July 15, 2025 • 23 mins
In this special interim episode, co-host Peterson Toscano revisits two powerful stories that explore revival and reevaluation on both personal and communal levels.
First, we hear from Karla Jay, Global Ministries Coordinator for Friends United Meeting and part of the pastoral team at Iglesia Amigos de Indianapolis. Karla shares her eyewitness account of the 2023 Asbury University revival, a spiritual awakening that drew national attention and over 50,000 visitors.
Next, we meet Hayden Hobby, a youth worker and worship leader in Richmond, Virginia. Hayden reflects on his journey out of a fear-based evangelical theology and into a more authentic, evolving faith. He reads from his essay, Surviving Religious Trauma: How I Left an Abusive God, published in the February 2023 issue of Friends Journal.
Finally, Peterson takes listeners to Millville, Pennsylvania, where Millville Friends Meeting has taken bold steps to affirm LGBTQ+ people and all spiritual seekers. Inspired by a call from Philadelphia Quarterly Meeting, the small rural meetinghouse—situated across from the local high school and next to a hilltop cemetery—crafted explicit welcome statements and is preparing to participate in PrideAPalooza 2025.
The welcome statement for LGBTQ+ people reads:
At Millville Friends Meeting, we publicly recognize that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender non-conforming, intersex, asexual, and queer (LGBTQIA+) people have faced systemic exclusion, judgment, and harm—especially in religious communities.
In light of this history, we affirm LGBTQIA+ people as full and valuable members of our spiritual community. Your presence, leadership, and gifts are cherished. You are welcome here.
The general welcome statement reads:
Millville Friends Meeting welcomes and embraces all peace-loving spiritual seekers.
We are committed to creating a community where people of all races, ethnicities, ages, genders, gender identities and expressions, sexual, romantic, or affectional orientations, immigration or refugee statuses, marital or family structures, economic situations, educational backgrounds, and physical, mental, or neurodiverse abilities are affirmed and valued.
Each person’s spiritual journey is sacred. You are welcome here.
The Millville Meeting commissioned graphic designer, Christine Bakke, to create posters for the website, to hang inside the meetinghouse, and to post outside.
Monthly QuestionWhat’s a favorite Quaker term or phrase that’s common among Friends but might sound strange to outsiders? Leave a voicemail or text us at +1 317-QUAKERS (317-782-5377) or email podcast@quakerstoday.org. You can also post your answer on our social media sites. We’d love to hear from you!
Quakers Today is the companion podcast to Friends Journal and other Friends Publishing Corporation (FPC) content online. It is written, hosted, and produced by Peterson Toscano and Sweet Miche McCall.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Peterson Toscano (00:00):
Hello, I'm, um, Peterson Cintiscano, co host of the
Quakers Today podcast. We're in between
seasons right now, which gives us space to bring
some special content. In this
episode, we explore revival and
re evaluation. From a
national spiritual awakening in Kentucky to one
(00:20):
young man's break from an abusive faith
tradition to the bold steps a small rural
Quaker meeting is taking to welcome the
wider community. It's a journey through
curiosity, courage and renewed
commitment. Last month, my co host,
Sweetmesh, created an immersive audio
experience about the Quaker Walk to Washington.
(00:43):
A dedicated group of Friends and fellow Travelers
walked, uh, 300 miles from Flushing,
Queens all the way to Washington, D.C.
it's an excellent episode and I encourage you to listen to
it now. This was more than a long walk. It
was a journey grounded in spiritual
conviction and public witness. The
(01:04):
episode offers inspiration for anyone looking to
take meaningful action while building community.
And it brought Quakers national press attention,
too. In fact, Quakers have been
showing up in the news more and more lately.
As a result, people who are seeking a
new spiritual home are beginning to find us.
(01:25):
In the June July issue of Friends Journal, Martin
Kelly writes, the most effective
outreach tool in the last 30 years has been the
Belief what Religion are you? Quiz.
It must have told tens of thousands of seekers
they are compatible with Friends. It's a
random quiz made without academic
(01:45):
rigor, just to make a few bucks on an ad
platform. We Quakers can't match that kind of
free publicity, but we can be ready when
visitors seek us out. We can
have good websites and social media. We can
do the work to know our faith well enough to answer
questions. We can practice hospitality
and build meeting cultures that bring visitors back
(02:08):
the next week and the week after that.
Martin, uh, continues. Anecdotally, it
seems like many new visitors have been checking out Friends
in the last few years. There's a growing
curiosity about what we've found.
Let's greet these seekers, share our ways, and honor their
observations and journeys. Let's revive
(02:29):
Quakerism yet again.
In today's episode, we're remixing and revisiting
two past stories that speak to this idea
of revival and reevaluation,
both on a personal and communal level.
