In Praise of Quakers

In praise of… the Quakers

Editorial The Guardian, Saturday 1 August 2009

The decision yesterday by the Quakers to perform marriage ceremonies for gay couples was welcomed by campaigners such as Peter Tatchell as a trailblazing. But it is not the first time that the Religious Society of Friends has gone out in front. The Quakers not only began the British campaign against the slave trade but they could also lay claim to have invented modern campaigning, with the publication of a diagram showing the cross section of a ship in which slaves lay shoulder to shoulder. So too did they pick up the cudgels of prison reform and the treatment of the mentally ill. Banned by law from politics and the universities, many Quakers went into commerce and industry, where philanthropists such as Joseph Rowntree provided his workers with modern benefits such as free education, medical care and a pension fund. If Quakers make woolly believers (a majority believe in God but all refuse a creed to which they must subscribe), they are crystal clear on behaviour. They value the experience of inspiration and share it in largely silent worship. The Quaker church will now ask the government to change the law to allow its officers to register same-sex partnerships as marriages. But legal recognition is secondary. The exploration of radical concepts is more important, as is the belief that there is good in everyone. As George Fox, the founder of the Quaker movement wrote, from prison of course: "Then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone."

Letters The Guardian, 3 August 2009
Quakers are a sect not a religion

Whatever the rights and wrongs of homosexual marriage, you cannot refer to the Quakers as a church, or consider them as representative of the Church as Christ's body (In praise of... the Quakers, 1 August). They are in effect a religious sect grounded in human-centred religious emotionalism where the creed is not obligatory, Christ's divinity is an optional add-on and any doctrine of revelation is based on personal feelings. It has simply taken Quakers 40 years to catch up with the zeitgeist, the spirit of individualistic self-fulfilment that has possessed the west and seeks to suck in and transform all the churches. Quakers' silent "worship" is yet another example of western liberals looking into a deep well and seeing their own reflection.

Paul Brazier London

You are right to praise the work undertaken by the Quakers, all the more so as your list of their good deeds is by no means complete. From my work on the archive of the Jewish Refugees Committee for the period 1933-1945, it has become clear to me that the Quakers (among other organisations) rescued hundreds of Jewish children from the threat of Nazi persecution. Unaccompanied children under 16 were allowed to enter Britain between December 1938 and September 1939 and so the Quakers organised their own Kindertransports. Their overseas staff worked in the main towns of Germany and Austria, co-ordinating the travel, and in Britain homes were found to take the children in. Those children are today very senior citizens and all will speak with admiration of their Quaker rescuers/hosts.

Lilian Levy London

Quakers make the right decision

It's not only the Quaker decision to recognise same-sex marriages that deserves praise, but also the way it was arrived at

Rosemary Hartill guardian.co.uk, 3 August 2009

Following the decision by the Religious Society of Friends on Friday to become the first historic church to say "yes" to same-sex marriages, Saturday's Guardian ran an editorial entitled In Praise of .. the Quakers. It highlighted the long history of Quaker trail-blazing – in the reform of prisons and the treatment of the mentally ill, in campaigns against the slave trade, in pioneering businesses that cared for their worker, etc.

What the piece had no space to mention was Quaker decision-making. While the Anglican communion is tearing itself apart over the role and place of gay people, over 1200 Quakers managed to come to a peaceable common mind about same-sex marriage without a single vote. How did they do it?

When I worked as the BBC's religious correspondent in the 1980s, I covered numerous international and national church assemblies and news events – but never Quaker ones. Why?

For a start, Quakers never sought publicity. They preferred to build peace quietly behind the scenes. Second, it was unclear anyway what they were doing at that time that was sufficiently new, interesting or significant to the general public. Thirdly, non-Quaker journalists were (and still are) banned from observing Quaker business meetings (known as meetings for worship for business). Consequently, to most journalists, their processes were, and are, a mystery.

It was only when I joined the Society of Friends some years later that I experienced the Quaker business method.

The purpose is, quite simply, to reside in the light. To allow ourselves to be led to a transcendent place of unmistakable harmony, peace and tender love. And then to live out what that has revealed about what life is like when a loving God rules over all. The role of the clerk is to ensure that necessary facts are shared at an appropriate moment, to call speakers, and towards the end to summarise the sense of the meeting in a minute which can be approved by all present.

So there is no fixing the minute later, and no divisive voting, where one set of views defeats another. If there is no agreement, the minute reflects that, acknowledges and records (if appropriate) that Friends will return to the subject at a later date.

To a newcomer, the process can feel quite remarkably slow. It starts with a mostly silent meeting for worship, where people calm down, lay down what has been annoying or absorbing them in the hours beforehand, and gradually become fully present.

Lobbying is eschewed. People are encouraged to speak from personal experience, and avoid long, fancy rhetoric or debating points.

Most importantly, after each contribution, a silence is held, to allow people to reflect on – and hear - what has been said. Could the work of some other assemblies – both secular and religious – be transformed if some of these ideas were adopted?

This week's decision to say "yes" to same-sex marriages was taken at the Society's annual meeting, which any member is free to attend. It was not taken hurriedly.

