Should We (How Should We) Grow the Religious Society of Friends?

September 6, 2024

From Johan Mau­r­er, a look at how we should think about growth and out­reach. One part that stood out to me:

There is noth­ing about this oblig­a­tion that requires me to exag­ger­ate Quak­ers’ virtues, or to con­ceal our defects. I cer­tain­ly don’t need to claim that no oth­er faith com­mu­ni­ties are equal­ly trust­wor­thy or equal­ly capa­ble of heal­ing and giv­ing hope.

In my expe­ri­ence, a lot of incom­ing seek­ers real­ly like it when we fess up to our past indis­cre­tions and cur­rent strug­gles. Per­haps they’ve come from some church that was over­ly con­fi­dent and unable to exam­ine its flaws and so like our trans­paren­cy. Nowa­days the influ­encer class all talk about “emo­tion­al matu­ri­ty” and I think part of that is appre­ci­at­ing our­selves for who we real­ly are in a healthy way.

Maybe because I’m think­ing about the upcom­ing Friends Jour­nal issue of “Spir­i­tu­al Opti­mism vs. Spir­i­tu­al Pes­simism” (there’s still ten days to write for it!) but I’m also think­ing about the tone with which we approach out­reach. In some cir­cles there’s a pan­ic that we some­how have to save Quak­erism. That begs the ques­tion of “what is Quakerism”?

Is Quak­erism a way of approach­ing our rela­tion­ship with the liv­ing Christ and shar­ing that good news as we walk cheer­ful­ly over the world? Is it build­ing com­mu­ni­ties that express our com­mit­ment to love of God and love of neigh­bor? If so, then noth­ing is ever going to destroy it. The whole point of the orig­i­nal Quak­er move­ment is that it didn’t need a large infra­struc­ture: no priests or pas­tors, no staff, no tithing. An emp­ty barn and a small room of believ­ers was enough. Here’s my naive side ris­ing up: if we are faith­ful God, will con­tin­ue to give us guid­ance and blessings.

When I dropped in for a day of the FGC Gath­er­ing this sum­mer, I attend­ed a work­shop led by the most excel­lent Chiyo Mori­uchi, titled “Let­ting our Light Shine: Gov­er­nance & Friends.” The work­shop wrote its own epis­tle, which FGC pub­lished on their web­site today with the title “A Call to Action.” Here’s part of its message:

Imme­di­ate action is required to address the fact of declin­ing and aging mem­ber­ship. We have too few peo­ple avail­able to do the “work,” and we are burn­ing out too many of those who are. We feel that address­ing the inad­e­quate com­mu­ni­ca­tion of who Quak­ers are is the most promis­ing path to solve this problem.

This is all true, but it’s true of our insti­tu­tions. It’s true of our infra­struc­ture. The doc­u­ment has two calls to action: the first is for Quak­er insti­tu­tions to do some self-reflection on what makes them Quak­er (sounds good to me!). The sec­ond is for Friends to hire out­side mar­ket­ing firms. I’ve seen big bud­gets poured into mar­ket­ing firms before and sigh at what a pro­pos­al like this would like­ly give us: gener­ic, feel-good copy that irons out all blem­ish­es. Any spir­i­tu­al lan­guage that might be deemed off-putting gets cut.  His­to­ry is dropped except for a few past heroes who are turned into car­toons.1

Decades of reli­gion sur­veys have found that peo­ple aren’t look­ing for bland and gener­ic. A lot of the fastest-growing denom­i­na­tions are opin­ion­at­ed and have high expec­ta­tions of incom­ing mem­bers. The new­com­ers I see walk­ing into my meet­ing seem to be search­ing for some­thing real, some­thing pal­pa­ble, as indeed I myself was when I walked into Abing­ton Meet­ing over three decades ago. We can be our­selves and share our blem­ish­es. We don’t need to put on an act.

