On discipline

Roger Babington Hill suggests a way forward for Friends

The 1860s were a time of great change for the Religious Society of Friends, the Quakers, in Britain. During that decade the ‘old’ gave way to the ‘new’. Before 1860 Quakers were easily distinguished by their dress (plain and grey), their speech (using ‘thee’ and ‘thou’, the ‘First Day’ for Sunday, ‘Second Day’ for Monday), but above all by their strict discipline.

Elders had the authority to visit members’ houses unannounced and uninvited to make sure that every aspect of how life was conducted within the home met the rigorous Quaker standards. No music or alcohol was allowed, the place of art was limited to home textiles or embroideries, and the choice of books went little beyond the Bible. Life was to be led as simply and frugally as possible.

Marrying out

A critical issue was the problem of ‘marrying out’, which meant a Friend marrying someone who was not a Friend, even a Methodist or an Anglican, however committed they were to their own faith, was unacceptable. ‘Marrying out’ resulted in almost automatic expulsion from the Society. Those rejected had the right to continue to worship in the Meeting house, as there was a legal requirement that Meetings must be open to all (as they are still today), but to attend worship at a place where you have been chucked out was not an attractive option. The ‘marrying out’ issue proved to be the final straw for many. Overall membership numbers declined rapidly and the Society was in grave danger of collapsing and losing its identity.

We are the heirs to this change. The Society continues to develop from being, in the nineteenth century, a well-defined group held together by externally applied disciplines and the Bible, to a more loosely defined group of members and attenders marked by respect for our personal searches, and by what we do for others expressed through our testimonies.

The Christian core has, to a noticeable extent, been replaced by individual members and attenders trying to find their own spiritual pathways, often based on other faith traditions, but comfortable in the embracing arms of a liberal Quakerism that now has few rules to challenge or be questioned.

My view is that we must accept this rather diffuse scattering of individual spirituality, and work to strengthen what we have. We must acknowledge that the discipline of individuals that used to be emphasised in our key text, Quaker faith & practice (with the very word ‘discipline’ as part of its full title), has now shrunk to near invisibility. As a charitable organisation, of course, the Society maintains impeccable corporate discipline as required by law.

Spiritual aims

Recently I spent a few days at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham on a course run by Ben Pink Dandelion and Alex Wildwood to consider these questions. We were there to build up a personal ‘Rule’ for each one of us present.

The first step was to articulate our individual spiritual aims. We needed to think very carefully about what these are and how we express them. Are they to be common to all our members – like the ‘Rule of Saint Benedict’ is for all Benedictine monks and nuns, or the ‘Rule of the Iona Community’ for its widely spread lay membership, or Advices & queries for ourselves? Or are they to be refined personal expressions of our individual spiritual aims?

Spiritual aims are not easy to define. Clearly those that are purely ego-based and not aimed ultimately to the benefit of others are unacceptable. It took us a day’s consideration, working on our own, to come up with a provisional set of aims for ourselves.

A self-audit

The next step was to go through the challenging process of a self-audit. We had to articulate for ourselves three areas: first, to list what nourishes us spiritually; second, to identify the gifts that we can offer to others (the range of options for these is astonishingly wide); and third, we had to be honest about those addictions, attitudes, habits and beliefs which get in the way of our spiritual progress, the ‘fragile places’ on our journey.

There is no single way to go about this last task. I found it helpful to evaluate my behaviour and shortcomings against the traditional Seven Deadly Sins (lust, gluttony, greed, pride, sloth, wrath and envy). I also found it particularly hard to identify my beliefs, both helpful and destructive, because they are so intimately a part of myself.

Based on these three – what nourishes us, what are our gifts, and what are our shortcomings – we started to draw up our ‘personal rule’. We were advised to limit the sub-sections to not more than about ten. Each of these needed to be attainable and practical, a mix of inward looking and outward looking, and of restraint and going forward. The language used should be optimistic, and it should leave space for a little backsliding, so I used the opening phrase for each ‘I am aiming towards…’

The spirit of our age

Although we naturally became a well-bonded and friendly group at the end of our four days together, we were not expected to share our personal rules; indeed, we were discouraged from doing so. But it was suggested that, in order to support us as we put our rule into practice over the following months and years, it would be helpful to find someone to act as our spiritual director to advise, cajole and encourage us in our struggle to bring each section of our written rule into life and into action.

Before 1860 Quakers in Britain were largely held together by an imposed discipline. I suggest that for Quakers to flourish now and in the future this externally imposed discipline should reflect the ‘spirit of our age’ and be replaced by one created and articulated by ourselves for ourselves, put into action, and then monitored by the caring attention of one or more other people.

Paradoxically, I believe that by really working on our individual spiritual journeys we will restore a sense of community and common purpose to the Society of Friends, and thereby make it more able to give service to others.

Just as small Meetings for Worship are enriched by individuals coming to it ‘with hearts and minds prepared’, so this sense of community and common purpose can be scaled up to benefit the whole Society. It is like playing in an orchestra – the better prepared the individual players, the more harmonious and glorious the music.

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