Radical Quakerism
The George Gorman Memorial Lecture was given by Simon Best, one of the winners of the Friends Quarterly essay competition
Quakers must be not be afraid to take extreme positions and proclaim them to the world. That was the message from Simon Best, who delivered this year’s George Gorman Memorial Lecture in Canterbury on Sunday. Hundreds of Friends of varied ages displayed a range of reactions as Simon urged the Religious Society of Friends to be as vibrant as it was in the 1650s, while operating in ways that engage with twenty-first century lives.
Quakerism began as radical and extraordinary, he explained, but has ‘slid into ordinariness’. He suggested that Friends have lost their radicalism in ‘a desperate search for more members’.
‘I am sure this started with us wanting to be open and accepting and inclusive,’ he said, ‘But the consequence is that, by trying to become all things to all people, we have become nothing distinctive to anyone’.
He encouraged Friends to be unafraid of ‘extreme’ positions such as pacifism, the priesthood of all believers, that of God in all people and seeking the will of God in decision-making.
With the title ‘Radical, Sustainable Quakerism’, Simon went through meanings of the word ‘sustain’. Sustaining Quakerism does not simply mean prolonging it, he said; it needs nourishment and vitality, and its truth proclaimed.
Simon said he was not against a diversity of views within Quaker Meetings, and that he recognises that not everyone feels able to use the word ‘God’. But he wanted Friends to know what each other believed and to seek to discern common positions.
‘Is it even possible for us to say collectively “this is our truth as our Yearly Meeting?”’ asked Simon. ‘I think we can.’ He gave the examples of decisions to carry out same-sex marriage and to boycott goods from Israeli settlements.
Simon Best, who was speaking in a personal capacity, is employed by Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) to work on issues affecting children and young people. He will leave the post shortly to become a tutor at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre
‘It’s not up to me to think up the answers,’ he said, as he asked those present to split into small groups and consider questions about God’s will for Quakers and whether Friends are willing to change. Topics discussed ranged from popular images of Quakerism to the time it takes Friends to make decisions and the nature of Quaker membership.
The lecture provoked strong reactions around the YMG site in Canterbury – both positive and negative.
‘The lecture was great,’ said Roo Craig-Dixon, 17, of Hammersmith Meeting, ‘The questions at the end, they made me think. Change isn’t about the way of worship; it’s about what we think about in worship’.
His enthusiasm was shared by a Friend in her seventies who did not wish to be named. ‘There’s a problem with the structures,’ she said ‘Quakers are losing the opportunities they have to make a real difference in the world by looking inwards.’
Some were more doubtful. One Friend expressed her disagreement with Simon, saying that she thought the Society’s purpose was to support Friends on their own spiritual journeys. Another, from outside Britain, suggested that ‘Quakers’ and ‘British Quakers’ had been conflated in much of the discussion.
Simon concluded by emphasising the need for Friends to tackle controversial questions lovingly rather than avoiding them. ‘This process won’t be easy,’ he said, ‘People will get hurt. But I’m not a Quaker because it’s easy.’
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