Stories of the People of Sierra-Cascades: Julie Peyton
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And as I'm sitting down, I think, ‘Oh, I did not lose my faith. I lost a theology.’ And for the first time, I was able to distinguish between those two things. So I'd been thinking for a long time, I lost my faith. I've lost my faith, I've lost my faith. — But I had just lost a theology.
- Julie Peyton
In my early days, my family began attending a charismatic evangelical church in southern California, and I loved it. And I rather quickly bought into what they were teaching. I believed it. And I liked it. And it was working, especially since this group emphasized love. It wasn't all about the rules. It was just a loving group. Until it wasn't. My family left that group when I was 14 or 15. That was heartbreaking for me.
But I held on to this Christian way— the stories in the Bible are true, and that Genesis one and Genesis two and Genesis three are our true stories, even if they aren't exactly historical or scientific. They're still true.
When you read the Bible—well and deeply—and you study it, and you don't believe there are any contradictions, when there is a problem you can put it aside and say, ‘well, I'll deal with that later.’ And eventually the weight of what you've been taught versus what the Bible is actually saying, versus what you know in your heart. It just… collapses.
I had no expectation of this and no modeling of this. I had no idea that any good Christian could actually go through such a shattering of their systematic theology.
Sometime in my early 30s, when I was teaching at a Christian college, I was watching the movie Awakenings— it’s about one of those great psychiatrists and his story of working in a hospital that has housed a whole bunch of people who got post viral catatonia 30 or 40 years before… So he gives them L-dopa. And they wake up… And then the L-dopa begins to lose its effect and the same people start regressing back. And I sat there as a Christian, thinking ‘they've been awake for about three weeks.’
So my systematic theology says: if they did not come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ— because some of them were just kids when they had this disease— they hadn't reached the age of accountability. Everyone sins in three weeks, so God's going to consign them to hell, because for this three-week window they were awake.
And there's suddenly this weight of what hell means. That a loving God would create a fantastic planet and universe, fill it full of goodness and light, but would also fully expect that most people would not be saved. Because that's the evangelical teaching— there are very few who believe and are actually saved in the end.
So here's this loving God who creates this world knowing that 90% of the people are not going to make it. And I thought, that doesn't jive. If there is a God that would do that, that's not a God that I can love and trust and not a God I'm going to serve. With tears streaming down my face, I'm realizing I can't believe this anymore. But it's so foundational to evangelicalism that I don't know what it all means anymore.
So that's where it all started— realizing I can't believe in hell the way I believed in hell before. Or if I do, I can't believe in God the way I believed in God before. This is the beginning of a 10-year-long process of trying to figure out: ‘what is this?’
So around the time this was happening, I'd already heard about Quakers. I started by going to a weekend seminar because I was traveling with the college kids on a mission trip, visiting this small church that was about to choose elders and elders had to be First Timothy and Titus, one woman, a man, hospitable, lover of good.
I was sitting in the pew thinking: Okay, we're gonna talk about First Timothy and Titus. They're gonna badly interpret these verses again. I don't want to hear it. What can I do to tune out without offending my host family? And the speaker— they brought him from Vancouver, BC— and he said— I kid you not, his opening words were: “Before we get to First Timothy and Titus, let's look at how other Christian religious groups have made decisions over the years." And I kind of opened one eye and went, what, this group actually cares what other groups think? This was eye opening. So I sat up a little bit, and the first group he chose and accurately described— Quaker discernment.
It was like choirs of angels singing because I'd been wondering why no one took Jesus seriously when he said, “Don't call anyone Father. Don't call anyone Rabbi. Because you have one Father in heaven. You have one teacher, and you are all equal." [Matthew 23:9-10] And I thought: finally, here's a group taking that seriously. This is pretty exciting. A little bit before my crash and burn is when that happened. I had that hope held out (even before seeing the movie). I think that's the way God does stuff. God says, “Okay, it's gonna be hard, but here's the hope you can get hold on to."
I loved when I was reading about Quakers and how they talked about doing the Bible, how they dealt with authority, because in my church, women could do absolutely nothing that had any hint of being an authoritative role. Absolutely nothing. We could not help pass a collection plate. We could pass it to the person or left or right, but we couldn't get up and cross an aisle and pass it because that was too much authority. It was just insane. And I'd done the biblical work and knew that's not what Paul taught. But, you know, at what point do you leave your faith community over something kind of as minor really? I could do lots of things there. I could teach at this Christian college, so I could teach at the college level. I just couldn't do anything that smacked of authority.
