'Being a Quaker is not really about being comfortable.' Photo: Elyssa Fahndrich / Unsplash.
‘What part do I play in making my faith community more reflective of my neighbourhood?’
Gill Sewell reflects on the Testimony to Equality
I am grateful for the bounty that shapes my life. By virtue of birth I have access to a passport, free education, travel, banking, birth control, clean water, a vote, free healthcare, and I can choose how I dress and who I love. These blessings, alongside being white, employed, Quaker and a homeowner, put me in a small cohort of liberated women in the world. A salutary thought. Rarely am I challenged in my privilege, though a recent homophobic experience at a Pride event gave me cause to pause. The experience of being ‘other’ is so very rare in my comfortable life.
As far back as 1656 we see indications of Quakers promoting equality. George Fox (one of the early itinerant preachers) wrote about ‘Answering that of God in everyone’, suggesting that the divine is present in all of us. We know that Elizabeth Hooton, another early preacher, was an influence on Fox, convincing him that women had the gift of ministry as well as men. In later years some Quakers worked for the abolition of the slave trade. During that time Quaker slave owners were slowly convinced to relinquish their ownership of other human beings. But now, the choices I make in purchasing clothes, for example, can create a modern form of enslavement somewhere in Bangladesh or Cambodia – predominantly impacting women of colour. Most purchasing choices have the potential to improve or worsen the aspiration and ability of others to achieve ‘equal’ living standards. Even here I am challenged. Should I assume that everyone across the globe aspires to the lifestyle of the consumerist capitalist West? What might I learn from simpler lifestyles and values of other communities?
The risk is to think well of oneself – as informed, liberal, compassionate and inclusive. Yet when I walk into Meeting for Worship I find a room filled with affluent, highly educated, white people. Hardly a reflection of the multicultural, multi-ethnic socio-economic community in which I actually live. What part do I play in making my faith community more reflective of my neighbourhood?
Over the past couple of months I have relished the Sense8 TV series. Beautiful locations, stunning soundtrack and an intriguing storyline, where small groups can inhabit the consciousness and knowledge of others in their ‘cluster’. They become equals, sharing their inner landscapes and skills. The series challenged heteronormative assumptions about relationships and how love might look. There were leading characters from a spread of ethnicities and a transgender woman. My truth also requires me to acknowledge my current struggle with the few Friends who are, it seems to me, unable to lovingly accept transgender women in all situations and places. Again, what am I called to do in addressing this?
Being a Quaker is not really about being comfortable, it is about being uncomfortable and ‘woke’. It is about being willing to recognise my own privileges and to bear witness to injustice and unlove. It is about taking action and being willing to be transformed. Jesus clearly called us to love one another – without exception, without conditions.
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