The subject was first raised at national governing level 22 years ago. In the last two years, a consultation was conducted with local meetings. And this week, the process over several days included: a major overall introduction, the sharing of the personal experience of four couples in committed relationships; and a series of smaller groups in which Friends (still in a worshipping framework) explored legal, linguistic, psychological, historical and other aspects.

For me and others present, it was a moving and powerful spirit-led process, leading to the remarkable sense of clarity and spiritual unity reflected by the final minute.

Many homosexual Friends play a full part in the life of the society. Many are in committed relationships which in every day of their lives illustrate the gifts of the spirit – like love, joy, peace, tenderness, fidelity, patience and self-control.

A central insight of Friends' is "that marriage is the Lord's work, and we are but witnesses". It's no surprise that legal recognition by the state is secondary.

Quakers back gay marriage and call for reform

Ruth Gledhill, The Times Religion Correspondent August 1, 2009
The Quakers sanctioned gay marriages yesterday and called on the Government to give same-sex couples who marry in their ceremonies the same standing as heterosexual people.

Other Christian churches and religious denominations have approved blessings for same-sex civil partnerships but the Quakers are Britain’s first mainstream religious group to approve marriages for homosexuals

It is a decision that will be welcomed by gay and lesbian Christian groups worldwide as a breakthrough in what they regard as a campaign for justice and equality.

At their annual gathering in York this week more than 1,600 Quakers agreed "to treat same-sex, committed relationships in the same way as opposite-sex marriages, reaffirming our central insight that marriage is the Lord’s work and we are but witnesses".

The next edition of Quaker Faith and Practice, their "book of Christian discipline", will be revised "so that same-sex marriages can be prepared, celebrated, witnessed, recorded and reported to the State, as opposite-sex marriages are".

Quakers’ meetings, known as Meetings for Sufferings, are also to be urged to engage with the Government to seek a change in the relevant laws "so that same-sex marriages notified in this way can be recognised as legally valid, without further process, in the same way as opposite-sex marriages celebrated in our meetings".

But they also decided that "the question of legal recognition by the State was secondary" and that they would not be urging Quaker registrars to break the law and marry gay couples.

The annual gathering approved the statement: "We will not at this time require our registering officers to act contrary to the law but understand that the law does not preclude them from playing a central role in the celebration and recording of same-sex marriages."

The Government allows couples to register their civil partnerships but stops short of counting them as married, even though the civil ceremony gives them almost exactly the same rights in law over property, pension and inheritance.

Quakers, officially the Religious Society of Friends, have acknowledged same-sex partnerships since the 1960s. About 20 Quaker meetings have held celebrations of same-sex commitments since the 1990s.

The Junior Yearly Meeting, representing teenage Quakers, had already agreed earlier this week that "to deny the spiritual aspect of marriage to committed couples, based on their sexuality, is unjust".

Michael Hutchinson, of Quakers in Britain, said: "We recognise that many homosexual people play a full part in the life of the Society of Friends. Many of our meetings have told us that there are homosexual couples who consider themselves to be married and believe this is as much a testimony of divine grace as a heterosexual marriage. They miss the public recognition of this in a religious ceremony.

"We hope our discussions this week will help us recognise, in love, the friend whose experience is not our own and will lead us forward in exploring what true equality means."

The issue of same-sex blessings has divided other denominations. The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, said recently that homosexuals should "repent and be changed". Methodist ministers are not permitted to bless same-sex partnerships but may say prayers with a couple privately. The Liberal Jewish movement was the first religious group to publish authorised blessings for same-sex partners.

The issue has brought the Anglican Communion to the brink of schism, after the US Episcopal Church voted this month to proceed with authorising same-sex blessings. The Church of England accepts that people have gay relationships and allows clergy to register their civil partnerships but states that these must be celibate.

The official stance of the Roman Catholic Church, as stated in the Catechism, remains that homosexuality is "intrinsically disordered". Before becoming pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI wrote that homosexuality was an "intrinsic moral evil".

Centuries of being Friends

•The Quakers were founded in England in the 1600s by George Fox. They are officially the Religious Society of Friends but, according to Fox, the term Quaker was coined in 1650 by Justice Bennet, of Derby, who was trying him. Fox wrote in his journal that Bennet "was the first that called us Quakers, because I bade them tremble at the word of the Lord". Others suggested that Quakers chose the term to reflect their feeling when moved to speak in meetings

• There are about 19,000 Quakers in Britain and 340,000 worldwide

• The Quakers were founded in opposition to the traditional Churches, whose ritualistic, hierarchical structure, they felt, got in the way of a direct relationship with God

• The central concept is "that of God in everyone". Quakers are generally in agreement that they should have a direct, individual relationship with God and should follow Christian principles such as peace and forgiveness

• Worship is in weekly meetings where Friends sit in meditation for an hour, during which anyone can speak at any point

• The Quakers were socially and politically radical in the 17th and early 18th centuries and campaigned against slavery, for pacifism and religious tolerance and argued against discrimination by social class, wealth, gender or race

• Famous Quakers have included the chocolate manufacturers Joseph Rowntree and George Cadbury and the actor James Dean

Sources: quaker.org.uk, Hampshire Quakers, Times archive