Missing Ministry

 

mezzo-tint 1683-8 (c) The Trustees of the British Museum

Last week I picked up a book I haven't read for ages. It was George Gorman's 1973 The Amazing Fact of Quaker Worship. Flicking through its pages I came across a passage from Robert Barclay's 1676 explanation and defence of Quaker practices and beliefs, usually called his Apology. I've never read Barclay's Apology but two passages struck me. The first is also included in Quaker Faith and Practice:

" it is left to the free gift of God to choose any whom he sees meet thereunto, whether rich or poor, servant or master, young or old, yea male or female."

The words may not seems so dramatic in the present day but in the 17th century, during the Restoration period, the distinction between classes was sharply marked, In particular the subservience of servant to master and woman to man in the workplace, family and society was taken for granted and often strictly enforced. The idea that God might choose to address a master through a his servant of a man through a woman was revolutionary. It didn't just call into question the restored hierarchy headed by the king; it was akin to the levelling movements that had been suppressed during the Commonwealth period under Cromwell. 

But Barclay goes further in a passage I eventually found in Barclay's Apology online, and which I'm quoting here at greater length than George Gorman does:

"in our day God hath raised up witnesses for himself, as he did fishermen of old, many, yea most of whom are labouring and mechanic men, who, altogether without that learning, have by the power and Spirit of God struck at the very root and ground of Babylon, and in the strength and might of this power have gathered thousands, by reaching their consciences, into the same power and life; who, as to the outward part, have been far more knowing than they, yet not able to resist the virtue that proceeded from them. Of which I myself am a true witness, and can declare from a certain experience, because my heart hath been often greatly broken and tendered by that virtuous Life that proceeded from the powerful ministry of those illiterate men: so that by their very countenance, as well as words, I have felt the evil in me often chained down and the good reached to and raised."

This startled me because it indicates something which I haven't, to my recollection, heard said in Quaker circles: that the majority of God's witnesses in the 17th century - by which Barclay almost certainly means Quakers - were members of the "labouring and mechanic" class. In other words, they were manual workers. Barclay goes on to say that he has direct experience of their ministry, and it has had a powerful effect on his faith, life and actions.

I wonder how many Quakers today can say that they have responded like this to the ministry of working-class people. 

I could extend this to wonder how many Quakers today can say that their lives have been changed, as Barclay's was, by the active presence of exploited, despised and marginalised people in their Meeting. Are there any Meetings in Britain today where the most frequent and most effective ministry comes from people who are poor?

We are missing a great deal of ministry - and it may be ministry that would, in Barclay's words, break and tender us - and by tendering he means softening us, making us tender to the call of the Spirit and the needs of others.

It's worth imagining what a Quaker Meeting might be like if we regularly received ministry arising, through the Spirit, from the lived experience of queuing at a food bank, or from fearing the loss of insecure housing or casual work. Ministry may arrive through an individual but it speaks through that individual's experience, knowledge and understanding, just as it uses that individual's words and language. Let's go further and imagine that all Meetings in Britain included a number of members who shared their experience of homelessness or, like many Black youths and adults, of being regularly stopped and searched by the police. Suppose most members of Quaker Meetings experienced, on an almost daily basis, the casual cruelty of a society that looked down on them and treated them as people of little worth. I wonder what Quaker Meetings for Worship would be like if that were the case, and whether we would, in such circumstances, build a stronger community and draw closer to the Light. 

Where are the poor Quakers?

 Why are Quakers so wealthy?

Not all Quakers are wealthy. Some are poor, subsisting on benefits or working for low wages in the gig economy. Some struggle to make ends meet. But the overwhelming impression given by Quakers in Britain as a whole is of people who are, for the most part, comfortably off and who don't suffer from the day-to day money struggles that affect a large proportion of the British population. So what went wrong?