I was getting ready to make the leap. So David [my husband] and I eventually decided we're going to try the Quakers. So I show up at West Hills, and I talked to Mike Huber and Colin Saxton. I said, “Now, I'd still like to come here, but I'm not a Christian. I don't even know if God exists. I just don't know, so I'd like to come. I can sit in the back pew and be silent if you'd like."
They exchanged glances and they said, “Why would we ask you to sit in the back and be quiet? We see God at work in this. We think God is leading you in a good way. So, don't worry about it, and share your journey along the way, let us know how things are going. "
Well, that was the thing you would never hear from evangelicals. I could not go back and even talk about this because I knew that no one would have an answer for me, because there is no answer, except ‘come back to a saving belief and Jesus Christ as your atoning Redeemer’…. And I couldn't do that. So there was no way to go back.
But here were people saying, “Keep going forward. Keep moving forward. God's leading you. Don't be afraid of that. Step into it.” It was hard because West Hills was clearly a Jesus-centered church. There was a Bible verse, and a Bible passage every week to introduce whatever prepared message there was. The songs and hymns were some of the lot that I knew, and had trouble singing because I didn't believe the words anymore. And that was really hard, because I understood exactly why when everyone was smiling and enjoying the song, and I could not join in.
So I'm sitting, I'm thinking, I just don't belong here. I just don't. At that moment, Ron Fieldhouse tapped me on the shoulder and says: “Julie, we need help passing the collection plate this morning.”
Now, realize that would never happen in my old church. And having just had that thought of ‘I don't belong here’ and then being asked to serve in a way that had authority then I thought, okay, okay, I get it.
And then there was another time when I was thinking, I just don't belong here. And that voice in my head just said: “Oh, you silly girl. You know, you belong here. Just stop it.” Not because I shouldn't say those words, but because those words weren't true. I knew I belonged there because of so many things. So I just loved that.
I just love those early years at West Hills— it had lots of openings and lots of reaffirmation even while I knew I wasn't a Christian, because I didn't have any definition of Christian that fit what I was at that time. I wasn't reading the Bible— it was too hard to read the Bible. I wasn't praying because except for, of course, constantly, in connection with this divine voice.
Mike Huber
Mike helped found West Hills Friends and pastored there for many years. He is now program director for Quaker Voluntary Service and co-clerk of Sierra-Cascades YM.
Once a month, Mike [Huber] would do an after worship class on something to do with Quakers. So this time, the topic was speaking in open worship. So there are about 12 of us in the classroom. Mike says: “So who here thinks that he or she will never speak in open worship?” And my hand shot up. And I was a bit embarrassed cuz I was still quite new, and no one else had raised their hand.
Once a month, Mike [Huber] would do an after worship class on something to do with Quakers. So this time, the topic was speaking in open worship. So there are about 12 of us in the classroom. Mike says: “So who here thinks that he or she will never speak in open worship?” And my hand shot up. And I was a bit embarrassed cuz I was still quite new, and no one else had raised their hand.
And I said, “Well, to speak in open worship, you should think that God has given you a message that is not just for you, but is for the entire group. Since I'm not sure I believe in God, then anything I hear in my head— there's no way I can be sure that it’s from God, and therefore for the group. Therefore, QED, I'm not speaking to open worship.”
And no one had an answer for that, obviously. And Mike didn't say anything— we just went on. So as you might imagine (you knowing God) about two or three weeks later, we're sitting in open worship. And I actually am moved. For whatever reason. I'm kind of toward the front now, and I'm thinking, again. It's really in the silence, I would just ponder my sorry state. And this time, my pondering was that— in becoming a runner— I thinking I have seen more transformation emotionally, physically, and spiritually through running than I have through 20 - 25 years of being a Christian.
I hear a voice say really clearly, ‘You need to stand.’ Obviously I didn't really hear it, it's in my head. ‘Oh, you need to stand. You need to stand right now and share that.’ And I said, ‘No, I don't, because I'm not sure I believe in you.’ And the voice said, really clearly, ‘Are you going to be obedient or aren't you?’ So I'm getting to my feet, because that's the key phrase for me. I'm getting my feet thinking ‘This is absolutely stupid. This is absolutely insane. This is absolutely dumb. But I'm going to do this.’ And so I said what I just been thinking and sat down.
And as I'm sitting down, I think, ‘Oh, I did not lose my faith. I lost a theology.’ And for the first time, I was able to distinguish between those two things. So I'd been thinking for a long time, ‘I lost my faith. I've lost my faith, I've lost my faith.’ But I had just lost a theology.
It’s really clear now. I am on a good path. I am going a good direction. I can just... I can wait as long as it takes, but I will just continue to listen to that voice— act when it tells me to. Be silent when it tells me to be silent. But I can do this. This is the Quaker work of paying attention to that inward teacher and just going with it. So that was the first really positive concrete step forward as far as I can tell.
