Quaker erasure

 

William Penn statue in 1894, prior to being placed on the pinnacle of City Hall, Philadelphia

"Don't erase William Penn," the cry goes up. "Don't cancel him."

I don't think he's being cancelled. He's still there in the history books, in Quaker Faith and Practice, on hundreds of websites, in legal textbooks, and in many statues, including the gigantic one that was for years the highest point in the city of Philadelphia.

More gently, we're asked to sympathise with him, which is fair enough - if we also offer our sympathy to Sam, Sue, Yaff, Jack, Peter, Chevalier, Susannah and Virgil Warder and to others whose names we don't know. These were the recorded enslaved people on William Penn's estate in Pennsylvania and we can't tell from those names where their lives began or whether they had other names that were stolen from them like their liberty.

We can't know what gifts, qualities and spiritual insights the enslaved people "owned" by William Penn had to offer. We can't tell how they were prevented from sharing them. We can know, if we choose, that in 1700 the legal code of Pennsylvania prevented Black people (it's unclear whether or not free Black people were included) from gathering together in groups of more than four. Breaking this rule was punishable by 39 lashes. The people who have been most fully cancelled and erased from history are those who were enslaved; in the words of Ecclesiasticus: "some there be which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been; and are become as though they had never been born; and their children after them."

We can guess that the descendants of the enslaved people on William Penn's estate are among us in the world even though we may not know who they are. Very few of the enslaved people "owned" by Quakers make it into the history books, although Olaudah Equiano is a notable exception. But it seems to me that they deserve to be acknowledged with a degree of humility. We aren't the people who chose to enslave our fellow humans, despite numerous warnings that this was theft and violence. But if we cherish the good deeds and writings of the enslavers, we don't just need to acknowledge their wrong actions. We also need to be aware that the enslaved human beings had equal worth.

There's still a tendency to say that there was no opposition to slavery in the 17th century. This simply isn't true. There isn't just the evidence of the Germantown protest of 1688, which must have emerged from prior, unrecorded discussion and prayer. In 1693 George Keith, then in a dispute with fellow Quakers that led to his disownment the following year, wrote with others An Exhortation and Caution to Friends against buying or owning enslaved humans. This picks up many of the points made in the Germantown Protest and suggests a widespread attempt to find the right course of action. This document tends to be forgotten in view of Keith's support of a more conventional and biblically-based practice - he and his followers later introduced versions of adult baptism and communion - but it makes me wonder whether Keith and his followers saw shortcomings in reliance on the Inward Light in part because those who endorse it seemed happy to tolerate the abhorrent practice of slavery.

So far as I can see, none of the 17th century Quaker opponents of slavery are mentioned in Britain's Quaker Faith and Practice. Their words aren't quoted. Those enslaved and "owned" by Quakers are not named and their views and insights aren't reported. There's a lot of emphasis on later Quakers who spoke about slavery (though not yet the embarrassing Benjamin Lay). There's little acknowledgement of such groups as the Sons of Africa who worked with them on their campaigns.

This does still matter. It's partly a matter of being honest about the history of Quakers instead of serving up a sentimentalised and dishonest version. But it's also because, if we really believed in equality, we wouldn't just be looking for ways to defend William Penn and other early Quaker enslavers. We'd be giving weight to the experiences of those who Penn and other Quakers enslaved, who suffered terribly and who were just as fully human as their Quaker "owners." 

If we can't acknowledge the equality of all in the past, what chance do we have of seeing all as equal or of working for equality today?

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. 

Punching above our weight?

 

A phrase that's come to worry me the more I hear it is "Quakers punch above their weight." And although I detest boxing, it's not the image of the punch that worries me. I'm just as worried when it's put more politely as "Quakers have an influence that's disproportionate to their small numbers."

