Why September Should Be “Willie Frye” Month — Part Four- Conclusion

[Part One is here.]
[Part Two is here.]
[Part Three is here.]

21. 1994-1995 — In a 1994 statement to the NC Yearly Meeting Ministry and Counsel Committee, Willie wrote,

“It seems somehow odd to be on trial for heresy within the Society of Friends, when Quakerism itself was born amid charges of heresy. It is not surprising that, in Puritan England, a group that rejected creeds, depended on the guidance of the Spirit, believed in the Inner Light, taught the equality of all people, advocated a universal priesthood, and allowed for diversity of individual religious experience would be suspect. It seems almost bizarre now, however, to be put on trial for believing these very articles of faith on which the Society of Friends was founded and for which Fox and others suffered so much.”

Nevertheless, the “trial” dragged on. Still stalled over the demand for an antigay manifesto, as well as the matter of banishing Willie and the calls for a broader purge, desperate finding a way out of the impasse, NCYM leaders agreed to undertake a “Listening Project.”  This would be a series of in-depth, non-directive interviews with Friends from each of its 80-plus meetings and churches, in search of enough common ground to recover civil, patient Quaker seeking.

The project took time and faced obstruction, opposition, even intimidation; nevertheless it seemed a temporary success. At least, many tempers had cooled enough by 1995 for NCYM to set aside the stalled 1992 minute (but the issue did not vanish). Much of the talk of division and expulsion seemed to subside (though a few churches did leave NCYM). Willie’s recording was left intact.

Willie finished a 1996 report on the experience on an optimistic note:

“[The Listening Project] played a key role in helping the yearly meeting avoid a serious division, drop the idea of disowning people over the issue of homosexuality, and begin the process of attempting to communicate.

Perhaps its most important contribution was that it served to bridge the gap between a complete lack of communication to the beginnings of dialogue. . . .”

Perhaps.

Or perhaps not.

22. 1995-2007 — For Willie and Agnes at least, their public, if impromptu “coming out” in 1993 as committed  parents in an affirming family, may have closed  many doors to them in NCYM, but it also marked a way opening into a much broader emerging community, namely that of openly LGBTQ Friends, friends of Friends, and family members. These made up a rainbow chorus of voices that, despite frequent setbacks, were becoming inexorably more visible.

In an address at the 1998 mid-winter gathering of the national lesbian-gay Friends network, Willie said,

“When homosexuality became a prominent issue in NC Yearly Meeting, Agnes and I took what was to become a very unpopular stand. There were times in the 1993 sessions when we stood virtually alone and people became very upset with us.

We’ve not only been disappointed and frustrated by the hostility of our fundamentalist Friends toward our positions on social issues; we have been equally disappointed and frustrated by the reluctance of liberal Friends to stand with us.

We were reflecting recently on the fact that so many liberal Friends have remained silent both during the social issues of the 1960s and 1970s and now during the gender issues of the 1990s.”

Yet Willie and Agnes found a renewed and deeper sense of ministry as they began to share and speak to the spiritual needs of LGBTQ Quakers. They helped to form Piedmont Friends for Lesbian and Gay Concerns (PFLGC). They also started a non-sectarian chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) in Mt. Airy and another in Clemmons.

With all this, his pastoral work at Mt. Airy continued. He wrote gratefully that:

“We are in a meeting that supports us. They don’t raise a hue and cry every time I appear on TV or do an interview for the newspaper. They have clearly given me not only their permission to carry out this ministry, but they have given me their blessing. . . .”

With this home support, the scope of their work kept growing:

Kathy:  “Willie and Agnes partnered to minister to gay individuals and their families. They were surrogate parents to men and women whose biological parents had rejected them because of their sexual orientation. They attended Friends General Conference gatherings all over the US as they formed close relationships with Friends in the FLGC group.”

23. — In 2001, Willie retired from full-time ministry, but he and Agnes continued to participate in organizations that supported LGBTQ persons. Willie participated in “Gay Pride” events, even marching in “Gay Pride Parades.”

This closing period of broader ministry only ebbed in 2007, when Willie’s health began to give way to an advancing cancer, to which he at length succumbed in September 2013.

Their final round of wider work had brought much consolation to Willie and Agnes, especially after their hopes for reconciliation and progress within the yearly meeting they had served so long were dashed. The Listening Project’s “cooling off” proved to be only a temporary truce: at the 2014 sessions of NCYM-FUM, a year after Willie’s passing, the “urge to purge” burst out in its sessions again.

Now the demands went beyond a statement to a massive purge. Meeting and individuals who had opposed the 1992 statement or its underlying doctrines were called on to leave NCYM immediately.

Among the targets of this effort was Spring Meeting, which this writer attends. Spring had taken a public affirming position a few years earlier. We too were told we should either leave NCYM, or we  would be expelled; words like “unsound” and “abomination” were directed at us.

Spring calmly but steadfastly stood its ground: we had done no wrong, violated no provision of Faith & Practice, and hoped any differences in NCYM could be patiently and civilly worked through.

Nice thoughts, but no chance. The purge efforts became a struggle to the death, and the yearly meeting ultimately went out of existence in August 2017, after 320 years.

A handful of the surviving meetings have formed small, loose associations; some others (e.g., Spring) continue as independents; many have simply withered and disappeared.

24– The saga of Willie and Agnes Frye remains both an inspiration for many (like this writer) and a solemn warning about the costs of pursuing authentic witness in turbulent times. Willie Frye, with much struggle, managed to keep up and complete his career of ministry through decades of racial strife, war, and continuing cultural conflict.

NCYM-FUM was once, in the early 1900s, one of the largest Quaker bodies in America. Since its founding, it had weathered the American Revolution, the Civil War, the tragedies of failed Reconstruction, deep economic depressions, a century-plus of Jim Crow, successive waves of KKK terror and many other trials. But it succumbed to the multiple-pandemics of homophobia, militarism, racism and fundamentalism after 320 years. (This sad tale is chronicled in detail in the book, “Murder at Quaker Lake.”)

But if there is hope here, it can be glimpsed in the life and witness of Willie and Agnes Frye as examples and precursors.

Such examples should be preserved, remembered and celebrate, in my view at least twice a year. Once could be around the date of a significant life event, which for Willie points to September, as Willie & Agnes Frye Month.

The other occasion would be any time those who are striving to follow examples like theirs, in the beleaguered Society of Friends or other faith communities, need encouragement and models.

Which in these days, is pretty often.