And final­ly, some opti­mism: Quak­er mar­ket­ing is doing great. Seri­ous­ly. We’re more vis­i­ble and acces­si­ble than we’ve been in our entire his­to­ry. Friends Jour­nal is a part of that, with the mag­a­zine free with­out pay­wall and the Quak­er­s­peak inter­view series, Quak­ers Today pod­cast, and Quak​er​.org por­tal. But we’re just a piece of what’s hap­pen­ing. My friend Jon Watts’s Thee Quak­er pod­cast and the Dai­ly Quak­er email is super-visible. The Quak­ers sub-reddit and Dis­cord serv­er are very active. The slick Friends Library makes his­toric Quak­er writ­ings acces­si­ble by web, app, and audio (and the old-school Project Guten­berg, Chris­t­ian Clas­sics Ethe­r­i­al Library, Quak­er Her­itage Press are still around). It’s easy to find local meet­ings (FGC and FWCC have good resources, plus Google Maps does a great job). Any curi­ous per­son want­i­ng to know about Quak­ers can get up to speed in weeks. I know because I see these peo­ple walk­ing into my own Crop­well Meeting.

So I don’t think our insti­tu­tions nec­es­sar­i­ly need new mar­ket­ing so much as new vision­ing. What kinds of sup­port is need­ed for the new seek­ers and for local meet­ings? I think in some ways we need to step back and see with new eyes. What is it we want to market?

 

Young Friends in UK write a Trans and Non-binary Statement

March 6, 2019

This seems part­ly in response to con­tro­ver­sies around anti-trans fem­i­nists book­ing Quak­er meet­ing­hous­es for talks.

YFGM aims to be a wel­com­ing and acces­si­ble space for peo­ple of all gen­der iden­ti­ties where peo­ple feel includ­ed and oppres­sive behav­iour is not accept­ed. We recog­nise we have fur­ther work to do includ­ing some more imme­di­ate changes, and cre­at­ing space to nur­ture deep­er cul­tur­al changes with­in both YFGM and the wider Soci­ety of Friends. 

http://​yfgm​.quak​er​.org​.uk/​d​o​c​s​/​t​r​a​n​s​-​a​n​d​-​n​o​n​-​b​i​n​a​r​y​-​s​t​a​t​e​m​e​nt/

Sam Walton: Putting the protest back in Protestant

August 17, 2018

From the Peace and Dis­ar­ma­ment Pro­gramme Manger for British Friends comes a plea for us not to be afraid of going back to Quak­er roots and chal­lenge the abuse of power.

Society’s val­ues are so often in oppo­si­tion to God’s pur­pos­es. Slav­ery used to be legal. Love between two peo­ple of the same sex was ille­gal in our life­times. Our eco­nom­ic sys­tem is based on greed and pays no heed to God’s cre­ation. Nation states exist and act for their own enrich­ment rather than loy­al­ties lying with the King­dom of Heav­en and work­ing for the enrich­ment of all human­i­ty. When being loy­al to God’s pur­pos­es runs counter to what soci­ety expects it can get pret­ty rough. There may be per­se­cu­tion, though it varies a lot: from tut­ting, telling you off for being veg­e­tar­i­an, being giv­en white feath­ers, right through to impris­on­ment, jails and the lions of the Colosseum.

Putting the protest back in Protestant

A New Quakerism

July 30, 2018

A cyn­ic might file this under “hope springs eternal”:

A phrase that keeps com­ing to mind is “a new Quak­erism,” and odd­ly enough, I’ve been hear­ing oth­er Friends unknow­ing­ly echo this phrase back to me. It seems to me that many Friends, even those who con­sid­er them­selves “con­vinced,” are hun­gry for more than what the Soci­ety has to offer.

Of course it’s part of our tra­di­tion that it needs to be for­ev­er reborn. You can’t recy­cle ser­mons or use the prop of your uni­ver­si­ty learn­ing as a crutch. We are nev­er to know what might hap­pen when wor­ship starts, since the idea is that it’s direct­ly led in the moment by Christ. It’s also a part of our tra­di­tion that forms are for­ev­er cal­ci­fy­ing and that we need to remem­ber why we’re here and who’s brought us togeth­er. Glad to see the work continue.