First, you'll hear about a, uh, spiritual revival that
(02:49):
made national headlines. It didn't
involve Quakers directly, but one friend was
so curious, she went to see it for herself. That
friend is Carla Jay, global ministries coordinator
for Friends United Meeting. She also
serves on the pastoral team at Iglesia
Amigos de Indianapolis, where her father,
(03:09):
Carlos Maran, is pastor. Carla
visited Asbury University in Kentucky. During a, uh,
multi day event that some called a miracle,
others a media circus, she shares what she
saw and heard. Next
you'll meet Hayden Hobby. Raised in a
conservative evangelical church, Hayden had to
(03:30):
walk away from the faith of his childhood. In
doing so, he also left behind an image of
God that had caused him harm. He tells
us what it was like to let go and what
he's finding instead. Finally,
I'll tell you what's happening at ah, my own small Quaker
meeting in rural central Pennsylvania.
(03:53):
Carla J. Serves as the global Ministries
coordinator for Friends United Meeting, or
fum. Her husband, Michael J. Is
the pastor of Raysville Friends Church.
Carla has been on the pastoral team at Iglesia
Amigos Day, Indianapolis, where her father,
Carlos Moran, is pastor. Like
many people, it was online that she first
(04:16):
learned about the Asbury Revival.
>> Karla Jay (04:19):
I just thought, oh, you know, these are people that
probably want attention or just want to
say that, you know, the spirit is being poor over
them.
>> Peterson Toscano (04:28):
On February 8, 2023, after
an on campus chapel service, a group of
Asbury students decided to stay in the chapel to pray
and sing for the next two weeks. Students,
community members and visitors from around the USA
attended impromptu um worship services.
During that time, classes were suspended
(04:49):
online and in the media, people called it
an outpouring of the Holy Spirit or the
Asbury Revival. According to Inside
Higher Ed, Asbury is part
of the Wesleyan Theological tradition, which
emphasizes transformational encounters with the
Holy Spirit. End quote. This
year, during the two weeks of nearly constant prayer
(05:11):
and worship, over 50,000
visitors joined the students.
Carla J. Was not interested in traveling the
three hours to the Asbury campus. But her
sister, who Carla doesn't get to see, often
proposed they meet up and visit together.
Carla shared with me what she saw and
heard, and she reflects on what revival
(05:33):
means to her.
>> Karla Jay (05:35):
It wasn't hard to find. The campus is not that big.
We found it and we saw that it would be a
while before we got in. There was maybe
2,000 people outside at the time we went
there, being already suspicious of,
uh, what was happening. I was looking
for, like, are there any other Latinos?
(05:56):
Are there other black people here? You know, people that are
different from regular white people? Or is
this just like, uh, a white people movement?
There was some other Latinos, maybe
not as many as I would have liked there to
be, but there were some other Latinos in the
crowd. The majority of the crowd was white.
(06:16):
We waited about 45 minutes
to get in, and in the meantime, an
usher came and he asked us
what did we need. And what were
we doing there? Like, did we come for anything in
particular? And we said we just came
to feel the presence and to be here.
(06:37):
He said, are there any needs that you have
that you would like me to pray for you?
And we said just that we feel the
presence. He prayed for us that we
may feel the presence and that we may be blessed.
It was just very quiet. Even though
there was music being played in the background,
(06:58):
the worship leaders weren't not really
leading people into worship. It was as
if there, uh, there was background music. People were
praying. Some people were singing to the music that
was. That was being played. Some people,
if they felt like they went up and gave
testimony, people were. Were allowed
to go in and out as, uh, as
(07:20):
they felt led. It almost felt like
in a program meeting for
worship with background music.
It wasn't organized. It was spontaneous.
We were there for about an hour and
a half, and I felt like we had only been there for
15 minutes. I didn't feel bored or anxious,
(07:41):
and I usually feel that in a lot of, like,
church meetings that I'm, um, bored. I'm anxious
that I want to leave. I've already sang
these hymns before. I probably already
heard that sermon before. Whether
the person that I'm listening to is new, but I probably
already heard the sermon in some way or another.
(08:02):
I did not feel that at Asbury. I just felt like
there was peace there and that whatever was
happening, a genuine experience for
most of the people there. Growing up
evangelical in holiness, I
did see adults making a
plea for a revival to happen,
(08:23):
but I never seen them asking for
repentance or turning around.
The church has been asking for a revival to
happen, but at the same time, I don't
see many leaders of the church
recognizing the sins that the
church has been a part of. Some of that
(08:43):
sin has to do with issues of justice.
What I saw in Asbury is
that this movement, or
it might be too soon to call it revival, but this
outpouring happened in very young people.
