Letters - 31 May 2024
From Down with the kids to Is dogma un-Quakerly?
Down with the kids
Barrie Rowson suggests that we could say ‘spiritual mindfulness’ instead of ‘worship’, to be down with the kids (16 May). In my experience, young people are put off less by words like ‘worship’ and more by our attempts to paraphrase our faith and witness in the terms of the prevailing culture. Many young people like me are refugees from a secular culture that finds mindfulness a much easier thing than faith. For us, the power of Quaker worship is that we are gathered together and guided by a Divine hand, as we come to the end of our own answers and capacities. ‘Worship’ is as good a name for that as any. At least it clearly points to a Presence greater than us and our ideas, and it seems to me that our communal endeavour to help each other tune in to this Presence is why we bother to meet.
Matt Rosen
Moral clarity
While surely no one will disagree with Zoe Prosser that hectoring and debilitating uses of the word ‘should’ should (oops) be dispensed with (10 May), I’m not comfortable with expunging it from Quaker vocabulary. Experience of ‘leadings’ and ‘callings’ invariably carries with it a sense of obligation to do some particular thing, which, in greater or lesser degree, may well have the force of an imperative – it should, or even must, be acknowledged, attempted or pursued. Collective discernment, properly undertaken, can indicate the rightness or otherwise of one course of action over another, and energise a community to follow or accept it.
There’s more to a disciplined spiritual life than simply being kind to oneself and to others. Foundational as these are to Friends, a socially-engaged faith cannot be reduced to sensible self-care or to finding joy in service. ‘Living in truth’, and our testimonies more generally, require more than this. What of justice? I can think of no people of deep faith, from most early Friends to Martin Luther King Jnr, who did not have a clear spirit-led sense of what should be done to improve their societies, even when it entailed ‘carrying a cross’.
Given that historically so many Quaker testimonies have been against prevailing forms of order in the world – from refusing tithes to opposing war and violence – would Zoe encourage us to abjure the term ‘should not’ when we deliberate and speak about, for example, the dilution of environmental protections or Israel’s actions in Gaza? I hope not. I don’t believe she should. Moral clarity in dark times requires that Friends keep this word, and use it discerningly.
Mike Nellis
Abolish the veto?
While attending this week’s Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) European and Middle East Section (EMES) Meeting for prayer for peace it re-occurred to me that a huge step towards peace would be for the power of veto in the UN Security Council to be abolished. It might be replaced during a transition period by those who once had the veto being authorised to require a two-thirds or larger majority for a motion to become a Resolution. I also consider that the UN should have a standing militarised police force consisting of a small but annually growing proportion of each state’s current military force. Within our country we do not allow the toughest, most brutal contestant in a dispute to prevail. We settle disputes in courts of law. The human race should have the sense to act likewise in international disputes. Might our Quaker United Nations Offices (QUNO) work in that direction?
Stephen Petter
Residential gatherings
There are no plans to hold a residential Yearly Meeting at present. We used to have them every three years, and I do not know where the decision was made not to hold one as soon as possible after the inevitable delays of Covid, and why the decision was made. Residential Yearly Meetings are wonderful – a joyful opportunity to meet old Friends and make new Friends from all over the country, and to participate in main sessions and small group discussions, outings, and lots of informal conversation.
Many Friends come back from them inspired and renewed in their Quakerism. It might be refreshing to have a face-to-face Yearly Meeting free of Zoom. I question whether Quaker discernment really works at BYM blended Meetings, where there are 1,000 or so people, some present in person and some on a computer screen.
I think we need a residential Meeting now more than ever, and it needs to be as big as possible so people who want to attend won’t be disappointed. Let’s have the biggest ever Quaker gathering that will be remembered for generations, after these years of not having the opportunity to ‘see each other’s faces and open our hearts to one another’!
Elizabeth Coleman
Meaningful discernment
I was so pleased to read Clive Ashwin’s article (17 May). I no longer feel like a lone voice in the IT wilderness. It seems to me that no meaningful discernment has been made, locally or nationally on this. The introduction of IT into our precious, delicate form of worship was a panic measure.
My vocal ministry is often intimate and highly personal. I do not want it broadcast on the internet, where it can be recorded, edited and republished without any participant knowing. I suspect it’s only a matter of time until this does happen. With no discernment we cannot know the limits. Zoom is a dynamic product which changes constantly and without the consent of its users. It already has an AI component. Friends, what powers are we willing to hand over to an anonymous multinational? As the technology moves on, what limits (if any) will there be? I already fear for the spiritual integrity of the practice that makes our form of Quakerism special.
Worshipping with all participants online has a right-feeling equality and I think should continue but so called ‘blended’ Meeting feels uneven. My ongoing disquiet with the technology is too deep for me to continue with it. I find spirit is much freer to flow in a live ‘unblended’ Meeting and I am willing (however reluctantly) to travel to experience this.
I’m no technophobe and indeed I worked in the IT industry. I hope we will continue to use online Business Meetings to reduce travel. I understand that in the business world hybrid (known to us as blended) meetings are known to be fraught. For me hybrid Meeting for Worship simply does not work.
Pete Duckworth
Lose-lose
The trustees were in a lose-lose position over the Salter lecture. Stopping it has produced understandable complaints about suppressing free speech. But what of the consequences of proceeding with it during Yearly Meeting and the continuing conflict in Palestine? Jeremy Corbyn would inevitably be pressed to give his views on the conflict. These could (and probably would) be carelessly or maliciously represented as those of the Society of Friends. This would undermine any influence we might hope to have on the conflict or its resolution: peacemakers in a dispute must not appear to take sides. So, regretfully, I accept that if the trustees have erred, they have quite properly erred on the side of prudence in protecting our independence.
Bill Utting
Is dogma un-Quakerly?
Friends, the question having lately arisen in the pages of this journal as to whether dogma is un-Quakerly (Kevin Skippon’s letter, 22 March), has led me to the following thoughts.
I take dogma to mean a religious teaching which is held to be unquestionably true. I think it is fair to say, that most Quakers in Britain today would regard dogma in this sense as un-Quakerly. Yet most Quakers in the world might answer the question differently.
This year being Fox’s 400th anniversary, it is interesting to consider how he would have responded to the question. I remember that he entered churches and interrupted the service by standing up and telling the minister that he was wrong. George Fox never doubted that he himself was right, that his own religious teachings were unquestionably true. This is dogma. Will anyone say that George Fox was un-Quakerly?
Clive Gordon
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