Quakers are, as our Advices and Queries make plain, a faith group with Christian roots. And the Bible, which Quakers are still advised to read, is not a book that sides with the rich. Jesus' teachings are quite clear: he brings good news to the poor and warns his followers not to lay up for themselves treasures on earth. Yet Quakers often seem quite proud of the wealth that Quaker businesses - the breweries, the banks, the chocolate factories - have created. By the mid-19th century, according to Elizabeth Isichei's research, the average Quaker was three times as wealthy as the average British citizen. I don't find that a cause for pride.

Once any group starts becoming rich it's also liable to start being defensive about its wealth. In religious groups this can be labelled the reward of providence of the gift of God. Surely we don't think like that any more. Surely we know that wealth - including Quaker wealth - was achieved in some dodgy ways. Even Quakers who didn't "own" enslaved people or take part in colonial wars reaped the benefits of a system of empire-building, war and slavery.

Wealth has other corrupting influences. It's not just that, as the Sermon on the Mount says, moth and rust will corrupt, and thieves break through and steal. It teaches people to protect themselves from any association with poor people and poverty - unless that association is one in which the rich can congratulate themselves on doing good to and instructing the poor. Separation between rich and poor becomes central to a way of life.

In the 1860s many Quaker missions had been set up. These were not based on the equality of all that we attempt today in Quaker Meetings, where anyone can minister (unless and until eldered). They included Bible readings, singing and preaching to the poor. By the end of the 1860s there were roughly as many people regularly attending Quaker missions as there were attending Quaker Meetings for Worship. The suggestion was made that Quaker Mission members should be admitted to membership of the Religious Society of Friends - though perhaps there should be a second-class, inferior kind of membership especially for them.

The proposal to admit Mission members to Quaker membership created much discussion among Friends. In 1869 Quaker Robert Barclay, in a widely-published speech, asked:

 "Do you wish to invite chimney-sweepers, costermongers, or even blacksmiths, to dinner on First Day? Do you intend to give their sons and daughters a boarding-school education? Do you intend to save the country the expense of supporting them when out of work, and give them a sort of prescriptive right to a maintenance – a right apart from the simple personal, individual act of Christian charity?"

The speech went on to explain that it would be wrong to ask labouring men to take time away from their labours so that they could attend the business Meetings in which the direction of the Society was determined. (He didn't mention labouring women because women were, at that time, excluded from such Meetings.) And he went on and on and on:

"There is the crossing-sweeper! He is a Christian; will you reject him from Christ’s visible church? He has the same Lord, the same baptism, the same faith, the same God. He will go to the same heaven as you. He will sit down at the marriage-supper of the Lamb. Nay, he may occupy a higher place in heaven than you. No, you cannot, as professing Christians, refuse to welcome him as one who Christ is not ashamed to call his brother and if you are ashamed  to do so, be very sure he will at the last day be ashamed of you before the angels of God.

           "You cannot refuse him that Christian communion, that  loving Christian sympathy and religious instruction which you desire your own child should enjoy. But is that any reason you should introduce him to what is religiously valueless, and invite him to dinner, and encourage your daughter to associate with him in her civil or social capacity? Is it any reason why you should give him a boarding-school education, which will help him to become one of the queen’s ministers? Are not these things beyond the functions of a Christian church? Must they not necessarily limit the mission of a church of Christ?"

That distinction, between wealthy Quakers and the faithful poor, was the view that prevailed. There is an absence of poor and working-class people among Quakers today because Quakers decided - perhaps by default rather than active decision - to exclude them from the Society. So today we have wealth  but are impoverished in diversity. There is important ministry that we may therefore fail to hear.

Tender Sympathy

 

"As we enter with tender sympathy into the joys and sorrows of each other's lives, ready to give help and receive it ..."

That's how it's supposed to be - and that's the experience of quite a number of Quakers. But the experience isn't universal. There are many reasons for this. Sometimes there are personality clashes - even bitter disagreements - or just a nagging dislike that lies below the surface of attempts at friendship and understanding. We're not perfect after all.

