart after a while.
Mackenzie: So,