We began attending West Hills in 1994. In 2000, in a cathedral in Bath England on Palm Sunday, I heard the priest give the message. And she said, “Christians love to show up on Palm Sunday like we do today because we have this huge ceremony. We have palm branches, we sing Hosanna in the Highest, we watch a live actual donkey walk around the outside of our building. We have a great time. It's a great celebration. And Christians love to come back on Easter Sunday, a week later because, ‘He is risen! He is risen indeed! This is the best news in the world.'" And then she said, “but very few people are willing to walk that difficult week in between, with Jesus.”
And I heard the voice in my head, say very softly from very far away saying, ‘this is your story.’ And I waited for more and nothing more came. What it means is, there are lots of great stories out there, there are stories of Muhammad, there are stories of Buddha, they're all great stories. But this one, the Jesus one, from Palm Sunday, through Easter, and all of it— this is my story. This is the one I get to hold on to and live with.
And I go: I am a Christian. That's it. I'm a Christian, because that story, especially that week between Palm Sunday and Easter, is mine. And I don't know exactly what that means. But it's enough for me to call myself a Christian. So in 2000, I get to call myself a Christian again.
And then in 2005 (because of FWCC work) I'm at Pacific Yearly Meeting annual sessions as an FWCC visitor. And there's a Bible study. In fact, I have two Bible studies— one in that morning that’s kind of formal, intellectual, systematic theology, looking at the words and everything really carefully— and in the evening, they had what Steve Matchett called ‘Bible study in the manner of Friends,’ where there was just a stack of Bibles on the floor. If you didn't have one, you could grab one of those, and you sit quietly, and it's worship. And if a verse comes to your mind, you recite it. Or if you don't have one, you just kind of open the Bible and kind of flip through until something catches your eye. And if you feel called, you can read it. And that's it. Very, very simple approach.
I realized the second night, I don't think I brought a Bible with me. Because I was reaching for one thinking, ‘I have no anger, and no fear about reaching for this book. I'm just going to enjoy this book.’ — So I got the Bible back in 2005. So, that's kind of how it's kept going.
Q&A with Judy and Julie
Judy Maurer: Over a chocolate donut and coffee, you talked about a different way of looking at scripture that you had gotten during your time at West Hills. How did that evolve?
Julie Peyton: Oh, waiting, being willing to wait until a passage is open. Not assuming I understand it just because I've read it before. Not assuming I understand it because I can memorize it and recite it back to you. And there was so many examples of that. My favorite one, honestly, was the time when I thought, ‘how can I call myself a Quaker? How can I call myself how can I become a Quaker because in John 15, Jesus says, ‘No longer do I call you servants. But I've called you friends. Because the servant does not know what the master is doing.’ And I thought, I have no idea what God's doing here. I'm clueless. So I can't be a Quaker yet. I realized that's funny. But it was also true.
So I'm gonna hang out, I just don't get to ask for membership in West Hills yet. This is still early on - 1997. We've been there for three years. So it's still really hard. I don't want to understate how hard it was and how depressed I was, how sad I was at this loss, because I had spent decades building up the systematic theology which was really coherent. And it was just all gone.
Well, what a waste of time that was, right? Then not knowing, not being able to claim anything as my own. All I get is "God speaks to me, and I will obey when I hear God's voice." That's all I've got. And that's not enough. I wanted more, because this is before the Bath experience, 2000, hearing "my story." I'm just kind of stuck there. But I would love to be a Quaker. I love this approach. I love the decision-making. I like this meeting. I like this community, and they've been really nice to me.
All right, so I'm sitting and I thought ‘okay, I'm sitting in a pew and it's open worship, and I'm gonna make myself feel really bad again, I'll just pull out that John 15, read it again and feel bad about it. So I opened the passage, and this time the Bible version in the pew said, "I don't call you servants. I call you friends because the servant does not know his master's business." And what immediately came to my heart is the story of Jesus - the first time he preaches he goes and opens the scroll of Isaiah and he says, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon him’ and he tells you what his business is - to preach good news to the poor, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the captives. [Luke 4:18] I went ‘Oh, I know exactly what the master's business is. I know THAT. And I want to do THAT. I can be a Quaker now.
Yeah, Scripture being opened like that. there’s nothing like it. It isn't just 'Oh, here's a good idea. Or I read this in a commentary.' It's ‘oh, this is what it means for me right now today.’ I had many of those moments - 10, 20, over the years. Another came at roughly the same time. So Hebrews, I think it's chapter 11, says, ‘Without faith, it is impossible to please God, for whoever would draw near to God must first believe that God exists, and that God rewards those who seek Him.’ And I thought, okay two strikes against me, because I'm not sure God exists. And if this is the reward for those who seek Him, I don't want it.’