Um, I mean, these are college kids. They're not
older than, I don't know, 23.
(09:05):
They don't have any influence. They don't have any
positions of power. The
spontaneous worship happened among them. It
didn't happen in an older generation. That
is not recognizing the. And, you know,
like, the younger generation is being more
honest about the injustices that are happening in
this country. That might
(09:27):
have something to do with, you know, recognizing
that not everyone in this country
has the same justice and being able
to recognize that and being
able to say we are going to make a difference.
I think that in itself is the movement
of, of the Holy Spirit.
(09:48):
Uh, God is
not going to do an outpouring in
people that are not repenting and calling for
justice in this country if they're not calling against
racism, if they're not calling against
misogyny. The Holy Spirit is not
going to move in that
(10:09):
our relationship with God over also has to do with our
relationship with others around us and how we
seek justice for our brothers and sisters.
>> Peterson Toscano (10:39):
Coming up, you'll hear from Hayden Hobby about what it
took to walk away from the faith of his childhood.
And I'll share how my own Quaker meeting is taking bold
new steps to welcome LGBTQ
folks and other spiritual seekers in our rural community.
Hayden Havi is a youth worker and worship leader
in Richmond, Virginia. He's also currently
(11:02):
working toward a master's in spiritual
and social transformation. He studies
in a program taught jointly by Bethany Theological
Seminary and Earlham School of Religion.
Hayden wrote the essay Surviving
Religious How I Left an Abuse
of God. I asked him to share some of his
story and to read excerpts from the piece.
>> Hayden Hobby (11:25):
I'm, um, yeah, a lifelong follower of Jesus,
among a lot of other things. Just had a really, a really big impact
on my life. Had good and bad, bad impacts on my
life along the way, but that's definitely been a really big
part of my identity. I still
would say that I identify as a Christian, but I
like saying that I'm a follower of Jesus because it
(11:46):
puts a little bit of distance between
what I think of as the religion and then
what I think of as the lifestyle, the
action and the practices and uh, the lived out
expression of what we think of as Christianity.
I was raised in a hyper conservative evangelical
Christian tradition that believes sin deserves
(12:08):
severe and eternal punishment and that Jesus
bore that punishment, wrath and abandonment of God that
my sins deserved. I was taught that no matter how
good I thought myself to be, I deserved hell just for
existing. And had it not been for Jesus, death, that's
exactly what I would get. The resulting religious trauma that
I sustained from this backward theology as a child
(12:28):
and young adults wasn't for physical, but it
was emotional and psychological. And
like most forms of trauma, it was still the result of violence.
As a result, I spent a lot of formative
years trying to somehow hold and understand the
paradox that God loved me and wanted to
spend eternity in heaven with me, but would just as
(12:49):
quickly damn me to eternal hellfire for not believing in
Jesus. That's a big contradiction to Attempt to hold as a
13 year old. And eventually my faith broke
like a wishbone. The wishbone
really felt like a, uh, fitting metaphor
for a few reasons. One, because I think we all,
so many of us have experienced that crack that comes when
(13:10):
a wishbone is split. And in so many ways I
kind of felt that within my own self at some point,
like my faith kind of just snapped.
But then there's also this kind of sense of luck
or good fortune around wishbones as well. This kind of
like sense of things will go well
one way or not well the other way. And in many ways I
(13:30):
feel like I got lucky or you might say
blessed or fortunate in the way that my faith broke
and that I think that it eventually made my faith strong. Whereas I
saw so many people who's had similar splits
and cracks in their faith not end up as
fortunate as I did. Yeah, there was a lot of, definitely a lot
of fear and shame associated with
(13:51):
where I was in my kind of faith trajectory at that
point. The fear of breaking down something that had
been such a secure source of.
Yeah, A source of security for me for such a long time. And the shame
of. It's. It's uh, it's really hard to put your finger on
exactly what it is that causes all of the shame in that
process. But there, there is a lot going on there.
(14:11):
I think a huge part for me,
again, kind of in overcoming those things was just
in a helpful way, getting away from
some of the communities and people
that would not have allowed me to be in that space.
And it's so easy to just want to jump from one thing right
into something else, just because you
(14:31):
really know that you need to get out of whatever it is. But you
hate the idea of being nowhere. And I
think that there's an
innate truth in our desire to be
somewhere, to be with a group and to be with.
There are people who will look out for us. I think
that's something that can work in our benefit
(14:52):
generally. But I think there are times when
it is most healthy to for a time
be okay with being nowhere while you figure
out where it is that you need to be.
It's so important to be mindful of why
something was written and who it was written to and the culture and the
context around how scripture was written. But it's also
(15:12):
so beautiful that we can draw so many things out of
these stories and these parables that can have so much
meaning for us in so many different ways.
