Quakerism
Kate Mellor gave a ‘sermon’ on 28 December at the Union Chapel in Islington to the Congregational Church
It was followed by fifteen minutes of silent worship and then everyone in attendance sang the song ‘Simple Gifts’. The Union Chapel hosts the Quaker Christmas Shelter each year.
Thank you for inviting me to speak today and, much more importantly, for allowing Quaker Homeless Action to use the excellent space that you use to run your Margins Project throughout the year. We at Quaker Homeless Action greatly admire your unflagging support for the homeless and marginalised in this area.
One of the questions that I think I should answer is: who are we – the Quakers? Before I start to answer that question, I have to give one major caveat: If you had asked any other Quaker to speak to you, that person would give a different answer.
You may also know us as the Religious Society of Friends and we do often call each other ‘Friend’ as well as referring to ourselves as Quakers. If I were in a Meeting house and I had felt compelled to give ministry, I might start in such a way, by saying ‘Friends’. So, now I am going address you in my ministry, Friends.
Inward sacraments
The Religious Society of Friends is an Anabaptist Christian Church. By saying that we are Anabaptist I do not mean to suggest that we submerge adult members in water or even sprinkle water on their heads. In fact, in Quakerism, we only have inward sacraments. It is a ‘do it yourself or not at all’ religious practice. We maintain that no one else can be faithful for you or apply faith to you. Consequently, children born into Quaker families are rarely brought into membership as young people; adults make the decision to join after a period of spiritual discernment. This is why I refer to us as Anabaptist.
We share out all of the work of the church amongst ourselves and, consequently, do not employ priests or ministers. Since you are Congregationalist, it may feel familiar to you that we are an egalitarian Society where men and women, young and old, take on equal roles of responsibility. The people in the roles are ever changing because of our system of appointment by triennium. For example, currently I serve as an elder in my Local Meeting and my maximum appointment is two trienniums. I have also served as a treasurer and as an overseer.
In our system the clerk is responsible for the administration, the elders responsible for the spiritual life and the overseers responsible for the pastoral care of the Meeting. We also have librarians, premises committee members, treasurers, representatives to Churches Together and so forth. This structure is repeated at the area level, which we call Area Meeting – for example, I am in Bournemouth Coastal Area Meeting – and also at the national level, which is Britain Yearly Meeting.
A mystical religious sect
Much more important than our structure is that we are a mystical religious sect. For us, God is ever present. Although Quakers may be most associated with our silent Meetings for Worship, the religious part of our lives is a seven-day-a-week experience. We recognise all days as holy days and every day as an opportunity to know God; therefore, we do not usually celebrate the traditional Christian festivals as a church. We aim to be present with God in everything that we do.
Quakers have chosen not to have a statement of faith or credal statement to follow. We do not use techniques such as Om mani padme hum since we are not meditating. Instead, we sit together and try to open our hearts to God. We refer to this as ‘centring down’ and we try to support one another collectively in that enterprise. When we ‘centre down’ and support one another collectively, we call that a Gathered Meeting for Worship. I suppose we have a name for it because, in reality, the practice is not always completely successful.
Sometimes we call what we do ‘upholding the silence’, which is quiet, but not really an inwardly silent thing at all. This is collective quiet worship, waiting to see if God has something to say to us and through us. If a person in our group feels that they need to speak, we think it should come from a very compelling place, where the person is nearly sprung off their seat, perhaps even unwillingly. In that time of hearing the words, we also know that the message may not be for all of us, but may be for only one of us.
When we are not in Meeting for Worship, we are called to keep our hearts and minds prepared. Many of us appreciate our founder George Fox’s words about how to do this. He said: ‘Walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone’.
Quaker theology
It can be difficult to pin down what is a corporate theology in a group of cheerful people who do not have a statement of faith and who are rarely given to speaking. Here is my attempt.
We are monotheist. I did some research in 2006 that showed that nearly eighty-five per cent of the population of British Quakers believes in God. In that same group nearly seventy-five per cent consider themselves to be Christian. That was, for me, a very interesting fact since, in the main, Quakers do not share much with other Christian groups.
Quakerism does not focus on the death of Jesus of Nazareth. In my experience of Friends over the last thirty-two years of membership, I have only ever heard Quakers refer to the life and teachings of Jesus. I would argue that Quakers, in general, have no real interest in the theology of resurrection. We do not need Jesus to be elevated to the right hand of God or to be considered as God in order to believe that what he said and did is worth following.
Equally, in this time of Christmas, I could also say that I have not heard Quakers referring to the miraculous birth of Jesus. Again, I would argue that we do not need God to be like the Roman or Greek Gods, who impregnated mortals. This kind of theological thinking is unnecessary for us, so we do not include it.
This leaves us with what we hope are the example of and teachings of Jesus. In my own religious practice, I like using the Jesus Seminar’s The Gospel of Jesus, which distils what Jesus likely actually said from that which was written about him or attributed to him after his death. Of course, we cannot know if the Jesus Seminar has it exactly right, but having a smaller volume of Jesus’ ideas and words is easier for me than picking through the whole New Testament, where I necessarily have to leave out theology that is, for me, superfluous.
A simple faith
Quakerism is very simple Christian faith. We are monotheist and we worship God. We try to follow the Jewish Ten Commandments. We try to follow Jesus’ ‘Golden Rule’. We separate ourselves from Judaism in Jesus’ belief that the law is made for the people and not the people made for the law; consequently, we do not make it a practice to follow the Jewish laws listed in Leviticus. We follow Jesus’ practice of praying directly to God and not using an intermediary. This is Christianity: we are following Jesus of Nazareth and we worship one God.
I would like to finish by giving to all of you a little pamphlet called Advices & queries. Since we have no credal statement, and with our ‘do it yourself’ religious practices, we find it helpful to be reminded from time of time of former Quaker advice. This pamphlet is updated regularly to be current and I hope it will give you a further insight into Quakerism.
I have also brought along the reports from last year’s Quaker Christmas Shelter for all of you to take away, if you like. If you would like to come to see what we are doing, I would be glad to give you a ‘tour’ and introduce you to the volunteers currently working in the shelter.
Kate is executive director of Quaker Homeless Action.
