Quakers in Britain are almost wholly white, middle class, educated and over fifty.

We pretend to have a wide range of faith positions and spiritual practices, but in fact these are just ‘notions’: distractions, entertainments, games to fill the void left by comfort and the need to hide from guilt. The ‘rational’ approach, of which we are so proud, is in fact rationalising (in the sense of justifying) our behaviours and way of life. ‘It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.’

In the middle classes we manipulate the justifications people make for the way they live.

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Comments

• Posted by geriatrikid on February 03, 2010

  As I suggested in comment on Jessica Reed’s recent piece in The Friend, behaviour and belief have close links, but neither has precedence. Therefore I find it hard to accept John’s final sentence. It oversimplifies: people born into a watered down or inactive religious family tradition may well acquire from babyhood onward habits of thought and practice that are behaviourally similar to those of their more positively religious parents or forebears. Yet their own beliefs, if any, may have no direct conscious link to their behaviour.

  I can think of people whose behaviour in some measure succeeds in being recognisably similar to the ‘Advices’, so succinctly presenting a pattern for action - a way; yet they almost certainly know next to nothing about Quakers.

  John uses the term extinction. As an outsider I fear that inwardly directed preoccupation with the weaknesses or illusions of those who are Quakers is not the direction to turn. Look rather at the many in society from diverse backgrounds (not mainly ethnic) who may welcome introduction to a definitive way that seems in harmony with what they want themselves and our society to be.

  As I have named John I should at least peep out from my username and admit to ‘Norman’.

• Posted by PeterR on February 05, 2010

  I think John’s vision of the Quakers dying out as a result of self-justification and absorption in their own (not very important on a global scale) issues is entirely believable. I’ve been a member for nearly 4 years and I despair at Quaker complacency on the one hand, set against apparently passionate commitment to issues which are at best lost causes. Why has it taken so long for Quakers to take the enormous challenge of climate change seriously rather than hiding behind empty statements about ‘prophetic witness’? And on the other hand how much ink and middle-class rhetoric has been expended over the naive, unfeasible and undemocratic peace tax campaign?

  Quakers need to look outside their own narrowness and reach out (why is ‘outreach’ felt to be so un-Quakerly? it seemed to work for George Fox…) to engage with the concerns of the majority. Other faith groups have done this. In fact I think the Society of Friends needs its own Vatican II, right now. It should:

  Bring back radicalism by reaching out to collaborate with local and regional groups on common issues. Every LM and AM should be able to identify initiatives to join, augment, even initiate - and where they can collaborate with others. Everyone in the Meeting should be able to be involved at some level of activism, however small or great.

  Simplify the structures of the Society of Friends, in particular removing the strange and inappropriately exclusivist distinction between members and attenders. Make it easy for people to come along and get involved, because that’s what counts.

  Celebrate diversity of belief, acknowledge the benefits of universalism, and abandon the so-called debate between theists and non-theists. The early Quakers were Christians because there was no other world view open to them in 17th century Leicestershire. Now we know that there are many ways to incorporate spiritual awareness into our everyday lives, and each one is right for the person who follows it truly.

  It would indeed be great for the Society to be overwhelmed with idealistic people. But that’s not going to happen until Quakers stop being content that most people don’t know they exist, and start doing things that will raise their profile locally and nationally. This will of course need a concentrated and probably long campaign against traditional interests in the Society, but it is a campaign that is worth the struggle and which we can actually win - if Quakers really want to.

• Posted by geriatrikid on February 09, 2010

  How very much I share this commitment to reaching out and working with others locally and nationally wherever there is scope for promoting ‘common ground’; consistently with the behavioural guidance of Advices.

  It may thought sacrilegious by some to adopt a primary commitment to this life’s affairs.  For those of us who believe in the power and the working of God, ‘the way’ - our way - realistically - is to till the soil by action so that it becomes fertile for the working of the Spirit, not to contemplate our navels.

  For non-theists, promoting, publicising and acting out the behavioural guidance of the Advices, being examples, should be enough.

  From those to whom we reach out will come those who will be the heart of the Society in the future. Without them, we shall wither.