From: joelp@cs.man.ac.uk (Joel Parthemore || Pharos Project)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Shakers Unmasked (was:  Too straight looking....)
Date: 28 Aug 92 12:41:21 GMT

bobsarv@microsoft.com (Bob Sarver) writes:

>There is a religious group back home called the Shakers.  Similar to
>the Amish, or the Old German Baptist. You may
>have heard of them.  During church services they "shake" with
>their conviction, or by the power of God, or whatever.

This is incorrect.  The Shakers, also known as Shining Quakers, formally
known, I *think*, as the Universal Fellowship of Believers in the Second
Coming of Christ, do *not* `` `shake' with their conviction''.  Individual
Shakers *might* have, but this has *never* been a defining characteristic of
the Shakers, nor is it the source of the name.

The Shakers were known, in times past, for their energetic dances conducted in
the midst of services.  The dances were considered the direct inspiration of
the Holy Spirit.  That practice died out in the last century, but not, as far
as I know, due to any external pressures.

The Shakers resent being compared with the Amish just because both groups
appear somehow ``anachronistic''.  As they point out, the Amish come from an
entirely different tradition.  The Amish reject modern technology; the Shakers
freely embrace it.

I don't know anything about the Old German Baptists.

>But because they understand that newcomers to the church may not fully
>understand this practice, they use discretion when exhibiting it when
>newcomers are around, so as not to leave the impression that they are unusual
>or mentally unbalanced.

The early Shakers were in fact keen to introduce newcomers to their
``peculiar'' mode of worship.  Rather than repulsing people with their unusual
ideas on sexuality and gender roles, they expanded from a total of nine
members in the 1770s to over 6,000 in their heydey, just before the Civil War.
Whole families joined at one time.  For those not able to make the immediate
jump to lifelong celibacy, the Shakers set up ``halfway'' or support
communities.

The early Shakers did get a lot of flack -- not for their ``bizarre''
practices but their pacifism.  Patriots in the Revolutionary War thought them
to be British agents.

>The newcomer eventually finds out what goes on during the services, but only
>after he / she has been there for several occasions.  This allows the person
>to get to know some of the church members first, and have some other facts to
>judge the practice by.

This is preposterous.

>They are not ashamed of their religion, but they do not exhibit it for
>public viewing, either.

The surviving Shakers do, indeed, hold their most intimate religious services
in private, as a family.  (There are seven or eight of them at the moment, at
the one surviving house in Sabbathday Lake, Maine.  I'm not up on the current
figure.  The last I knew they had one person in the equivalent of the
``novitiate''.  OTOH, the community has the lowest average age that it's had
for several decades.  Intellectually, they are very much alive.)

Sunday services, which as far as I know do not depart from the family ones,
are open to the public.

>In an effort to keep their religion's name above ridicule, they
>_voluntarily_use_discretion_in_the_display_of_their_practice.

They may not make a big noise these days.  But to listen to them, they may yet
make a big comeback.

>They also consider their religious faith  to be a cherished and
>personal thing; not something for tourists (or TV audiences) to gawk
>at.

Wrong.  They freely welcome tourists, and in fact *have* *done* *so* nearly
since their inception.  Selling Shaker crafts to tourists has been a mainstay
of income since early in the last century.  There's a famous kind of Shaker
box -- can't think of the name at the moment -- which they mass produced in
the *thousands* just to sell to tourists.

Their invitation to the world to ``come see them'' is one of the peculiar and
endearing aspects of their faith.  The Shakers were never people to retreat
from the world:  quick to latch onto new innovations, and very inventive by
nature.

I think PBS did a documentary on the Shakers a couple of years ago, which
included scenes from the family services (they were not, btw, ``shaking'').
From what I remember from seeing it, the Shakers were quite happy for the
television exposure.

>This is the model that I am asking we follow.  If we consider our
>sexuality to be a private matter, then the various things we do related
>to it should be private also (private==not up for public consumption
>or gawking at on TV).

Then the Shakers are a very bad model, indeed.  :- )  Really, I don't buy the
privacy argument.  *I'm* not asking for a right to privacy.

Joel,
        who might remind readers that the Shining Quakers were established
        in Manchester, England, under the leadership of Mother Anne, with
        whom eight others set sail for the New World....