So I'm stuck. And the image I had that came to mind was, I'm walking down a corridor, and there's a door at the end that says, "God's presence." So God's behind that door, and in front of the door is a guard. And as I approached, the guard steps out, blocks the door. He plants his feet and says, ‘What do you want here?’
And I said, ‘Well, I would like to draw near to God.’
And the guard says, ‘then you must answer two questions. Do you believe God exists? And do you believe God rewards those who seek Him?’
And I say, ‘Well, I don't really.”
The guard says ‘Be gone. You can't draw near to God, because you can't answer those questions correctly.’
So that was the image I was carrying about that verse, right. So one day, I'm sitting in open worship, and the whole image changes, just bam, I'm walking down the hallway, and there's a guard, but he's leaning casually, you know, arms crossed against the door jamb.
And he goes, ‘Hey, what's up?’
And I say, ‘I would like to draw near to God,’
he goes, Oh, then you must believe God exists and rewards those who seek Him.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, why would you want to draw near to God? Those who draw near to God must believe God exists and rewards when you seek him."
The same exact words, and I looked up in the Greek. It's the same exact thing. “For whoever would draw near to God must believe God exists and rewards those who seek him”. It doesn't really matter what the original Hebrew writer intended. What opened for me that moment was, "you wouldn't want to draw near to God unless you believed he existed and would reward you for seeking him."
I just loved that it was the same corridors and doors and guard but a completely shifted meaning. To me, that's what opening up scripture means. I could not have gotten there on my own. This had to be opened by the Holy Spirit.
So now the whole Bible is just fun. Now the whole Bible is a delight. Because I know that at some point, I'm going to read a passage that I have read 1000 times before, and I'm going to understand it differently because it doesn't depend on me grasping it, it depends on me being open to what the Holy Spirit opens to me.
Judy Maurer
Wow, this is wonderful. So the Bible is a really exciting book right now. And it has been for quite a while, and it just gets better. With all its internal inconsistencies?
Julie Peyton
And what's funny is there aren't that many internal inconsistencies… So I look back at Genesis one and Genesis two, which are two contradictory stories - the timelines do not match up. I just go "that's because there's a mystery here. That's so great. We will never be able to grasp God." I mean, our best systematic theology is scratching in the sand and then the wave comes, right? if there's a contradiction in Scripture, it's to draw you in deeper, not for you to go, "Aha, a contradiction! I can now throw it out and decide it means whatever I want it to mean."
I've got a lot of friends who say, "Well, you know, Paul wrote that, and I don't care about Paul." Or they will say, Well, you know, "that book was never really one of the ones included in the Bible," or they will say, or any number of reasons to dismiss some passage that is hard, and that we don't like, I am not allowed to do that. Others, I don't know what you're allowed to do. I'm not allowed to do it. I get to sit and wrestle with it, and wrestle with it until it's open to me. And the reward for that has been things that have been difficult, and then opens it and I go, "oh!"
So you can talk about the Bible being the authoritative, inspired, inerrant Word of God. And I go, Yeah, yeah, he is. But the book also, I have found to be 100%, reliable, and guiding you into truth. Those passages that you might not like? Sit with them - they will guide you into truth. So the Bible is my book. It's my sacred text. And I don't leave any of it out. Yeah.
Judy Maurer: Wow. Even the bloody parts and Judges and Joshua?
Julie Peyton:
Absolutely. There's gotta be a message there, that speaks truth to us. I bought this book recently, less than a year ago, a big picture book for kids. And the first story in there is terrible - we would never tell the story to our children. It's a pied piper story where all the children end up going off into the woods and being killed. So the story we would not tell. But that's because of our 21st century sensibilities. You don't tell kids scary stories. You don't want them to be scared. You don't tell bloody stories about God and God's vengeance because that's just not the guy. No.
Well, there was probably a time and a place when these stories were important for children to hear. Think about how we prepare our children. In school, if there's an active shooter, we have to tell the kids scary stories, but it’s in this framework that you're surrounded by your adults who love you. And we're going to try to keep this from happening to you. But it might, but don't be afraid. There's got to be a way we can do this, and maybe learn from the bloody stories of Genesis and judges and everything else.
But yeah, I don't like those stories either. I don't like the idea that Uzzah touched the Ark just to keep it from falling over and he gets zapped by lightning. I don't know what to do with that story. But maybe someday I will..
Judy Maurer
Excellent. Wow, this is gonna write itself. But when do you need to go?