Who we perceive God to be drastically impacts
the way that we live our lives in the Parable
of the Talents In Matthew 25, a man
goes on a journey and leaves his servants with shares of his
(15:33):
property one with five talents, the second
with two, and the last with one.
The first two go and invest their talents, making more for
their master when he returns. But the other servant,
it says, went and dug in the ground and hid his
master's money. When confronted, the
servant says, master, I knew you to be
(15:53):
a hard man, reaping where you did not sow,
and gathering where you scattered no seed.
So I was afraid and I, uh, went and hid your talent in the
ground. Here you have
what is yours. So unlike the others,
this servant receives very harsh treatment from his
master, who takes away his talent and gives it to the one
(16:14):
who now has ten Jesus
concludes this parable by saying, to anyone who
has, will more be given, and he will have an
abundance. But from the one who has not,
even what he has will be taken away.
One of the main conclusions to be drawn from this parable is the
importance of capitalizing on the gifts God gives you.
(16:34):
M However, I think another, equally important conclusion may be
drawn about how our perceptions of God
impact our actions and God's perceived
reactions. The
wicked servant in this parable chooses not to invest
his master's money out of fear because he knew him to be
a hard man. When we think of
God as hard or strict, we will always
(16:57):
bury the gifts that God gives us, afraid of the anger
that losing them might prompt. However, like the
master in the parable, the God
who prompts fear will not be happy with our
response, and any hardship we endure will
inevitably be seen as a punishment for our lack of faith.
If, however, we're able to see ourselves
(17:17):
as those who have received the most, we may
begin to understand the fearless servant who invests the gift
of faith, knowing that regardless of the
outcome, it's not punishment that awaits, but a
joyful welcome of well done, my good and faithful
servant.
(17:37):
I've found a lot of hope in the past
couple of years in seeing how
much I've been able to progress from this
kind of dark place of
questioning and not really knowing what to make
of my faith or how it would impact my
life into having a really
messy but beautiful faith that's still growing and
(18:00):
still being put back together. I don't think that's
something that's really ever gonna end. I
think my whole life is gonna be this process of
fitting pieces together and growing and figuring out
what it means to be a spiritual person in a
physical and spiritual world.
>> Peterson Toscano (18:20):
That was Hayden Hobby sharing his essay
Surviving Religious How I Left an
Abuse of God. It appears in the February
2023 issue of Friends Journal. You can
also read it at friendsjournal.org.
>> Karla Jay (18:52):
Sa
uh.
>> Peterson Toscano (19:31):
M Millville, Pennsylvania. It's a quiet
town in the Susquehanna Valley, where farm stands
dot the roadsides, buggies roll past
weathered barns, and you can still get milk
and glass bottles with a deposit. Of course,
it's the kind of place where life moves a little slower
and where community means a lot.
(19:53):
Just up the hill, next to a wide, sloping
cemetery, sits Millville Friends Meeting.
Our old meeting house stands across the street from the
local high school, the Millville Quakers.
It's not a private school, it's a public school. I
don't know, they just really identify with the Quakers.
And inside our meeting house, we gather in silence
(20:14):
in a space where time feels different,
in a room that welcomes seekers, skeptics, and
spiritual wanderers alike. In
a rural town shaped by tradition, we're offering
something quietly radical. A, uh,
clear, loving welcome to all.
Something special is happening in my little Quaker meeting
(20:36):
in rural Pennsylvania. After a call from
Philadelphia Quarterly meeting encouraging us to
support LGBTQ people,
Millville Friends Meeting got to work.
We drafted and approved two
welcome one
specifically affirming lesbian, gay, bisexual,
(20:57):
transgender, queer, non binary,
and intersex folks, and another that
welcomes all spiritual seekers,
especially those who may feel marginalized in our
predominantly white, conservative, evangelical
area. We posted these statements on our
website. Next, we'll host a table at our
region's biggest Pride event ever, Pride a
(21:19):
Palooza 2025. It's happening
July 19th. We plan on
reaching out to the media, sharing a press release
with local newspapers, TV and
radio stations about our welcoming
statements. In the fall, we will begin to
engage in a broader outreach to the Millville community.
This may include quarterly events to the public.
(21:42):
These events can serve to build community
while also communicating our values. We also
want to engage more in the community events organized by
churches, civic groups, and the schools.
The whole process of discussing
the welcoming statements has been so great
for our UM meeting to recognize who we
(22:03):
are, what's important to us, and what are
witnesses to the community. To
view the Millville welcoming statements and
posters designed by Christine Bakke,
visit quakerstoday.org and look for this
episode's show notes. And if you
have outreach ideas you want to share from your
own meeting or your imagination, please
(22:26):
email US podcastquakerstoday.