I have two concerns about this idea of influence. One is that it seems a particularly sneaky way of going about things. In the struggle for the vote, women (whose campaign was never endorsed by British Quakers as a whole) were often told that their proper role was to exert a quiet influence behind the scenes - which meant, on the whole, those women who were classed as "ladies" acting as society hostesses or whispering ideas for policy into their influential husbands' ears. It never seemed much of a substitute for involvement in real, informed public debate and it plainly privileged those women who were not merely wealthy but also prepared to exert sweetly feminine charms to public and political ends.

I wouldn't accuse any Quaker of deploying sweetly feminine charms in this way. However Quaker influence behind the scenes has on occasion been exerted by Quakers using social contacts with highly-placed politicians that derive from class privilege and the manners of the wealthier members of society. This behind-the-scenes influence through social contacts goes in both directions. For instance, in 1907 William A Cadbury was persuaded by the foreign secretary Lord Grey to delay and limit access to the report into slavery in Principe and Sao Tomé he had commissioned because it might cause damage to the government's interests as well as the reputation of Quaker chocolate manufacturers.

But there's another concern. If we exert disproportionate influence, by what right do we do so? Do we really think we are heard because of our virtue - or is it because of our money and our manners? And if we are being heard, whose voices exert less influence than they should?

I think most Quakers would express shock if I stood up in Meeting and praised the way in which influence over parliaments is bought by the rich or achieved by those with the right contacts. I've heard Quakers express shock at the thought that friends of ministers might have been privileged in gaining PPE contracts. They might also be discomfited by the way political parties (in power and opposition) raise funds by charging for access to key politicians. But it's the standard game and all sorts of people play it. I've heard of charities, campaign groups I support, universities, local authorities and even NHS trusts trying to get on the right side of ministers by booking stalls at party conferences - and isn't that a kind of cash for access?

So how do Quakers gain their disproportionate influence? I'm prepared to agree, as a Quaker, that it's influence for things I too really care about: peace-making, help for refugees, LGBTQ rights and so forth. Well they - we - pay for it. We have offices and people who are good at talking with politicians. People with opposing views - and often with much more money - do the same things to advance their views. It's a messy process and hasn't got much to do with democracy.

Meanwhile there are groups who have much of importance to say whose influence is insufficient - who punch below their weight. The Grenfell Action Group were vigorous in their attempts to avert the fire that killed 72 people - but they were mocked, threatened and ignored. Yet they did their best to speak truth to power. Numerous campaigns seek the truth about other deaths when the state or big organisations are involved, but few have much impact on politicians or policy. If we're pleased that Quakers have a disproportionately large influence, what do we feel about those who influence is disproportionately small? And how does punching above our weight fit with our testimony to equality?

Money, time and something else

The website for Quakers in Britain includes a section on giving.  It indicates two ways in which members of the Religious Society of Friends can contribute to Quaker work: by giving money or by giving time. Both money and time are useful and can be used well. But there are many people who have neither time nor money to spare and there's a risk that such people may come to feel they have nothing to offer the wider Quaker community - and that the Quaker community as a whole may forget what those without time and money actually provide.

Many people in Britain have less than no money. They are in debt. This isn't their fault. We live in a system where debt is a way of life. Some kinds of debt are respectable, even among Quakers who can be quite critical of debt. A mortgage is a debt. A student loan is a debt, although a debt that may never be repaid. A bank loan that underwrites a business venture is a debt. 

The debts that people working in insecure low-paid jobs or relying on benefits tend to be smaller but it's much harder to get by when these debts are incurred. Many people who have incurred debts through poverty or crisis find themselves working extra hours in an attempt to reduce of pay off the debt. These people often have caring responsibilities or illness or disabilities as well. They can't offer Quakers time or money but they are just the people we should welcome in our Meetings and as members. They have much to teach the wealthier and more fortunate people in our community. 

Some of what we might learn is purely practical. The book of  Pam Lunn's 2011 Swarthmore Lecture, Costing not less than everything, includes the following passage:
    "In the town where I live the local climate change action group recently had an interactive exhibition. ... I spent about three hours there, helping visitors use a simple online carbon footprint calculator. The people who were showing low carbon emissions and coming very close to one-planet living (in carbon terms) were the poor - people unemployed or on low incomes, with whole families living in small houses, in what many of us would regard as over-crowded conditions. I was surprised at how low some of their carbon footprints were. ... I don't regard my own home as luxurious, or my lifestyle as affluent - but on a global scale they most certainly are."