Julie Peyton: Oh, in about five minutes.
Judy Maurer: You don't need a break between meetings?.
Julie Peyton: Well, David brought me my cup of tea. And I've got my most excellent crackers here. So yes, I'm powered through.
Judy Maurer: Oh, good. So what's your concept of Jesus or thinking about Jesus?
Julie Peyton This is a harder one, because the obvious thing is that he's the great teacher and the great example. The resurrection was still tripping me up, because the problem is that with Quakers’ experiential faith, you don't get to talk about what you have not experienced. So if I wasn't there… The inner voice that I hear that talks to me, I do hear that voice every now and then it's very infrequent. Now it was much more frequent. When I was more distressed. I associated it was pretty clear with God, God, the Father, even uncomfortable with God, the Father image that works for me. But it wasn't obviously it was Jesus. So we're supposed to be - have the Inward Christ and Inward Teacher. Is that the same as Jesus? And I just been kind of stuck with that. Because I can't say with assurance. I could say, I could make it as a faith statement as part of my Quaker belief that it is, but my experience. So then I hear about Dorsey green, and university friends meeting. And she doesn't claim to be a Christian. But in recent years, she's had visions of Jesus and she knows Jesus, and they talk. And I think that is so unfair. That to be my experience, because I'm the one in the Christian meeting. I'm the one who spoke! No, this is not fair. And which, of course, I think it's really funny to even as I think it's a really funny, alright, so I've got this going on. So I'm a little little concerned about that. And it's in my prayers.
You know, I would like to be able to say, ‘I believe in the resurrection, because I have experienced the presence of Jesus, the living Christ.’ I would like to be able to say that, but I haven't. So one day, I'm sitting there a little worried about this… I just want to be able to speak with own personal experiencial authority, and with truth. And I can't really do either yet. And I'm just kind of waiting.
So one day, I'm sitting here with this. And I remember when.... I think it was Philip, it might have been Nathaniel, one of those secondary disciples... at the Last Supper feast. He desperately goes, ‘Just show us the Father and we will be satisfied.’ And Jesus does the facepalm. ‘Have you been with me so long, and you don't know me? If you've seen me, you've seen the Father.’
And I thought, ‘Oh, I know, math. If A equals B, then B equals A. So if I have experienced inwardly the Father then I have in reality experienced Jesus. That's my one degree of separation claim about Jesus is, I experienced the Father very clearly, very, presently, very lovingly. And so that's my experience of Jesus as well. It's not quite fair. But it's all I got at the moment.
I don't think too much or argue too much for the resurrection. But I don't know how Christianity works if Jesus was not raised from the dead. I don't know how that works, if that did not happen. If he actually died, and they hid his body somewhere, I don't know what that means for us.
So I am acting on the assumption that he did rise from the dead. And I'm going with it and it seems to be working in my life personally. I wish I saw it working more in our yearly meetings. For example, I wish northwest yearly meeting could have survived these levels of differences by somehow clinging to our faith in the resurrected Christ and how our inner teacher is bigger than any of our theological worries, any of our social worries.
And I get that we couldn't. I mean, we're only human but, man.
What's fun in me being a Christian now, knowing that I'm only a Christian because this is what I was called to. I didn't actually choose it, it chose me and gave me an opportunity. So I don't get to say, ‘My religion is better than yours.’
CS Lewis talked about this word, ‘my’ and how we use it as human beings. And we use for my boots, my dog, my wife, my God. And the danger of thinking that they all mean the same thing. My God is the same as my boots. Right? So Christianity is my religion in the way that it's my God. It's not the same thing as I have. I have a shirt. Okay, this is my shirt. I'm actually owned by my religion, rather than me owning that. Christianity owns me.
So that's the way in which I can then talk to anybody else with a different story. It can be that we can have real conversations and doesn't have to be judgmental. It doesn't have to be, ‘you're going to hell.’
I'm really excited about this. You know, I'm in my 60s. And I'm more excited about this Christian thing. There's more bubbly joy in it. I think it was a little more desperation because in my evangelical Christianity, you had to control every conversation and bring them at some point to a decision making thing because they've got to decide on Heaven or Hell. I was never good at that. I could never do that. I felt that I wasn't evangelical because I would not do that in conversations. And it was years later before I realized, you don't have a conversation if you were directing where it goes. That's not a conversation. You aren't actually listening to that person. You're waiting to hear just enough from them so you can direct them this way. It's like herding sheep. It's not a conversation that I wrote. Oh, that's why I've never liked it. Because I've always recognized something was wrong with it. That's interesting. Yeah.
Oh, I'm actually late.
