The Quaker-Methodist Connection
During the eighteenth century, relations between Quakers and Methodists were cool in principle, but rather warmer in practice. John Wesley, being the good Anglican churchman, was highly critical of the sectarian dimensions of the Quaker faith, especially its form of worship, its rejection of the sacraments, its quietism, and its willing acceptance of women as ministers.
Rhonda Pfaltzgraff-Carlson wants us to take the healing power of the Light seriously:
I was concerned about the underlying message being sent. I didn’t want non-Friends to believe that we have a tradition of silent worship because we’ve found that we can use this time to forget our problems and bury our discomfort! Indirectly, it suggested that sitting in silence is just another means for feeling better.
This reminds me a bit of the recently renewed discussions in the Quaker blogosphere* around Michael Sheeran’s observations in Friends a generation ago.
*This term isn’t too impossibly 1998, is it?
I could probably start a column of Quaker pet peeve of the day. I especially get bent out of shape with misremembered history. One peeve is the myth that Quaker clearness committees are ancient. These committees are typically convened for Friends who are facing a major life decision, like marriage or a career. Parker Palmer is one of the most well-known practitioners of this and gives the best description:
For people who have experienced this dilemma, I want to describe a method invented by the Quakers, a method that protects individual identity and integrity while drawing on the wisdom of other people. It is called a “Clearness Committee.” If that name sounds like it is from the sixties, it is — the 1660’s!
While it’s true that you can see references to “being clear” in writings by George Fox and William Penn around issues of early Quaker marriages, what they’re describing is not a spiritual process but a checklist item. By law you could only get married in England under the auspicious of the Church of England. Quakers were one of the groups rebelling against that. This meant they had to perform some of the functions typically handled by clergy – and nowadays by the state. One checklist item: make sure neither person in the couple is already married or has children. That’s primarily what they meant they asked whether a couple was cleared for marriage (Mark Wutka has found a great reference in Samuel Bownas that implies that the practice also included checking with the bride and groom’s parents).
One reason I can be so obnoxiously definitive about my opinions is because I have the Friends Journal archives on my laptop. I can do an instant keyword search for “clearness committee” on every issue from 1955 to 2018. The phrase doesn’t appear in any issue until 1969. That article is by Jennifer Haines and Deborah Haines. Here it is, the debut of the concept of the Quaker clearness committee:
We were challenged repeatedly to test our lives against our beliefs. We labored long over concerns raised by our belief in the way of peace. We agreed to urge that each Monthly Meeting, through a clearness committee or other committees, take the responsibility for working through with Friends the tensions raised in their lives by the Quaker peace testimony. To this committee could be brought problems created by draft or employment in institutions implicated with the military and the question of whether applicants for membership who find themselves in opposition to the peace testimony should be accepted.
The context suggests it was an outgrowth of the new practice of worship sharing. I did do a deep dive on that a few years ago in a piece that was also based on Friends Journal archives. Deborah Haines continued to be very involved in Friends General Conference and I worked with her when I was FGC’s Advancement and Outreach coordinator and she the committee clerk.
In the early 1970s the references to clearness committees continued to focus on discernment of antiwar activities. Within a few years it was extended to preparation for marriages. A notice from 1982 gives a good summary of its uses then:
Meetings for clearness, for friends unfamiliar with the term, are composed of people who meet by request with persons seeking clarity in an important life decision — marriage, separation, divorce, adoption, resolution of family differences, a job change, etc.
Notably absent in this list is the process for new member applications. The first use of the term for this process in the FJ archives came in 1989! Why did it take twenty years for the concept to be applied here?
Why does it matter that this isn’t an ancient practice? A few things: one is that is nice to acknowledge that our tradition is a living, breathing one and that it can and does evolve. The clearness committee is a great innovation. Decoupling it from ancient Quakerism also makes it more easily adaptable for non-Quaker contexts.
Worship sharing came out of the longtime work of Rachel Davis DuBois. I would argue that she is one of the most important Quakers of the twentieth century. What, you haven’t heard of her? Exactly: most of the most influential Friends that came out of the Hicksite tradition in the twentieth century didn’t develop the cult of personalities you see with Orthodox Friends like Rufus Jones and Howard Brinton. It’s a shame, because DuBois probably has more influence in our day-to-day Quaker practice than either of them.
Other links: This has turned into an awesome thread on Facebook (it’s public so jump in!). There was also a good discussion on worship sharing on QuakerQuaker a few years ago: When did Quakers start worship sharing? Back in 2003, Deborah Haines wrote about Rachel Davis DuBois for FGConnections, the awesome magazine that Barbara Hirshkowitz used to produce for FGC. I posted it online then, which is why I remember it; Archive.org saved it, which is why I can link to it.