That passage is a useful reminder, and not just that poorer people in Britain may be doing less harm to the planet than the majority of Quakers. It's an uncomfortable reminder that Quakers are, by and large, affluent and liable to be surprised that poor people might set a good example. And while the paragraph draws back from suggesting that the author is herself living an affluent lifestyle in a luxurious home in local terms, that is precisely what her example suggests. If there were more people in our Meetings setting a good material example by their low carbon footprint because of their relative poverty, and if their example were valued, admired and followed, they would provide something of worth to the community of Quakers as a whole.

I think we sometimes pay too much attention to those who are able to offer time and money to Quakers, and too little attention to those among us who struggle and lack both. Because we don't have a paid priesthood, we depend on those who can afford to donate time to Quaker work and perhaps also to those whose money can fund Quaker projects. Of course their time and money is a useful and generous gift. But just as we worry about big donors to political parties wielding undue influence and power, we need to be concerned that big donors to Quakers (in terms of time as well as money) might exert too much influence on the decisions and direction of the Society. Those who possess spare time and money are often those whose life experience has been limited. There is a difference between observing need (even when we respond to it) and actually experiencing need.

There is no single experience of poverty and need. People who are poor or in need are complete, fully-rounded human beings. Each of them has something individual and specific to offer us, should they wish to join us at Meeting or become a member of the Religious Society of Friends. Each has particular spiritual insights. We can learn at least as much from those who lack time and money as from those who have both in abundance.

watercolour from the commonplace book of Quaker Elizabeth Clay

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?

Why not talk about Germantown?

 Ah yes, the Quakers! They're good people. Didn't they play a big part in getting rid of slavery? Weren't they among the first to see that it was wrong?

Well no, actually. Quite a number of early Quakers were slave-owners - and that included William Penn, the man whose gigantic statue looms over Pennsylvania. He did think of freeing his slaves at one time - before one of his journeys he left a will setting them free if he died on the voyage - but he didn't actually do it and in the end he treated them as property and they passed to his heirs.

But didn't everyone believe in slavery then? No. They didn't. People who had been enslaved definitely thought it was a bad idea. That's why they rebelled so often. That's why some of them ran away when they had the chance - though that must have been a terrifying prospect in a land they didn't know. Pennsylvania enacted some pretty brutal laws to prevent enslaved people from talking to one another - and a state wouldn't pass laws like that unless the people in charge were pretty scared that the people they oppressed might conspire and rise up against them.

There were also Quakers who didn't believe in slavery - way back in William Penn's time and in Pennsylvania. Slavery was, after all, a pretty new enterprise on the scale adopted in the mid-17th century. It was taken up by the English government at just about the time Quakers were getting going. And some people found it appalling. Back in 1688 a protest was presented to the Quakers in Philadelphia signed by four Quakers in Germantown, Pennsylvania. It began: "These are the reasons why we are against the traffik of mens-body." The authors were Dutch and their English is clumsy but those words - "traffik of mens-body" - get right to the point of what slavery is. And the document goes on to point out all the reasons why it is wrong. It even points out the violence of slavery: that these people "have as much right to fight for their freedom, as you have to keep them slaves."

Quakers in Britain today don't hear much about the authors of the Germantown protest, even though one, Francis Pastorius, was a friend of William Penn, the subject of a poem by Whittier and is sometimes considered the first American poet. They're a bit of an embarrassment - a reminder that early Quakers not only got some things wrong but also that the wrong they did caused devastating damage to the lives of those they oppressed. 

