Meeting for Sufferings: Sufferings told of a ‘Quaker treasure box’
The QCCIR annual report and draft response to a World Council of Churches report were discussed at Meeting for Sufferings
Rowena Loverance, assistant clerk of Quaker Committee for Christian and Interfaith Relations (QCCIR), spoke to their annual report. She explained that QCCIR reports to Meeting for Sufferings every year, but this is the first time under the committee’s new set of terms of reference.
Douglas Butterfield and Ben Wood talked about QCCIR’s response to the World Council of Churches (WCC) report The Church, Towards a Common Vision, which Ben described as ‘a very difficult, very challenging document’ and ‘doctrinally complex’.
The draft response is entitled A Spirit-led Church. It was brought before Sufferings for discernment, with responses requested by December 2015. QCCIR asked Sufferings to discern whether the document could be said to reflect the current views of Britain Yearly Meeting. The committee hoped that in due course the response could be considered by Yearly Meeting in session.
Ben described working on the response as a chance to open ‘our Quaker treasure box’ and asked whether there was anything in it that could assist other faiths. The other wonderful aspect, he added, was that by looking into this treasure box, Quakers could ask themselves ‘what is edifying about what we do?’
He noted that some Friends may not like the language in the draft response, but that QCCIR had opted to address WCC in language that they would comprehend.
A Friend said: ‘I find myself divided about this paper. I’ve always been strongly committed to interfaith work. As people of faith, what unites us is more important than what divides us. The problem is the medium, not the message.’
She continued: ‘What concerns me about our response to the WCC document is the use of language not our own. Among the treasures that we have as Quakers is our tradition of plain speaking.’
The Friend suggested that the QCCIR document use ‘more open, more inclusive language’.
Another Friend said that he would have problems taking the document back to his Area Meeting. ‘I don’t believe my Area Meeting is capable of grappling with that text,’ he added, suggesting that the tenor of the response made it more suitable as a potential piece of study work.
A Friend noted that it was too late to send the document to Yearly Meeting 2015, but asked whether it could form the basis for a special interest meeting. She felt that this might attract interest from people who could help with the final draft.
Another Friend felt that the language of the response was fine, but agreed that the document should go to Yearly Meeting as the focus of a special interest group to allow more people to engage with it.
A Friend who had read both the WCC document and the QCCIR response said that she would like to see Sufferings endorse the latter as the Quaker response. She also suggested a study pack for Area Meetings be written in a language that people understand.
She added: ‘Love is coming through to me in this document but it needs open discussion.’
The clerk of Sufferings asked whether the Meeting was ready to endorse the response. A number of Friends were in favour, but one asked: ‘Are we being asked to endorse a document that nearly all of us haven’t read?’
The clerk stressed that the briefing paper circulated before Sufferings tried to pull out the messages in the draft response. QCCIR was encouraged to revise the response, and to bring it to Sufferings in the autumn.