Caveats: Yes there were Quaker processes before this. On Facebook Bill Samuel quotes the 1806 Faith and Practice on the membership process and argues it’s describing a clearness committee. I’d be very surprised if the 1812 process had anywhere near the same tone as the modern-day clearness or even shared much in the way of the philosophical underpinning. I decided to pop over to Thomas Clarkson’s 1806 A Portrait of Quakerism (discussed here) to see how he described the membership application process. I often find him useful, as he avoids Quaker terminology and our somewhat unhelpful way of understating things back then to give a useful snapshot of conditions on the ground. In three volumes I can’t find him talking about new members at all. I’m wondering if entry into the Society of Friends was more theoretical than actual back then, so unusual that Clarkson didn’t even think about.
Great tweetstorm by lifelong Friend Susanna Williams on why she left Quakers and why she remains so attached to Quakers:
Quakerism has ruined me for other faith experiences- I was empowered from an early age to have a direct & personal relationship with God, to give vocal ministry (as I first did when I was 12), to dive into silent worship.
Where are the new Quaker meeting plants? Where are the dinner worship groups? Where is the connection with the Spirit? Where is the space for Friends to encounter and share authentic faith journeys?
This reminds me of some of the themes I wrote about in The Lost Quaker Generation (turning fifteen this year) and 2013’s Quakerism Left Me by Betsy Blake. Should the kind of Friends community Susanna’s looking for really be all that rare? Click on the link to read the 10-part story.
Over email, the news that Christine Manville Greenland has passed. In recent times I worked with Christine mostly through the Tract Association of Friends but I’ve known her for so long I don’t know when I first met her.
Whenever she said something it was well worth listening to. On online forums from Soc.religion.quaker to Facebook she was always encouraging to what Samuel Bownas had called “infant ministers.” She had the rare ability to slice through thorny Quaker issues with unexpected observation and wisdom. She had a long view of recent Quaker history that put things in context and she would pull metaphors from her training as a botanist to explain mystifying behaviors in our coreligionists.
She also had a wealth of institutional memory. There’s incredible value in this. Friends, like most humans, give a lot of value to the ways we’re doing things right now. It only takes a few years before a process feels timeless and essential. We forget that things once worked differently or that other Friends have a different methods. By being involved with Friends in different areas — Canada and Colorado — Christine brought geographic awareness and by being involved in Philadelphia so long she brought a modern historical awareness. That dysfunctional meeting everyone’s talking about? She’ll remember that everyone was talking about it thirty years ago for another controversy and point out the similarities. That doubt you’ll have about a path? Christine will tell you how others have felt the leading and assure you that it’s genuine.
She did all this with such gentleness and modesty that it’s only now that she’s gone that I’m realizing the debt I owe her. More than anything perhaps, she showed how to live a life as a Friend of integrity through the politics and foibles of our Religious Society.
I used Google to find precious gems of wisdom she left on comment threads. It’s a long trail. She was active on soc.religion.quaker back in the day, commented on most Convergent Friends blogs and was active on Facebook. She took the time to write many enlightening and warm commentary. Here is a random sample.
Comment on my post “Vision and Leadership”
Yesterday, I clerked a small quarterly meeting working group — I’m co-clerk, since it isn’t my quarter… and the other co-clerk is, which works well. We keep asking the questions and seeing the potentials … but when it comes down to being faithful (a term I use instead of “accountable”) that needs consistent testing. It is important to center in worship, no matter what we are doing.
I had the experience of being chair of a group of biologists, and found that, even then, I conducted business in the same way… one of seeking guidance from other members of the group — even though the group of which we were a small part used Robert’s rules of order. I felt our group was too small to make that approach workable… Occasionally, I forgot I wasn’t among Friends until another member of the group (a United Church graduate of Swarthmore College) reminded me… Church of the Brethren folks just grinned and allowed as how they preferred the approach; we were, after all, both friends and biologists. For most of us, the work had both a scientific and a spiritual basis.
To Micah Bales’s “Is It Time to Get Rid of Yearly Meetings?”
I checked in with Friends at our Quarterly Meeting picnic yesterday; responses were mixed for a variety of reasons, some having to do with resistance to changing the ways in which we are Friends, and other responses that I can only describe as “institutional cheer-leading”.
Some of this has to do with expected tensions as we grapple with matters of both race and class; still other matters have to do with the fact that our structures have changed at least twice in 30 years, as has the outline of our faith and practice. The question I have (of myself and others) is “How do we — individually and corporately — show that we truly love one another as Christ has loved us?” By that, I mean all others.