But isn't it time we learned at least as much about the bad bits of Quaker history as we're prepared to face when looking at the wrongs of the British Empire or our country's conduct in war? There can't be one rule for the British Empire and another rule for us. And while we're at it, perhaps we should find a way to acknowledge that the resistance of enslaved people helped Quakers understand that slavery was wrong and that when Quaker anti-slavery activities finally got going in the late 18th century, they weren't just drawing on Quaker thought but also on the activities of non-Quakers like Olaudah Equiano, who had once been the property of Quaker Robert King, and Ottobah Cugoano. These were men whose position in British society was far less easy than that of members of the Religious Society of Friends.

Thinking about the enslaved people and the Germantown protest isn't just a matter of being truthful about long-dead history. The past has formed who we are and where we are as a Society today. Who we choose to celebrate - whose words we include in Quaker Faith and Practice - tells us something of where we are now, and whose unhappiness we might prefer to ignore.

Estates, degrees and Mary Fisher

 

I was troubled when, in Meeting for Worship, a Friend read this passage from Isaac Pennington:

"Are there not different states, different degrees, different growths, different places? … Therefore, watch every one to feel and know his own place and service in the body, and to be sensible of the gifts, places, and services of others, that the Lord may be honoured in all, and every one owned and honoured in the Lord, and no otherwise."

It was written in 1667 but it's still listed as one of the "well-loved phrases" in Britain Yearly Meeting's current edition of Quaker Faith and Practice. I don't love it at all.

It's possible that Friends today aren't familiar with the way some of those words were used in the 17th century. But the word "degrees" following the word "states" go back to some arguments about class that were common enough in Shakespeare's day to surface in his plays. "Degree" and "state" or "estate" in this context mean something close to social and economic class. Knowing your "place and service" among Friends suggest the existence of a hierarchy that's not much different from the hierarchy in the rest of the world.

Warnings that individual Quakers should know their place and stay there aren't that uncommon, even among early Friends. An epistle from George Fox, quoted in Geoffrey Durham's The Spirit of the Quakers, includes the warning to Friends "of what trade or calling so ever" to:

"Go not beyond your estates, lest ye bring yourselves to trouble, and cumber, and a snare; keep low and down in all things ye act. ... "dwell every one of you under your own vine ... and seek not to be great ..."

Fox's epistle is concerned with many things, from avoiding debt, envy and lavish spending to the need to "dwell in the truth, justice, righteousness, and holiness." The word "estates" as used here seems concerned with both possessions and place in the world, since these were closely linked in the understanding of the time. This his words, like Pennington's, have an underlying tone of "Know your place and stay there."

These injunctions, still quoted and loved, have a chilling effect on my own wish to challenge existing hierarchies. I want to wave the banner of Quakers' testimony to Equality but are Quakers really that equal - and do they want to be? I don't know the answer. An enthusiasm to speak truth to power is rarely matched by a desire to hear truth spoken by the powerless - or even by a recognition that those with less power also have a truth to speak.

I'm cheered, however, by parts of the story of Mary Fisher. She was one of the group called the "Valiant Sixty" - the men and women who were also known as "publishers of truth." In the 1650s she as an illiterate housemaid she was convinced of the truth of Quakerism, as were all in the household where she was employed. When she told her employers that she felt a calling to preach, they released her from her employment and she went out with another woman, Elizabeth Williams, to preach in the streets of England. They were flogged as vagabonds. But Quakers taught Mary Fisher to read and write, They supported her ministry - and her ministry took her to Barbados, to America and to Turkey where she spoke with the Sultan and felt a special kinship with the Muslims she met, describing them as "more near truth than many nations" and speaking of her great love towards them.

Later Mary Fisher married twice and died in 1698 in South Carolina. There the story becomes less happy. At the time of her death she was a slave-owner and a human being was listed as part of her property. So I wonder how Mary Fisher was seen by other Quakers at the time. Was she seen as an exception, with special gifts and a calling that allowed her, uniquely, to be freed from the usual restriction of estate, degree and place? And was that, in the end, how she saw herself? Or was there a moment in the early history of Quakers when equality of people of all estates and degrees seemed possible and a harbinger of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth?

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?