That's
podcastakerstoday.org
thank you for listening to this special interim episode
of Quakers Today podcast. We will be
back with our regular season starting in
2025. As we begin the season,
we ask listeners to answer the following
(22:47):
question what is a favorite
Quaker term or phrase that is
common among Friends but strange
to outsiders? I
sometimes joke about my fellow Quakers saying we
don't get violent, just passive aggressive.
So my all time favorite Quaker phrase is
I'll let the silence speak for me.
(23:10):
What I love about this phrase is that depending
on how you say it and the context,
it could come across as deeply thoughtful
or it could could be incredibly
passive aggressive. But then I'm a
comedian and I look at the world through comic
lenses. So what about you?
(23:30):
What is a favorite Quaker term or phrase that is
common among Friends but strange to
outsiders? Share your response by
emailing
podcastquakerstoday.org
you can also call or text our
listener line
317-quakers. That's
317-782-5377
(23:52):
+1
if you're calling from outside the USA,
317-quakers and also feel free
to answer on any of our social media
platforms. Thank you friend for
listening. May you find the courage to question,
the stillness to listen, and the clarity to
(24:12):
act. Whether you're on a path of
revival, release or reimagining,
know you are not alone.
Hello, I'm, um, Peterson Cintiscano, co host of the
Quakers Today podcast. We're in between
seasons right now, which gives us space to bring
some special content. In this
episode, we explore revival and
re evaluation. From a
national spiritual awakening in Kentucky to one
(00:20):
young man's break from an abusive faith
tradition to the bold steps a small rural
Quaker meeting is taking to welcome the
wider community. It's a journey through
curiosity, courage and renewed
commitment. Last month, my co host,
Sweetmesh, created an immersive audio
experience about the Quaker Walk to Washington.
(00:43):
A dedicated group of Friends and fellow Travelers
walked, uh, 300 miles from Flushing,
Queens all the way to Washington, D.C.
it's an excellent episode and I encourage you to listen to
it now. This was more than a long walk. It
was a journey grounded in spiritual
conviction and public witness. The
(01:04):
episode offers inspiration for anyone looking to
take meaningful action while building community.
And it brought Quakers national press attention,
too. In fact, Quakers have been
showing up in the news more and more lately.
As a result, people who are seeking a
new spiritual home are beginning to find us.
(01:25):
In the June July issue of Friends Journal, Martin
Kelly writes, the most effective
outreach tool in the last 30 years has been the
Belief what Religion are you? Quiz.
It must have told tens of thousands of seekers
they are compatible with Friends. It's a
random quiz made without academic
(01:45):
rigor, just to make a few bucks on an ad
platform. We Quakers can't match that kind of
free publicity, but we can be ready when
visitors seek us out. We can
have good websites and social media. We can
do the work to know our faith well enough to answer
questions. We can practice hospitality
and build meeting cultures that bring visitors back
(02:08):
the next week and the week after that.
Martin, uh, continues. Anecdotally, it
seems like many new visitors have been checking out Friends
in the last few years. There's a growing
curiosity about what we've found.
Let's greet these seekers, share our ways, and honor their
observations and journeys. Let's revive
(02:29):
Quakerism yet again.
In today's episode, we're remixing and revisiting
two past stories that speak to this idea
of revival and reevaluation,
both on a personal and communal level.
First, you'll hear about a, uh, spiritual revival that
(02:49):
made national headlines. It didn't
involve Quakers directly, but one friend was
so curious, she went to see it for herself. That
friend is Carla Jay, global ministries coordinator
for Friends United Meeting. She also
serves on the pastoral team at Iglesia
Amigos de Indianapolis, where her father,
(03:09):
Carlos Maran, is pastor. Carla
visited Asbury University in Kentucky. During a, uh,
multi day event that some called a miracle,
others a media circus, she shares what she
saw and heard. Next
you'll meet Hayden Hobby. Raised in a
conservative evangelical church, Hayden had to
(03:30):
walk away from the faith of his childhood. In
doing so, he also left behind an image of
God that had caused him harm. He tells
us what it was like to let go and what
he's finding instead. Finally,
I'll tell you what's happening at ah, my own small Quaker
meeting in rural central Pennsylvania.
(03:53):
Carla J. Serves as the global Ministries
coordinator for Friends United Meeting, or
fum. Her husband, Michael J. Is
the pastor of Raysville Friends Church.
Carla has been on the pastoral team at Iglesia
Amigos Day, Indianapolis, where her father,
Carlos Moran, is pastor. Like
many people, it was online that she first
(04:16):
learned about the Asbury Revival.