The most hopeful exchange was speaking with a dear Friend in my former meeting who had gone for the first time in decades, and feels strongly led to encourage her meeting to assist in work going on at both the quarter and yearly meeting level; this will cross boundaries. I was hopeful in part because this Friend exudes consistent love. … and has in the 25 years I’ve known her. Love of God/neighbor are inseparable. She lives that better than I do.
It seems I have much to learn.
Comment on my “What Does it Mean to be a Quaker?” (on an old site)
I cringe when I hear the word “Quakerism” or “the Quaker Way”… I find the two terms interchangeable — both can lack substance. It seems we have finally become the “bureaucratic association of distant acquantances” rather than the Religious Society of Friends. Some years ago, an experienced Friend wrote that Integrity (saying what one means, meaning what one says) was at the heart of Quaker Practice — as a testimony.
If we’re just going for PR, that lacks integrity.
The question — for me — becomes “How can I live as a Friend?”
Comment on Eric Moon’s “Categorically Not the Testimonies”
When I first came to Friends, it was the way of life — not the intellectual construct — that drew me to meeting week after week (a university meeting in what later became Intermountain Yearly Meeting). When I applied for membership, my committee of clearness questioned more whether I could live into a way of life, into the community of that particular meeting. Friends felt that wrestling with the understanding of the faith tradition was a part of my education. Only after I moved to Philadelphia did I begin hearing of the “parsing” of the faith tradition. It seemed too pat.
Still, the overlapping categories are still as useful by way of explanation, but it isn’t the whole story.
As with many matters of faith, for those who possess it, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not, no explanation is possible. Howard Brinton did his best by way of explanation, but faith-wrestling is a task we all have.
Comment on Ashley Wilcox’s The Cost of Traveling Ministry
My question about younger Friends serving as traveling ministers is somewhat more serious: Are their meetings attentive to both the spiritual gifts and the needs (cost of travel, etc.)as well as the spiritual need for support. If not, is the Friend with a concern for travel, teaching, or any other ministry) humble enough to ask the questions Jon is asking. In my experience (as an older adult Friend)there is little communication among age groups so that gifts of ministry are fully recognized… Young Friends are often left to their own devices. It may be that lack of spiritual support that is the “last door out.”
For instance, I would not travel without the full consent of my past committee of care, all of whom know me well. They have generously supported me this year (as well as my co-leader).
What concerns me is the energy it takes (spiritual and physical), and that it most often takes an elder to attend to the mundane things — as well as to keep the minister on track.
She was also always one to think of the kids. Here she is commenting on Kathleen Karhnak-Glasby’s “Bringing Children to Worship: Trusting God to Take Over from There”
I recall one parent of a small meeting in Ontario at Canadian Yearly Meeting sessions trying to encourage his daughter to sit quietly during worship… Her very reasonable response was “but Daddy, I can pray standing on my head!” Her ministry caused me to reflect on whether I could indeed pray/worship in all circumstances, and from whatever position I was in at the time. I still reflect on that…
At another meeting, when Friends noticed the power struggles between children and their parents, we asked elder Friends to serve as “adoptive” grandparents, with whom the children could sit… That defused the power struggles, and members of meeting who had no children of their own were very helpful to parents in that meeting.
I also recall learning to sink deeply into worship — and hearing a younger Friend’s grandmother giggle. I looked down and there was the 1 – 2 year old peering up in wonder at why/how I could sit so quietly when he was busy crawling under the benches. it was just fine. He became a part of my prayers that day, and still is a part of them.
And this one has to be the last I’ll share, from a QuakerQuaker discussion started by Richard B Miller and titled “Elders’ Corner”
Like you, I learned about the role of elders from Conservative Friends (in Canada and Ohio). In the context of my own meeting (and quarter), however, there are Friends who can and do serve as guides and sounding boards — offering corrections as may be required. Ideally, elders should arise from the monthly meetings, and then be recognized in larger bodies of Friends, not necessarily being named by a yearly meeting nominating committee.
I was asked to serve as an elder for Yearly Meeting/Interim Meeting… but because I was also on the nominating committee, had a “stop” about whether that was rightly ordered. I consulted some North Carolina Friends, who agreed with the “stop”.
One difficulty that you raised is that many of the conservative Friends who held that tradition are no longer available as guides… One effect is that the role elders once played is diminishing among conservative Friends.
I’m feeling pretty broken up right now. And I’m feeling the weight of this loss. I’ve found myself more and more to be the one giving out advice and giving historical context that newer Friends might not have. It’s the kind of perch that Christine had. I’m only starting to appreciate that she formed a gentle mentoring role for me — and I’m sure for many others.