A New Quakerism

Introduction to “The Christian Universalism of George Fox”

June 2, 2018

Intro­duc­tion to “The Chris­t­ian Uni­ver­sal­ism of George Fox”

Since Benson’s time, denominational-mindedness has gained ground among Quak­ers, and a diver­si­ty of philoso­phies is now seen as valid not only for those out­side of the Soci­ety but for those with­in. A tight­en­ing con­for­mi­ty to the doc­trine of indi­vid­u­al­ism has accel­er­at­ed the pro­lif­er­a­tion of ide­olo­gies with­in the Soci­ety. Resist­ed by most is the obser­va­tion that human nature is intrin­sic and uni­ver­sal, the same in every time and place, and that Jesus Christ speaks to this uni­ver­sal condition.

https://​patradall​mann​.word​press​.com/​2​0​1​8​/​0​6​/​0​2​/​i​n​t​r​o​d​u​c​t​i​o​n​-​t​o​-​t​h​e​-​c​h​r​i​s​t​i​a​n​-​u​n​i​v​e​r​s​a​l​i​s​m​-​o​f​-​g​e​o​r​g​e​-​f​ox/

Profiting on empire

April 10, 2018

We think of slav­ery as issue that tore Friends apart as the con­sen­sus on its accept­abil­i­ty shift­ed in our reli­gious soci­ety. A review of a book shows that in the U.K., gun man­u­fac­tur­ing under­went this shift: Review: ‘Empire of Guns’ Chal­lenges the Role of War in Industrialization

On its face, the deci­sion by the Soci­ety of Friends to cen­sure a fla­grant arms mer­chant in its ranks may not seem sur­pris­ing. Paci­fist prin­ci­ples were cen­tral to Quak­er ide­ol­o­gy, as was oppo­si­tion to slav­ery. Guns fueled not just war but the slave trade. Yet Mr. Galton’s father, and his father before him — and indeed many oth­er Quak­ers who long dom­i­nat­ed Birmingham’s arms indus­try — had been unapolo­getic gun­mak­ers for 70 years with­out attract­ing rebuke. What had changed in the inter­im, in ways that are deeply inter­re­lat­ed, were soci­ety and the guns themselves.

Today the debate on guns in the U.S. is focused on assault weapons being used by indi­vid­u­als but the Gal­ton debate is more about the role of a Quaker-produced prod­uct in war. Britain of course was an empire, an empire held togeth­er by force of weapons. Some per­cent­age of the indus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion in Britain was financed by war and its prod­ucts often were employed over­seas in the main­te­nance and exten­sion of the empire (I’m think­ing for exam­ple of trains).

When I first read John Wool­man I was struck by his call­ing slav­ery a prod­uct of war. I usu­al­ly think of it as a human rights and dig­ni­ty issue (and of course it was and Wool­man was par­tic­u­lar­ly sen­si­tive to the human dimen­sion) but it was also a type of high­ly orga­nized war­fare. See­ing the sys­temic nature of the trade as a whole let Friends bet­ter see the unac­cept­abil­i­ty of slav­ery — and impe­r­i­al weapons manufacturing.

QOTD: Patricia Dallmann

February 27, 2018

“The mis­sion of ear­ly Friends was to turn peo­ple to the light in the con­science, which would first of all show them where they’d missed the mark. If Friends today would turn our Soci­ety around, we must first turn our­selves around inward­ly.” [Source]

Last weekend I was invited to speak to Abington (Pa.) Meeting’s First-day school…

November 8, 2011

Last week­end I was invit­ed to speak to Abing­ton (Pa.) Meet­ing’s First-day school (n.b. prop­er FJ stylesheet) to talk about vocal min­istry in wor­ship. I haven’t been to wor­ship at that meet­ing for eons and can’t speak to the con­di­tion of its min­istry, but I do know that vocal min­istry can be some­thing of a mys­tery for unpro­grammed Friends. Many of us are “con­vinced,” com­ing to the Soci­ety as adults and often have a nag­ging feel­ing we’re play-acting at being Friends, but I’ve met many life-long Quak­ers who also won­der about it.

Per­haps as a response to these feel­ings, we some­times get rather pedan­tic that what­ev­er way we’ve first encoun­tered is the Quak­er way. The cur­rent fash­ion of vocal min­istry in the Philadel­phia area is for short mes­sages, often about world events, often con­fes­sion­al in nature. What I want­ed to leave Abing­ton with was the rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent ways unpro­grammed Friends have wor­shipped over time and how some of our prac­tices out­side wor­ship were devel­oped to help nur­ture Spirit-led ministry.

(writ­ten this a.m. but only post­ed to lim­it­ed cir­cles, cut and past­ed when I saw the mix-up)

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