Letters - 08 August 2025
From voicing dissent to planting trees
Voicing dissent
In the weekly newsletter from Britain Yearly Meeting, Suzanne Ismail says that, ‘Over the last few months Quakers in Britain staff have been hearing from many Quakers concerned about the crackdown on dissent. Most are outraged; some are resigned, others scared. Many more want to do something but are confused about what is and isn’t “permissible” in a rapidly changing context’.
Is this article about dissent being suppressed in the country or about dissent in the world of British Quakers?
I ask this because I see a lot of suppression of dissenting opinion in British Yearly Meeting nowadays.
For example: the censorship exercised by paid staff at Friends House of the Facebook forum ‘Quaker space’; or the calling of Friends who do not agree with some statements issued in our name ‘agitators’ (said recently by the clerk of our trustees).
A tendency seems to be developing of classing those Quakers who dissent from ‘official’ statements as troublemakers. Emma Roberts with her series of YouTube interviews under the heading of ‘Quakerology’ could be one. I seem to recall that there was a troublemaker called George Fox some time ago. Thank God for troublemakers.
Almost six years ago in the 30 August 2019 issue of the Friend there was a perceptive article by a very thoughtful Friend, Rex Ambler, in which the headline was ‘I have seen our traditional decision-making process being slowly eroded, and I have been puzzled and dismayed by it’.
Unfortunately much of what he foresaw has happened.
The old Quaker model of decision making depends on tapping ‘that of God in everyone’ and is described well in Quaker faith & practice chapter three. It is a process of discernment in which we all come to understand the truth of the situation and how we are called to respond to it.
The new management model seems to be a practice of secular decision-making, based on research into what people want or need.
Are we now finding the secular model much more suitable to the Society of Friends we have become?
Eric Walker
Not in unity
With reference to the letter from Cherry Lewis (25 July), it has become clear, I think, at Yearly Meeting and at Meeting for Sufferings, that Friends in Britain are not in unity about all the particulars of the debate about gender. So it is hard for Friends as a body to ‘advocate further for transgender people’, although our Friend wishes this.
I welcome the judgement of the Supreme Court, as it clarifies the law as it is, rather than how trans advocates would like it to be.
Friends respect the laws and only break them in exceptional circumstances, in accordance with our testimonies. We also respect the findings of science as to material facts.
We have a testimony to truth. One truth is that we human beings cannot change our biological sex. The chromosomes we are born with help to shape our medical history through life.
I believe that our sex is God-given. I also see the distinction often made nowadays between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ as artificial and arbitrary. Respect should be given to the beliefs and feelings of ‘gender-critical’ people who feel uncomfortable with the blurring of the boundary between male and female.
Friends believe (I am sure) that the rights of minorities should be protected. But this cannot be at all costs. The rights of different groups (for example, trans people and biological women) can come into conflict. We cannot wish this away.
Proper risk assessments need to be carried out, where there is such conflict, with aroused fears and feelings taken into account. Failing this, I await with dread the first case of a safeguarding issue, arising from policies poorly thought out.
David Harries
