Letters - 26 April 2024

YM, trustees and Sufferings

Marisa Johnson (5 April) is helpfully right to draw our attention to the role of Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) trustees as laid out in 8.17 of the current fifth edition of Quaker faith & practice. This is not substantially different from the wording on 8.03 of the fourth edition. Both explain the confusion between the roles of the trustees and Meeting for Sufferings. It is legally useful to state clearly that the trustees are responsible for the Society’s compliance with our own governance and the requirements of charity law, and for the management of our finances and property.

However, by laying it onto the trustees to approve operational plans and budgets, a way is opened for them to become closely involved in work which hitherto has been clearly within the remits of standing committees, including Meeting for Sufferings.

In the subsequent confusion, Sufferings has been searching for a new role after evolving as the Yearly Meeting (YM) representative executive over the past 360 years, while leaving unanswered questions around the trustees’ interpretation of their remit and role which have been raised over the eighteen years of their existence. Had the review group’s remit included the role of BYM trustees along with that of Sufferings, the proposal that the latter should be laid down to become part of a continuing YM may not have emerged.

How best the Society should discern our way forward in face of challenging changes rightly engaged all the consultations leading to this conclusion. However, ‘discernment’ is not uniform, and takes different forms in response to the context: the vision discerned by gathered YMs is not instantly transferable to its implementation, which needs to be discerned in turn by a body specifically constituted to represent Friends across the YM. Merging these two bodies is likely to restrict discernment, not enhance it, while leaving BYM trustees with an unclear role that could restrict the discernment of standing committees which worked to Meeting for Sufferings before the instalment of the present trusteeship.

The full implications of the proposal to lay down Meeting for Sufferings have not been laid open to Friends and Meetings, and there is no time to consider these, report back and reflect before YM gathers in July with this proposal on its agenda.

Anthony Wilson

Capitalism

In ‘Economy Drive’ (5 April) Paul Hodgkin explains how capitalism is destroying our world, and how its language and concepts have been taken from religion. Capitalism is more than an economic system; it’s become a way of thinking, living and being. And it’s opposed to Quaker testimony.

It’s opposed to equality and social justice, since the wealth it offers to some is enabled by the poverty of others, perpetuated by the vulnerability of the poor and dispossessed to ongoing exploitation. It’s opposed to peace, since force and violence are needed to maintain its injustices. It’s opposed to simplicity, since we rely on complex supply chains and financial mechanisms to meet our needs, so are disconnected from the land and people involved. It’s opposed to community, since it sets us up in competition with each other. It’s opposed to caring for the Earth, which is plundered and polluted, in pursuit of profit. And it’s opposed to integrity, for in ignoring the truth about capitalism, we participate in a lie.

The individual strands of Quaker testimony demand that we oppose capitalism, for in doing so we act for simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality and stewardship of the Earth.

The ongoing destruction caused by capitalism means that things must and will change. We need to understand ourselves and the world differently, in ways that aren’t framed by the egotistic individualism that’s integral to our capitalistic culture. Then we can start to live our testimony and embrace change.

Wendy Pattinson

Book of discipline

We thank our Friend Vaughan Hill (5 April) for making us aware of his concerns. We value the support and upholding of Friends as we work to bring a complete new draft text for Yearly Meeting in session in 2027. It is our task to faithfully reflect the current faith and practice of Quakers in Britain.

We shared the first two draft topics in December 2022 in a number of ways, including through our report to Meeting for Sufferings, in the Quake! newsletter on 8 December 2022, and with an article in the Friend (1 December 2022). We received around 300 responses to our request for feedback on the two drafts, all of which have been considered carefully. Our fourth report to Meeting for Sufferings in December 2023 is a more recent summary of where we are.

In addition to any online forms, we always offer a way for Friends to give us feedback or ideas through the post or by email. The BDRC committee secretary, Michael Booth, can be contacted by email at qfp@quaker.org.uk or by writing to him at Friends House.

We continue to draft new topics, and we invite Friends to join either of our Special Interest Group sessions at Yearly Meeting 2024, which will provide the opportunity to learn more about our progress and our approach. We welcome other suggestions for ways we can interact with Friends and Meetings.

Rosie Carnall
Co-clerk, Book of Discipline Revision Committee

Salter Lecture 2024

Further to the letters of Sheila Mosley and Christopher Goodchild (12 April) I am distressed to be associated with the decision to prevent Jeremy Corbyn’s appearance at the Salter Lecture during Yearly Meeting. I would like to think that the decision is expressive of truth rather than an anxiousness not to face unpleasant headlines from a political and media establishment that had him in their sights relentlessly, including within his own party. But I cannot.

Some twenty or so years ago I was asked to debate with Polly Toynbee as part of a series of meetings that Alec Davison had organised. At the last minute, Polly had to withdraw for a work commitment and Jeremy was drafted in to replace her.

The trouble with that was that I agreed so much with Jeremy’s approach that there wasn’t much of a debate! It left me with the conviction that there can be very, very few MPs whose views chime so closely with those of most Quakers and with the positions Britain Yearly Meeting takes on public issues.

If we notice that the establishment has little or no difficulty in supporting the Conservative candidate for London mayor, despite statements and shared platforms that will horrify most Friends, yet it hounded Corbyn, we would stand a better chance of not being misled by it.

Jonathan Dale

Quaker identity

Stephen Petter’s letter (5 April) challenging Quaker Life Central Committee to fulfil its proper functions prompts me to ask the same of Meeting for Sufferings (MfS).

Our Area Meetings (AM) are the bedrock of our organisation. We are members of AMs, not of some central organisation. The AMs accept us into their membership and have procedures for doing so.

In order to prevent our breaking up into a congregational structure and losing our meaningful Quaker identity, it is vital that there is a forum where AMs meet and share issues which are of concern to them. MfS is the forum: it is our only national representative body. Uniquely, its members are appointed by their own Area Meeting, not by a central committee. This creates a committed and potentially uniting group, grounded in our local Quaker life.

Quaker Life Central Committee is appointed by MfS (as are the other central committees) but those committees do not report directly to MfS but to trustees, which is not a representative body, so communication and control are lost. That may help explain why, as Stephen says, we have lost our ability to share and agree, at the grassroots level, what we are and what continuing revelation means for us as a church.

When I became a member (sixty years ago) I had a very clear idea that I was joining a Christian, pacifist religious organisation which waited on the Lord. Nowadays I am unable to answer enquirers who ask what we are.

David Heathfield