The word 'new' against a red background. Photo: By Nick Fewings on Unsplash.
All things new: Tim Gee on a new strategy for Friends World Committee for Consultation
‘I’d like to share some of the new things happening.’
These last few weeks, I’ve been meditating on the word ‘new’. I’ve been guided by the Bible passage that will be used in the upcoming Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) Section of the Americas gathering: ‘Look, I am doing something new’ (Isaiah 43:19). It’s been on my mind because the epistle from the 2024 Quaker World Plenary Meeting used the words ‘new’ or ‘renew’ ten times, citing 2 Corinthians 5:17 (‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!’).
But when I hear the word ‘new’, especially in a faith context, I also hear the famous words from Ecclesiastes echoing in my mind: ‘there is nothing new under the sun.’ The lines that follow are less well known, but are revealing: ‘Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time’ (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10).
Quakers have long used many words for God: the Light, the Divine, the Word, the Leaven, Love, the Seed, all of them found in scripture. As I feel them inwardly, I feel something new and renewing, and yet connected to that which was in the beginning.
George Fox advised Friends to ‘meet together and know one another in that which is eternal, which was before the world was’. In this context the ‘eternal life’ is not only something which always will be, but always has been too.
Another reason the word ‘new’ has been on my mind is because, as of December 2024, the Friends World Committee now has a new strategy. It’s laid out under six headlines: Acting on the peace and justice concerns of the World Plenary; nurturing Young Adult Friends’ internationally; increasing the visibility of Quakers; supporting cross border worship; addressing the global digital divide; and sharing resources.
Although we are only three months into the year, I’d like to share some of the new things happening already. For example, acting on the outcomes of the World Plenary Meeting, we’ve begun writing to Quakers imprisoned for reasons of conscience, and to war resisters in prison of any faith or none.
We’ve been making small grants to Friends on the front line of extreme weather, to assist them and help them help their neighbours. Soon we’ll be writing to all Yearly Meetings with queries about how Friends have been addressing the historic causes of continuing injustices.
We’ve also been supporting the new World Executive Committee of Young Adult Friends. With BYM’s Quaker World Relations Committee, we’re supporting four Young Adult Friends to visit some of the places where Quakerism was born, ahead of Britain Yearly Meeting in May.
And we’ve been getting the word out about Quakerism to people who are not Quakers already. Our considered decision to withdraw from Twitter/X and join alternative social media platform BlueSky has increased our reach, and in the process we were glad of some media coverage.
In January I had my first opportunity to give the Daily Service on the BBC. I did my best to convey the essence of Quaker insights within the format of the programme. Now we’re reaching out to podcasts of all kinds to speak with anyone who will listen about what we can say together.
We’re also holding space for Friends to worship together online. People have asked for more opportunities to connect across borders outside of Section Meetings and World Plenaries, so we’re organising quarterly global worship meetings on Zoom. The first will take place on 2 March.
The fifth and sixth priorities are bigger and longer-term, but work is beginning nevertheless. Considering the stark difference in internet access in different parts of the world, addressing the digital divide in Quakerism, is a big goal. Nevertheless we’ve set ourselves a target of aiming for an entirely-online World Meeting in three years’ time, accessible by every Yearly Meeting.
Then we’re going to work on ourselves. For historic reasons, FWCC is constituted as five separate organisations (one world office and four sections), with five sets of structures, strategies, policies, procedures and so on. We’re going to see where we can better share resources.
All of this seems new, in some ways. In other ways, FWCC has been astonishingly consistent in its mission and purpose, for decades. Friends World News was one of the first things we were ever asked to produce, when we were formed in 1937, and it is still going. Old copies show reports and photos of visits for young people to ‘1652 country’ and grants for Quaker leadership programmes.
‘Then we’re going to work on ourselves.’
FWCC’s first statement submitted to the UN in 1950 was for conscientious objectors (you can read more about that in Rachel Brett’s 2012 Swarthmore Lecture Snakes and Ladders). Other records show us sending queries about addressing racism to Yearly Meetings around the world as far back as the 1980s. We’ve been discerning about Meeting electronically too, doing international Meetings for Worship for business by teleconference since the 1990s. I even found some correspondence about the introduction of FWCC’s first email address.
Some things have changed. Technology has developed rapidly, and will continue to do so. We are double the number of Quakers globally as we were even a few decades ago. Seeking to follow the inward Light of Divine guidance, we have kept doing things which are new, yet consistent with who we are.
I’m grateful to the late Eden Grace, who, in her 2019 Swarthmore Lecture introduced me to the observation that there are two words for ‘time’ in the New Testament: chronos, clock time, and kairos, God’s time (see also ‘Bide your time’, February 7). Jesus exists in something other than clock time, as he is simultaneously someone who was, someone who is, and someone who will be again – ‘Past, present and future are collapsed into the mystical union of this present moment’, as Eden said.
We also sometimes hear of a more specific ‘kairos moment’. Christian leaders opposing apartheid in South Africa defined this as a time of crisis and chaos which is also a ‘moment of grace and opportunity, the favourable time in which God issues a challenge to decisive action’. I’ve seen many asking whether the world might be likewise entering, or at least needing, a kairos moment now.
I was very impressed when three US Yearly Meetings managed to combine chronos and kairos recently, seeking a legal injunction on the state’s claimed powers to seize people from worship services. A few days later news broke of a similar case brought by two dozen faith groups, including Friends General Conference for the Quakers, but also others. Every day I see ways that the Light shines in the darkness.
This year, World Quaker Day (5 October) will have the theme ‘Love Your Neighbour’, taking as its guiding scripture Galatians 5:14: ‘For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbour as yourself”’.
Some of you might consider organising children’s Meeting, or all-age worship, on this theme, perhaps exploring Jesus’ response to the question ‘Who is my neighbour’, which he answered with the story of the Good Samaritan. The ‘neighbour’ in the story was the one considered ‘other’ by the society of the day.
The occasion is also an invitation to be ‘doers of the Word’, perhaps by inviting neighbours or regular users of the Meeting house to Meeting for Worship, or bringing a greeting to another place of worship in your community. It is a prompt to take action too, to welcome refugees and migrants to the place where you live, as many Quaker groups already do.
In some ways this feels new – talking to people who aren’t Quakers already rather than simply talking to one another. On the other hand it is a return to the very basics of our faith. Either way I feel sure it is needed now. Powerful people in many countries, some of them claiming to be Christians, are encouraging us to hate our neighbour. But Christian is an adjective as well as a noun. Let us see what Love can do.
I believe that the world needs now what Quakers have long had to offer. When environmental breakdown, war, untruths, isolation and unfairness seem to dominate, our Quaker message of simplicity, peace, integrity, community and equality is the antidote.
These are, however, only external manifestations of the inward experience of the Light, which will ultimately be the force which leads us to a better world. By pointing people towards the Light, we can each play our part.