A few years ago my wife and I lost our remaining parents (her dad, my mom) and we had the unescapable recognition that we were now the oldest generation. I know there are older Friends around still and some have bits of Christine’s wit and wisdom. But one of our human guides have left us.
A few weeks ago, reader James F. used my “Ask me anything!” page to wonder about two types of Friends:
I’ve read a little and watched various videos about the Friends. My questions are , is there a gulf between “conservative” friends and liberal? As well as what defines the two generally? I’m in Maryland near D.C. Do Quakers who define themselves as essentially Christian worship with those who don’t identify as such?
Hi James, what a great question! I think many of us don’t fully appreciate the confusion we sow when we casually use these terms in our online discussions. They can be useful rhetorical shortcuts but sometimes I think we give them more weight than they deserve. I worry that Friends sometimes come off as more divided along these lines than we really are. Over the years I’ve noticed a certain kind of rigid online seeker who dissects theological discussions with such conviction that they’ll refused to even visit their nearest meeting because it’s not the right type. That’s so tragic.
The first and most common problem is that people don’t realize we’re using these terms in a specifically Quaker context. “Liberal” and “Conservative” don’t refer to political ideologies. One can be a Conservative Friend and vote for liberal or socialist politicians, for example.
Adding to the complications is that these can be imprecise terms. Quaker bodies themselves typically do not identify as either Liberal or Conservative. While local congregations often have their own unique characteristics, culture, and style, nothing goes on the sign out front. Our regional bodies, called yearly meetings, are the highest authority in Quakerism but I can’t think of any that doesn’t span some diversity of theologies.
Historically (and currently) we’ve had the situation where a yearly meeting will split into two separate bodies. The causes can be complex; theology is a piece, but demographics and mainstream cultural shifts also play a huge role. In centuries past (and kind of ridiculously, today still), both of the newly reorganized yearly meetings were obsessed with keeping the name as a way to claim their legitimacy. To tell them apart we’d append awkward and incomplete labels, so in the past we had Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Hicksite) and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Orthodox).
In the United States, we have two places where yearly meetings compete names and one side’s labelled appendage is “Conservative,” giving us Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative) and North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative). Over time, both of these yearly meetings have diversified to the point where they contain outwardly Liberal monthly meetings. The name Conservative in the yearly meeting title has become partly administrative.
A third yearly meeting is usually also included in the list of Conservative bodies. Present-day Ohio Yearly Meeting once competed with two other Ohio Yearly Meetings for the name but is the only one using it today. The name “Ohio Yearly Meeting (Conservative)” is still sometimes seen, but it’s unnecessary, not technically correct, and not used in the yearly meeting’s formal correspondence. (You want to know more? The yearly meeting’s clerk maintains a website that goes amazingly deep into the history of Ohio Friends).
All that said, these three yearly meetings have more than their share of traditionalist Christian Quaker members. Ohio’s gatherings have the highest percentage of plain dressing- and speaking- Friends around (though even there, they are a minority). But other yearly meetings will have individual members and sometimes whole monthly meetings that could be accurately described as Conservative Quaker.
I might have upset some folks with these observations. In all aspects of life you’ll find people who are very attached to labels. That’s what the comment section is for.
Formal identities aside, there are good reasons we use the concept of Liberal and Conservative Quakerism. They denote a general approach to the world and a way of incorporating our history, our Christian heritage, our understanding of the role of Christ in our discernment, and the format and pace of our group decision making.
But at the same time there’s all sorts of diversity and personal and local histories involved. It’s hard to talk about any of this in concrete terms without dissolving into footnotes and qualifications and long discourses about the differences between various historical sub-movements within Friends (queue awesome 16000-word history).
Many of us comfortably span both worlds. In writing, I sometimes try to escape the weight of the most overused labels by substituting more generic terms, like traditional Friends or Christ-centered Friends. These terms also get problematic if you scratch at them too hard. Reminder: God is the Word and our language is by definition limiting.
If you like the sociology of such things, Isabel Penraeth wrote a fascinating article in Friends Journal a few years ago, Understanding Ourselves, Respecting the Differences. More recently in FJ a Philadelphia Friend, John Andrew Gallery, visited Ohio Friends and talked about the spiritual refreshment of Conservative Friends in Ohio Yearly Meeting Gathering and Quaker Spring. Much of the discussion around the modern phrase Convergent Friends and the threads on QuakerQuaker has focused on those who span a Liberal and Conservative Quaker worldview.