But what of those occasions when the barrier to "tender sympathy" isn't something as simple as a personality clash? What if differences of culture and life experience lie at the root of difference? Quakers aren't immune to that difficulty - and there are particular problems because the current Quaker demographic in Britain is largely white, comfortably off and middle-class. There are historic reasons for this, some of which might discomfit Quakers today.

For people in the majority or dominant group it's not always easy to share life experiences, especially troubling experiences that may have been a crucial element of a continuing spiritual journey. But at least when experiences are shared there's a fair expectation that many of the listeners will have a shared sense of the kind of life in which those experiences happened. It's usual, for instance, to assume a norm of financial stability and being respected while never being racially abused and only very rarely (when taking part in non-violent action) being stopped and searched by the police.

That shared norm makes tender sympathy quite easy. The listeners will respond with their own similar or parallel experiences and the end of spiritual sharing will be a closer sense of shared identity. It's like being part of of a big family. No wonder many people talk about their arrival among Quakers as "coming home." And no wonder that for quite a few people it isn't like that at all.

Quakers tend to listen respectfully to whatever you tell them. Quakers work hard at listening - except when they're busy talking, which also happens quite a lot. But if you tell a group of people whose life experiences are very different from your own - particularly if you come from a group that is accustomed to mild contempt or worse from white, middle-class people - sharing your deepest experiences doesn't feel nearly so comfortable. You might decide to do it anyway - after all they are nice people - but they probably don't get it. What you receive doesn't feel so much like the "tender sympathy" of equals. It feels like the slightly condescending response of a teacher or social worker or magistrate who has read a few books about your way of life but doesn't know what it actually feels like. If you're really unlucky, they may offer advice - because they've read books so they reckon they know what your life is all about.

None of this is done out of unkindness or ill-will and somehow that makes it worse. Suppose you went to Meeting for Worship - kept going to Meeting for Worship - and it was the best and deepest spiritual experience of your life. But when Meeting was over you found yourself in a group of people who were comfortable together but just slightly awkward and condescending around you. 

Would you stay or would you go?

Unwritten rules

Quakers have a testimony to equality. That doesn't mean that they - that we - are very good at it. We're not entirely sure what it means.

In Britain, where Quakers don't have paid ministers (although they do have employees) there's a tendency to say that equality means not having a hierarchy. We sit in a square or a circle. In a Meeting for Worship anyone can stand to minister. Quaker roles - clerk, elder, treasurer etc. - aren't held for life but for three- or six-year periods and in theory anyone can take them.

It's not as easy as that. Quaker practices have been evolved through centuries and, over time, plenty of customs and unwritten rules have evolved. Quakers try to explain these to newcomers - we're not an unwelcoming lot. But we tend to forget how little newcomers know. We may explain about sitting in silence for long stretches of time - or even that, from time to time, people may stand up and "minister." We may even say encouragingly that "Anyone can minister" but is that really true? Quaker ministry tends to have a quite small range of acceptable tones and patterns. I'm not sure what would happen if a newcomer felt moved to harangue us for a long time in the style of, for example, George Fox. Or perhaps I do know what would happen. The newcomer would be eldered and gently, condescendingly, learn some of the unwritten rules of ministry. Friends would be relieved when the newcomer failed to return.

Perhaps it's fortunate that most newcomers don't feel moved to minister. They tend to wait until after Meeting to ask questions. Then they may or may not be aware of the social rules that apply - because social rules do exist, even if they're unwritten. For some that time after Meeting is a comfortable time - a chance to drink Fairtrade tea or coffee, to nibble organic biscuits and to feel that this is the sort of gathering in which they belong. But what about those who don't feel comfortable? They may have enjoyed the peace of Meeting for Worship and been moved by ministry. They may even have found that Meeting provided a deep and enriching spiritual experience. But now they have to navigate a social gathering which in Britain is mostly white and mostly middle-class. What if they feel out of place? What if that's the main obstacle that will hinder or halt their return?