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“...The Authority of Our Meetings Is the Power of God”

By Paul A. Lacey. Pendle Hill Pamphlet 365, 2003.

This provocative pamphlet serves as an overview of contemporary Quaker approaches to issues of power and authority within the Friends community. The first half of the pamphlet summarizes the development of Quaker leadership structures in the 17th century, while the second half moves quickly through major changes of the 19th century and then focuses on “modern liberal Quakerism.” While contrasting “gospel order” and “Quaker process,” the author avoids making a value judgment. His last section sums up his approach:

“The point of this extended discussion of gospel order and Quaker process is not to beat one set of principles and practices with the other. It is to show that Quakerism is, as usual, at a crossroads in dealing with issues of authority and power in church governance; to point out the directions Quakers have taken and seem to be taking; and to offer some assessment of the costs of traveling one way or another.”

Paul Lacey has been a Friend for fifty years, having first joined Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1953. He has since been on the faculty of Earlham College and currently serves as the clerk of the board of the American Friends Service Committee.

By the way, don’t miss footnote 52 on the word “ancient”!

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Legislative Testimony

Testimony in support of the Marriage Bill, H 3677, before the Massachusetts House
23 October 2003

To: Honorable Chairpersons, members of the Judiciary Committee, and members of the General Court

I speak in support of the Marriage Bill, H 3677. Simply as a citizen of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I would urge you to approve this bill, ending discrimination based on gender and granting same-gender couples the civil rights and responsibilities of marriage.

But I speak to you today as a member of the Religious Society of Friends (also known as Quakers). As a Quaker, I am no stranger to the differences between civil law and religious practice. Mary Dyer, a Quaker whose statue stands in front of this building, was hanged by the authorities on Boston Common in 1660. She was a martyr for religious freedom. Her statue should stand as a warning against the perils of allowing religious practice, no matter how large the majority, to dictate civil practice for all.

Quakers today are not being hanged, but we still seek equal treatment before the law. Many Quaker congregations take the relationships of same-gender couples under their care, which is to say that we authorize and oversee the marriage ceremony and commit to providing pastoral care to the marriage. My own congregation, Beacon Hill Monthly Meeting, which meets only blocks away, has for over 15 years recognized marriages of its members without regard to gender. In April 1988 the Meeting officially stated that:

We, the members and attenders of Beacon Hill Monthly Meeting, affirm our belief in that of God in every person. Furthermore, we attest that this belief embraces all persons regardless of sexual orientation.

Beacon Hill affirms that all couples, including those of the same sex, have equal opportunity to be married within the framework of the meeting process. The love between these couples, as it grows, will enrich their relationship, the Meeting, and the world at large. The Meeting is committed to supporting these couples according to their needs.

Beacon Hill acknowledges the Certificate of Marriage signed by the couple and those present at the ceremony as the witness of Friends to the couple’s spiritual union. Mindful that only the heterosexual couples among us currently have the right to legally sanctioned marriage and its privileges, the Meeting asks Friends, and particularly couples preparing for marriage, to examine how best to respond and bear witness to the inequalities still present in the system.

Massachusetts, of course, long ago ceased to persecute Quakers, and statutes regarding “procedure to perform (solemnize) marriage” include not only provisions for clergy of various denominations and civil authorities, but this clause:

a marriage maybe solemnized in a regular or special meeting for worship conducted by or under the oversight of a Friends or Quaker Monthly Meeting in accordance with the usage of their Society.

Thus, for some couples whose marriages have been allowed by Beacon Hill Meeting, our action is sufficient evidence for the state to extend the responsibilities and benefits of marriage to the couple. For other couples, equally in love, equally faithful to one another, equally contributing to our community and to civic life, equally examined by our careful marriage process, our action has no legal effect. How can the Commonwealth of Massachusetts allow us to act as agents of the state in marrying opposite-gender couples and then disregard our careful religious discernment concerning same-gender couples?

If religious definitions of marriage are to continue influencing the civil definition of marriage, if the state is to continue allowing religious officials to act as agents of the state in conducting marriages, then the state must not discriminate between different and even conflicting religious practices. In this case, I urge you to extend the same civil rights and responsibilities to all the couples married under the care of Beacon Hill Meeting by approving bill 3677.

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On being connected

Somehow I’ve become included in yahoo and google search results, and it’s fascinating to take a look at my statistics page now. (Typepad offers a rather basic statistics page, but eventually I caught on to the fact that I can tell what search phrase was used.)