The distinction between Conservatives and Liberals can become quite evident when you observe how Friends conduct a business meeting or how they present themselves. It’s all too easy to veer into caricature here but Liberal Friends are prone to reinventions and the use of imprecise secular language, whileConservative Friends are attached to established processes and can be unwelcoming to change that might disrupt internal unity.
But even these brief observations are imprecise and can mask surprisingly similar talents and stumbling blocks. We all of us are humans, after all. The Inward Christ is always available to instruct and comfort, just as we are all broken and prone to act impulsively against that advice.
Finally, pretty much all Friends will worship with anyone. Most local congregations have their own distinct flavor. There are some in which the ministry is largely Christian, with a Quaker-infused explanation of a parable or gospel, while there are others where you’ll rarely hear Christ mentioned. You should try out different meetings and see which ones feed your soul. Be ready to find nurturance in unexpected places. God may instruct us to serve anywhere with no notice, as he did the Good Samaritan. Christ isn’t bound by any of our silly words.
Thanks to James for the question!
Do you have a question on another Quaker topic? Check out the Ask Me Anything! page.
We’re extending the deadline for the August issue on Quaker Spaces. We’ve got some really interest articles coming in – especially geeky things in architecture and the theology of our classic meetinghouses.
So far our prospective pieces are weighted toward East Coast and classic meetinghouse architecture. I’d love to see pieces on non-traditional worship spaces. I know there newly purpose-built meetinghouses, adaptations of pre-existing structures, and new takes on the Quaker impulse to not be churchy. And worship is where we’re gathered, not necessarily where we’re mortgaged: tell us about your the rented library room, the chairs set up on the beach, the room in the prison worship group…
Submission guidelines are at friendsjournal.org/submissions. The new deadline is Monday, May 16. My last post about this issue is here.
I’ve been meaning to get more into the habit of sharing upcoming Friends Journal issue themes. We started focusing on themed issues back around 2012 as a way to bring some diversity to our subject matter and help encourage Friends to talk about topics that weren’t as regularly-covered.
One of the Greenwich, N.J., meetinghouses, Sept 2009
The next issue we’re looking to fill is a topic I find interesting: Quaker Spaces. I’ve joked internally that we could call it “Meetinghouse Porn,” and while we already have some beautiful illustrations lined up, I think there’s a real chance at juicy Quaker theology in this issue as well.
One of my pet theories is that since we downplay creeds, we talk theology in the minutia of our meetinghouses. Not officially of course — our worship spaces are neutral, unconsecrated, empty buildings. But as Helen Kobek wrote in our March issue on “Disabilities and Inclusion,” we all need physical accommodations and these provide templates to express our values. Earlier Friends expressed a theology that distrusted forms by developing an architectural style devoid of crosses, steeples. The classic meetinghouse looks like a barn, the most down-to-early humble architectural form a northern English sheepherders could imagine.
But theologies shift. As Friends assimilated, some started taking on other forms and Methodist-like meetinghouse (even sometimes daringly called churches) started popping up. Modern meetinghouses might have big plate glass windows looking out over a forest, a nod to our contemporary worship of nature or they might be in a converted house in a down-and-out neighborhood to show our love of social justice.
But it’s not just the outsides where theology shows up. All of the classic Northeastern U.S. meetinghouses had rows of benches facing forward, with elevated fencing benches reserved for the Quaker elders. A theologically-infused distrust of this model has led many a meeting to rearrange the pews into a more circular arrangement. Sometimes someone will sneak something into the middle of the space — flowers, or a Bible or hymnal — as if in recognition that they don’t find the emptiness of the Quaker form sufficient. If asked, most of these decisions will be explained away in a light-hearted manner but it’s hard for me to believe there isn’t at least an unconscious nod to theology in some of the choices.
I’d love to hear stories of Friends negotiating the meeting space. Has the desire to build or move a meetinghouse solidified or divided your meeting? Do you share the space with other groups, or rent it out during the week? If so, how have you decided on the groups that can use it? Have you bickered over the details of a space. Here in the Northeast, there are many tales of meetings coming close to schism over the question of replacing ancient horsehair bench cushions, but I’m sure there are considerations and debates to be had over the form of folding chairs.
You can find out more about submitting to this or any other upcoming issue our the Friends Journal Submissions page. Other upcoming issues are “Crossing Cultures” and “Social Media and Technology.”
What do our architecture, interior design, and meetinghouse locations say about our theology and our work in the world? Quakers don’t consecrate our worship spaces but there’s a strong pull of nostalgia that brings people into our historic buildings and an undeniable energy to innovative Quaker spaces. How do our physical manifestations keep us grounded or keep us from sharing the “Quaker gospel” more widely? Submissions due 5/2/2016.
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