>> Karla Jay (04:19):
I just thought, oh, you know, these are people that
probably want attention or just want to
say that, you know, the spirit is being poor over
them.
>> Peterson Toscano (04:28):
On February 8, 2023, after
an on campus chapel service, a group of
Asbury students decided to stay in the chapel to pray
and sing for the next two weeks. Students,
community members and visitors from around the USA
attended impromptu um worship services.
During that time, classes were suspended
(04:49):
online and in the media, people called it
an outpouring of the Holy Spirit or the
Asbury Revival. According to Inside
Higher Ed, Asbury is part
of the Wesleyan Theological tradition, which
emphasizes transformational encounters with the
Holy Spirit. End quote. This
year, during the two weeks of nearly constant prayer
(05:11):
and worship, over 50,000
visitors joined the students.
Carla J. Was not interested in traveling the
three hours to the Asbury campus. But her
sister, who Carla doesn't get to see, often
proposed they meet up and visit together.
Carla shared with me what she saw and
heard, and she reflects on what revival
(05:33):
means to her.
>> Karla Jay (05:35):
It wasn't hard to find. The campus is not that big.
We found it and we saw that it would be a
while before we got in. There was maybe
2,000 people outside at the time we went
there, being already suspicious of,
uh, what was happening. I was looking
for, like, are there any other Latinos?
(05:56):
Are there other black people here? You know, people that are
different from regular white people? Or is
this just like, uh, a white people movement?
There was some other Latinos, maybe
not as many as I would have liked there to
be, but there were some other Latinos in the
crowd. The majority of the crowd was white.
(06:16):
We waited about 45 minutes
to get in, and in the meantime, an
usher came and he asked us
what did we need. And what were
we doing there? Like, did we come for anything in
particular? And we said we just came
to feel the presence and to be here.
(06:37):
He said, are there any needs that you have
that you would like me to pray for you?
And we said just that we feel the
presence. He prayed for us that we
may feel the presence and that we may be blessed.
It was just very quiet. Even though
there was music being played in the background,
(06:58):
the worship leaders weren't not really
leading people into worship. It was as
if there, uh, there was background music. People were
praying. Some people were singing to the music that
was. That was being played. Some people,
if they felt like they went up and gave
testimony, people were. Were allowed
to go in and out as, uh, as
(07:20):
they felt led. It almost felt like
in a program meeting for
worship with background music.
It wasn't organized. It was spontaneous.
We were there for about an hour and
a half, and I felt like we had only been there for
15 minutes. I didn't feel bored or anxious,
(07:41):
and I usually feel that in a lot of, like,
church meetings that I'm, um, bored. I'm anxious
that I want to leave. I've already sang
these hymns before. I probably already
heard that sermon before. Whether
the person that I'm listening to is new, but I probably
already heard the sermon in some way or another.
(08:02):
I did not feel that at Asbury. I just felt like
there was peace there and that whatever was
happening, a genuine experience for
most of the people there. Growing up
evangelical in holiness, I
did see adults making a
plea for a revival to happen,
(08:23):
but I never seen them asking for
repentance or turning around.
The church has been asking for a revival to
happen, but at the same time, I don't
see many leaders of the church
recognizing the sins that the
church has been a part of. Some of that
(08:43):
sin has to do with issues of justice.
What I saw in Asbury is
that this movement, or
it might be too soon to call it revival, but this
outpouring happened in very young people.
Um, I mean, these are college kids. They're not
older than, I don't know, 23.
(09:05):
They don't have any influence. They don't have any
positions of power. The
spontaneous worship happened among them. It
didn't happen in an older generation. That
is not recognizing the. And, you know,
like, the younger generation is being more
honest about the injustices that are happening in
this country. That might
(09:27):
have something to do with, you know, recognizing
that not everyone in this country
has the same justice and being able
to recognize that and being
able to say we are going to make a difference.
I think that in itself is the movement
of, of the Holy Spirit.
(09:48):
Uh, God is
not going to do an outpouring in
people that are not repenting and calling for
justice in this country if they're not calling against
racism, if they're not calling against
misogyny. The Holy Spirit is not
going to move in that
(10:09):
our relationship with God over also has to do with our
relationship with others around us and how we
seek justice for our brothers and sisters.
>> Peterson Toscano (10:39):
Coming up, you'll hear from Hayden Hobby about what it
took to walk away from the faith of his childhood.
And I'll share how my own Quaker meeting is taking bold
new steps to welcome LGBTQ
folks and other spiritual seekers in our rural community.
Hayden Havi is a youth worker and worship leader
in Richmond, Virginia. He's also currently
(11:02):
working toward a master's in spiritual
and social transformation. He studies
in a program taught jointly by Bethany Theological
Seminary and Earlham School of Religion.
