Reflections on Britain Yearly Meeting 2024

Should I keep my membership of the Religious Society of Friends? This was the question I anticipated bringing with me to Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) at Friends House in London on a sunny July weekend. I stopped attending a local Quaker Meeting 18 months ago, and I no longer give financially to my Area Meeting. What does this mean for my status as a member? If membership means being part of the ship’s crew instead of a passenger (Qf&p 10.34) what am I now? It turns out I didn’t have to wait until BYM for an answer. Several weeks beforehand, I received a strong inward knowing that, regardless of my commitment to a local Quaker community or my many criticisms of liberal Quaker theology, I was still thoroughly a member. My work as a theologian weds me to the Yearly Meeting, whom I serve through my writing and teaching. This feels a good enough reason to continue in membership. If a religious culture is a ‘community of argument,’ to use Kathryn Tanner’s phrase,[1] then it’s an argument I’ve still got a stake in. I still have skin in the game.

The Saturday of BYM was a resounding affirmation of my belonging. In the morning session we began the final stages of discerning whether to move to a continuing Yearly Meeting structure, laying down the historic Meeting for Sufferings. I confess to being ambivalent about the outcome of this discernment, but it was clear how much consultation and preparation had already gone into the proposed changes. This was the Yearly Meeting at its best. I had an overwhelming sense of care in the room: the care with which the various committees had prepared for this moment, the care of the clerks and elders, and the care with which ministering Friends spoke. It was easy to enter into prayer. I found myself in a place of delightful stillness, the words of Isaiah 45:8 vibrating through me (in the poetry of the King James Version): ‘Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the Lord have created it.’ I felt the Yearly Meeting held by God from above and below. I could see God’s love in the care that was being extended by each Friend to one another. I’d already met several dear Friends on my way into Friends House, and looking round the main meeting room I could see so many more. I felt totally at home. This feeling of intense belonging continued throughout the day. I led a Bible study on truth and integrity, using 1 John 4:1-6. It’s a juicy passage that mentions the antichrist, and perhaps not a natural choice for liberal Quakers. But get Quakers in a room and give them a Bible verse, even one about the antichrist, and the Spirit will do things. The learning and wisdom in that space was a testament to the value of studying scripture with Friends. (I felt a nudge to finally write a book on a Quaker approach to the Bible.) The learning continued with Ben Jarman’s excellent Swarthmore Lecture which was a rich and courageous offering. I ended the day with heart-felt theological discussion in the pub. The day couldn’t have been better.

Encounters with old friends continued throughout the weekend, as did an equally stimulating Bible study with Friends online, but on Sunday I was reminded of my difficulties with liberal Quakerism and why I no longer attend a local meeting. I heard Meeting for Worship described in completely secular, human-centred terms, and prayer described as thinking. I don’t think poorly of the Quakers who said these things. I think their words were symptomatic of a wider secularizing culture amongst Friends, a culture that thinks secular, non-religious descriptions of Quaker practices include everyone. We see this idea in the secular world where non-religious civic spaces are seen to be neutral ground for different faiths to come together. The trouble with this idea is that religious concepts aren’t always translatable into secular ones. In terms of my religious language, if God (or whatever word we might use to point to the transcendent love that unites us but is also beyond us) is not at the centre then it isn’t worship. For me, prayer and thinking about others are very different things. I felt alienated by these secular descriptions. I know other Quakers really valued the presentation of Meeting for Worship, and I don’t want to deny them that feeling of affirmation and inclusion. Later that day, an Elder addressed God directly and I was immediately swept up into the prayer. Perhaps there were Friends at that moment who felt the same alienation I’d felt earlier. Maybe being a Quaker today means accepting these experiences of alienation, as there is no language that can possibly include the breadth of theological commitments within the Yearly Meeting.

So where do these feelings of belonging and alienation leave me in my relationship with the Yearly Meeting? After I stopped attending a Quaker Meeting, I began attending a church that had a particular mission for LGBT+ inclusion. It was a queer-majority community, with an evangelical, charismatic style that I could tolerate, even enjoy, because the quality of belonging was so good. I thought I’d finally found my spiritual home, that rarest of spaces that’s both queer affirming and Jesus centred. Tragically, the church recently fell apart in a devastating manner which is too messy and still too raw to elaborate on. To me it feels like the church is a corpse in a mortuary and we’re yet to have the funeral, although I know other members of the church feel differently. Maybe something new will grow from the ashes, or in the language of trauma theology, maybe there will be a ‘remaking,’ but something has died and isn’t coming back. I’m left feeling completely done with traditional forms of faith community, whether that’s a local Quaker Meeting or a local church. In his Swarthmore Lecture, Ben talks about the fragile nature of true community. To be in authentic community with others requires a great deal of resilience. People who have experienced trauma may never feel safe in such a community. I’ve lived in intentional communities and know from experience how difficult community is, so difficult that me and my husband decided community living wasn’t a long term option for us. Ben said that true community starts ‘in pockets.’ It’s small-scale and often fleeting. It may not last long, but this doesn’t diminish its value. Even a brief taste of true community is a precious gift. I’m now wondering whether I’m called to a more fluid approach to faith community, something that looks like a pilgrimage. Instead of a community I join with week after week, I’d move through a changing landscape and find pockets of community on the road, fellow pilgrims who journey with me for a time and then go a different way. I carry my Quakerism with me, and so BYM will always be a home of sorts, and place of rest and refreshment and family reunion on the wayside, even a place to serve. But Quakerism isn’t the only thing in my pack nor my only map. I don’t know much about boats, so I don’t know how to expand on the ship metaphor of passengers and crew. Is there a third option? Is there a way of being a crew member who doesn’t live on the ship all the time? Can I come aboard periodically with provisions or even sail alongside like a rogue dolphin who joins the pod every now and again? The Quaker ship is dear to my heart, but I can’t live there all the time.

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[1] Kathryn Tanner, Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology, Guides to Theological Inquiry (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 123.

[Featured image photo by Rudney Uezu on Unsplash]