The Letter and the Spirit

Our music teacher at  Recorder Group January 9 was showing us how to create necessary rhythm in the dances we were playing, a Rondo and a Waltz.  She instructed us to change a quarter note to an eighth, and to make certain notes staccato to provide the bounce necessary for dance. The light went on in my mind as I saw that she was detaching us from the written-down form and returning to the original heard-and-played music.  Written music only imperfectly represents the spirit of the music - which must be interpreted and re-created - in this case by a talented teacher.
   So it is in other written texts:
        "For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." -St. Paul, 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians, ii,6.

Quaker founder, George Fox, took issue with a preacher who held scripture and the Bible to be the last word, by which all doctrines, religions and opinions should be judged. He said to the preacher, "Oh, no, it is not the Scriptures!" and he told what should be basis of judgement of these things, namely "the Holy Spirit, by which the holy men of God gave forth the scriptures, whereby opinions, religions and judgements were to be tried."   (Fox was thrown into "a nasty stinking jail" for  arguing with the preacher).  His words are no less relevant today, when fundamentalists use the Bible as a literal guide to truth , rather than seeking the meanings that gave rise to the words that people wrote down.  The words of the Bible have been used to justify slavery, gender oppression, various taboos for eating and dressing, as well as to resist the evidence of observation and science.  The intent and meanings of the biblical stories must be interpreted in the spirit in which they were written, and in the context of their time.  Washing the feet of a traveller come to visit makes sense when the person has walked across the dusty desert. Coming in from a snowstorm, the welcoming action might be to help a person off with his boots and let him warm his feet by the fire.

The Quaker testimonies need to be interpreted in the spirit - The Society of Friends has a Testimony against taking part in War.  This has been held to by most Friends in the face of punishment by authorities. Yet the reason for opposition against war is surely that war is the willful harming and killing of people.  Some Friends have always questioned whether there were times when engaging in war would help and defend people, and reduce the harm and killing.  My great-great uncle, a Quaker, joined the Union Army to help end slavery. The Testimony of Friends against War was, he found, in conflict with the Testimony against Slavery.
For other Friends, although War should be avoided if at all possible, it may be seen as a last resort in defending one's community or country, or another weak and helpless nation, against an attacker.
Although this is not the  view of most  Friends, there have always been Quakers whose conscience led them to this  conclusion.

In Constitutional decisions we see the split also between responding to the letter versus the spirit. The U.S. Supreme Court contains Strict Constructionists who take a literal view of  the U.S.Constitution. According to them, it means no more and no less than what the Founding Fathers wrote. The Liberals believe in re-interpreting the 18th Century document to find what the meaning would be for our times.  So when the Constitution states in Article II of the Bill of Rights states that "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms should not be infringed,"  many argue that this should prevent laws from being established to control and limit the possession of guns. Others interpret the law, in the context of when it was written, to mean that the States could defend themselves from, for example, invasions from Canada, or attacks by Indian Tribes, by calling out State Militias to defend the community; and that it did not mean guns should be allowed to flood into peaceful communities so that unstable and uncontrolled people could have access to weapons such as assault rifles and hand guns to terrorize and kill innocent men, women and children.  This controversy continues, and has its parallel in Canada, between the gun lobby and those against gun violence.
     " The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."