Hayden wrote the essay Surviving
Religious How I Left an Abuse
of God. I asked him to share some of his
story and to read excerpts from the piece.
>> Hayden Hobby (11:25):
I'm, um, yeah, a lifelong follower of Jesus,
among a lot of other things. Just had a really, a really big impact
on my life. Had good and bad, bad impacts on my
life along the way, but that's definitely been a really big
part of my identity. I still
would say that I identify as a Christian, but I
like saying that I'm a follower of Jesus because it
(11:46):
puts a little bit of distance between
what I think of as the religion and then
what I think of as the lifestyle, the
action and the practices and uh, the lived out
expression of what we think of as Christianity.
I was raised in a hyper conservative evangelical
Christian tradition that believes sin deserves
(12:08):
severe and eternal punishment and that Jesus
bore that punishment, wrath and abandonment of God that
my sins deserved. I was taught that no matter how
good I thought myself to be, I deserved hell just for
existing. And had it not been for Jesus, death, that's
exactly what I would get. The resulting religious trauma that
I sustained from this backward theology as a child
(12:28):
and young adults wasn't for physical, but it
was emotional and psychological. And
like most forms of trauma, it was still the result of violence.
As a result, I spent a lot of formative
years trying to somehow hold and understand the
paradox that God loved me and wanted to
spend eternity in heaven with me, but would just as
(12:49):
quickly damn me to eternal hellfire for not believing in
Jesus. That's a big contradiction to Attempt to hold as a
13 year old. And eventually my faith broke
like a wishbone. The wishbone
really felt like a, uh, fitting metaphor
for a few reasons. One, because I think we all,
so many of us have experienced that crack that comes when
(13:10):
a wishbone is split. And in so many ways I
kind of felt that within my own self at some point,
like my faith kind of just snapped.
But then there's also this kind of sense of luck
or good fortune around wishbones as well. This kind of
like sense of things will go well
one way or not well the other way. And in many ways I
(13:30):
feel like I got lucky or you might say
blessed or fortunate in the way that my faith broke
and that I think that it eventually made my faith strong. Whereas I
saw so many people who's had similar splits
and cracks in their faith not end up as
fortunate as I did. Yeah, there was a lot of, definitely a lot
of fear and shame associated with
(13:51):
where I was in my kind of faith trajectory at that
point. The fear of breaking down something that had
been such a secure source of.
Yeah, A source of security for me for such a long time. And the shame
of. It's. It's uh, it's really hard to put your finger on
exactly what it is that causes all of the shame in that
process. But there, there is a lot going on there.
(14:11):
I think a huge part for me,
again, kind of in overcoming those things was just
in a helpful way, getting away from
some of the communities and people
that would not have allowed me to be in that space.
And it's so easy to just want to jump from one thing right
into something else, just because you
(14:31):
really know that you need to get out of whatever it is. But you
hate the idea of being nowhere. And I
think that there's an
innate truth in our desire to be
somewhere, to be with a group and to be with.
There are people who will look out for us. I think
that's something that can work in our benefit
(14:52):
generally. But I think there are times when
it is most healthy to for a time
be okay with being nowhere while you figure
out where it is that you need to be.
It's so important to be mindful of why
something was written and who it was written to and the culture and the
context around how scripture was written. But it's also
(15:12):
so beautiful that we can draw so many things out of
these stories and these parables that can have so much
meaning for us in so many different ways.
Who we perceive God to be drastically impacts
the way that we live our lives in the Parable
of the Talents In Matthew 25, a man
goes on a journey and leaves his servants with shares of his
(15:33):
property one with five talents, the second
with two, and the last with one.
The first two go and invest their talents, making more for
their master when he returns. But the other servant,
it says, went and dug in the ground and hid his
master's money. When confronted, the
servant says, master, I knew you to be
(15:53):
a hard man, reaping where you did not sow,
and gathering where you scattered no seed.
So I was afraid and I, uh, went and hid your talent in the
ground. Here you have
what is yours. So unlike the others,
this servant receives very harsh treatment from his
master, who takes away his talent and gives it to the one
(16:14):
who now has ten Jesus
concludes this parable by saying, to anyone who
has, will more be given, and he will have an
abundance. But from the one who has not,
even what he has will be taken away.
One of the main conclusions to be drawn from this parable is the
importance of capitalizing on the gifts God gives you.
(16:34):
M However, I think another, equally important conclusion may be
drawn about how our perceptions of God
impact our actions and God's perceived
reactions. The
wicked servant in this parable chooses not to invest
his master's money out of fear because he knew him to be
a hard man. When we think of
God as hard or strict, we will always
(16:57):
bury the gifts that God gives us, afraid of the anger
that losing them might prompt. However, like the
master in the parable, the God
who prompts fear will not be happy with our
response, and any hardship we endure will
inevitably be seen as a punishment for our lack of faith.
