SPICE

There's been a lot of buzz lately on the Quaker blogosphere about what some people view as the inadequacy of the modern Quaker testimonies of Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community and Equality.  Some people feel that these are watered down versions of what they came from - that Simplicity and Plainness are not the same, that Peace is a wishy-washy form of No Outward Wars and Integrity is a pale version of Truth, Equality too warm and fuzzy for our abolitionist roots.  I see their points, I guess, but I don't see the testimonies as warm and fuzzy or wishy-washy and I don't see the modern wording of them as revisionist.  Certainly people can be very wishy-washy about anything if they want to be, but that was true when we used older words as well.  These five testimonies are enough, to me, to encompass all that they meant in the days of George Fox as well as our expanded understanding of their importance in modern issues of which George and Margaret probably never dreamed.  When I speak of Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community and Equality, and when I listen to the Spirit speaking of them to me, they are not wishy-washy or warm and fuzzy.  They are more terrifying and incriminating, really, because I know how far short I fall of their demands.  I'll be working on the SPICE thing all my life.  I don't expect to have time to do much else.