The Book of Discipline
What does Quaker faith & practice mean to you? Rhiannon Grant explains the work of the Book of Discipline Revision Preparation Group
Before any revision of the Book of Discipline can take place – before the Yearly Meeting can even decide whether or not any such revision should take place – there needs to be a period of preparation. In order to make sure that this preparation happens, Meeting for Sufferings last year appointed a group of twelve Friends to look at what is needed and help the process along as necessary.
It is very important to stress that no such revision is yet happening. Yearly Meeting in 2014 did not reach unity on the question. Meeting for Sufferings had already agreed to form a preparation group, and no revision can go ahead before the matter returns to Yearly Meeting. This will not be done for at least a year or two. The fifth (2014) edition of Quaker faith & practice, which incorporates changes made since the Yearly Meeting adopted the basic text in 1994, is our Book of Discipline at present.
Having reflected on a number of issues relating to the Book of Discipline, the Revision Preparation Group has discerned that our first priority, as a group and as a Yearly Meeting, is to make sure that we are well acquainted with the current book.
This is, in fact, what happened last time; in the 1980s many Meetings ran reading groups or discussions focused on getting to know the then Book of Discipline (published as two volumes, Church government and Christian faith and practice).
In order to support this process across the Yearly Meeting, the Revision Preparation Group plans to offer a wide variety of resources that will help individuals and Meetings to read and engage with Quaker faith & practice.
The bulk of the process will be launched this autumn and will include plans for running sessions in Meetings, resources offered through the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, online discussions and articles in publications such as the Friend.
We intend to offer a suggested programme in which everyone is invited to read a chapter, or a couple of chapters, each month and share their responses in whatever manner suits them best. Friends who are able to attend Yearly Meeting can get their first taste of this process in a Special Interest Group at Sunday lunchtime in William Penn 2, where two members of the Revision Preparation Group will be facilitating a discussion of some extracts from Quaker faith & practice. Members of the group will also be available at the Groups Fair if you have comments or questions.
Reading and engaging with Quaker faith & practice will, we hope, be rewarding. There is much in our current Book of Discipline that is spiritually rich. At times, the process may not be comfortable; some passages are challenging to us as individuals and as a community, and hearing the reflections of others can also be difficult. Because our Book of Discipline is not simply a document, but part of our living tradition, many in our Yearly Meeting have strong attachments to it, or to some parts of it – especially those who have been directly involved in various ways in its creation.
It is in the nature of a tradition to grow and change and, as that happens, we as a Yearly Meeting need to be mindful of and knowledgeable about our history: not only our ancient history, but the recent conditions which have brought us to where we are.
Our Book of Discipline – which lives in continual relation to our community – is an important landmark in that journey.
Rhiannon is a member of the Book of Discipline Revision Preparation Group.