If, however, we're able to see ourselves
(17:17):
as those who have received the most, we may
begin to understand the fearless servant who invests the gift
of faith, knowing that regardless of the
outcome, it's not punishment that awaits, but a
joyful welcome of well done, my good and faithful
servant.
(17:37):
I've found a lot of hope in the past
couple of years in seeing how
much I've been able to progress from this
kind of dark place of
questioning and not really knowing what to make
of my faith or how it would impact my
life into having a really
messy but beautiful faith that's still growing and
(18:00):
still being put back together. I don't think that's
something that's really ever gonna end. I
think my whole life is gonna be this process of
fitting pieces together and growing and figuring out
what it means to be a spiritual person in a
physical and spiritual world.
>> Peterson Toscano (18:20):
That was Hayden Hobby sharing his essay
Surviving Religious How I Left an
Abuse of God. It appears in the February
2023 issue of Friends Journal. You can
also read it at friendsjournal.org.
>> Karla Jay (18:52):
Sa
uh.
>> Peterson Toscano (19:31):
M Millville, Pennsylvania. It's a quiet
town in the Susquehanna Valley, where farm stands
dot the roadsides, buggies roll past
weathered barns, and you can still get milk
and glass bottles with a deposit. Of course,
it's the kind of place where life moves a little slower
and where community means a lot.
(19:53):
Just up the hill, next to a wide, sloping
cemetery, sits Millville Friends Meeting.
Our old meeting house stands across the street from the
local high school, the Millville Quakers.
It's not a private school, it's a public school. I
don't know, they just really identify with the Quakers.
And inside our meeting house, we gather in silence
(20:14):
in a space where time feels different,
in a room that welcomes seekers, skeptics, and
spiritual wanderers alike. In
a rural town shaped by tradition, we're offering
something quietly radical. A, uh,
clear, loving welcome to all.
Something special is happening in my little Quaker meeting
(20:36):
in rural Pennsylvania. After a call from
Philadelphia Quarterly meeting encouraging us to
support LGBTQ people,
Millville Friends Meeting got to work.
We drafted and approved two
welcome one
specifically affirming lesbian, gay, bisexual,
(20:57):
transgender, queer, non binary,
and intersex folks, and another that
welcomes all spiritual seekers,
especially those who may feel marginalized in our
predominantly white, conservative, evangelical
area. We posted these statements on our
website. Next, we'll host a table at our
region's biggest Pride event ever, Pride a
(21:19):
Palooza 2025. It's happening
July 19th. We plan on
reaching out to the media, sharing a press release
with local newspapers, TV and
radio stations about our welcoming
statements. In the fall, we will begin to
engage in a broader outreach to the Millville community.
This may include quarterly events to the public.
(21:42):
These events can serve to build community
while also communicating our values. We also
want to engage more in the community events organized by
churches, civic groups, and the schools.
The whole process of discussing
the welcoming statements has been so great
for our UM meeting to recognize who we
(22:03):
are, what's important to us, and what are
witnesses to the community. To
view the Millville welcoming statements and
posters designed by Christine Bakke,
visit quakerstoday.org and look for this
episode's show notes. And if you
have outreach ideas you want to share from your
own meeting or your imagination, please
(22:26):
email US podcastquakerstoday.
That's
podcastakerstoday.org
thank you for listening to this special interim episode
of Quakers Today podcast. We will be
back with our regular season starting in
2025. As we begin the season,
we ask listeners to answer the following
(22:47):
question what is a favorite
Quaker term or phrase that is
common among Friends but strange
to outsiders? I
sometimes joke about my fellow Quakers saying we
don't get violent, just passive aggressive.
So my all time favorite Quaker phrase is
I'll let the silence speak for me.
(23:10):
What I love about this phrase is that depending
on how you say it and the context,
it could come across as deeply thoughtful
or it could could be incredibly
passive aggressive. But then I'm a
comedian and I look at the world through comic
lenses. So what about you?
(23:30):
What is a favorite Quaker term or phrase that is
common among Friends but strange to
outsiders? Share your response by
emailing
podcastquakerstoday.org
you can also call or text our
listener line
317-quakers. That's
317-782-5377
(23:52):
+1
if you're calling from outside the USA,
317-quakers and also feel free
to answer on any of our social media
platforms. Thank you friend for
listening. May you find the courage to question,
the stillness to listen, and the clarity to
(24:12):
act. Whether you're on a path of
revival, release or reimagining,
know you are not alone.
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