It seems I should be more careful to say something worthwhile when I list books as I finish reading them, and I should certainly be saying something about lace, of all things. I actually did finish a piece of lace knitting a few weeks ago; I hope to have some kind of post soon, perhaps even a photo, about it. Perhaps that would be worth following a search on “lace shawls” to my blog.

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Singular They: The Pronoun That Came in from the Cold

Yet another entry into this cultural skirmish: The Vocabula Review — September 2003 — Singular They: The Pronoun That Came in from the Cold — jjoan ttaber altieri

“[N]ative speakers of English automatically rely on singular they (their, them) as the pronoun of choice.”

I prefer the commentary by another Quaker member of copyediting‑l, that people don’t seem to have any problem with singlular “you.”

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The Lost Quaker Generation

Provocative post over at Martin Kelley, Ranter: The Lost Quaker Generation, where Martin recounts a conversation with a friend and former Friend who served time in prison for a Plowshares action and has returned to his parents’ religious tradition.

Martin’s friend told Martin “He didn’t feel supported in his Plowshares action by his Meeting.” But he doesn’t say (or Martin doesn’t relate) whether he asked his meeting for a clearness committee before taking the action. Corporate discernment is central to my understanding of Quaker life, and is all too often neglected by contemporary Friends. It is too easy to assume that because there’s a hefty risk, the leading must be genuine. So, did he ask his meeting for a clearness committee as a step in asking them to support his action?

Martin’s friend concludes that

[T]he Friends in his Meeting didn’t think the Peace Testimony could actually inspire us to be so bold. He said two of his Quaker heroes were John Woolman and Mary Dyer but realized that the passion of witness that drove them wasn’t appreciated by today’s peace and social concerns committees. The radical mysticism that is supposed to drive Friends’ practice and actions have been replaced by a blandness that felt threatened by someone who could choose to spend years in jail for his witness.

I suspect he’s right about Mary Dyer’s passion not being appreciated as a model for our own lives today. But plenty of stodgy, unmystical old Friends have spent time in jail (or worse) themselves. Not knowing what the Plowshares action was, I suspect Friends’ fault was actually being unable to support destruction of property. In leading a nonviolence exercise in several Quakerism classes, I’ve found that a majority of contemporary “liberal” Friends and seekers in those classes disapprove of actions that involve trespassing, cutting fences, or hammering nosecones. Neither John Woolman nor Mary Dyer harmed the property of others. And John Woolman writes extensively about the corporate discipline to which he submitted.

Martin begins to draw to a close:

But back to my friend, the ex-Friend. I feel like he’s just another eroded-away grain of sand in the delta of Quaker decline. He’s yet another Friend that Quakerism can’t afford to loose, but which Quakerism has lost. No one’s mourning the fact that he’s lost, no one has barely noticed. Knowing Friends, the few that have noticed have probably not spent any time reaching out to him to ask why or see if things could change and they probably defend their inaction with self-congratulatory pap about how Friends don’t proselytize and look how liberal we are that we say nothing when Friends leave.

This is all too true of how stand-offish we can be in our meetings. But Martin–did you not notice? Are you not mourning? Did you not reach out to him and ask why (and even write about it)?

I know what you mean, but this is another common failing among us. We want “the meeting” or “Friends” to do something and overlook the things that we ourselves are doing or might do. Pastoral care is a big blindspot in this way. When I broke my ankle, Friends and friends stepped right up to give me transportation, company, and food. At the time, Beacon Hill Meeting didn’t even have a pastoral care committee, the meeting never took any action, and I don’t remember receiving a phone call “on behalf of the meeting.” (There were drugs involved...) Does that mean I didn’t receive pastoral care from the meeting? NO WAY. The meeting came through for me in a big way, discernably more so than my other communities. But I’ve heard others who received the same kind of loving care complain that the meeting didn’t do anything.

In spite of my contrary comments on elements of Martin’s post, I am worried by the same issues (just interpreting some of the elements differently). I came to Quakerism as a twenty-something, almost twenty years ago now. I was shocked then to be consistently among the youngest in many committees or gatherings. I’m shocked and saddened now to find that that is still all too often so. I’m glad that Martin and others like him are trying to make our Quaker home more welcoming and nurturing (and challenging) to all.